Maybe someone could offer a definition of “functional information”.
@gpuccio has defined FI as " –log2 of the ratio Target space/Search space".
Thanks. What is “target space”? How does one assign a number? Ditto “sequence space”
ETA Oops. “search space”
Wondering whether “all possible sequences” are assumed to be non-functional. Keefe and Szostak showed this to be inaccurate.
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These are good questions but I was unable to find more specifics. I will table this until he is done with the discussion going on now.
Can you be more specific?
I could point you to the Wikipedia article on Turing machines and highlight the part about the input tape, which is a sequence. Is that what you’re missing? How deep is your computer science background?
Not so deep but I am willing to dig in to understand your argument.
I think there is the seed of a good question for the main thread. If we can summarize that question I’ll move it up.
I’m not clear on the context here. By “that information is used in a Turing machine”, do you mean that biology is Turing Complete?
If so, I think that is correct.
@colewd If I understand correctly, Chris is saying that biological information is effectively a sequence, because biological systems process this information in an equivalent manner to a Turing machine reading a sequential tape.
I think we should not move this up right now. Give @gpuccio a chance to respond before further complexifying the conversation.
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I’m not in a hurry. 
When we have a clear statement or question that will add to the discussion, I will nominate it.
8 posts were split to a new topic: NoUCA weighs opines on Turing Machines
If you can’t find specifics, why propose a lineage in which the information was presumably injected?
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Joshua,
I am trying to give a few answers, but I get an error message that I cannot post more than 3 consecutive replies. What can I do?
Thank you,
Giuseppe
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I’ll look to see if I can adjust your permissions, but that might require @Swamidass.
@gpuccio Please note this is NOT the main discussion thread. You are welcome to participate here too, but here our normal moderation rules apply, rather than the “guest speaker” rules in the main discussion.
ETA: @Gpuccio - I locked your Trust Level at 3, which should fix the problem, I think.
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Please show the work as to how you determined 1.7 million bits of new functional information was added to vertebrates around 400 million years ago. Those are very specific values Bill, now please support them.
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Dr. Swamidass: What empirical evidence do you have that demonstrates FI increases are unique to design?
I missed a good chunk of the exchanges. Did Gpuccio or anyone else from Team ID ever answer this rather critical question on this or the main thread?
I think that is a current point of discussion. Stay tuned.
Either:
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Let moderators know so they can publish a small post to Renew you counter.
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Edit your posts to be longer, perhaps using headings to separate distinct replies.
Not sure the setting causing this. I’ll try and find and fix it.
Gpuccio: This is of course an exaggeration, and a big one, but the idea is correct, I believe. The probabilistic resources of a systerm are the number of states that can be randomly reached. It is similar to the number of times that i can toss a coin. They can be expressed as bits, just taking the positive log2 of the total number of states.
So, if I have a sequence that has a FI of 500 bits, it means that there is a probability of 1:2^500 to get it in one random attempt. If my system has probabilistic resources of 120 bits (IOWs, 2^120 states can be reached), the probability of reaching the target using the whole probabilistic resources is still 1:2^380.
What’s wrong with that?
The same thing that’s wrong with every ID-Creationist probability calculation. You make the demonstrably false assumption extant proteins formed through purely random processes instead of the empirically observed process of gradual development shaped by selection feedback.
It’s the bog standard same blunder ID-Creationists repeat over and over and over and over and over and over and over…
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