Peter Pike and Calvinist Information Theory

Peter Pike's wrestling with the concepts of information theory and algorithmic complexity over here. He thinks there's something fishy with the idea of random strings being more complex than repetitive or structured strings. Let's take a look at his analysis...
Unfortunately for T-Stone, if he paid attention to what he has written here he’d see that he’s soundly refuted Dawkins. After all, if maximal randomness is equivalent to maximal complexity, then it is easy for me to write a program that will generate completely random output.
That's quite a claim, Peter. Do you know what's involved in writing a program that generates completely random output? It's a tricky problem, and "complete randomness" ends up having the program access some physical process external to the virtual environment -- radioactive decay events are often chosen as the source of random input. The system calls in your OS's standard libraries are pseudo-random, not "completely random", and without adding in additional code to address the problem, quite predictable and repeatable in many cases. Even then, if you look at the code you are invoking by a single call to rand(), you'll see it doesn't come for free, even pseudo-random data generation.

But it's important keep our points of reference intact, here. It's the design argument that objects to the idea of emergent complexity, and materialist interpretations of our history promote the idea that complexity emerges, and that in some cases, simpler configurations give rise to more complex configurations. If humans can point back to single-celled organisms as their ancestors, relying on impersonal, natural processes, clearly there are mechanisms and dynamics involved that will produce increasing complexity over time. This is why science supposes the design argument is a vacuous one. Dawkins "Ultimate 747" argument explicitly opposes the design argument, appealing to "crane" processes, and descrying "skyhook" processes as absurdities.
In other words, it is easy for me—a person who is not maximally complex—to produce a program with output that is maximally complex. Thus, if we want to play T-Stone’s game and use complexity in this sense, then Dawkin’s argument must be surrendered.
This is wrong in several ways. First, you are not a 1,000x,1,000 pixel grid, Peter. So, while such a grid populated by random values is maximally complex, it doesn't have nearly the scope a system as complex as a human being has, so in absolute terms, it's shy by multiple orders of magnitude. The random grid is as complex as it can be, for its size, but it's infinitesimal in size in comparison to a complete description of a human.

Second, there's a profound difference between a program that produces random output, and a program that (re)produces a given output that in this case happens to be random. For example, this bit of code has almost no algorithmic complexity:
int main()
{
for(i= 0; i < 1000; i++)
{
for(j= 0; j < 1000; j++)
cout << rand() ;
}
}
This program will produce 1,000x1,000 output of random integers (or pixel values), but it will produce a different output every time. Algorithmic complexity is a measure of the instructions needed to render a given, specific output, so this code would be a "disqualified" in terms of measuring complexity, Kolmogorov-style. It is incapable of rendering the output requested of it. In order to produce a given string, one that is provided and is non-compressible (random), the program needs to "echo" every single value, making the program scale linearly with the size of the output. So, in order to reproduce this string "99585249515829886853", something like this is needed programmatically:
int main()
{
cout << '9';
cout << '9';
cout << '5';
cout << '8';
cout << '5';
cout << '2';
cout << '4';
cout << '5';
cout << '1';
cout << '5';
// ... etc, shortened for brevity

}
So, in order to achieve the alogorithmic complexity needed for any given random output, Peter would need to "handcode" every value in the output. This is why we say a random string has maximal algorithmic complexity -- it defines algorithmic abstraction, and requires "hand-made" output echoes for every discrete value.

