We Are Mystified by Eric Holloway

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@EricMH

To respond to another comment, when I say “information” I mean “mutual information”. Yes, it is confusing. I could use the acronym MI all the time if that would reduce confusion.

Got it. I’m doing that translation in my head when you speak.

@EricMH

See, I’m starting to suspect more and more that the argument Eric makes is at the basic level simply the statement that “any order in nature is evidence of ID.” This is consonant with his statements in other threads that science is literally impossible assuming methodological naturalism. For Eric, even Newtonian mechanics was only possible using ID assumptions (i.e. non-MN)

Yes, this is also correct. Due to the law of information non growth, all order is evidence of ID, so all investigations of order are not being consistently MN. Hence, Hume’s argument against induction, and more recently Wolpert’s No Free Lunch Theorem, which are consistent applications of MN.

So why does biology and DNA matter so much? Why not just make that claim? The fact that we are not a chaotic soup, that there are any patterns at all of any kind is all evidence of design in your view.

There is a self contradictory set of claims being made.

1. One hand, you claim that natural law cannot produce new information (mutual information), only intelligence can.
2. On the other hand, you claim when natural laws produce new information (mutual information), this is because intelligence is what set up the laws.

So you are claiming simultaneously that natural law can and cannot produce new information. Either way it is intelligence in your books. Fine. However, can natural laws produce new information or not?

If all you are making is a fine tuning argument, there would be no debate to be had. Why all the mathematical song and dance in information theory? What exactly does it add?