So what is the difference beteen data and information again? I don't see a difference.

creative, you wrote:



In your 'evidence for a designer' thread I said the same thing about a design.

I said that the design is evidence for the intelligent designer(s). (If we see a design we can automatically know that a intelligent designer(s) exist.)

You then denied that there was even a design.

I pointed out many things in this universe that were designs, but you said that was not evidence and they could not be proven to be designs.

Hence this thread ".evidence for design."

Which is for the purpose of exploring if there is a way to determine what is or is not a design, without identifying the designer or proving intent or purpose.

I think there is. I used the painting as an example.

Your answer was that just seeing the painting is enough to know that a painter exists.

And a few other assumptions..

Now you are retiring from the thread.

I don't get it.

But since you are no longer interested in pursuing this subject then neither am I.

That is why you fail.

Instead of your remarks please enlighten me.

What is the difference between data and information? I am not here for the purpose of ego or argument. I am here to learn.

Please be very specific.

I never disagreed with that. The issue comes when one attempts to claim that the universe is, itself, a design simply because we perceive consistency and/or order within it.



I denied that we have evidence which necessarily concludes that the universe is a design.




The fact that there are designs within the universe does not prove that the universe is, itself, a design.



I am choosing to retire from this thread because it seems to be fruitless, that conclusion having been finally drawn based upon the fact that you dismissed a sound refutation based upon your own personal semantic definitions of the term painting and painter. That painting argument was intended to show the limitations in the analogy you presented as evidence. Just because one can know that a painting necessarily requires a painter does not mean that it is logical to call the universe a design, and to then conclude in a designer because of the application of the label alone. Just as a painting requires a painter, a design requires a designer. You are calling it an assumption when I claim that a painting necessarily requires a painter. Your counter argument and the following responses, if carefully reviewed, actually argued against yourself and made some of my own points for me. Yet, from my vantage point, it seemed as if you were refuting an imaginary claim that I never made, one which 'stated' that all paintings are designs.

I never made that claim, nor would I. However, all paintings ar paintings, and they necesarily require a painter.

The universe is not a painting.

Information only exist to those, who are able to process it. Everything is raw data and material with no specific meaning. Anybody who looks at this typing for example, and never learned writing or reading, it looks like a bunch of funny looking symbols without meaning. You give this to someone who can't read and write in ANY language and has no knowledge of such a thing as "writing", the person can't do anything with it, it won't help him in any way. For him, this is no more than a piece of rock sitting in the bottom of a river.

YOu can only give meaning to something if it is processed first and that requires intelligence in the first place.

If i show you a runic writing, you have no idea what it says if can't read runic. In order to process it, you must possess the intelligence to learn runic first.

So what counts as "information"? Anything that can be interpreted into some sort of a meaning. Without intelligence, there is no information to speak of. The level of information based on intelligence. There is possible that "informations" are all around us, but we can't give a meaning to them, because we do not possess the intelligence to decode them.

As long as we can't, we treat them as "things" around us, "raw data" which one day perhaps be processed into information that has some sort of a value or meaning.

So in this scenario, it should give more light what intelligence is.
A tool, an ability, a trait, which allows one or more things to be processed into a meaning that has some sort of a value. Whether it's survival or existence or to gain new ability, that depends on what the processed data (alias "information) provided.

What I meant, and what I thought I said about the painting analogy is
how can we determine if a painting is a design?

We know it is a painting.

But is it a design?

We know there is probably a 'painter' (or someone who spilled some paint and then framed it,) but do we know that it was an intentional thought out design?

I put a lot of thought into what I write in these posts in the hope that someone will follow my line of thinking. If you want to retire that is your decision, but to me it just seems like you are giving up.

I see no reward in the matter, JB. It is nothing personal. If you would like to back up to my response regarding the painting and the dead body and then go from there, I would likely continue should that response be given it's due. However, the line of thinking since then does not interest me.

Thanks.

Here is some more about data vs information:

Data are plain facts. The word "data" is plural for "datum." When data are processed, organized, structured or presented in a given context so as to make them useful, they are called Information.

It is not enough to have data (such as statistics on the economy). Data themselves are fairly useless. But when these data are interpreted and processed to determine its true meaning, they becomes useful and can be called Information. Data is the computer's language. Information is our translation of this language.


With this consideration I can rethink my previous definition of information.

Enter: Awareness or Consciousness.

The new formula would be:

Energy + Data + Consciousness = intelligence.

A small quantity of Data, plus a small quantity of energy, plus a small degree of consciousness that can perform a function = intelligence.

When data is processed and made useful it is information.

Sounds reasonable to me.

JB, seeing how your thoughts are beginning to head towards the most common definition anyway, why not just realize that you're efforts have already been performed by others and that is how the meaning(definition) of intelligence was already arrived at?