Third, Peter has gotten so wrapped around the axle of information theory that he has apparently who is arguing for the plausibility of emergent complexity. Just so we're straight, Peter, it's the materialist explanation that embraces emergent complexity, the progression from more simple configurations to more complex ones, and without any personal oversight or intervention. It is theistic arguments that cannot accept emergent complexity that lead to absurdities -- "skyhooks", as Dawkins calls them.
If I can make a program that is more complex than I am, then God can create a universe that is more complex than He is.
That may be! But it proves to much for the theist, as it makes God superfluous -- that was what the design argument aimed at, remember, demonstrating the necessity of God. If simpler can give rise to complex, then we have Dawkins' "crane", and the design argument is defeated. A simple, singularity can unfold to unfathomable complexity, and that is what materialist cosmologies and evolutionary biologies propose.
FWIW, I disagree with T-Stone’s version of information and complexity.
Well, then this would be a fine opportunity for Peter to show he isn't just BSing once again, and give us his "version of information and complexity". How do you define 'information' and 'complexity', Peter? How do you measure each?
And despite what his post would lead you to believe, the idea that “maximal randomness = maximal complexity” is not true for all information theories.
The competing theories are conspicuous in the absence, here, Peter. What alternative information/complexity theory do you embrace/propose, if not that of Shannon, Kolmogorov and Chaitin. If you've got something better, or even roughly equivalent, you'll be famous by Friday.
And in fact, if I were to use T-Stone’s definition of complexity then I would ask him to explain not why there is so much complexity in the universe, but rather why there is so little complexity.
Peter, how little is there? And how much do you calculate there should be? If you give me the calculations for your expectations, and your calculation for the actuals, I can try to give you an account for the difference, looking at your maths. As is it, I suspect you have no clue what you are talking about in terms of your request.
If complexity = randomness, then it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that there’s a lot of the universe that is not random, and therefore there is a lot of this universe that is not complex. Under his information theory, randomness is the default. We do not need to explain random data. We do need to explain structured and ordered data. Therefore, we do not need to explain complexity; we need to explain non-complexity.
I have no idea what "randomness is the default" -- it's a seemingly random thing to assert, here. Be that as it may, noone with any expertise or even casual knowledge of the involved sciences is promoting the idea that the "universe is random". That's a creationist bogeyman, a concept alien to science. Our understanding of the universe identifies sources of randomness, combined with uniform constraints that provide structure. A combination of random "inputs" then, filtered through structuralizing processes, producing (often) complex outputs. The timing of decay events in a radioactive isotope is random at the event level, but the physical laws that randomness operates within produce a very nice logarithmic curve in charting the production of daughter isotopes, over time and statistically significant instances. Randomness driving structured output through physical constraints.
T-Stone is just giving a sleight of hand here. It would be like a mathematician saying "a > b" and having T-Stone say, "The greater than sign is inverted with the less than sign, therefore 'a > b' means 'a is less than b'."
This is complete nonsense. What is the 'sleight of hand' here, Peter? I've not inverted any operator semantics, nor can I identify anything that maps to "operator inversion". I'm deploying the concepts of information theory and algorithmic complexity in completely uncontroversial fashion, using them as they are used day in and day out by people who understand and work with information and algorithmic complexity everyday, for purposes mundane and sublime.
Butas soon as he engages in his sleight of hand, we respond: "If the greater than sign is inverted with the less than sign, then 'a > b' is no longer true, rather 'a < b' is. Inverting the operator without inverting the operands does not refute the original expression.
Complete gibberish, not matched to anything I've said. Pathetic hand-waving.



13 comments:

T said...

I'm hesitant to post this under this topic, but only because it relates to a few of the arguments over at Tribalogue will I do so.

I've mentioned to some on this site that I have PhD in Psychology. In working with mentally ill people for the past 8 years I've learned some interesting things. Now, please understand, I am not devaluing individuals with mental illness in any way. I've devoted much of my life to working with them so that they can lead productive and healthy lives. However, with that being said, I have come to see many similarities between individuals with certain types of mental illness and some of the contributors at Tribalogue. Before you completely dismiss what I say next as nonsense, I am actually not trying to argue that any specific individual is mentality ill over at Tribalogue. I'm just explaining a comparison I've made and an insight that I've drawn from that comparison.

Let me start using paranoid schizophrenia as an example. This is a psychotic condition that is marked by paranoid ideation. The movie "A Beautiful Mind" presents an excellent example of this disorder, though Russel Crowe's character had intelligence that was much higher than an average individual. After working with a paranoid schizophrenic (PS) for a while, sometimes the caregiver starts to see "patterns" in the PS's thinking, where the caregiver begins to understand or make sense of the PS's psychosis. The caregiver will sometimes listen to the mixed up paranoid rantings and make sense of them. The PS is now seemingly less mentally ill than perhaps once believed. However, assuming that the caregiver is not mentally ill, he or she comes to realize in time that there was never any reasonable thought behind the PS's paranoid ideation; rather, the PS's thought process was entirely provoked by his or her mental illness. It is also interesting to note that schizophrenia very often has religious delusions associated with it.

