Mr Skeptic

Maybe. You don't have a positive apple either though. We use numbers to model the universe, sometimes more effectively than others. Negative numbers were very disliked when they were first introduced (first accepted by accountants, I think), due to people feeling they are fake. But just like positive numbers they can model the universe just fine. If I borrow an apple and eat it, I call that negative one apple (I owe an apple to someone). If I grow three oranges I call that positive three oranges. If I eat the largest of my oranges, then I call that only positive two oranges. If I instead eat the smallest of my oranges, I still call that positive two oranges, despite having a different amount of orange in both cases. Positive numbers are man-made, negative numbers are man-made, and imaginary numbers are man-made too -- but all of them can model the real world.

Lets not confuse value and price. The price of something is a measure of what people are giving or demanding in exchange for an item. Everything has a price, which we frequently measure using money. Money has a price too, which is also usually measured in terms of money (from other countries), but can also be measured in metals or other items. Value is what something is worth. Water has nearly immeasurable value but a very low price. But if water were to become scarce tomorrow, its price would skyrocket to reflect its true value. Trades happen when the value of an item to one person differs from the price of the item -- people buy or sell items accordingly. Now the issue with money is that it has no value but a very high price. Because of the very high price of money, and other attributes such as a consistent price for different pieces of money, we use it to exchange for other goods, which is pretty much the only use for money. However, the government can print more money and then in accordance with the principles of supply and demand the price of the money drops, which we call inflation. While the government cannot print more gold or silver or other metals, the price of these can also change. The price can change due to different mining technology or activity, or can be artificially inflated by someone with enough resources to control a huge chunk of the market. For example, copper and silver used to be nearly as valuable as gold, but due to (sort of) recent advances in mining and chemistry, we were able to use ores instead of plain native metal, and the prices of copper and silver plummeted. Additionally, using a currency based on metals would have other issues, for example if the economy grows faster than the supply of metals then there would be negative inflation which is dangerous to the economy (you can make money by putting some under your mattress). Also, it loses the government's option of implementing a wealth tax (ie, printing money faster than its demand increases), having an emergency way of paying off loans (at the cost of devaluing their currency), and they can't control the supply/price of money. Of course, some might consider these advantages, but governments won't.

This one's fun too: My link

It's useful for the narrow-minded to visualize, since the model is in terms of things they have experience with. I think it gives nearly accurate energies if you artificially insert quantization, at least for hydrogen. It won't give you the shapes of the orbitals nor quantization though. So no, not 100% worthless. Almost nothing science has accepted ever is -- and I suspect a lot of what we accept today will someday be considered an approximation but still useful for its simplicity.

Go look at the shape of orbitals, and also (reverse) beta decay.

Exactly -- that model doesn't work. That's why its no longer used.

Do you wish to change your answer then? Or to explain what it is you meant if you think I misunderstood you? Is a mapping from design information to the physical world, the same as the information needed to design something, or is it not? I did the experiment in my head, and it worked as I said. You are free to try to find fault with it, or to experimentally test it with a real world experiment. I guarantee you, most of the random strands of DNA will end up as multiple (nearly exact) copies of the bacterium's DNA. Which has less information entropy than random DNA. Tell me, are you incredibly stupid or lying? Do you seriously expect me to believe you don't know what would happen in the above example? Now stop acting like you live in a make-believe world where no one can tell what will happen in the real world without seeing it with their very own eyes. With the above you lost pretty much all the respect I had for you. I'm not here to play your games. I just told you how to measure the functionality of any biological function -- how well it helps the organism survive/reproduce. That they do this via a specific means is not really relevant, since it is the effects on fitness and not your measure of functionality that is relevant to evolution. That you presuppose intelligent design and and that the intelligent designer is a reductionist and then find that this conflicts with evolution, is no surprise. Your goalposts are a strawman. Quit pretending that anyone but you believes evolution breaks the laws of thermodynamics. Do you or do you not agree that the local entropy of living creatures may decrease given an energy input? Yes. Mutations can change DNA, natural selection is simply a general probabilistic trend and not exactly true of every organism (see for example genetic drift). Traversing the fitness landscape is thus necessarily possible. It's just a question of probability. So stop using logical fallacies then, and quit moving the goal posts, and quit inventing strawmen and pretending those are the goalposts. OK then, I shall ask the questions: 1) Can local entropy decrease given energy inputs, or can it not? If not, how do you explain plants growing? 2) Can information entropy decrease given energy inputs, or can it not? If not, how do you explain the information entropy decrease when a bacterium grown in a sample containing random DNA digests the DNA and reassembles it into copies of its own DNA? 3) Can information be created by living organisms, or can it not? If not, then how do you explain the effects of occasional mutation of a bacterium using your measure of information, I = - log(P) rather than made-up nonsense? 4) Can new function be created by mutation or can it not? If not, how do you explain the new functionality of the hemoglobin gene due to the change of one nucleotide from an A to a U, which has the new function of forming insoluble fibers but without alluding to some sort of non-existent intentionality? Or using the definition I used, that increases the fitness of the person in question within the context of malaria? Or show that this mutation can't happen?

