Explaining Compatabilism

The following is extracted and slightly edited from a discussion on Uncommon Descent. There is the usual chain of comments – this picks up at comment #98.

 

Myself (in response to a comment from Vjtorley)

 

I know I am not going to convince you that compatibilism is true but maybe I might just be able to explain how it works (at least in my version). I found that understanding it required a sort of Gestalt shift – seeing the duck as a rabbit.

Just to clear up a point which you may well regard as trivial. By "determinism" I don't necessarily mean that everything is in theory predictable. There may be a genuine random element in the universe – uncaused outcomes. I just think there is nothing other than determined or random.

To briefly answer your points.

1) Acting according to my desires is not being under external control. It is doing what I want to do.

2) Actually I think chimpanzees and rats do have free will. They don't have responsibility – but then neither does a 2 year old child – but would you deny it has free will.

3 )Yes blame is morally appropriate for healthy adult human beings because they have free will and responsibility.

4) By desires I include the desire to do good, make penance etc. We do these things because we want to do them.

And yes a stronger desire is simply the one that we decide to satisfy. That is part of what it means for one desire to be stronger than another.

5) I don't dispute the difference between desires and decisions. Desires cause decisions – but they are not the same kind of thing. My desire that England will win the cup may cause me to decide to donate to the sports fund.

One way of thinking of compatibilism is following the progress of a human from foetus to baby to toddler to child to adult. At each point genetic inheritance and past and present external stimuli causes actions. But gradually the ways in which they lead to action become more sophisticated. As a foetus the stimuli lead to action in a simple, predictable way (although there may be a random element) e.g. kicking in the womb. You would not call this a decision to kick. In the toddler the action given the stimuli is harder to predict because the processing is more complicated – but there is a whole class of stimulus actions which we would definitely call decisions e.g. to throw perfectly good food on the floor. In the adult the stimuli may undergo the most complex processing including feedback loops where the processing may itself be part of the stimuli (a conscious decision). It becomes much harder to predict the outcome given the stimuli (but is still often possible). But being able to predict the outcome does not prevent higher order decision being free.

Of course, even as adults there are still actions which we would not call decisions – breathing, pulse racing. And I would say there are some actions which are somewhere between decisions or not – the choice of a word in a sentence spoken instinctively for example. In this analysis free will is a matter of degree. It is about one of the ways we come to act based on the environment. And that is what free will means. It just hard to take this on board when you are, as it were, inside the decision process.

 

Vjtorley (part of his response)

 

You write:

"Acting according to my desires is not being under external control. It is doing what I want to do. "

If some thing or set of things determine your desires, then they do control you. Let's make the illustration plainer.

Suppose that instead of a thing, it was a person – let's say a Martian – that was determining your desires, by twiddling a meter. He sets it to 0 and you feel hungry, 10 and you feel thirsty, 20 and you feel angry, 30 and you feel like going for a walk, and so on. And now suppose that for the first time, the Martian decides to reveal himself to you. He knocks on your door and demonstrates how his meter works. How do you react? Do you feel blind, inchoate rage that all your life you have been mainpulated by this being from Mars? No, of course you don't – for he's prudently set the meter to 40, which makes you feel calm. Now he's smiling at you, and you're smiling back at him.

Now, I put it to you: are you free? All yoyr life you've been doing what you want. What's more, you've been deliberating rationally – it's just that the Martian has controlled your deliberations. And yet I think the overwhelming intuition of the person-in-the-street is that in this case, you are not free. I think you would agree, yourself, in this case.

Now, why should it be any different if the factors determining your desires are a combination of the people whom you have met in your life, and well as blind, impersonal natural forces?

 

Myself

 

I guess a little more discussion of "control" is needed. In one sense we are all under external control. Advertisers create "needs", good employers set up working environments so we get job satisfaction and work harder. But in doing so they are not changing us into creatures that lack free will. They are not, as it were, by-passing the usual decision making processes.