Okay, now that you have a small understanding of working with a PS, let me explain a disorder that I believe more closely resembles a small few of the posters at Tribalogue, Mania (a feature of various forms of Bipolar disorder). Now, I've read posts from many of their contributors, and most of them seem mentally healthy. It is just a couple of them that I have drawn the following comparisons from. Google the phrase "Mania DSM IV" for a listing of the diagnostic criteria for mania. Though the DSM explains it more fully, my experience in working with manic individuals is that they often have a narcissistic flare or "grandiosity" to their personality. When they are going through a manic phase they will often be especially intolerant of others. Also, during these phases they have a ego-centric paradigm, meaning that they don't have much of an ability to consider the thoughts and feelings of those around them. It's all about their thoughts and feelings. Not all manics are the same in severity. Mania lies on a continuum with hypomania (does not cause hardly any dysfunction) on one end, and mania with psychotic features on the other end.

I started off by explaining a little bit about PS so that the reader would understand a little more of my perspective of working with individual's with psychotic features in general. Just like biploar, an individual's psychosis can vary in severity.

When one begins working with mentally ill (MI) individuals, the caregiver will often make the mistake of thinking that they can reason with the MI individual. However, they soon realize that no facts, reasoning, or logic will change the MI's thinking. On the contrary, arguing with the MI individual seems to increase their mania. Indeed, stress does provoke/envoke their illness.

I would actually like to provide specific examples using actual posts of what I am talking about to illustrate the legitimacy of my arguments, but that would likely be unethical. However, one of the easy manic symptoms to spot is grandiosity. When a person repeatedly says things like, "I and those who think like me are smart, and you are stupid," then know that you may be dealing with some mental illness and react with the appropriate humanity. Also, mental illness is likely to be proportionately distributed among theists and non-theists. However, because there are more theists than non-theists, this is probably why I have noticed symptoms of mental illness more frequently on the theist's side. Also, as I mentioned earlier, there is frequently a religious component to psychosis, so this is another explanation of why I may have come to these conclusions.

My entire point of this post is to actually help the non-theist in their effectiveness in working with theists who demonstrate manic or delusional thinking. I need to give this some more thought into how one can be more effective with their arguments overall. On one hand, one could argue that it is an effective strategy to "provoke" the irrational theist into to a tirade to illustrate the absurdity of their thinking. However, I personally am not comfortable with this. When I first started discussing these issues over the internet I was not cognizant of how easy it is to dehumanize the individual we are debating with. In fact, it is due to the positive examples set by DC contributor's like Evan and John Loftus that I realized the need to treat everyone as humanely as possible. Now, this has its limits. I am not suggesting that anyone accept abusive behavior from others.

So, sorry to jump off topic, but just some food for thought.

Toby

charlie said...

What interests me in this post is how Peter Pike all of the sudden thinks that he possesses some sort of expertise on information theory. Touchstone obviously knew something about it, as he decided to make an original post in which it is mentioned. But Peter, feeling the need to refute some claims on DC, suddenly poses as if he has some sort of above-average understanding of the subject (which he clearly doesn't). I can't be absolutely certain that Peter Pike was not ignorant on the subject previously, but it seems to be a small probability that he was as knowledgable as he poses to be. I've noticed the same sort of behavior on the part of many other Triablogguers - the pathological need to pose as an expert on so many issues. We see it, for example, when Steve throws around links and scholarly names in a grand show of bloviation. That is a regularly recurring pathological phenomenon of apologists who feel the need to defend the faith at all costs, even if that means being somewhat deceptive.

Touchstone said...

nihilist,

Thinking about it, I think there are clues embedded in Pike's post that suggest he's a bit taken aback by the assertion that a random string is maximally complex. If you are used to the casual usage of the term 'information', the idea that random strings are complex sounds counterintuitive.

That's the only sense I can make of the "inverted operator" business at the end of his post. To Pike, it *looks* like things are getting inverted, because the basics of information theory are foreign to him, and seemingly backwards. Someone who is familiar with Shannon and Kolmogorov and Chaitin just shrugs at that -- it's boring, old news kind of stuff.

As for the pathological need to pose an expert over there, I have a different hypothesis. Rather than (or in addition to, that may be part of it, I grant) wanting to pose, they have such a low view of knowledge that "being an expert" really doesn't entail much.

I often wonder what the "ledger" would look like on these blogs if you took an inventory of the various bloggers, and assessed the demonstrable expertise each has in terms of working with and builing knowledge in *any* area. If you are a seminarian at a Calvinist school, maybe you work on the department database and spreadsheets and statistics models for business planning for the school on the side, and that's good, something, anyway.

But if you're milieu is just so many "skyhooks" -- theological conjectures that forever remain unaccountable to real-world analysis and real-world verification, then knowledge is quite easily construed as anything you want it to be.

