Wednesday 30 December 2015
Russia needs to allow JWs to speak for themselves.
Experts Object to Russia’s Banning of JW.ORG:
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia—On July 21, 2015, the Russian Federation banned jw.org, the official website of Jehovah’s Witnesses, making it a criminal offense to promote it from within the federation. Russia is the only country in the world to ban jw.org.
Religious studies specialist and professor at the Academy of Labor and Social Relations in Moscow, Yekaterina Elbakyan, comments on jw.org: “I think the website is necessary because it contains objective information directly from Jehovah’s Witnesses about their organization rather than third-party opinions. . . . Not only are its members interested in the website, but also those who are simply interested in various religions. And I’m not only speaking about professional religious scholars like myself but also journalists and publicists who write about religion.”
“I think the website is necessary because it contains objective information directly from Jehovah’s Witnesses”—Yekaterina Elbakyan, Professor, Academy of Labor and Social Relations, Moscow
A legal expert at the Human Rights Institute in Moscow, Lev Levinson, puts this action by the government in historical context: “Twenty-first century Russia has a constitution that guarantees freedom of religion and equality of religious associations before the law. However, as in the 19th century, Russia is again restricting the freedom of sharing one’s religious views by confiscating literature and banning websites. And this is all being done by judges and experts who apply unlawful regulations under the guise of counteracting extremism.”
The ban is the latest development in a legal battle stretching back to 2013. On August 7 of that year, a Russian district court declared the website “extremist” during a secret trial, but that decision was reversed by a regional court on January 22, 2014. However, a Deputy of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation appealed to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to reinstate the trial decision. On December 2, 2014, the Supreme Court heard the prosecution’s appeal without the Witnesses present to defend themselves, as they were not properly notified of the hearing. The Supreme Court reinstated the trial decision, declaring the entire website “extremist” although the court conceded that the website no longer contained any religious material prohibited by the Russian authorities. The Witnesses contested the decision and appealed to the chairman of the Supreme Court, but without success. As a result of that decision, on July 21, 2015, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation added the website to the Federal List of Extremist Materials, banning the website throughout Russia.
Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, comments on the impact of the ban: “We are disappointed that the Russian authorities have taken this unwarranted action. This ban curtails the worship of over 170,000 in this country who are Jehovah’s Witnesses. But when you consider that some 285,000 people in Russia accessed the website every day, it is clear that even those who are not members of our faith have been deprived of an excellent resource for Bible study.”
Speaking from the Witnesses’ world headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, J. R. Brown, an international spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses, states: “Our official website, jw.org, hosts award-winning videos, publications for Bible study in hundreds of languages, and the two most widely distributed magazines in the world, The Watchtower and Awake! It has been featured in some of the largest international book fairs and has even been used extensively in schools. It has benefited many communities around the world and was widely used in Russia. Really, this is a website that should be promoted.”
Media Contact(s):
International: J. R. Brown, Office of Public Information, tel. +1 718 560 5000
Russia: Yaroslav Sivulskiy, tel. +7 812 702 2691
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia—On July 21, 2015, the Russian Federation banned jw.org, the official website of Jehovah’s Witnesses, making it a criminal offense to promote it from within the federation. Russia is the only country in the world to ban jw.org.
Religious studies specialist and professor at the Academy of Labor and Social Relations in Moscow, Yekaterina Elbakyan, comments on jw.org: “I think the website is necessary because it contains objective information directly from Jehovah’s Witnesses about their organization rather than third-party opinions. . . . Not only are its members interested in the website, but also those who are simply interested in various religions. And I’m not only speaking about professional religious scholars like myself but also journalists and publicists who write about religion.”
“I think the website is necessary because it contains objective information directly from Jehovah’s Witnesses”—Yekaterina Elbakyan, Professor, Academy of Labor and Social Relations, Moscow
A legal expert at the Human Rights Institute in Moscow, Lev Levinson, puts this action by the government in historical context: “Twenty-first century Russia has a constitution that guarantees freedom of religion and equality of religious associations before the law. However, as in the 19th century, Russia is again restricting the freedom of sharing one’s religious views by confiscating literature and banning websites. And this is all being done by judges and experts who apply unlawful regulations under the guise of counteracting extremism.”
The ban is the latest development in a legal battle stretching back to 2013. On August 7 of that year, a Russian district court declared the website “extremist” during a secret trial, but that decision was reversed by a regional court on January 22, 2014. However, a Deputy of the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation appealed to the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation to reinstate the trial decision. On December 2, 2014, the Supreme Court heard the prosecution’s appeal without the Witnesses present to defend themselves, as they were not properly notified of the hearing. The Supreme Court reinstated the trial decision, declaring the entire website “extremist” although the court conceded that the website no longer contained any religious material prohibited by the Russian authorities. The Witnesses contested the decision and appealed to the chairman of the Supreme Court, but without success. As a result of that decision, on July 21, 2015, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation added the website to the Federal List of Extremist Materials, banning the website throughout Russia.
