Gpuccio: Functional Information Methodology

Wow, you guys in the anti-ID field seem to be really fond of this error.

Let’s state things clearly:

10 objects with 50 bits of FI each are not, in any way, 500 bits of FI.

Which is what Rumracket (and maybe you) seems to believe when he says:

If natural selection can add 60 bits of FI in a few weeks, why can’t it add 500 bits of FI over the course of (say) 20 million years?

To make things more clear, I will briefly propose again here my example of the thief and the safes, that I used some time ago to make the same point with Joe Felsenstein.

It goes this way.

A thief enters a building, where he finds the following objects:

a) One set of 100 small safes.

b) One big safe.

The 100 small safes contain, each, 1/100 of the sum in the big safe.

Each small safe is protected by one electronic key of one bit: it opens either with 0 or with 1.

The big safe is protected by a 100 bit long electronic key.

The thief does not know the keys, any of them.

He can do two different things:

a) Try to open the 100 small safes.

b) Try to open the big safe.

What would you do, if you were him?

Rumracket, maybe, would say that there is no difference: the total sum is the same, and according to his reasoning (or your reasoning, maybe) we have 100 bits of FI in both cases.

My compliments to your reasoning! If the thief reasoned that way, he could choose to go for the big safe, and maybe spend his whole life without succeeding. He has to find one functional combination out of 2^100 (about 10^30). Not a good perspective.

On the other hand, if he goes for the small safes, he can open one in, what? one minute? Probably less. Even giving one more minute to take the cash, he would probably be out and rich after a few hours of honest work! :slight_smile:

So, you see, 100 objects with one bit of FI each do not make 100 bits of FI. One object with 100 bits of FI is the real thing. The rest is simply an error of reasoning.