An addictive drug may create an enormously strong desire that drives out all others. You could imagine a criminal master mind inflicting such a drug on a victim and this becomes very similar to the Martian case. The criminal master mind gives the drug because he knows that the victim will take on complex, dangerous and unpleasant work to satisfy the need. However, the work involves planning and decision making. So in one sense the master mind is controlling the victim. But the victim is still able to make decisions, to reflect on his addiction, quite possibly to wish that the desire was not so strong.

Has the victim lost free will? Where is the difference in principle from the employer who designs the working environment so it becomes addictive?

Vjtorley

 

The hypothetical cases involving addiction which you propose are very interesting, but they differ in two significant ways from my Martian case. The first difference relates to time, and the second relates to scope.

1. Time. An addict may have a craving that he/she needs to satisfy, but once it is satisfied (i.e once the addict has obtained his/her "fix"), the addict is free from his/her overpowering urge for a while. During that time, the addict is free to seek treatment for his/her addiction. For example, the addiction can call someone for help, or go and see a therapist, or take refuge in a church. Even if the criminal mastermind has cunningly locked all the doors of the building and cut the phone lines, the addict can still pray. That, at least, is a free act, even if the addict's prayers go unanswered and the addict never manages to escape. For at least some of the time, then, the addict is free.

2. Scope. The criminal mastermind doesn't control all of the addict's desires. In fact, the criminal mastermind doesn't even control all of the addict's ultimate goals. The drug is an ultimate goal for the addict, but so is the urge to sleep, eat, drink or relieve oneself. Any of these urges can be over-riding cravings too. What happens when these urges conflict? It is thus doubtful whether the criminal mastermind could control the entire gamut of the addict's behavior, simply by creating an addiction in his/her victim. But even supposing that there were no conflicts of urges, and that the criminal mastermind could infallibly make the addict take on complex, dangerous and unpleasant work to satisfy his/her need, the mastermind's control over the addict's behavior would not be complete: it would still be up to the addict to decide exactly how to go about performing these dangerous tasks, as the criminal mastermind has not attempted to control the addict's rational deliberations, but has merely ensured that the addict will do his/her utmost to achieve the goal intended by the mastermind.

In any event, I would say that while the addict is experiencing an over-riding craving, he/she has lost his/her free will. That person's intellect may be still functioning, but it is the slave of the addict's compulsive desires.

However, the Martian case which I described above (#100) is quite different from the addiction case you proposed. In the Martian case, the Martian has been controlling all of your desires, and all of your rational deliberations, all your life. Surely you would concede that you have no freedom left in this case – and yet, "the usual decision making processes," as you describe them, have been left intact, by supposition. What that suggests to me is that free will cannot be cashed out in purely procedural terms. Absence of determination is a necessary condition for freedom.

Let's return to the other cases you propose. What about the employer who creates an addictive workplace? That's quite a different case from the criminal mastermind. The employees presumably go home at some time. At least while they are at home, they are free to reflect on the misery of their hectic lifestyles, come to their senses and seek help. I should add, however, that if I were the spouse of an employee who died from overwork in such an environment, I would sue the company for every last penny they had, and then some.

Lastly, incentives and addictions are two very different things. The whole purpose of creating an addiction is to either destroy reason or make it the slave of the passions. An incentive works precisely by appealing to the subject's reason. Of course, it may appeal to the subject's appetites too. However, a human incentive is above all designed to secure the intellect's approval for the course of action which it is intended to elicit.

I hope my analysis of the above cases has convinced you that incompatibilism (which I espouse) remains a strong, philosophically defensible position.

Myself

 

There was a phrase in your description of the Martian case which escaped my notice the first time which I think is rather important.

the Martian has been controlling all of your desires, and all of your rational deliberations</b<,

This rather implies that the Martian is micromanaging my deliberations – intervening in the decision making process. My model of free will does not include that. My mental processes are caused by my desires. If determinism is true, then in theory given my desires (and a zillion other things such as my memories and the current environment) it would be possible to predict how those processes will operate and the decision they will come up with (with the standard reservation about a possible random element). But the processes operate standalone as it were in my brain. It is my brain that is balancing alternatives, weighing outcomes, imagining how I would feel if … To me this is free will. As you point out it no difference if a Martian specified all my desires and environment or whether they just happened – the mental process is the same.