Yaroslav Sivulskiy, a spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia, comments on the impact of the ban: “We are disappointed that the Russian authorities have taken this unwarranted action. This ban curtails the worship of over 170,000 in this country who are Jehovah’s Witnesses. But when you consider that some 285,000 people in Russia accessed the website every day, it is clear that even those who are not members of our faith have been deprived of an excellent resource for Bible study.”
Speaking from the Witnesses’ world headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, J. R. Brown, an international spokesman for Jehovah’s Witnesses, states: “Our official website, jw.org, hosts award-winning videos, publications for Bible study in hundreds of languages, and the two most widely distributed magazines in the world, The Watchtower and Awake! It has been featured in some of the largest international book fairs and has even been used extensively in schools. It has benefited many communities around the world and was widely used in Russia. Really, this is a website that should be promoted.”
Media Contact(s):
International: J. R. Brown, Office of Public Information, tel. +1 718 560 5000
Russia: Yaroslav Sivulskiy, tel. +7 812 702 2691
The Watchtower Society's commentary on Joy.
JOY:
The emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good; state of happiness; exultation. The Hebrew and Greek words used in the Bible for joy, exultation, rejoicing, and being glad express various shades of meaning, different stages or degrees of joy. The verbs involved express the inner feeling and the outward manifestation of joy and variously mean “be joyful; exult; shout for joy; leap for joy.”
Jehovah God and Jesus Christ. Jehovah is called “the happy God.” (1Ti 1:11) He creates and works with joy for himself and his creatures. What he brings about makes him joyful. (Ps 104:31) He wants his creatures likewise to enjoy his works and to enjoy their own work. (Ec 5:19) Since he is the Source of all good things (Jas 1:17), all intelligent creatures, both mankind and angels, can find their chief enjoyment in coming to know him. (Jer 9:23, 24) King David said: “Let my musing about him be pleasurable. I, for my part, shall rejoice in Jehovah.” (Ps 104:34) He also sang: “The righteous one will rejoice in Jehovah and will indeed take refuge in him; and all the upright in heart will boast.” (Ps 64:10) The apostle Paul urged Christians to take joy at all times in their knowledge of Jehovah and his dealing with them, writing to them: “Always rejoice in the Lord [“Jehovah,” in several versions]. Once more I will say, Rejoice!”—Php 4:4.
Jesus Christ, who was the intimate one of Jehovah, knows him best (Mt 11:27), and he is able to explain Him to his followers. (Joh 1:18) Jesus is therefore joyful, being called “the happy and only Potentate.” (1Ti 6:14, 15) Out of love for his Father, he is eager to do always the things that please Him. (Joh 8:29) Therefore, when there was set before him the task of coming to earth, suffering, and dying in order that he might clear his Father’s name of reproach, “for the joy that was set before him he endured a torture stake, despising shame.” (Heb 12:2) He also had great love for and joy in mankind. The Scriptures, personifying him in his prehuman existence as wisdom, represent him as saying: “Then I came to be beside [Jehovah] as a master worker, and I came to be the one he was specially fond of day by day, I being glad before him all the time, being glad at the productive land of his earth, and the things I was fond of were with the sons of men.”—Pr 8:30, 31.
Jesus desired his followers to have the same joy, telling them: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and your joy may be made full.” The angels had joy at the creation of the earth. (Joh 15:11; 17:13; Job 38:4-7) They also view the course of God’s people, taking joy in their faithful course and especially exulting when an individual turns from his sinful ways to the pure worship and service of God.—Lu 15:7, 10.
What makes God joyful. Jehovah’s heart can be made glad by his servants because of their faithfulness and loyalty to him. Satan the Devil has constantly challenged the rightfulness of God’s sovereignty and the integrity of all those serving God. (Job 1:9-11; 2:4, 5; Re 12:10) To them apply the words: “Be wise, my son, and make my heart rejoice, that I may make a reply to him that is taunting me.” (Pr 27:11) Jehovah’s people in the earth can cause God to rejoice by faithfulness and loyalty to him.—Isa 65:19; Zep 3:17.
A Fruit of the Spirit. Since Jehovah is the Source of joy and he desires joyfulness for his people, joy is a fruit of his holy spirit. Joy is named immediately after love in the list at Galatians 5:22, 23. The apostle wrote to the Christians at Thessalonica: “You became imitators of us and of the Lord, seeing that you accepted the word under much tribulation with joy of holy spirit.” (1Th 1:6) Accordingly, Paul counseled the Christians at Rome that the Kingdom of God “means righteousness and peace and joy with holy spirit.”—Ro 14:17.
True joy is a quality of the heart and can affect the whole body for good. “A joyful heart has a good effect on the countenance,” and “a heart that is joyful does good as a curer [or, “does good to the body”],” says the wise writer of Proverbs.—Pr 15:13; 17:22, ftn.
