What is ID?

[BGoodForGoodSake]

Perhaps it is ones understanding of natural selection which might enforce a limit on what natural selection is capable of.

For instance when engineering something the use of materials and design components is limited by our imaginations, and an understanding of the materials involved.

However materials behave a specific way whether we intend them to or not due to the inherent properties and interactions of the particles which the material is composed of.

In the case of the flagellum we are limited in our understanding of the flagellum and its components and therefore cannot imagine precursors beyond a few steps at this point in time.

But lets take for example the vacuum tube. When Edison was working some kinks out of his new incandescent invention he discovered that his bulbs would blacken at one end unevenly. In an attempt to correct this he discovered the "Edison Effect". He did this by covering the inside of the bulb with a metal foil, and found that by giving it a positive charge that the blackening would go away. He patented this not knowing that it would lead to a technological revolution. Namely radio, television, and computers all made possible by vacuum tubes. This twist on the incandescent lightbulb was co-opted for use as an amplifier and much more.

Because things are physical in nature something which may have an intended use also has other properties. And because of our discreet understanding of "intended use" and limited understanding of natural laws we are at many times bereft of the imagination and ignorant of posibilities.

It can be as simple as using a plastic moulding from an old batery casing to use as a peg to support a wooden shelf. (A real example by the way eliciting mentions of MacGyver from my friends who were helping me move my furniture, after discovering that we had lost the peg in transport.)

Using our sugary friends as an example we can imagine that certain combinations of lego blocks which had allowed resistance to dessication had the fortunate(or unfortunate depending on how you look at it) side effect of allowing this ring to "steal" sugary molecules from neighbors, once reintroduced to a more humid environment.

In the original example windy regions are dominated by a type of sugar ring simply because the resulting moldings made them less resistant to being blown away.

Perhaps one example from real world biology would be the co-opting of existing bone structures to form the mamilian inner ear.

In short natural selection is not something we can easily trace or imagine as it appears to be a myraid of physical Eureka moments. Deducing the actual pathway requires something close to infinite imagination and complete knowledge of the physical posibilities.

Unless of course we just stumble onto the solution, ala Edison.

[sandy_mcd]

Now the specific question is, can you spot which of the following is made by my limited intelligence and which is random?

No.
According to Wikipedia, ID'ists look for ""signs of intelligence" — physical properties of an object that they assert necessitate design. The most commonly cited signs include irreducible complexity, information mechanisms, and specified complexity." I don't think your strings qualify as irreducibly complex. They certainly can be interpreted as containing information and having some specified complexity, but I think they are too short to come to any reliable conclusion. ID does not claim that every object of design can be identified as such, only that some can. In information theory random numbers are those which cannot be compressed (Wikipedia) which is not necessarily at odds with design. In the more basic mathematical sense, random numbers are just those where every possibility has the same probability. It is impossible to look at a few numbers and determine if they are random. And generating tables of random numbers is also extremely difficult.
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[angel]

Ok, fair enough. I'll post longer strings.

[angel]

At least one of the following 10 blocks (of 1920 characters each) contains both complex specified information and irreducible complexity.
The other blocks do not contain any IC or CSI (or anyway considerably less that the "intelligent designed blocks").

Can someone identify the "IDblocks" better than guessing?
Or explain me how to do?
[if you need longer strings I can post quite a number of Gigs! ]


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[BGoodForGoodSake]

To be fair, nothing can be determined without context.
No real world examples are of random strings alone.

For instance in DNA we know that the strands encode for proteins.

[Canuckster1127]

Regarding the number sequences:

I doubt seriously that few people could identify 1 of the 10 by simple visual examination.

As Bgood states, there needs to be context to the problem.

That not withstanding, the way to go about this would be to develop a string algorithm with the perameters (which is the context) of what you were looking for (or what you are excluding) and then run it and interpret the results. It might require a few tweaks and reruns as you better identify what the delineating factors are.

Interpretting the string so identified in the end would be the kicker.

It's one thing to identify a pattern consistent with intelligent design. It is another to translate it and prove what it means. All it proves is intentional arrangement to some purpose which may or may not be known.

People knew for many years that ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics were in fact a form of written language, but it wasn't until the Rosetta Stone was discovered that they were translated.

