From: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Re: Probability of Evolution
Date: 11 Nov 92 13:35:42 GMT
Reply-To: kalki33!system@lakes.trenton.sc.us
Organization: Kalki's Infoline BBS, Aiken, SC, USA

skroger@zeus.calpoly.edu (Seth L. Kroger) writes:

> >First point: The known laws of physics possess low information content.
> >Second point: biological organisms possess high information content.
> 
> The known laws of physics tend to have very simple statements, but usually
> get very complex when you try to apply them to something real.  Newton's
> 2nd Law (F=ma) seems very simple, no?  Well, in my airplane controls class,
> we recently wrote down F=ma for an airplane.  This monster took up
> virtually all of a sizeable blackboard, and all the variable forces were
> simplified to general non-dimentional coefficients too!

This is because of the complexity of the initial and boundary conditions
that have to be specified when modelling an airplane. The individual
"parts" of the model are still assumed to be interacting according to
the simple push-pull laws of Newton. It is not that the laws become
complex, it is reality which is already complex. And this is why simple
laws cannot model reality with perfect accuracy.

The differential equations which represent the known forces of physics
can all be written very briefly, and an algorithm which will solve them
to an arbitrary degree of accuracy can be specified with a few pages of
code, but the objects on which these forces are supposed to act are
generally much more complicated, and it is these objects which must be
specified in the initial/boundary conditions. This is usually done by
giving a probability distribution or by assuming that the objects are
all identical except for their location in space. But when this is done
we lose information, and we allow for the possibility of inaccuracy.

Whenever we sacrifice detail to achieve managability, we lose
information. In the case of living organisms, these are so complex that
it may never be possible to exactly specify the complete structure of
even a single cell, what to speak of a multicelled creature. Even in a
so-called "primordial soup" there are several varieties of molecules, and
to extrapolate the long term future of such a soup with the kind of
precision needed to show that a highly complex organism will be formed
in it through the action of the laws of physics is practically an
exercise in fantasy.

> Fractals are also analogous.  They are built upon very simple rules (z_n+1
> = z_n^2 +c for a Mandelbrot) but come out incredibly complex.

This is because the boundary condition (the domain) is the set of
complex numbers, which contains an infinite amount of information.

> Any "hostile" email you get is probably the result of your trotting out the
> same old creationist garbage, and refusing to back your claims up when
> challenged.

Hmmm, oh, right. That must be it.

Sincerely,
Kalki Dasa


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Newsgroups: talk.origins