So you have folks who confuse theology with real knowledge wandering into areas where real knowledge obtains, and they start making fools of themselves, oblivious to the fact that in some domains, they are liable to real refutation and falsification -- not just denial, but embarrassment by demonstrated maths.

I don't think Pike or the Triabloggers suppose they are posing as experts so much as they believe it, and just have a child's view of what expertise really is. Epistemic naïveté over pretense, in other words. They've become inured to the self-indulgence of theology.

-TS

Touchstone said...

Toby,

Hard to know how to react to your comments here. The subtext of your words here is not lost on me, nor any of the Triabloggers who happen to read it (and I'm sure they will).

Even if you are correct, I suspect it's counterproductive to pursue it. It's just to easy to spin that into a kind of ad hominem thing, and that will just tend to validate Triabloggers' self-indulgence in ad-hom invective. I'm sure you are aware of the Triablogue tendency to "argue by psycho-analysis", and understand that that is part of what you would present as evidence in support of the very argument you are making.

While you and I can agree that *that* kind of psychoanalysis is toxic in several important ways, I don't think the Triabloggers would be willing to make distinctions between the kind of analysis you are offering and the kind they are. See nihilist's comments here and my reply: knowledge is easy for them, and psycholanalysis is, ostensibly, a matter of whatever hunch occurs to them (or is illuminated for them by the Holy Spirit) over at Triablogue.

You may have a PhD, but so what? They are Calvinists. Instant parity, babay!

All that caution, though, is contingent on whether it's important or even viable to pursue interesting, constructive dialog over there. You can understand that I have my own thoughts on the matter, but I'm no expert in this area, and more importantly, I hold out hope of some kind of non-childish back and forth with our Calvinist friends over there.

If that's a goal, then psychoanalysis, even *qualified* analysis, is probably going to push the level of dialog much lower. Now you are one to be analyzed according to the "noetic effects of the Fall" and your total depravity, doncha know.

A major difficulty in dealing with apologists like this is preventing them from poisoning the well. Presuppositional apologetics for example, starts with a thorough well-poisoning. The best prospects for showing the poverty of their ideas and principles is to keep the discussion away from psychoanalysis and focused on the direct merits of the ideas and principles in play, I say.

In this thread, for example, I may be interested in 'background theories' for why Pike gets himself out on a limb like this, or Vox Day, too. But my primary goal is just to show that they *are* way out on a limb, waving hands, and demonstrating they do not have a working knowledge of the topic they are pontificating on.

-TS

T said...

TS, Points well taken. Yes, you are definitely right about the it being interpreted as ad-hominem. And I actually did not mean to post it as an attack against any specific contributor from DC. Let me restate something that I said in my first post, "Most of the contributors at Triablogue appear to be mentally healthy." Just a couple seem slightly unbalanced, and those are the ones I think you need to exercise extra caution and compassion with.

My experience, however, has been that discussions with Triabloggers quickly breakdown into attacks, rather than being productive intellectual pursuits. When it is reduced to attacks rather than discussions, the value of the individual is often lost. Although I have seen our posters remain respectful, I do think sometimes we begin to devalue them and see them not as being valuable human beings but overly zealous theists who need to be put in their place.

And you are right, I should have probably steered clear of psychoanalyzing Tribaloggers all together. But its my profession and I have a tendency to look at everything through that lens. However, I still think caution must be exercised in decisions with Tribaloguers so that we don't inadvertently do harm.

I am the first to admit that I'm full of shit. So when the tribaloggers state that, everyone can just nod their heads in agreement.

Also, as a side note, maybe my first post should just be deleted if its going to do harm itself? I just don't know how to retract it.

Touchstone said...

Toby,

I think there's no need to delete anything, and I think you're points in response to mine are excellent ones.

-TS

Anonymous said...

There is one sense in which Toby might be correct about the Triabloggers, and our own Valerie Tarico shows us why. As a psychiatrist she describes the process of defending unintelligent beliefs by smart people. She claims, “it doesn’t take very many false assumptions to send us on a long goose chase.” To illustrate this she tells us about the mental world of a paranoid schizophrenic. To such a person the perceived persecution by the CIA sounds real. “You can sit, as a psychiatrist, with a diagnostic manual next to you, and think: as bizarre as it sounds, the CIA really is bugging this guy. The arguments are tight, the logic persuasive, the evidence organized into neat files. All that is needed to build such an impressive house of illusion is a clear, well-organized mind and a few false assumptions. Paranoid individuals can be very credible.” This is what Christians do, and this is why it’s hard to shake the evangelical faith, in her informed opinion. [In her book linked in the sidebar.]