Joy in God’s Service. What Jehovah asks of his servants is not burdensome. (1Jo 5:3) He wants them to enjoy his service. His people Israel were to enjoy the seasonal festivals that he arranged for them, and they were to rejoice in other aspects of their life and worship of God. (Le 23:40; De 12:7, 12, 18) They were to speak out about God joyfully. (Ps 20:5; 51:14; 59:16) If they did not serve with joy of heart, there was something wrong with their hearts and their appreciation of his loving-kindness and goodness. Therefore he warned what would take place if they became disobedient and took no joy in serving him: “All these maledictions will certainly come upon you . . . because you did not listen to the voice of Jehovah your God by keeping his commandments and his statutes . . . And they must continue on you and your offspring . . . due to the fact that you did not serve Jehovah your God with rejoicing and joy of heart for the abundance of everything.”—De 28:45-47.
The Christian, no less, should enjoy his service to God. Otherwise, something is lacking in heart appreciation. (Ps 100:2) “The joy of Jehovah is your stronghold,” said one of God’s faithful servants. (Ne 8:10) The good news the Christian proclaims was announced by God’s angel as “good news of a great joy that all the people will have.” (Lu 2:10) Jehovah’s name upon his witnesses and the truth as found in the Bible should themselves be a joy to them. The prophet Jeremiah said: “Your word becomes to me the exultation and the rejoicing of my heart; for your name has been called upon me, O Jehovah God of armies.”—Jer 15:16.
Moreover, Jehovah’s just, right judicial decisions put into effect in the Christian congregation and in the lives of Christians are cause for joy, especially in a time when the world has thrown justice and righteousness to the ground. (Ps 48:11) Then, too, the marvelous hope ahead surely gives strong ground for joyfulness. (“Rejoice in the hope”; Ro 12:12; Pr 10:28.) Their salvation is a basis for joy. (Ps 13:5) Additionally, there is the joy that the servant of God has in those whom he aids in coming to the knowledge and service of Jehovah. (Php 4:1; 1Th 2:19) Meeting together and working together with God’s people is one of the greatest joys.—Ps 106:4, 5; 122:1.
Persecution a cause for joy. For the Christian who guards his heart, even persecution, though not in itself enjoyable, should be viewed with joy, for endurance of it with integrity is a victory. God will help the faithful one. (Col 1:11) Additionally, it is proof that one is approved by God. Jesus said that when reproach and persecution come, the Christian should “leap for joy.”—Mt 5:11, 12; Jas 1:2-4; 1Pe 4:13, 14.
Other Joys Provided by God. Jehovah has provided many other things that mankind may enjoy day by day. Some of these are marriage (De 24:5; Pr 5:18), being father or mother of a righteous and wise child (Pr 23:24, 25), food (Ec 10:19; Ac 14:17), wine (Ps 104:14, 15; Ec 10:19), and the multitudinous things of His creation (Jas 1:17; 1Ti 6:17).
False or Nonlasting Joys. Jesus speaks of some who would hear the truth and receive it with joy but without getting the real sense of it. Such do not cultivate the implanted word in their hearts and, as a consequence, soon lose their joy by being stumbled when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word. (Mt 13:20, 21) Joy based on materialism is a false joy that is in error and will be short-lived. Also, a person rejoicing over the calamity of another, even of one who hates him, must account to Jehovah for his sin. (Job 31:25-30; Pr 17:5; 24:17, 18) A young man is foolish to think that enjoyment of life requires that he give in to following “the desires incidental to youth.” (2Ti 2:22; Ec 11:9, 10) Similarly, love of merriment will bring one into a bad situation. (Pr 21:17; Ec 7:4) Even the Christian who exults in comparing himself with others is in error. Rather, he should prove what his own work is and have cause for exultation in himself alone.—Ga 6:4.
Everlasting Joy. Jehovah promised to restore his people Israel after their exile in Babylon. He did bring them back to Jerusalem in 537 B.C.E., and they greatly rejoiced when the temple foundation was laid. (Isa 35:10; 51:11; 65:17-19; Ezr 3:10-13) But Isaiah’s prophecy (65:17) has a greater fulfillment in the establishment of “a new heaven and a new earth,” in which arrangement all mankind will have joy forever under the “New Jerusalem.”—Re 21:1-3.
Under present conditions, wickedness, sickness, and death prevent full and undiminished joy. But in harmony with the Bible rule, “A wise king is scattering wicked people,” Jesus Christ as King will bring an end to all enemies of God and of righteousness. (Pr 20:26; 1Co 15:25, 26) Thus all obstacles to complete joy will be removed, for even “death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore.” (Re 21:4) Sorrow for those who have died will be completely gone, removed by the resurrection of the dead. This knowledge comforts Christians even today, who, on this account, do not “sorrow just as the rest also do who have no hope.”—1Th 4:13, 14; Joh 5:28, 29.
The emotion excited by the acquisition or expectation of good; state of happiness; exultation. The Hebrew and Greek words used in the Bible for joy, exultation, rejoicing, and being glad express various shades of meaning, different stages or degrees of joy. The verbs involved express the inner feeling and the outward manifestation of joy and variously mean “be joyful; exult; shout for joy; leap for joy.”