Here we meet an impasse. You feel that something important is missing from this rather bizarre scenario. A mysterious element called "free will". I feel this bizarre scenario captures what we call free will. I am making decisions based on what I want. I am responsible for those decisions and culpable or laudable accordingly.

As I say I only want to explain what compatabilism is. I know I will not convince anyone – at least not immediately – but sometimes it gradually takes root as an idea.

A reflection which you may find obvious. Materialism more or less entails compatabilism or the denial of free will. However, compatabilism does not entail materialism. It may be that this process, caused by my desires, is in some sense immaterial.

Vjtorley

 

Thank you for your post. If I understand you rightly, your model of free choice is as follows:

(i) external forces (past and present) mold my desires. It does not matter if these external forces are personal (like my hypothetical Martian) or impersonal (e.g. blind natural processes, such as chance and necessity);

(ii) My desires determine my rational decision-making processes, but these decision-making processes have to take place inside me. They cannot be micro-managed from outside; if they are, then my decision is not properly mine and hence not free;

(iii) The decision-making processes in turn determine my actions, which are (for the most part) bodily movements.

I have a few comments I'd like to make.

1. In #98 you wrote that on your view, "blame is morally appropriate for healthy adult human beings because they have free will and responsibility," whereas two-year-old children, chimpanzees and rats have free will, but are not responsible for their actions. I have to ask: why not?

In #100, I suggested that infants, although rational, lack "a fully fledged theory of mind, in which they understand that there are other people, who have their own beliefs and desires." In my opinion, this is a sensible reason for denying moral responsibility to infants – and to any non-human animals who are incapable of having a "theory of mind." (Having duties and responsibilities to others presupposes an ability to empathize with them, and see things from their perspective. Infants can't do this; neither can rats, and I doubt whether chimps can, either.) Would you concur with this view?

2. In #106, you wrote: "My mental processes are caused by my desires." This sounds odd. For the life of me I cannot see how a desire can determine a rational deliberation. After all, the object of one's rational deliberation (e.g. food for dinner) can hardly be said to generate syllogisms in one's head, so why should a desire for that object be able to do so? A desire is merely an appetite which moves someone towards an object.

Well, what about a combination of desire and stored information? Could that generate a rational deliberation? Certainly not, if you envisage reasoning as a formal process. My desires might push me to manipulate the information in my brain to obtain some end, but that would be by virtue of their chemical properties rather than their formal properties, such as logical validity and soundness.

3. You also noted in #106 that you would not be perturbed, as a compatibilist, even if the (decision-making) process were (in some way) an immaterial one.

Since you don't particularly care whether the forces determining your desires are personal or impersonal, and you don't care whether your decision-making processes are material or immaterial, then I can only assume you have no objection to theological compatibilism. On your own account of freedom, there is no objection which you could level at Calvin's absolute double predestination: the notion (held by a small minority of Christians) that God decreed from all eternity that a few people will be saved, and that the remainder (who are said to constitute the vast majority of humankind) will be damned. Calvin held that God was perfectly just in punishing the damned, since they had freely chosen to perform the actions which brought about their damnation: after all, they did exactly what they wanted to do, and their rational deliberations were their own – they were not micro-managed by God, so your condition (ii) would be satisfied by Calvin's God. (A Calvinistic God would be perfectly capable of determining people's deliberations through either remote or proximate causes, so we can assume that no micro-management occurs.)

You might object to the eternity of the punishment of the damned, but a Calvinistic God might reply: "Well, if they continue to hate me and my laws, then why shouldn't I continue to punish them for it? It's a self-perpetuating cycle, and they freely perpetuate it."

You might also ask why God does not annihilate the damned; but why, on your account, is He obliged to?

The doctrine of hell is without a doubt the number one objection to Christianity, put forward by skeptics. Since most skeptics are also compatibilists, then I would argue that they are being inconsistent when they object to Christianity in this manner. Would you agree?

