Order vs. Randomness

[Rayaan]

Sorry for not following your links. I'm not interested in an in-depth debate on the subject.

Why? Because the links support the points that I made so far?

You suggest that you can increase utility while minimizing the information content. While there is a seeming elasticity between information content and compressed representations, according to Kolmogorov-Chaitin, that is an illusion. The minimum size of the smallest representation of a given amount of information is a fixed, though incomputable quantity.

Not sure why that's an illusion (even according to Kolmogorov Chaitin) because it's quite obvious that compressed representations - such as scientific theories, for example - are more useful to us because they represent a greater understanding of the patterns in nature. Hence theories (mathematical or scientific) are "elegant" in the sense that they increase the utility while minimizing the information content from a larger set of data; they describe a lot of things with a less amount of information; they are effective; they are valuable; they are interesting; they are simple but at the same time contain hidden patterns and intricacy. It doesn't require any kind of rocket science to understand this concept.

If you're accepting Kolmogorov-Chaitin, arguing that specific types of information content have better compressibility than others, you're simply confusing computability with actual quantification. In that case, you are in conflict with Kolmogorov-Chaitin.

I don't believe that our answers to the compressibility of a data set is the same thing as the actual quantification of it, so no conflict here.

I really don't care all that much other than to suggest that you're appealing to information theoretic concepts in a way that is unsound.

But apparently you didn't do a good job in proving it to be unsound, as I demonstrated several times.

Design arguments have a much more substantial Waterloo when you get to the key inference.

And what would that key inference be?

By empirical I mean one in which you can provide robustly quantifiable probabilities under some form of Bayesian or other probability framework. Obviously, subjectively based arguments are hard to describe with any metric.

Oh, a probability framework? Well, for one, there's something called the Anthropic Principle, which I also talked about in this post.

But, now that you're going on about "robustly quantifiable" probabilities (which you identify as an empirical argument for design) and considering that you believe in intelligent design (since you're a theist), what exactly is your empirical argument for a designed universe? I'm asking that because if you don't have any empirical argument to support your theism, then it's intellectually hypocritical of you to call out my inductive inference with a "Hey that's not an empirical argument!" response and then follow that up by labelling it as an "argument from incredulity," as if your arguments are more empirical than mines.

(I'd also suggest you don't understand the meaning of the term 'induction', as the way you've used it doesn't appear to conform to either the mathematical or philosophical meaning.)

I said that simplicity and complexity are matters of induction, and I know what induction means. One of the central concepts in inductive inferences is simplicity.

That doesn't appear to conform to either the mathematical or philosophical meaning? Well, you're wrong once again, and here's the proof ...

1. Simplicity and Inductive Inference

2. The Use of Simplicity in Induction

3. Ludwig Wittgenstein, in his book Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), wrote: "The process of induction is the process of assuming the simplest law that can be made to harmonize with our experience. This process, however, has no logical foundation but only a psychological one. It is clear that there are no grounds for believing that the simplest course of events will really happen."

Still doesn't conform eh?

I'd say you don't understand either Taoism or mathematics sufficiently well.

Then why not explain to me what my misunderstanding is?

... or at the very least point out the error in what I said instead of simply saying "I don't understand" and then running away.


Let me make this clear to you and everyone else once again. You wrote (colored emphasis mine):

My background is in mathematics, so while I appreciate the notion of elegance, I view that as more a property existing in a strange and disordered pattern throughout mathematical space.

Then I said that this view clearly contradicts with Taoist philosophy (which you claim to profess), and then I cited materials that support this, which are the following:

---

Trust in Nature as an Organic Pattern

The Chinese yin-yang conception of nature is an organic reproduction pattern of nature and the cosmos. Nature exists outside of and beyond human control. Taoists regard this human embedding in larger universal processes with wonder, awe, and deep appreciation.

In nature, there is an ordering - dizzying and exquisite in its variety - that exists endlessly. (Think of the infinitely proportioned, kaleidoscopic images of fractal geometry, and you'll begin to get a sense of the intricacy, beauty, and endless "scalability" of natural patterns in the Taoist view.)

This order, this series of resonances, is both indescribably vast and intricately interdependent. It is an order that includes other "makers' of order - like bees and humans. The associated notion from the poem "Desiderata" - that we are all children of the universe, on a par with the planets and the stars, and that the universe unfolds in the proper way whether or not we recognize it as doing so - comes close to providing a parallel with the Taoist reverence of nature and its patterns.

- The Complete Idiot's Guide to Taoism (p. 33)

---

---

And this:

Dao can be roughly thought of as the flow of the universe, or as some essence or pattern behind the natural world that keeps the universe balanced and ordered.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tao#Descrip...he_concept

---

According to the information above, Taoism teaches that there is an underlying pattern and a harmony at a fundamental level of reality. But, you, as a Taoist yourself, said that you believe that there is a strange and "disorganized pattern" throughout mathematical space, which is a contradiction between Taoism.

So, if you want to prove that I'm wrong about Taoism, then all you have to do is to show something that refutes the information that I provided. Very simple.