Jehovah God and Jesus Christ. Jehovah is called “the happy God.” (1Ti 1:11) He creates and works with joy for himself and his creatures. What he brings about makes him joyful. (Ps 104:31) He wants his creatures likewise to enjoy his works and to enjoy their own work. (Ec 5:19) Since he is the Source of all good things (Jas 1:17), all intelligent creatures, both mankind and angels, can find their chief enjoyment in coming to know him. (Jer 9:23, 24) King David said: “Let my musing about him be pleasurable. I, for my part, shall rejoice in Jehovah.” (Ps 104:34) He also sang: “The righteous one will rejoice in Jehovah and will indeed take refuge in him; and all the upright in heart will boast.” (Ps 64:10) The apostle Paul urged Christians to take joy at all times in their knowledge of Jehovah and his dealing with them, writing to them: “Always rejoice in the Lord [“Jehovah,” in several versions]. Once more I will say, Rejoice!”—Php 4:4.
Jesus Christ, who was the intimate one of Jehovah, knows him best (Mt 11:27), and he is able to explain Him to his followers. (Joh 1:18) Jesus is therefore joyful, being called “the happy and only Potentate.” (1Ti 6:14, 15) Out of love for his Father, he is eager to do always the things that please Him. (Joh 8:29) Therefore, when there was set before him the task of coming to earth, suffering, and dying in order that he might clear his Father’s name of reproach, “for the joy that was set before him he endured a torture stake, despising shame.” (Heb 12:2) He also had great love for and joy in mankind. The Scriptures, personifying him in his prehuman existence as wisdom, represent him as saying: “Then I came to be beside [Jehovah] as a master worker, and I came to be the one he was specially fond of day by day, I being glad before him all the time, being glad at the productive land of his earth, and the things I was fond of were with the sons of men.”—Pr 8:30, 31.
Jesus desired his followers to have the same joy, telling them: “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you and your joy may be made full.” The angels had joy at the creation of the earth. (Joh 15:11; 17:13; Job 38:4-7) They also view the course of God’s people, taking joy in their faithful course and especially exulting when an individual turns from his sinful ways to the pure worship and service of God.—Lu 15:7, 10.
What makes God joyful. Jehovah’s heart can be made glad by his servants because of their faithfulness and loyalty to him. Satan the Devil has constantly challenged the rightfulness of God’s sovereignty and the integrity of all those serving God. (Job 1:9-11; 2:4, 5; Re 12:10) To them apply the words: “Be wise, my son, and make my heart rejoice, that I may make a reply to him that is taunting me.” (Pr 27:11) Jehovah’s people in the earth can cause God to rejoice by faithfulness and loyalty to him.—Isa 65:19; Zep 3:17.
A Fruit of the Spirit. Since Jehovah is the Source of joy and he desires joyfulness for his people, joy is a fruit of his holy spirit. Joy is named immediately after love in the list at Galatians 5:22, 23. The apostle wrote to the Christians at Thessalonica: “You became imitators of us and of the Lord, seeing that you accepted the word under much tribulation with joy of holy spirit.” (1Th 1:6) Accordingly, Paul counseled the Christians at Rome that the Kingdom of God “means righteousness and peace and joy with holy spirit.”—Ro 14:17.
True joy is a quality of the heart and can affect the whole body for good. “A joyful heart has a good effect on the countenance,” and “a heart that is joyful does good as a curer [or, “does good to the body”],” says the wise writer of Proverbs.—Pr 15:13; 17:22, ftn.
Joy in God’s Service. What Jehovah asks of his servants is not burdensome. (1Jo 5:3) He wants them to enjoy his service. His people Israel were to enjoy the seasonal festivals that he arranged for them, and they were to rejoice in other aspects of their life and worship of God. (Le 23:40; De 12:7, 12, 18) They were to speak out about God joyfully. (Ps 20:5; 51:14; 59:16) If they did not serve with joy of heart, there was something wrong with their hearts and their appreciation of his loving-kindness and goodness. Therefore he warned what would take place if they became disobedient and took no joy in serving him: “All these maledictions will certainly come upon you . . . because you did not listen to the voice of Jehovah your God by keeping his commandments and his statutes . . . And they must continue on you and your offspring . . . due to the fact that you did not serve Jehovah your God with rejoicing and joy of heart for the abundance of everything.”—De 28:45-47.
The Christian, no less, should enjoy his service to God. Otherwise, something is lacking in heart appreciation. (Ps 100:2) “The joy of Jehovah is your stronghold,” said one of God’s faithful servants. (Ne 8:10) The good news the Christian proclaims was announced by God’s angel as “good news of a great joy that all the people will have.” (Lu 2:10) Jehovah’s name upon his witnesses and the truth as found in the Bible should themselves be a joy to them. The prophet Jeremiah said: “Your word becomes to me the exultation and the rejoicing of my heart; for your name has been called upon me, O Jehovah God of armies.”—Jer 15:16.
Moreover, Jehovah’s just, right judicial decisions put into effect in the Christian congregation and in the lives of Christians are cause for joy, especially in a time when the world has thrown justice and righteousness to the ground. (Ps 48:11) Then, too, the marvelous hope ahead surely gives strong ground for joyfulness. (“Rejoice in the hope”; Ro 12:12; Pr 10:28.) Their salvation is a basis for joy. (Ps 13:5) Additionally, there is the joy that the servant of God has in those whom he aids in coming to the knowledge and service of Jehovah. (Php 4:1; 1Th 2:19) Meeting together and working together with God’s people is one of the greatest joys.—Ps 106:4, 5; 122:1.
