Maybe I'm looking at the wrong poster in the thread, but run a text search for "at this point" and somebody concedes something, dammit.
His Library of Babel example devalues all information to the point of uselessness (another version would be the old thing about monkeys at typewriters for eternity) but the important thing is what information has a physical effect. It doesn't matter if the information produced is gibberish as long as it keeps you alive, and that information which keeps you alive is what is propagated when you reproduce.
It doesn't matter how much truly useless information (or non-information) is produced and discarded in the process. As long as something affects survival, it will be picked up in time. The real world is the arbiter of what is useful information and what isn't. No god is required.
Wed, 2008-05-07 09:43
Maybe I'm looking at the wrong poster in the thread, but run a text search for "at this point" and somebody concedes something, dammit.
His Library of Babel example devalues all information to the point of uselessness (another version would be the old thing about monkeys at typewriters for eternity) but the important thing is what information has a physical effect. It doesn't matter if the information produced is gibberish as long as it keeps you alive, and that information which keeps you alive is what is propagated when you reproduce.
It doesn't matter how much truly useless information (or non-information) is produced and discarded in the process. As long as something affects survival, it will be picked up in time. The real world is the arbiter of what is useful information and what isn't. No god is required.
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