The Semiotic Argument Against Naturalism

[herman]

@swamidass

In reference to information, do you mean which of the following: semantic, functional, syntactic, or entropic information? Or something else?

I would defer the​​ taxonomy of the information​ ​to you.​ ​I am quite comfortable with ‘semantic’ as I understand it from the SEP (as well as from Lennox and Dr Miller on the parallel thread), but a text may contain more than one kind of information simultaneously. To refine the argument, I would say the incompressibility indicates syntactic information. The sensitivity to the ordering of the letters indicates semanticity. The fact that it works as specific instructions indicates functionality, maybe? The combination of these, as in the Lennox quote provided above, indicates a non-algorithmic origin for their combination.

Here is an imperfect analogy: it is like if you were to receive instructions to a specific, obscure address of a friend, in Russian. You try to compress it, and maybe you see that it doesn’t work (not that knowledge of its compressibility and that kind of information content would be very helpful to you). If the text is long enough it probably would, but possibly not. But then you get a Russian guide, and he takes you to the right place, verifying that the text contains some kind of information other than entropy. What are the chances of arriving at the correct address using an incompressible text? You conclude that there is more to the instructions than purely syntactic information, based on the result. The incompressibility then becomes all the more impressive. Maybe a closer analogy would be a package with a QR code containing instructions for how the package is to move through a warehouse, but be that as it may, I would say that it is fair to conclude that the instructions weren’t created by a random process, given the mathematics of how algorithms work with syntactic-information-rich semantic instructions.

@swamidass

Please specify here…Do you mean empirical compressibility (that is measured) or theoretical compressibility (that is not knowable)?

I’m guessing this is a rhetorical question?

@swamidass

To understand my critique, focus on the 3 strings.

Ok, so why not do the three-string trick with a computer program? It contains semantic information, right? You can even intersperse parts of a second computer program into the first. What would the output be?

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@Jonathan_Burke

The first question I’m going to ask you before anything else is exactly what you think this has to do with evolution. What’s the conclusion we’re supposed to arrive at as a result of all this?

@Jonathan_Burke

No amount of philosophy can overturn scientific facts. As soon as people try to use philosophy to overturn something like evolution, it’s clear they are not doing science, and they are avoiding the science because they can’t disprove it. This is a form of intellectual dishonesty.

I apologise, but I’d rather just ignore these comments - I see that debating them with you would not be productive.