Obviously more than simple translation is involved here, but it illustrates the point.

[BGoodForGoodSake]

Regarding the number sequences:

I doubt seriously that few people could identify 1 of the 10 by simple visual examination.

As Bgood states, there needs to be context to the problem.

That not withstanding, the way to go about this would be to develop a string algorithm with the perameters (which is the context) of what you were looking for (or what you are excluding) and then run it and interpret the results. It might require a few tweaks and reruns as you better identify what the delineating factors are.

Interpretting the string so identified in the end would be the kicker.

It's one thing to identify a pattern consistent with intelligent design. It is another to translate it and prove what it means. All it proves is intentional arrangement to some purpose which may or may not be known.

People knew for many years that ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics were in fact a form of written language, but it wasn't until the Rosetta Stone was discovered that they were translated.

Obviously more than simple translation is involved here, but it illustrates the point.

This brings up an interesting point, why was the heiroglyphic language no longer interpretable, and where did it originate from?

Did it spring from the mind of a genius or was it more likely a long process of change and modification which lead to the style we now know as classical heiroglyphics?

[Canuckster1127]

Regarding the number sequences:

I doubt seriously that few people could identify 1 of the 10 by simple visual examination.

As Bgood states, there needs to be context to the problem.

That not withstanding, the way to go about this would be to develop a string algorithm with the perameters (which is the context) of what you were looking for (or what you are excluding) and then run it and interpret the results. It might require a few tweaks and reruns as you better identify what the delineating factors are.

Interpretting the string so identified in the end would be the kicker.

It's one thing to identify a pattern consistent with intelligent design. It is another to translate it and prove what it means. All it proves is intentional arrangement to some purpose which may or may not be known.

People knew for many years that ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics were in fact a form of written language, but it wasn't until the Rosetta Stone was discovered that they were translated.

Obviously more than simple translation is involved here, but it illustrates the point.

This brings up an interesting point, why was the heiroglyphic language no longer interpretable, and where did it originate from?

Did it spring from the mind of a genius or was it more likely a long process of change and modification which lead to the style we now know as classical heiroglyphics?

I see that rabbit! Tally-Ho and release the hounds!

I'm hardly an expert in Egyptian, (although I do have some coptic, which is an Egyptian dialect that used the koine greek alphabet.)

I think the answer would lie somewhere in that they were symbolic pictures to which meaning attached. It would be easier to lose a thread of such knowledge in the past because those who could actually read and this transmit the knowledge were a very limited portion of the population and likely tied to a specific role such as the priesthood and/or scribes.

Most modern language is tied to Phoenicean descendent alphabets, the symbols of which were tied to an attempt to replicate the sound being made by a speaker, rather than a picture representing a concept.

Phonetic spelling of this nature is directed at the ear and the sounds (greek word is phonos) can be made independent of the understanding of the reader.

Heiroglyphics skipped this and went straight to the concept independent of the sound transmission and that would, in my opinion, have left them more open to the possibility of what did indeed happen.

Modern forms would be less susceptible to this situation than more ancient ones due to the advances in printing which increases the supply of examples, assuming they are still extant and also the increase in overall literacy which further reduces the chances of a repeat.

As to how it originated, I suspect it was a process. I believe there is reasonable grounds to identify many of the symbols as tied into the mythology and religious concepts of the Egyptian Pantheon. Exactly how those developed and why is open to speculation. We're only one generation removed from even being able to understand them in the first place!

That's my take on it anyway.

There's probably some analogous applications to be made in terms of the attempt to extrapolate from nature back to an Intelligent Designer.

It certainly illustrates the need for revelation to provide the key.

[BGoodForGoodSake]

So whom is it that designed the modern English Language?

[Canuckster1127]

So whom is it that designed the modern English Language?

Ah. So that's where you're going.

The modern English language is "designed" collectively by those who spoke it in the past through its Germanic roots etc. until today and is a function of collectively agreed upon meaning to a majority of its speakers. As such, it is fluid and a product of constant change and adjustment. No one person obviously as such designed it but it obviously is the product of intelligence applied to the function of an agreed upon standard of communication.

If you're attempting to use the development of language as an analogy to demonstrate some inherent fallacy in the thinking of Intelligent Design as an overall theory, I fail to see the connection.