Save yourself the time and place as much confidence in those previously determined definitions as you have anything else that you have come to believe without having to go through all of this.

Not exactly.

Intelligence can increase with the increase of data processed into information. The more the intelligence, the more information available, thus it "can" increase the intelligence, based on what the information contained. Both are shooting upward to an infinite. More info = more intelligence which means new info and even more intelligence . And so on and so forth. Unless there is a final capacity in this case - humans- how intelligent they can get, we do not know for sure yet.


Intelligence is not a constant one value, neither a product. You can't create intelligence out of energy+data+ consciousness.

If you ask me, here is my equation:

Basic level of intelligence + information + the ability to be more intelligent = △ Intelligence

In this meaning the △ (delta) represents a changing amount and in the case of intelligence it's always a plus. You cannot have someone having less intelligence by adding more information.

But you seem to be arguing how intelligence can come /or be created from "nothing" , (nothing, I meant, no base level of intelligence) by adding energy, data and consciousness together and it would somehow have the product of "intelligence".

I don't think so.

You must have a base level of intelligence of some sort. A fish jumps back from the glass of the aquarium if i move my hand close. It's a base level of intelligence, that is enough for the fish to survive.

I think I agree. What I have been saying is that everything has a degree of intelligence.

If, on the other hand, this is not true, then I think there must be some kind of formula that manifests intelligence and some point at which a thing 'suddenly' acquires a base level of intelligence, if it did not have it before.

I find if difficult to believe that intelligence can grow from zero intelligence, but if it can, then there must be some formula that gives birth to a base level of intelligence and that base level of intelligence 'suddenly' arises.

No thanks. I like to think independently and from scratch. Most definitions are referring to higher level animals and higher levels of information. I am attempting to look at the beginnings, the low level of things.

P.S. and how would you have any idea how I have come to believe 'anything else?" Maybe my beliefs are based on a large percentage of this kind of independent "from scratch" thinking. Don't worry, I don't waste a lot of time.

Books are one of my most prized possessions. I have a pretty large collection of books and I have not had time to read them all. I have a problem with books though. No matter how interested in the subject I am, they seem to put me to sleep. Writers are too wordy and long winded, details are distracting, etc. I skim them a lot, picking out what seems important. I may miss a lot of stuff. But there is so much "data" out there, I just don't have the time or capacity or inclination to absorb all of it.

So I only learn the things I need to or want to learn to perform the functions I want or need to do.

The formation of the basic level of intelligence starts at virus level. (So far that's how much we know today) Even viruses mutate and become something else when there is a serum for them. They adapt and the serum becomes useless.

Even singles cells have defense/offensive capabilities. Whatever tries to take them out of existance, (or try to make them extinct) they must defend or save themselves from it.

That's where intelligence starts. The most basic level serves to "exist" and that's the most common throughout the world. It is still in the air if this qualifies as "intelligence" though, some would debate what would qualify as intelligence and not pre-programmed defense mechanism, because even you said, you need conciousness for real intelligence, so is a virus or a cell conscious or are they no more than a "program" like a computer program with written instructions? Is mutating to something else qualifies them to be intelligent? Is the killing "anti drug" that would kill them is some sort of information to them they process and then they mutate?

Okay what term would you use for the function of elements when they combine to form other elements and other quantum or micro level activities?

At what point do these things come together to create life? I understand tiny living things come out of a hole deep in the ocean floor and into the sea. Where do you suppose these came from and how did they manifest and from what? How does a thing that is not alive first become alive?

Here is a picture from Titan, the moon of Saturn:


Look at those rocks. They are shaped by liquid. Whatever that is, most likely methane. This picture, if you look at it, could have been taken on any riverbed on Earth, with a bit of water in it.

Funny how they never really talk about this achievement having a probe landing so far away from Earth, on a moon of another planet.


ok...so back on to the life thing.
.................
It depends on what you would label as life. Today is "what we see" that function like it is "alive".

What is alive? Good question if you ask me. 30 years ago, they said, life does not exist under the deepest frozen ice in the Antarctic and now they are proven wrong, because they found bacteria living in the ice in -30 whatever temperature or even below that.

Same thing with the volcanoes. Deep sea volcanoes have life on them, completely dependent on the volcano gases and the heat coming from them. No Sunlight,, no other external sources of food.

That opened up a whole new bag of where else can life take a foothold.

If that's possible, just think, what if some of these planets even in our Solar system, has liquid (Europa, Titan) and frozen ice on the top and too far away from the Sun to receive enough Sun light and yet they might have life on them , perhaps on their ocean floors or in their ice? On their volcanic activity spots?
What if these oceans are made of other composites than ours? They aren't H2O, but Methane? Who cares if living things can survive the poisonous gases coming from volcanoes, you ask me, anything is possible.