Oh, that changes the problem considerably. I was thinking the clocks had to be different rates, in which case they'd have to synchronize once in a while. But if they can run at the same rate then they can forever stay out of synch. For example, three clocks running 40 mins every real hour could chime once every real hour but never together. I think the only options to chime twice every correct hour are: 1) 2 clocks running at the correct rate or an integer times faster, the other clocks anything else 2) 1 clock running at the correct rate or an integer times faster, the others 4 @ once correctly every 4 hours, or 3 @ once correctly every 3 hours, or 2 @ once correctly every 2 hours 3) 3 @ once correctly every 3 hours, and 2 @ once correctly every 2 hours In all cases, a group of 2 or less clocks is enough for once correctly every hour.

And to add to the fun, if you want to make a soft landing when you get there then you need to get rid of all that velocity you gain by falling toward the sun, which would add yet more energy requirement.

Yeah, take a sample and spread it over several pieces of paper as your desired thickness permits. Note that using dry vs moist paper may give different results. The area of the paper is length X width, measured in whatever units you like. Then compare to the land surface area of the Earth.

What with the issue of Wikileaks now in the news, the issue of government transparency is now in the public eye. Do we need more transparency? If so, how could we go about increasing transparency?

If that's the case, then I think it would be fair to say that any one cell contains all the information needed for any other cell of any species. After all, they each contain a map, mapping from information to physical system, in the form of a three nucleotide sequence mapping to an amino acid, and a mapping of the order of said codons to the order of the amino acids. So if that is all you meant was necessary, then now you have nothing you can say about life needing the info, since life has this sort of thing and it applies to all life and all the functions used by life. And here I thought that by information we were talking about the actual design of something rather than the mapping of the design to the physical world. It's so much easier to prove now that you've made it clear you only meant this. And if that's not what you meant, why bring it up? Since when does "just look at reality rather than trying to figure it out in your head" equate to "there's no evidence"? Here's an experiment you can do: make an agar plate which includes random DNA sequences and food (ie, energy). Put a bacterium on it. After a while, the information entropy of the sequences of DNA will decrease. What have you to say about that? Nevertheless, all are examples of new and improved function, also of new information. All you are doing is arbitrarily deciding one is function and one is not, that one is worse and the other better, without any valid reason and against any sense. The function of the organism is to survive and reproduce in an environment, and these traits are clearly an improvement in function by that objective measure in a given environment. That you are using intelligent design ideas (an intent-oriented definition of function) to judge functionality where there is no intent would be like saying that an example of design couldn't have evolved and therefore was not designed. It would make no sense. You cannot redefine functionality arbitrarily to suit your argument and expect people to take you seriously. Well, if that is true then it is a good thing life is not a random process. If you like I can demonstrate life reducing entropy on a macro system over a long progression of steps. Try looking at your lawn, for example. As for natural selection decreasing information entropy, I think that is neither necessary nor useful, at least not to an extreme. A DNA strand of identical nucleotides only is definitely not what selection is selecting for, but it would be the minimum information entropy and maximum order. I do recall reading about natural selection selecting for certain codons over others coding for the same amino acid, which would indeed be a specific example of reducing information entropy. The key here is that some codons are more resistant to a mutation changing them into a codon coding for a different amino acid (either just different or different having different attributes like polarity or charge). Selecting the codons less likely to undergo these changes makes the organism more resistant to mutation, and so this example of reducing information entropy increases fitness. But that doesn't mean that because natural selection can reduce information entropy in a particular example that it would continuously do so leading to a DNA strand of only one letter type. Natural selection is about fitness, whatever that might mean at the time and whatever the other consequences may be. I don't think you can quite show this as a 3D graph -- there are multiple dimensions of functionality. You'd need millions of dimensions or more, one for each possible function. Your graph cannot account for the possibility of changing from one functionality to one of the millions or more possible. In fact, I'm fairly certain there's billions of dimensions of functionality relating to disease alone (due to the way some diseases exploit a specific protein structure, randomly changing that structure functions in preventing that disease). Yeah, all I did is demonstrate that information can increase and information entropy can decrease, which I think were kind of important to your argument. For an example of using energy to decrease information entropy in DNA, a bacterium on an agar plate with random DNA. For an example of increasing information in DNA, a bacterium on an agar plate and you count the total information of the DNA before and after.

Just calculate the efficiency of the various components, and that will tell you how quickly your machine loses energy.

Hm, maybe you might be onto something. The photons don't lose energy just from moving, but in certain cases moving through matter can lower their energy. See Compton scattering. That's for very high energy photons, but what if the effect is also present for lower energy photons?

I said "suppose it were", since you were wondering about the extra weight of the reactor and shielding. The actual numbers would depend on the actual efficiency, which would depend on what type of engine it was. All I'm saying is that if your engine is sufficiently better, it doesn't matter that it weighs more since most of the weight is going to be fuel of which you will need less of.

Yes, that is one of the models of the universe that exist forever. There's also models that recycle universes. But we don't really know what is true.