Persecution a cause for joy. For the Christian who guards his heart, even persecution, though not in itself enjoyable, should be viewed with joy, for endurance of it with integrity is a victory. God will help the faithful one. (Col 1:11) Additionally, it is proof that one is approved by God. Jesus said that when reproach and persecution come, the Christian should “leap for joy.”—Mt 5:11, 12; Jas 1:2-4; 1Pe 4:13, 14.
Other Joys Provided by God. Jehovah has provided many other things that mankind may enjoy day by day. Some of these are marriage (De 24:5; Pr 5:18), being father or mother of a righteous and wise child (Pr 23:24, 25), food (Ec 10:19; Ac 14:17), wine (Ps 104:14, 15; Ec 10:19), and the multitudinous things of His creation (Jas 1:17; 1Ti 6:17).
False or Nonlasting Joys. Jesus speaks of some who would hear the truth and receive it with joy but without getting the real sense of it. Such do not cultivate the implanted word in their hearts and, as a consequence, soon lose their joy by being stumbled when tribulation or persecution arises on account of the word. (Mt 13:20, 21) Joy based on materialism is a false joy that is in error and will be short-lived. Also, a person rejoicing over the calamity of another, even of one who hates him, must account to Jehovah for his sin. (Job 31:25-30; Pr 17:5; 24:17, 18) A young man is foolish to think that enjoyment of life requires that he give in to following “the desires incidental to youth.” (2Ti 2:22; Ec 11:9, 10) Similarly, love of merriment will bring one into a bad situation. (Pr 21:17; Ec 7:4) Even the Christian who exults in comparing himself with others is in error. Rather, he should prove what his own work is and have cause for exultation in himself alone.—Ga 6:4.
Everlasting Joy. Jehovah promised to restore his people Israel after their exile in Babylon. He did bring them back to Jerusalem in 537 B.C.E., and they greatly rejoiced when the temple foundation was laid. (Isa 35:10; 51:11; 65:17-19; Ezr 3:10-13) But Isaiah’s prophecy (65:17) has a greater fulfillment in the establishment of “a new heaven and a new earth,” in which arrangement all mankind will have joy forever under the “New Jerusalem.”—Re 21:1-3.
Under present conditions, wickedness, sickness, and death prevent full and undiminished joy. But in harmony with the Bible rule, “A wise king is scattering wicked people,” Jesus Christ as King will bring an end to all enemies of God and of righteousness. (Pr 20:26; 1Co 15:25, 26) Thus all obstacles to complete joy will be removed, for even “death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore.” (Re 21:4) Sorrow for those who have died will be completely gone, removed by the resurrection of the dead. This knowledge comforts Christians even today, who, on this account, do not “sorrow just as the rest also do who have no hope.”—1Th 4:13, 14; Joh 5:28, 29.
On Formalising design detection II
Peer-Reviewed Scientific Paper Develops New Ways of Measuring Complex and Specified Information in Life
Casey Luskin December 28, 2015 11:28 AM
Winston Ewert, Bill Dembski, and Bob Marks have recently published a new peer-reviewed paper in the journal IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetic: Systems, titled "Algorithmic Specified Complexity in the Game of Life." The purpose of the paper is to develop the concept of algorithmic specified complexity as a new and improved method of measuring biological (and other forms of) information.
They start by observing that "Neither fundamental Shannon nor Kolmogorov information models are equipped" to measure "meaningful" information. As I recently explained, "the purpose of Shannon information is to help measure fidelity of transmission of information. What the transmission says doesn't matter" and:
Kolmogorov information is not necessarily tied to likelihood. In fact, higher Kolmogorov bits could mean more randomness. In that regard, it's not useful for distinguishing functional information from non-functional.
Complex and specified information (CSI) has long been cited as an improved method of measuring the functional meaning of information. But recently the team at the Evolutionary Informatics Lab has developed a new variation on CSI, algorithmic specified complexity (ASC), to measure the degree to which information is meaningful. As they put it:
We propose an information theoretic method to measure meaning. Fundamentally, we model meaning to be in the context of the observer. A page filled with Kanji symbols will have little meaning to someone who neither speaks nor reads Japanese. Likewise, a machine is an arrangement of parts that exhibit some meaningful function whose appreciation requires context. The distinguishing characteristic of machines is that the parts themselves are not responsible for the machine's functionality, but rather they are only functional due to the particular arrangement of the parts. Almost any other arrangement of the same parts would not produce anything interesting. A functioning computational machine is more meaningful than a large drawer full of computer parts.
They explain why Shannon Information and Kolmogorov-Chaitin-Solomonoff (KCS) measures of information don't help measure functionality:
The arranging of a large collection of parts into a working machine is highly improbable. However, any arrangement would be improbable regardless of whether the configuration had any functionality whatsoever. For this reason, neither Shannon nor KCS information models are capable of directly measuring meaning. Functional machines are specified -- they follow some independent pattern. When something is both improbable and specified, we say that it exhibits specified complexity. An elaborate functional machine exemplifies high specified complexity. We propose a model, algorithmic specified complexity (ASC), whereby specified complexity can be measured in bits.