If you ask me, life is not something that is rare, but now it's the question where is a place where there is no life?

sorry I didn't answer your question, lol... I'll do in my next reply.

___________________ Atlantis75, darling___________________
........................(pardon my familiarity...)
But there clearly is some misunderstanding of tems:

Personally, I define basic Intelligence as the sum of Basic Survival Instincts + Experience (which compounds all new experiences -- through mutations over a period of time (i.e. long enough) -- into even newer experiences, thus into new instincts and capabilities and, finally, into the ability of predicting the consequences of certain/all actions, i.e. formulating conformities and theories, etc.

However, what Jeannie seems to be driving at is:
How can an experienced animal get transformed (i.e. mutate) into a conscious being? ? ?

For millions of years before that (and after) animals kept on aimlessly wandering the planet, and then (suddenly) some of them have evolved! (? ? ?)

Is it possible intellect has a critical mass (i.e. volume), exceeding which does give birth to the slightly higher intellect? (and so on, and so on... all the way to the Homo sapience)

Not really. I am asking at what point does a tiny quanta of anything become 'alive' or intelligent if it is not already alive and intelligent?

And what kind of miracle happened at that point? Is there a formula for life? OR is EVERYTHING alive, as the native Americans believe?

Is there a formula for intelligence, or is everything intelligent to a degree?

I'm thinking that everything is part of a living intelligent universe. I realize that non-spiritual atheists don't believe this, so for them these become the questions.

How did life suddenly appear from a non-living thing?
How did intelligence suddenly appear from zero intelligence?
How did something arise out of nothing?

At what point and by what formula was life born if it came from a non-living thing?

At what point did intelligence arise if it came from zero intelligence?

At what point did something arise from nothing?

Is there a formula for life, intelligence and something from nothing?

There MUST be if you are telling me that this is how it happened.

Life did not appear "gradually." A thing is either dead or it is alive. One or the other.

Intelligence did not appear gradually. A thing either has intelligence or it does not.

If you are going to tell me that something came from nothing, and some things were once not alive and now they are alive, and some things at one time had zero intelligence and now they are intelligent, then there had to be A POINT WHERE IT SUDDENLY HAPPENED.

This is where they might have to say, "And then, a miracle happened."

BUT I don't have to answer any of those questions BECAUSE it is my belief that EVERYTHING is intelligent and alive, and that everything is part of an intelligent and alive entity that is this universe.

The small things that don't appear to be intelligent as individuals are being used by a larger intelligence for the operation of the intelligent universe. They are equipped with programs and information that performs a function. They themselves do not interpret anything, they are simply part of the 'mechanism' that is alive.

My conclusion is "ITS ALIVE!"

And if it is not, I question those who believe otherwise... then when did it go from being dead and stupid to alive and intelligent?

When..or at what point, did the miracle happen?

From where I stand, it is up to them to find this point to prove their case before I can agree with their conclusions.

I think, where you are lacking to understand is time. For us, it's impossible to imagine a 1 million years.

There is no "sudden" change. It took billions of years. For us humans, it's difficult to understand this, since a human lifetime (avg 65yrs) is not only a tiny sand dust in the desert, but a subatomic particle of a sand in trillions of sand pebbles in the Sahara, if we would compare human life time vs. the age of life on Earth.

Just because we are "here". do you think evolution has somehow stopped and we "arrived" to this stage which will last forever in the same status. Think again. You cannot "see" or "sense" evolution with a human eye. If we could ive for millions of years maybe we could get a sense of it, but it's a very very long time.

Somehow I feel like people really do need to educate themselves on evolution, life and planet Earth.

I was lucky enough to grow up on nature movies, but it seems like I belong to a minority with this.

JB:
1.
---At no time does a single "STUPID" tiny quanta of anything become 'alive' or intelligent! However, coupled with certain faivorable environmental conditions, its the mysterios combination of the multitude (i.e. quantity) of tiny quanta fused together that result in a new Quality!

2.

--- Having dealt with Creative, you must be familiar with QM -- electrones popping into existance out of no-where (probably from the other dimension).
However, given various complex bio-chemical reactions in the premordial world, couppled together with constant bombardment of various celestial bodies that might've brought some new elements into the mix -- enabling their fusing together -- could very well have produced some new kind of molecules that binded together and forned some multi-cell organisms (that further mutated into even more complex organizms)... And so on, and so on...
>>>> However, it means that life, actially, did evolve "gradually" -- over a period of MILLIONS of years!!!

Perhaps your right, Intelligence has been "programmed", which would necessarily require for the system's being HOMOGENEOUS. Nevertheless, its the system's enormous diversity that indicates otherwise...