Sorry, I just don't see the circular reasoning you mention. I'd understand if we had deliberately defined chance as something which can produce information, but all we could do was consider chance as we both understood it going in. And it does seem to have the capability, as we've both now reasoned independently.
Anyway, shifting the discussion is an excellent idea.
I know you wouldn't cheat; what you are definitely not is a sophist, and I admire that negative in itself. I do think you've done something strange with your implied definitions of information and meaningful information. Right now I can't really place your criteria. The following will therefore be not so much arguments as requests.
First to your thought experiment, the dice which produce the Oxford Dictionary by brute force chance. By implying it is not information you're suggesting one of two things here, and I'd like to know which: either you mean the real Oxford Dictionary contains no meaningful information, or (my guess is) you mean that the source of a piece of potential information at least helps to determine whether it is information, and whether it is meaningful.
I'd like you to justify whichever is your true thrust. If you would, pick a question and answer it:
1) Why isn't the content of the Oxford Dictionary information, or if it is, why isn't it meaningful?
2) If a deliberately written dictionary contains information, why does an identical but randomly generated dictionary contain none? How is source or origin relevant?
Regarding your final point about DNA: first one of us is going to have to define physical meaning without resorting to the metaphysical or inspired before we rule it out in a molecule. I'm not game right now, it looks hard.
I just think you're splitting things up a bit much; imagine trying to determine the meaning of "CAT" by examining the individual lines in each letter. A huge amount, probably the majority, of the world's information lies in combinations and permutations rather than raw materials. That's how the whole language fits into 26 letters.
Wed, 2008-05-14 22:51
Sorry, I just don't see the circular reasoning you mention. I'd understand if we had deliberately defined chance as something which can produce information, but all we could do was consider chance as we both understood it going in. And it does seem to have the capability, as we've both now reasoned independently.
Anyway, shifting the discussion is an excellent idea.
I know you wouldn't cheat; what you are definitely not is a sophist, and I admire that negative in itself. I do think you've done something strange with your implied definitions of information and meaningful information. Right now I can't really place your criteria. The following will therefore be not so much arguments as requests.
First to your thought experiment, the dice which produce the Oxford Dictionary by brute force chance. By implying it is not information you're suggesting one of two things here, and I'd like to know which: either you mean the real Oxford Dictionary contains no meaningful information, or (my guess is) you mean that the source of a piece of potential information at least helps to determine whether it is information, and whether it is meaningful.
I'd like you to justify whichever is your true thrust. If you would, pick a question and answer it:
1) Why isn't the content of the Oxford Dictionary information, or if it is, why isn't it meaningful?
2) If a deliberately written dictionary contains information, why does an identical but randomly generated dictionary contain none? How is source or origin relevant?
Regarding your final point about DNA: first one of us is going to have to define physical meaning without resorting to the metaphysical or inspired before we rule it out in a molecule. I'm not game right now, it looks hard.
I just think you're splitting things up a bit much; imagine trying to determine the meaning of "CAT" by examining the individual lines in each letter. A huge amount, probably the majority, of the world's information lies in combinations and permutations rather than raw materials. That's how the whole language fits into 26 letters.
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