For my part, I hasten to add, I am not a Calvinist: if I were one, I'm sure I'd go crazy, as it would destroy my capacity to "live in the present moment," and in any case, it seems unacceptably counter-intuitive to say that I am free even if my actions are controlled. Calvinism, like reductionist materialism, is one of those ideas that you cannot accept without destroying your sanity. For me, that's a good reason to give it a wide berth.

Myself

 

Vjtorley

On morality of rats and young children

I think there are several reasons why they are not morally responsible.

1) The rats don't have and the children have not yet developed any moral desires. They don't want to help others and do not have any empathy for that desire.

2) I think you are right that to be moral you have to some extent understand what it is like to be someone else.

3) They are incapable of predicting the consequences of what they do beyond the very short term.

4) Much of morality is cultural (although it relies on a base derived from human nature) and rats and young children have not learned the culture specific rules.

There are probably other things as well.

On desires causing mental processes

You are right that it is desires plus stored information that cause me to undertake rational deliberation. In fact a lot of other things are necessary. It is one of the problems of discussing causality that we tend to talk about "the cause" of an event. But in fact there are always an infinity of different conditions that are necessary for an event to take place and which one you select as the cause depends on the context. For example, for me to work on a maths problem I must want to solve it, but also have a wide range of skills, a body, a way of writing down the answer, etc. Which of these is the cause? Any of them depending on the context. And even if we list them all they may be necessary but not sufficient – because there may be a random element – perhaps some quantum factor – who knows.

I don't see it as a problem that the desires and stored knowledge work through chemistry and physics. I am a materialist so I believe the rational deliberation is also a chemical/physical process. Describing it in terms of the rational deliberation is another way of describing the same thing – as check mate is a way of describing a particular type of configuration of wooden items on a board.

But the discussion has moved away from free will to materialism/immaterialism.

On Calvinism

I didn't say that I would not be perturbed if the decision making process was immaterial. I just said compatabilism does not entail materialism. I am a died-in-the-wool materialist.

I have several objections to Calvinism, but as you point out, I do not think it removes free will.

1) My primary objection is I am a materialist and an atheist!

2) Second – remember my definition of determinism. It includes the possibility of random, uncaused events. I believe there are such events and so no God can totally control or predict what will happen.

3) However, if there were a person who acted like the Calvinist God then I would see them as a bit like the manager who creates a sales environment which encourages sales people to behave unethically. He is responsible for what happens and so are his staff. So such a God would be responsible for all the wicked things he got people to do. And so would the people doing the wicked things. We blamed the high up Nazis for giving the orders (because they they knew they would be obeyed) and the concentration camp staff for carrying them out.

 

Some thoughts on information as improbability

Following on from my previous post. If you define information as improbability, as Dembski does, there are some consequences that are easily forgotten. If the measure of information is a probability, then information acquires the properties of probability. In particular:

The probability of an outcome depends on how you specify it. I throw a dice and it lands in front of me with the six upmost. The probability of it being a six is one in six. The probability of it being greater than three is one half. The probability of it landing on that part of the table at that angle is much less. In fact you can make the probability of an outcome be as high or low as you like depending on the specification. So the information in an outcome depends on how you specify the outcome. Compare this, for example, to the entropy or energy in a system or object. There is just one answer to the question - what is the entropy or energy.

The probability of an outcome also depends on what prior knowledge you have about the outcome. If I know the dice has landed with six uppermost then the probability of it landing six uppermost is 1. Every real dice will have a slight bias, and if I know what that bias is, then this will affect the probability. This becomes clearer when talking about more natural outcomes. What is the probability of an earthquake at some given location on earth in the next year? If we know nothing about the location then it is very low. If we know it is somewhere with a history of regular earthquakes it is much higher. If seismological readings tell us an earthquake is imminent it becomes very close to 1. So the information in an outcome is relative to our prior knowledge about that outcome.

By talking of information rather than probability the ID community sometimes give the impression that information is some kind of property of an outcome that exists independently of the observer. In fact the value depends very much on the observer as well as the outcome.

