Re: [asa] ID/Miracles/Design (more info)

Dehler, Bernie wrote:
> I think your explanation is a case of mixed metaphors. Books and binary coded information are two different analogies- neither are related to each other.
>

Hi Bernie,

Well, of course there's no NECESSARY connection between books and binary coded information, but the point is that such a connection can easily be artificially created.

All that's required to encode binary data is a system capable of representing two distinct states: a stack of books (upright/ inverted) WILL do the job. But so too a row of ducks (facing left/facing right), chess pawns (black/white), cars (hard-top/convertible) and so on.

More conventionally, of course, we use things such as pulse widths (long/short) or voltage levels (high/low) but there's no reason why something less practical and more bizarre (like books, ducks, chess-pawns, cars, whatever) can't be used.

Indeed, if you wanted to encode a SECRET message ("Ze Bosch general pig-swine is arrive pour le train at midnight"), the more unusual the medium the better - it ensures that the unaware can't identify, hence read, the encoded message. Should the police ever have reason to investigate a person, the FIRST place they will look for binary encoded data is on a computer hard-drive - a row of subtly arranged books on a bookshelf is unlikely to garner their attention.

The important point here is the trivial fact that there are no physical systems which are "related" to binary encoded data except by convention. The only reason people think that there's a connection between voltage states and binary data in digital electronics, for instance, is because they are so used to what is in reality a quite ARBITRARY convention. There's no intrinsic relation to a voltage level of 5 volts and binary "1". Indeed, we might have selected ANY voltage level. Or we might have decided that 5 volts means "off" (as it does in negative logic) or it might have no binary significance whatsoever - as in the case of an analog circuit.

So, I respond to your claim that there is no relation between books and binary coded data with the simple rider "unless somebody cares to establish one."

If, then, I tell you that I've laid out a binary coded message using copies of a book where an upright book = 1, and an upside down book = 0, then it's pretty clear that a relationship between books and binary coded data HAS been created, and that the series;

upright book, upright book, upside down book, upright book

encodes for binary 1101.

Blessings,
Murray

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Received on Thu Apr 30 19:35:16 2009