ASC is similar to KCS in that it assumes a computer environment where we can describe some event, object, or scenario in terms of computer programming commands. This can allow, as they put it, a "quantitative measurement of specified complexity." To show how it works, they use Conway's famous "Game of Life."
The "Game of Life" is a computer simulation that's meant to mimic living systems by creating a grid in which some cells on the grid are "alive" and some are dead. A series of rules based upon the number of alive or dead neighboring cells determine whether a given cell will remain alive, remain dead, or come to life, or die, after each successive generation. They describe the rules as follows
1) Under-Population: A living cell with fewer than two live neighbors dies.
2) Family: A living cell with two or three live neighbors lives on to the next generation.
3) Overcrowding: A living cell with more than three living neighbors dies.
4) Reproduction: A dead cell with exactly three living neighbors becomes a living cell.
If you deliberately create certain patterns in the Game of Life, they can do unexpected things, like "gliders" which can move across the screen, or a really complicated pattern called "Gemini" that can make copies of itself every 33.6 million generations. Ewert, Dembski, and Marks use these features of "Game of Life" to apply ASC:
Our goal is to formulate and apply specified complexity measures to these patterns. We would like to be able to quantify what separates a simple glider, readily produced from almost any randomly configured soup, from Gemini -- a large, complex design whose formation by chance is probabilistically minuscule. Likewise, we would like to be able to differentiate the functionality of Gemini from a soup of randomly chosen pixels over a similarly sized field of grid squares.
A highly probable object can be explained by randomness, but it will lack complexity and thus not have specified complexity. Conversely, any sample of random noise will be improbable, but will lack specification and thus also lack specified complexity. In order to have specified complexity, both components must be present. The object must exhibit a describable functioning pattern while being improbable.
They find that some of these patterns in the Game of Life are "simple enough that they arise from random configurations of cell space," but "[o]thers required careful construction." They measured the ASC in these patterns, and then asked whether the patterns are known to appear randomly, or whether they require intelligent design. Their model predicts that high ASC patterns would arise only by design, and that patterns that are known to appear randomly would always have low ASC. They found that their method is generally a good predictor of whether low ASC patterns can appear at random or require design:
We have merely calculated the probability of generating the pattern through some simply random process not through the actual Game of Life process. We hypothesized that it was close enough to differentiate randomly achievable patterns from one that were deliberately created. This appears to work, with the exception of the unix pattern. However, even that pattern was less than an order of magnitude more probable than the bound suggested. This suggests the approximation was reasonable, but there is room for improvement.
We conclude that many of the machines built in the Game of Life do exhibit significant ASC. ASC was able to largely distinguish constructed patterns from those which were produced by random configurations. They do not appear to have been generated by a stochastic process approximated by the probability model we presented.
In other words, many of the high ASC patterns that appear in Game of Life don't appear at random. But is that surprising? After all, the Game of Life is a computer program created by intelligent agents that's designed to mimic living systems -- systems that also have high ASC. As they conclude, "Our work here demonstrates the applicability of ASC to the measure of functional meaning."
Image credit: aussiegall (Laceflower abstract) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia
Casey Luskin December 28, 2015 11:28 AM
Winston Ewert, Bill Dembski, and Bob Marks have recently published a new peer-reviewed paper in the journal IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetic: Systems, titled "Algorithmic Specified Complexity in the Game of Life." The purpose of the paper is to develop the concept of algorithmic specified complexity as a new and improved method of measuring biological (and other forms of) information.
They start by observing that "Neither fundamental Shannon nor Kolmogorov information models are equipped" to measure "meaningful" information. As I recently explained, "the purpose of Shannon information is to help measure fidelity of transmission of information. What the transmission says doesn't matter" and:
Kolmogorov information is not necessarily tied to likelihood. In fact, higher Kolmogorov bits could mean more randomness. In that regard, it's not useful for distinguishing functional information from non-functional.
Complex and specified information (CSI) has long been cited as an improved method of measuring the functional meaning of information. But recently the team at the Evolutionary Informatics Lab has developed a new variation on CSI, algorithmic specified complexity (ASC), to measure the degree to which information is meaningful. As they put it:
We propose an information theoretic method to measure meaning. Fundamentally, we model meaning to be in the context of the observer. A page filled with Kanji symbols will have little meaning to someone who neither speaks nor reads Japanese. Likewise, a machine is an arrangement of parts that exhibit some meaningful function whose appreciation requires context. The distinguishing characteristic of machines is that the parts themselves are not responsible for the machine's functionality, but rather they are only functional due to the particular arrangement of the parts. Almost any other arrangement of the same parts would not produce anything interesting. A functioning computational machine is more meaningful than a large drawer full of computer parts.