Perhaps it would be most productive at this point to just look at the historical evidence rather than for you to try to figure it out theoretically. Either fossil evidence or bacterial evolution experiments if you prefer digital DNA evidence. After all, the very best theoretical arguments just simply can't override what has been observed. No. Depending on the definition of information, perhaps it could be argued that all the information in the world that has ever existed already existed in the various particles making up the universe. Some physicists argue that information cannot be destroyed. If what we mean is the information contained in DNA, then no the first organism did not contain all the current DNA information (what a silly idea, let's not play the strawman game please). If we go with the definition you quoted, I = -log(P), then the new information was created by energy acting on a living system. Energy is the source for increasing the information contained in DNA. Do you doubt this? If you like I can design an experiment so you can verify it for yourself.

Basically, what I'm saying is ignore the "tax rate" and focus on spending. The money our government spends, we the people will have to pay -- via taxation. If they lower the "tax rate", does that mean we will pay less taxes? Nope, whatever the government spends is what we will pay. That we pay more of it now or later is important of course, but it is the spending that will have to be paid for. So for your example, I would consider that lowering taxes coupled with pre-emptive taxation. That is, since spending is lowered we pay less taxes, since tax rate is increased we pay more of those taxes now. Well, I don't look at it from a social justice perspective, but rather from one of trying to make our system more like a free market, which I think requires progressive taxation. That might seem strange to you, so I'll explain briefly. On average, rich people get to be rich by exploiting other people, that is, by acquiring wealth made by other people, usually by trading something of less value in exchange for something of more value, and never by creating even a fraction of that wealth themselves. I just don't see anything someone could do that would be worth 1 billion dollars, for example, not without other people. In the idealized free market, there is perfect competition, so that profit margins are near-negligible, which among other things means negligible exploitation. In the real world, people get paid significantly less than the wealth they generate, their boss takes a cut from that, and people do this anyways because of the convenience and lack of better job offers (ie, non-free-market conditions). In practice, we can't really do much to ensure trades are perfectly equitable, but we can easily tax people who are making a ton of money extra, which on average would move the system closer to the free market ideal. Now, what you are describing is a change in a progressive taxation system. The effect of the change you are describing is to lower the tax burden of one class, ie that class pays less taxes than before. However, the reality of the situation is that the change is exactly the same as the government borrowing money from (eg china) and giving it to that class. There on the budget is the item, change from previous budget to borrow more money so rich people have to pay less taxes. On a budget, spending more and earning less have exactly the same effect on the deficit. Perhaps an example of how I see charging less as pretty much equivalent to giving money. Suppose at the store you buy something that was $10 and 50% off, you pay your bill and walk away. Now suppose that the cashier forgot to factor in your discount, you go back and you demand your money. Now, did you pay more and get some money given to you, or did you get charged less? If you're keeping a budget, what will you write down on it as the amount you spent and your income? Did you spend $10 and earn $5, or did you spend $5? I'm not sure what you're talking about here. In your example only one group's tax burden was changed.

Paranoia, I think you should stop attacking the person and focus on his argument. I heard from someone that it's better that way. I sometimes have a problem with one person arguing multiple different and opposing arguments, sometimes not. It depends on whether they cause a lot of confusion (and so degrade the quality of debate) by doing so.

I'd say I wish for minimum standards of living. Having everyone be equal would be impossible anyways, people would find some way to improve their status.

Why do you want to know? So we can make it worse for the people of that country by not buying their products and increasing poverty, or so you can donate money to improve their working conditions?

However, evolution starts off with a premise of a living cell, with its cellular processes such that there is an evolutionary algorithm (mutation and selection). The information in the cell must be considered functional, prescriptive, and whatever other attributes you want such that it produces a living cell. Therefore, even if you could show that these things are necessary to have, evolution already has them. That your arguments are limited to the creation of the processes that evolution presupposes leads me to believe that you have given up arguing evolution and instead are arguing against abiogenesis only. But perhaps I missed something. I just don't see how your recent arguments apply to evolution, since evolution already has the evolutionary algorithm and some starting information in the form of a functional (for reproductive purposes) system.

Paranoia, now compare how accurate my description is when you consider that when we cut taxes we don't cut spending but instead borrow to keep spending the same. Which means those taxes still need to be paid, therefore it can't be a tax cut as a tax cut would reduce taxes. That's why I'm calling it spending. Maybe you could call it tax postponement. But tax cut it is not. As for it being leaving the rate the same, the rate (for now of course) will be reduced from what it was planned to be. If you have a 10 year budget and you change the spending on one item to be the same as the previous year, you've changed the budget even if someone comparing the individual yearly budgets might think otherwise. But a budget planned ahead of time is still a budget, even if it didn't happen yet and changing the plan is changing the budget.

I think it's just similar energy densities. Of course it would be totally awesome to recreate the spacetime too, but that would be a bit harder than just throwing particles at each other really fast, at least I would hope so.

So cypress, you agree then that you can find no flaws in evolution, and instead wish to focus on abiogenesis? I say this because the things you are saying here (even if true) don't seem to apply to evolution but only to abiogenesis.