Producing information through physics alone

I have accepted the challenge from a comment on Uncommon Descent to give an account of how physics can produce information. This is going to be too long to post as a response on the same forum so I am writing it up here. I take this to mean producing information without involving living things. I believe that living things come down to physics, but to satisfy the commentator I am sure I need to demonstrate how information could arise without life. I would also add that we are presumably talking about a form of information that is found in all living things.

 

It is going to be a longish post because there are so many definitions of information. In fact it is going to involve some rather tedious defining of terms. I have chosen four definitions of information. Two have been defined mathematically. The other two are closer to common English usage but are less precisely defined. Three of them can be created in both living and non-living things. The fourth needs is of a type of information that can only be produced by living things – but is not itself found in living things (with very rare exceptions). The first two, the mathematical definitions, will be excruciatingly familiar to anyone who is following the ID debate.

 

 

Mathematical definitions

 

Definition 1: Kolmogorov complexity

 

I am aware that this is a very crude approximation to the large subject of algorithmic information theory but it does give a handle on one mathematical approach to information. In this approach the amount of information in a signal is measured by its Kolmogorov complexity. So a string of 20 zeroes has very little information because it can be compressed to the simple algorithm "repeat 0 20 times" – while a string of 20 random digits has high information because the only way to generate that string is to repeat it. Clearly physics generates outcomes with a lot of information in this sense all the time e.g. almost any metereological outcome – wind pressure, temperature – is sufficiently random to be full of information.

 

Definition 2: Dembski's information

 

William Dembski has defined information in terms of the improbability of an outcome meeting a specification. So a bridge hand of 13 spades is full of information because it is very improbable that a bridge hand will meet the specification – all the same suit. There is much dispute over how to come up with a specification and how to calculate the probabilities in realistic situations. Nevertheless, there are plenty of cases where physics has come up with outcomes that seem to conform to an interesting pattern and where it is extremely unlikely that would happen. One famous example is the fact that the orbits of the planets of the solar system (excluding the non-planet Pluto) are all aligned in the nearly the same plane. Common alignment seems like a rather special outcome worthy of being called specified and given that all orbital planes are equally likely (principle of indifference) the chances of them all being this aligned or closer is less than 1 in 4*10^9 – large compared to some of IDs favourite very small probabilities - but surely small enough to be called information.

 

Common English usage

 

I discussed this once before in another post but it was a long time ago – so I will start again. In ordinary English when we talk about the information that something gives us we are usually talking about what we are able to learn from it (assuming we didn't know it already). So if a newspaper or book is full of information it has lots of facts which we can glean from studying it. In this context it is important to distinguish two ways in which on object or event can convey information. They correspond to Grice's distinction between natural and unnatural meaning. To use Grice's famous example:

(1) I show Mr. X a photograph of Mr. Y displaying undue familiarity to Mrs. X. This gives some information to Mr. X – but it would do so if he found the photograph accidentally or if he saw an image that had been created completely naturally. I will call this natural information.

(2) I draw a picture of Mr. Y behaving in this manner and show it to Mr. X. This only works if I Mr. X recognises my intention in drawing the picture. Otherwise it equally easily be me doodling. I will call this is unnatural information. Virtually all information conveyed by written or spoken language is in this category. Words rely on conventions and those conventions rely on the recipient understanding the intention with which they are written or spoken. An English word spoken by a two year old who is simply copying the sound conveys no information related to the meaning of the word (it might of course convey natural information about the development of the child).

Definition 3: Natural information

 

Clearly physics produces outcomes full of natural information all the time. A dark cloud contains the natural information that rain is likely.

 

Definition 4: Unnatural information

 

Unnatural information clearly does require a living thing to produce it. It needs a communicator to have an intention and a recipient to understand that intention. Both of them have to be living things capable of having intentions. But, with the possible exception of a few efforts from Craig Venter, this type of information is not in life. DNA and proteins are not arranged to tell anyone anything. They worked just fine for four billion years without any person or living thing being aware of them.