Evan said...

John and Toby,

I totally agree with the points you have made but I agree with Touchstone that it's a counterproductive discussion on the whole.

I've worked plenty with paranoids and indeed their logic is indisputable.

Their worlds are very logical. They are clean, sparse and narrow as well.

They can explain any datum without even batting an eye as consistent with their underlying delusion. But give them a little Haldol and they seem to become less certain.

The mental health of the triabloggers is indisputable from what I can see. I certainly believe that I was mentally healthy when I was a "believing Christian".

It takes time for ideas to percolate and I can imagine a time when we find the need for counter-apologetics at an end.

Certainly the growth of non-belief over the last century far outstrips the growth of Christianity in its first two centuries.

Stan, the Half-Truth Teller said...

I'm not touching the suggestion that T-bloggers may be paranoid-delusionals...

No.

Not touching it.

As to the original article, and Touchstone's rehashing of Pike's reply (which I have yet to have read, but which I shall), I have a couple things to offer.

First, my credentials are not overwhelming, but I am a Physics major (entering my third year), and I have supplemented my education with considerable computer programming (both class-taught, self-taught, and as an occupation).

That being said, the claim by Pike that "it is easy for me to write a program that will generate completely random output" is an absolute joke, as TS rightfully outlined. What wasn't said, however, is that many languages provide for specific random "sets", such that the 'rand()' function, or its syntactical equivalent, provides a call for the 'next' random number. The implication, to the non-programmer, is that a specific set of "random" numbers (technically termed pseudo-random for a reason) can be generated at any time, and will produce identical output every time.

Likewise, most pseudo-random number generators in computer code rely on the PC clock to generate the "random" number. For situations such as this, knowledge of the exact clocktime and memory contents of a given PC generating a "random" number in this fashion can reproduce exactly the "random" number it selected.

Furthermore, it is quite simple to produce non-random output from random input, and although this point wasn't directly contested in TS's post or in his snippets of Pike's response, it felt to me that it was being challenged by inference. We can all remember kid's mathematical parlor games, in which one's age is multiplied by some integer, from which some other number is subtracted, and a few algebraically simple steps later we arrive at some magical output, which is the same regardless of the input. Why? Because the arithmetic involved can be simplified into:

nx / x + c = n + c | x <> 0

or

k = k

For whatever reason, I am not nearly so bothered by the apologist who argues based on some philosophical position, or even one who argues based on some dogmatic interpretation of data, but when one comes along and attempts to manipulate mathematics, or to misrepresent mathematics to the ignorant, I become infuriated.

the idea that random strings are complex sounds counterintuitive

I completely disagree. Sure, I understand your direction here, and why you've said it, but that concept -- the complexity of the purely random -- is so intuitive as to be laughably simple (pardon the pun).

Paring down your 1000x1000 grid into a mere 2x2 grid, with each position identified by a-d, we can easily see that the most complex way this grid could be described is via individual positions. Clearly, in a non-random situation, we could identify multiple positions at once (e.g. "all on", "left half on", "topleft-to-bottomright diagonal on", etc.).

Indeed, in any non-random configuration, this grid could be identified by three descriptors or fewer:

Sn = Scenario [number]

Dn = Descriptor [number]

P(i), P(j) = Identified position(s)

P(o) = Remaining positions

S1: all positions in same configuration

D1: all : on | off

S2: one position differs from remaining three

D1: P(i) : on | off
D2: P(o) : off | on


S3: half on, half off

D1: P(i) : on
D2: P(j) : on
D3: P(o) : off


For a random pattern, each position will have to be individually identified, which, in this case, requires four descriptors, which is one more than the heaviest requirement from the non-random set.


Note that the required descriptors for a particular non-random scenario are a function of the number of differences against the number of available positions. I don't have the specific formula on hand, but I assure you, there is one.

Note also that although I've taken various higher level math courses, I have not yet taken any course which touches on Information Theory -- the above illustration is necessarily intuitive.

Illustrating now perhaps my own naïveté concerning Information Theory, for an event to be considered 'random', certain knowledge must be withheld regarding the mechanism(s) of the event. As an example, flipping a coin is a non-random event, but due to a lack of necessary variables, it may be treated as one. A perfectly placed coin, flipped by a perfectly functioning machine, in a vacuum, under constant acceleration, will always land the same way (overly simplified). Any variation in these parameters will increase the difficulty in determining the coin's fate, and without certain knowledge of any one of these parameters, the outcome may be viewed as "random", even though it is not the case.