They explain why Shannon Information and Kolmogorov-Chaitin-Solomonoff (KCS) measures of information don't help measure functionality:
The arranging of a large collection of parts into a working machine is highly improbable. However, any arrangement would be improbable regardless of whether the configuration had any functionality whatsoever. For this reason, neither Shannon nor KCS information models are capable of directly measuring meaning. Functional machines are specified -- they follow some independent pattern. When something is both improbable and specified, we say that it exhibits specified complexity. An elaborate functional machine exemplifies high specified complexity. We propose a model, algorithmic specified complexity (ASC), whereby specified complexity can be measured in bits.
ASC is similar to KCS in that it assumes a computer environment where we can describe some event, object, or scenario in terms of computer programming commands. This can allow, as they put it, a "quantitative measurement of specified complexity." To show how it works, they use Conway's famous "Game of Life."
The "Game of Life" is a computer simulation that's meant to mimic living systems by creating a grid in which some cells on the grid are "alive" and some are dead. A series of rules based upon the number of alive or dead neighboring cells determine whether a given cell will remain alive, remain dead, or come to life, or die, after each successive generation. They describe the rules as follows
1) Under-Population: A living cell with fewer than two live neighbors dies.
2) Family: A living cell with two or three live neighbors lives on to the next generation.
3) Overcrowding: A living cell with more than three living neighbors dies.
4) Reproduction: A dead cell with exactly three living neighbors becomes a living cell.
If you deliberately create certain patterns in the Game of Life, they can do unexpected things, like "gliders" which can move across the screen, or a really complicated pattern called "Gemini" that can make copies of itself every 33.6 million generations. Ewert, Dembski, and Marks use these features of "Game of Life" to apply ASC:
Our goal is to formulate and apply specified complexity measures to these patterns. We would like to be able to quantify what separates a simple glider, readily produced from almost any randomly configured soup, from Gemini -- a large, complex design whose formation by chance is probabilistically minuscule. Likewise, we would like to be able to differentiate the functionality of Gemini from a soup of randomly chosen pixels over a similarly sized field of grid squares.
A highly probable object can be explained by randomness, but it will lack complexity and thus not have specified complexity. Conversely, any sample of random noise will be improbable, but will lack specification and thus also lack specified complexity. In order to have specified complexity, both components must be present. The object must exhibit a describable functioning pattern while being improbable.
They find that some of these patterns in the Game of Life are "simple enough that they arise from random configurations of cell space," but "[o]thers required careful construction." They measured the ASC in these patterns, and then asked whether the patterns are known to appear randomly, or whether they require intelligent design. Their model predicts that high ASC patterns would arise only by design, and that patterns that are known to appear randomly would always have low ASC. They found that their method is generally a good predictor of whether low ASC patterns can appear at random or require design:
We have merely calculated the probability of generating the pattern through some simply random process not through the actual Game of Life process. We hypothesized that it was close enough to differentiate randomly achievable patterns from one that were deliberately created. This appears to work, with the exception of the unix pattern. However, even that pattern was less than an order of magnitude more probable than the bound suggested. This suggests the approximation was reasonable, but there is room for improvement.
We conclude that many of the machines built in the Game of Life do exhibit significant ASC. ASC was able to largely distinguish constructed patterns from those which were produced by random configurations. They do not appear to have been generated by a stochastic process approximated by the probability model we presented.
In other words, many of the high ASC patterns that appear in Game of Life don't appear at random. But is that surprising? After all, the Game of Life is a computer program created by intelligent agents that's designed to mimic living systems -- systems that also have high ASC. As they conclude, "Our work here demonstrates the applicability of ASC to the measure of functional meaning."
Image credit: aussiegall (Laceflower abstract) [CC BY 2.0], via Wikimedia
On formalising design detection.
Peer-Reviewed Paper Successfully Measures Specified Complexity in Computer Images:
Casey Luskin December 29, 2015 11:31 AM
A new peer-reviewed article in the journal IET Computer Vision, "Measuring meaningful information in images: algorithmic specified complexity," by Winston Ewert, William A. Dembski, and Robert J. Marks II, again attempts to apply the concept of algorithmic specified complexity (ASC) as a measure of meaning vs. randomness in a dataset. In a previous article I noted that the team at the Evolutionary Informatics Lab tried to apply algorithmic specified complexity (ASC) to successfully predict random patterns in Conway's Game of Life versus those that were constructed by a programmer. In this paper the authors try to distinguish between "images which contain content from those which are simply redundancies, meaningless or random noise." They begin by asking:
Is information being created when we snap a picture of Niagara Falls? Would a generic picture of Niagara Falls on a post card contain less information than the first published image of a bona fide extraterrestrial being?
They attempt to answer these questions by stating:
For an image to be meaningfully distinguishable, it must relate to some external independent pattern or specification. The image of the sunset is meaningful because the viewer experientially relates it to other sunsets in their experience. Any image containing content rather than random noise fits some contextual pattern. Naturally, any image looks like itself, but the requirement is that the pattern must be independent of the observation and therefore the image cannot be self-referential in establishing meaning. External context is required. If an object is both improbable and specified, we say that it exhibits "specified complexity."
So how can we detect whether there is such a complex and specified pattern?