 

These are only four of many possible definitions of information. Maybe someone can come up with a crisp definition of information that:

 

1) Is found in all living things

2) Cannot be found elsewhere

3) Corresponds to some currently accepted usage of the word information

Closing Clifton Suspension Bridge

Over the weekend Clifton Suspension bridge in Bristol was closed due to a "crack" in one of the suspension rods. My small claim to fame is to be with the "member of the public" who noticed the fault. We were staying with friends in Bristol and the four of us went for a walk over the bridge. Our hostess noticed rather more than a crack in one of the suspension rods - it was completely sheared through.

When she pointed out the break I assumed that the authorities would know about it and had decided it was safe. However, her busband, being more conscientious, reported it to the toll booth and to my surprise they took it very seriously and an hour or two later the bridge was closed. I think there is a lesson there somewhere.

Data mining for terrorists

At the weekend Ben Goldacre wrote an article about the use (or uselessness) of data mining for national security. It is on his blog here. He attacks the idea of data mining for terrorists by considering the number of false positives that would be produced given certain assumptions about the sensitivity and specificity of the test. I am a great fan of Ben's but he is overly fond of using medical statistics models in situations where they don't easily fit.

 

Data mining can mean many things and can be used to address many different problems. Ben's article addresses just one scenario: studying patterns to identify potential terrorists in the UK. You might call this the credit card scenario. It is a technique that works well for detecting credit card fraud and for all sorts of good reasons is unlikely to work for detecting terrorists. Ben links to an article by Bruce Schneier that explains why. It is true that this is very likely to produce an overwhelming number of false positives but I can't believe that the people working on these things haven't realized that. They don't really have to do anything very sophisticated. They just have to ask themselves – how many people in the UK are going to match this pattern anyway?

 

Ben also links to an online book by the National Academies Press which identifies two types of data mining (there are others) - subject-based data mining and pattern recognition. Subject-based data mining is little more than the speeding up of normal methods of investigation. There is an incident or individual or group or potential target and the security forces need to investigate a wide variety of links. There is little serious doubt about the value of this method. It is just an extension of what the police national computer is already used for. It seems very plausible that the security forces would be able to do this even more effectively for a wider variety of situations if they had more information about the UK population on-line. Considerations of specificity and sensitivity don't come into it.

 

Pattern-based data mining is closer to the credit card scenario. If used crudely in isolation from other sources of information to discover potential terrorists in the whole UK population then Ben's calculation becomes relevant and it seems wildly implausible. But several things make it a plausibly useful tool. Perhaps the two most important are:

 

The problem to be addressed might be different.

 

Security forces may be trying to decide whether to raise the national security alert level because there are signs of terrorist activity (although we don't know who they are).

 

Other information may change the situation hugely

 

To see how other information can change things go back to the credit card fraud scenario. We know this works but it does create a large number of false positives – I suspect most credit card owners have had a call at some or another because their pattern of spending has been unusual. But imagine if the police believed that there is someone who has recently been working with stolen credit cards in Leeds who is reselling high value electrical goods. Now the potential of pattern matching would be increased enormously. Something similar would apply to the security forces scenario.

 

In the end this is a matter of whether it is worth the financial and privacy costs and that is a very difficult question when the benefits necessarily have to be described rather vaguely. But I don't see that the screening for cancer model adds much to understanding the benefits.

Natural and unnatural information (meaning, symbols and code)

This post is in response to a discussion on UD about whether DNA is a code and contains information. It is mostly well-worn territory but maybe there is something slightly different and what I have to say is too long for a comment so I put it here.

In this comment Jerry wrote:

This discussion has appeared several time in the last few weeks and the anti ID people think they have scored points by asking for a definition of information when the simplest definition from a dictionary will suffice.

This makes a point which runs through much of the discussion. Words such as “information”, “symbol”, “code” and “meaning” are bandied about as though their use was obvious and unambiguous. In fact the ordinary English usage of these words varies greatly according to the context. And it is no help defining one of these in terms of one of the others (for example, information is data that means something, a symbol is a sign with meaning, a code is a set of symbols) – that just shifts the ambiguity. I don’t say that DNA is not a code – I just want to pin down what “code” means in this context.