The medium of language hardly equates to the medium of physics and biology. Intelligent design in the purest sense does not necessarily equate such a designer or design process as being singular either.

I suspect you don't need a detailed history on the detail of the development of the English so why not dispense with the Socratic questions and say what's on your mind.

[Byblos]

So whom is it that designed the modern English Language?

1 word: evolution (of language, that is).

[BGoodForGoodSake]

If you're attempting to use the development of language as an analogy to demonstrate some inherent fallacy in the thinking of Intelligent Design as an overall theory, I fail to see the connection.

The medium of language hardly equates to the medium of physics and biology. Intelligent design in the purest sense does not necessarily equate such a designer or design process as being singular either.

I suspect you don't need a detailed history on the detail of the development of the English so why not dispense with the Socratic questions and say what's on your mind.

I am not so sure I agree with you that there is no connection.

In the development of a language there is no designer, per se. Language survives by being passed down from generation to generation. What we have here is a system which has continuity yet allows for modification.

In the biological world we have the same type of system. Genetic material is passed down from generation to generation and there is a method of modification.

In both cases there are rules and requirements which prevent the system from becoming completely random. In genetics the restriction is a viable organism, and in the case of language the restriction is on the ability to comunicate.

As is the case with language there appears to be no underlying direction to the changes without respect to exterior conditions.

The beauty of this type of system is that it allows for the emergence of properties which no engineer could ever devise. As the knowledge of what is possible is inherent in the very things being modified.

As any engineer would attest nothing beats actually puting together a protype and testing it. Imagine being able to try every posible configuration and testing it.

In the future I am certain that quantum computing will take advantage of this and allow for the creation of marvelous new technologies which are a product of near-infinite testing techniques. It will only be limited to the ability of these systems to simulate reality.

[Byblos]

If you're attempting to use the development of language as an analogy to demonstrate some inherent fallacy in the thinking of Intelligent Design as an overall theory, I fail to see the connection.

The medium of language hardly equates to the medium of physics and biology. Intelligent design in the purest sense does not necessarily equate such a designer or design process as being singular either.

I suspect you don't need a detailed history on the detail of the development of the English so why not dispense with the Socratic questions and say what's on your mind.

I am not so sure I agree with you that there is no connection.

In the development of a language there is no designer, per se. Language survives by being passed down from generation to generation. What we have here is a system which has continuity yet allows for modification.

In the biological world we have the same type of system. Genetic material is passed down from generation to generation and there is a method of modification.

In both cases there are rules and requirements which prevent the system from becoming completely random. In genetics the restriction is a viable organism, and in the case of language the restriction is on the ability to communicate.

As is the case with language there appears to be no underlying direction to the changes without respect to exterior conditions.

Yes, but where did start? Where did it originate from? If it weren't for a bunch of intelligent Phoenicians 7,000 or so years ago in the city of Byblos (hey, I had to plug that in) we'd still be communicating in bird pictures and papyruses.

[BGoodForGoodSake]

I highly doubt the phoenetic system came into existence fully blown and consciously. I would be willing to bet that this too had a pictographic origin.

Intelligence may have recognized it but is it really the origin of it? In other words you are equating the recognition and molding forces with origination.

[Canuckster1127]

I highly doubt the phoenetic system came into existence fully blown and consciously. I would be willing to bet that this too had a pictographic origin.

Intelligence may have recognized it but is it really the origin of it? In other words you are equating the recognition and molding forces with origination.

I'm a little surprised you're attempting to draw a supportive analogy from language. Clearly, language is a result of intelligence and designed to communicate.

You seem to be seeking to use it to indicate a collective progressive intelligence rather than a specific one and as far as it goes, that is clearly true.

Intelligent Design as a theory however, does not claim to know the designer or even if there are many such designers in process.

That language has developed and continues to develop to meet the needs of those using the medium is pretty self-evident.

What is not self-evident is how physical organization which you've demonstrated, could translate into bilogical organization and then complicate further without some design or intelligent input.

Granted there is a large element where much is unknown and no doubt the question itself may be reframed as more information develops.

I think language fails to pass the laugh test in terms of analohous applicability in this case.