The more the image can be described in terms of a pattern, the more compressible it is, and the more specified. For example, a black square is entirely described by a simple pattern, and a very short computer programme suffices to recreate it. As a result, we conclude that it is highly specified. In contrast, an image of randomly selected pixels cannot be compressed much if at all, and thus we conclude that the image is not specified at all. Images with content such as sunsets take more space to describe than the black square, but are more specified than random noise. Redundancy in some images is evidenced by the ability to approximately restore groups of missing pixels from those remaining.
The black square might be compressible and specified, but that does not mean it is complex. As they note, "The random image is significantly more complex, whereas the solid square is much less complex."
But these are relatively simple cases. They then try to tackle more complex cases, such as a photograph of Louis Pasteur with increasing amounts of random noise added. As ASC predicts, they find that the more noise is added to the image, the lower the ASC. Similarly, as you resize an image of Einstein so that it loses some of its clarity, it also loses ASC. This is all as their model predicts.
But what about the case of a picture of "stick men on a sea of noise"? They found that ASC was still able to detect the presence of a complex and specified feature even when it was surrounded by noise. They conclude that ASC is an effective methodology for distinguishing random image data from meaningful images:
We have estimated the probability of various images by using the number of bits required for the PNG encoding. This allows us to approximate the ASC of the various images. We have shown hundreds of thousands of bits of ASC in various circumstances. Given the bound established on producing high levels of ASC, we conclude that the images containing meaningful information are not simply noise. Additionally, the simplicity of an image such as the solid square also does not exhibit ASC. Thus, we have demonstrated the theoretical applicability of ASC to the problem of distinguishing information from noise and have outlined a methodology where sizes of compressed files can be used to estimate the meaningful information content of images.
The applicability in the context of intelligent design is clear: If ASC is a useful tool for distinguishing designed images from random ones, then perhaps it can be applied to biological systems or other natural structures to detect design there as well.
Casey Luskin December 29, 2015 11:31 AM
A new peer-reviewed article in the journal IET Computer Vision, "Measuring meaningful information in images: algorithmic specified complexity," by Winston Ewert, William A. Dembski, and Robert J. Marks II, again attempts to apply the concept of algorithmic specified complexity (ASC) as a measure of meaning vs. randomness in a dataset. In a previous article I noted that the team at the Evolutionary Informatics Lab tried to apply algorithmic specified complexity (ASC) to successfully predict random patterns in Conway's Game of Life versus those that were constructed by a programmer. In this paper the authors try to distinguish between "images which contain content from those which are simply redundancies, meaningless or random noise." They begin by asking:
Is information being created when we snap a picture of Niagara Falls? Would a generic picture of Niagara Falls on a post card contain less information than the first published image of a bona fide extraterrestrial being?
They attempt to answer these questions by stating:
For an image to be meaningfully distinguishable, it must relate to some external independent pattern or specification. The image of the sunset is meaningful because the viewer experientially relates it to other sunsets in their experience. Any image containing content rather than random noise fits some contextual pattern. Naturally, any image looks like itself, but the requirement is that the pattern must be independent of the observation and therefore the image cannot be self-referential in establishing meaning. External context is required. If an object is both improbable and specified, we say that it exhibits "specified complexity."
So how can we detect whether there is such a complex and specified pattern?
The more the image can be described in terms of a pattern, the more compressible it is, and the more specified. For example, a black square is entirely described by a simple pattern, and a very short computer programme suffices to recreate it. As a result, we conclude that it is highly specified. In contrast, an image of randomly selected pixels cannot be compressed much if at all, and thus we conclude that the image is not specified at all. Images with content such as sunsets take more space to describe than the black square, but are more specified than random noise. Redundancy in some images is evidenced by the ability to approximately restore groups of missing pixels from those remaining.
The black square might be compressible and specified, but that does not mean it is complex. As they note, "The random image is significantly more complex, whereas the solid square is much less complex."
But these are relatively simple cases. They then try to tackle more complex cases, such as a photograph of Louis Pasteur with increasing amounts of random noise added. As ASC predicts, they find that the more noise is added to the image, the lower the ASC. Similarly, as you resize an image of Einstein so that it loses some of its clarity, it also loses ASC. This is all as their model predicts.
But what about the case of a picture of "stick men on a sea of noise"? They found that ASC was still able to detect the presence of a complex and specified feature even when it was surrounded by noise. They conclude that ASC is an effective methodology for distinguishing random image data from meaningful images:
We have estimated the probability of various images by using the number of bits required for the PNG encoding. This allows us to approximate the ASC of the various images. We have shown hundreds of thousands of bits of ASC in various circumstances. Given the bound established on producing high levels of ASC, we conclude that the images containing meaningful information are not simply noise. Additionally, the simplicity of an image such as the solid square also does not exhibit ASC. Thus, we have demonstrated the theoretical applicability of ASC to the problem of distinguishing information from noise and have outlined a methodology where sizes of compressed files can be used to estimate the meaningful information content of images.
The applicability in the context of intelligent design is clear: If ASC is a useful tool for distinguishing designed images from random ones, then perhaps it can be applied to biological systems or other natural structures to detect design there as well.
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