Back to the computer's pseudo-random generator, they function well enough for the task, because we (the user) do not have sufficient knowledge of the generating function to determine the produced number with any level of accuracy. For Pike, this means that yes, the code produces a sufficiently random number, but not a random number at all.

Even though, in my 2x2 grid detailed above, the random pattern can be equally well described by the three given scenarios (which will describe any possible pattern of the four positions), if the pattern is non-random, we can identify the pattern "without looking". If the pattern is truly random, however, we will have to "peek" at the individual positions before we can identify the pattern, which makes the process more complex.

Hmph.

I hope I haven't FUBARed the concept too badly here, and I welcome correction from more knowledgeable sources, but I do feel that is is intuitive that randomness = complexity. I look forward to my courses on Quantum Mechanics, and hopefully some entertaining higher math courses (Information Theory, mathematics of the Complex Plane, etc.), and I'm certain that my understanding of, along with my ability to describe, the concepts in this topic, will increase greatly.

--
Stan

Touchstone said...

Stan,

Great comments, appreciate your taking time to share that.

I accept and understand your criticism that the intuition can and should indicate the relationship between randomness and complexity. All I can say in response is that you have a higher grade intuition than a lot of us, and I'm not being facetious there -- your explanation of why you think that's intuitive makes it seem downright obvious... good on ya.

One reason your grasp of information theory is so 'intuitive' is probably because information-theoretic entropy is really a recapitulation of thermodynamic entropy per Boltzmann & Gibbs -- the formulas are the same, save for the Boltzmann's constant k, and in information theory, the output is usual rendered in bits (log 2).

Which means if you have a handle on statistical thermodynamics, you know Shannon information theory, without knowing you know it (necessarily).

As for pseudo-randoms, Pike used the phrase "completely random", which of course invokes the problems I brought up and you expanded on, but I don't think he was concerned about theoretical purity in randomness. With Mersenne twisters and any number of more sophisticated massaging techniques available now, pseudo-random sources can be made just about as *effectively* random as you'd like. It takes a lot more code, etc., but while an interesting topic, it's tangential to what Pike is struggling with.

If you go read his post on this, make sure to read through his second comment, where he bumbles through the basics of compression. Note the magical "*" symbol he's invented. Cool.

-TS

charlie said...

Touchstone -

Reading Peter Pike's irrelevant analogy concerning the "operator" and "operand" does show that he has very hard time absorbing the fundamentals of information theory. However, I would agree with stan that it isn't really counterintuitive at all - quite the opposite! I myself am entering my sophomore year and am majoring in languages and political science, and hence have no real experience dealing with information theory in an academic setting, yet the basic equation of randomness with extreme complexity seemed perfectly straightforward and obvious to me! I just don't understand how anybody could find that impossible to believe.

Anyways, as to your point about theology breeding a certain contempt for knowledge and especially branches of science that are prone to falsification - I myself have first-hand experience of that attitude. I was formerly a quite staunch Christian, and I read books on apologetics and theology. I think that if you hold a worldview that requires you to dispute the legitimacy of so many scientific disciplines - geology, biology, astronomy, etc . - then you are necessarily going to have a contempt for the pursuit of knowledge in general. Creationists and Biblical inerrantists live in a cramped and paranoid world.

And when you add to this noxious mix Reformed presuppositionalism, then it becomes even worse. As you said, presuppositionalism is the ultimate "well-poisoning" of philosophical or scientific discourse. I once read some of the writings of the 'father' of presuppositionalism, Cornelius Van Til, to try to understand how presuppositional apologists think. The man produced nothing short of intellectual garbage. He thought that Christianity (the Protestant, Biblical Inerrantist[66-book version], Young-earth creationist version of it!) could be established by what amounts to a priori reasoning. How do you seriously convince somebody that Moses was not a historical figure (for example) on the basis of the evidence when ultimately they think they have grounds for believing in it irregardless of what the historical evidence says?

Touchstone said...

Mark Chu-Carroll of "Good Math, Bad Math" over at ScienceBlogs.com did a very solid fisking of Pike in a recent post of his, I just noticed:

http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/08/why_is_randomness_informative.php

It's worth a read.

Touchstone said...

Sorry, screwed up the link, there, should be:

Why is randomness informative? Correcting the Clueless Creationists