In particular a vital distinction is between natural and non-natural “meaning” (and therefore “information”, “symbol” and “code”). For a full explanation read P.H. Grice’s seminal paper on meaning. Briefly he points out that sometimes an event or object (A) means some other event or object (B) because their is a causal relationship "clouds mean rain". This is natural meaning. On other occasions an an event or object (C) means some other event or object (D) because we recognise the intention of the person who created C. Often, but not always, C takes advantage of a prior convention. Grice uses this example:

Compare the following two cases:
(1) I show Mr. X a photograph of Mr. Y displaying undue familiarity to Mrs. X.
(2) I draw a picture of Mr. Y behaving in this manner and show it to Mr. X.

Case 1 contains information because there is a well-defined causal chain from the impropriety to the sign. Case 2 only gives information if the recipient makes some assumptions about why I drew the picture.

I can illustrate this with Jerry's attempt to tell us the meaning of “information”. He says the simplest definition from the dictionary will suffice. OK let’s try to pin down this simplest definition.

The link he kindly provides offers five different quick definitions.
1 (communication theory) a numerical measure of the uncertainty of an outcome
2 knowledge acquired through study or experience or instruction
3 a message received and understood
4 formal accusation of a crime
5 a collection of facts from which conclusions may be drawn

He also offers:
6 data that mean something
7 such things as news; intelligence; words; facts; data; learning; lore

There certainly seems to be a lot of definitions to choose from. But some can be eliminated either because they are not simple or because they cannot apply to DNA:

1 is close to how many ID people define information but it is certainly not simple. So I guess that is out.
2 requires study or experience. I am assuming you believe that DNA would contain its information even if no one studied it or even knew of it. So this is out.
3 requires someone to understand the message – so again I don’t think you can mean this for similar reasons to 2.
4 is specific to crime.
5 appears to be included in 7 – which also includes “data” in its list. It adds the requirement that it should be possible to draw a conclusion – but you can do that from all the items in 7.
6 defines “information” in terms of one of the other ambiguous terms: “meaning”. So it requires a description of the use of the word “means” in this context before it is useful

So the most useful definition appears to be the ostensive definition:
7 such things as news; intelligence; words; facts; data; learning; lore

A few striking things about this list.

1) They are man-made
2) The physical medium is not what defines them. News is the same news whether it be in print, on the radio or over the internet.
3) They are all instances of what Grice calls non-natural meaning. They allow us to know more about the world but only because we recognise the intention behind them. The news on TV is only news if you understand that the programme is intended to convey what is happening in the world – otherwise it could equally be a work of fiction or even just a set of abstract images.

So is Jerry saying that DNA has non-natural meaning? That it relies on us recognising the intention behind whoever or whatever created it? Somehow I doubt it. And I am still struggling for that definition of information.

Let's calculate some CSI

In a comment on the post the Case for Materialism Oleg laid down this challenge to Kairosfocus:

Let me illustrate that with an example. Here is a sequence of 60 bits:
1100100100 0011111101 1010101000 1000100001 0110100011 0000100011. Can you tell me whether this information is complex and specified?

I think this is great and would like to one step further and invite anyone to submit a sample so that an ID expert can calculate the CSI. What better way to clarify exactly what CSI means and establish to what extent it is objective?

I will add another example to the one posed by Oleg. I recognise that its really difficult to calculate CSI for biological entities so let's take something extremely straightforward and much used in the literature. What is the CSI of a hand of 13 cards which is all the spades in single deal of Contract Bridge? I am assuming that we are using the definition of CSI in this paper which WAD recently confirmed was the definitive account.

The full formula is on page 21: –log2[M·N· ϕS(T)·P(TH)].

However I would be content to see the calculation of just the specification component on page: 18.

σ = –log2[ ϕS(T)·P(TH)].

Or even just ϕS(T) which is defined on page 17 as:

the number of patterns for which S’s semiotic description of them is at least as simple as S’s semiotic description of T.

Thanks in advance to anyone willing to give it a go.