We Are Mystified by Eric Holloway

[swamidass (S. Joshua Swamidass)]

@EricMH

Thus, as long as X can change arbitrarily, LoING does not apply. On the other hand, this does not contradict LoING because a necessary premise is violated.

Great. Do you notice that the necessary premises of LoING are violated in empirical reality? So why are you so convinced it applies everywhere?

Two examples:

@EricMH

Then you are stumped.

That’s because I’m not a biologist. But, insofar as DNA is a digital code my argument applies. And, the very existence of a digital code is itself evidence of design.

Actually, DNA is not the whole system. It is just part of the system. So LoING does not apply.

And again:

@swamidass

The information no-growth law applies where:

1. We are in a deterministic world
2. Taking into account the whole system.
3. Have perfect knowledge of every detail of the system.

The conservation of information law applies if also:

4. The system is reversible.

In a deterministic world of perfect knowledge, taking into account the whole system, the information no-growth theorom applies. However in the real world:

1. we do not have perfect knowledge
2. we only look at parts of the system, and
3. we do not even know if physics is reversible or deterministic (Predictability Problems in Physics)

Basically, in practice, in empirical work, not one of the assumptions required for information no-growth law to apply.

We can see information grow in DNA because it is not the whole system, because we are not modeling the whole system, and we do not have full perfect knowledge of the whole system. This is just a context where the law of information non-growth to apply. In fact, in just about no empirical scenario does the law apply. It is a theoretical construct that requires omniscience and determinism to apply. It would be difficult to imagine one where it would apply.

So why are you so insistent that the law of information non-growth applies when all its foundational conditions are violated?