On the Origin of Pieces by Means of Natural Correction
(Or why my Substack posts always have typos.)
By Roddy Bullock, founder of Creation Reformation
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Any frequent reader of my posts on Substack is sure to wonder why my posts often contain at least one typo. Doesn’t he proofread? one might question.
I’ll let you in on a secret: I don’t proofread. In fact, I don’t even write my posts! Every piece I post has its origins in a scientific process operating without plan or purpose. Starting from a mysterious primitive first essay, this seemingly miraculous process scientifically produces a constant flow of newer, more complex essays over time. All I need to do is patiently wait at my desk for the inevitable change over time.
Surprised?
Let me explain. Every piece I post on Substack arose without aim or objective from random copying errors introduced over time from a first, simple paragraph. Long ago, this first primitive paragraph of information spontaneously appeared on my computer complete, like a little amoeba of literary life. This little digital miracle and its beautifully rich message arrived on my computer without any known authorship or any plausible explanation. But upon closer study I found in it many of the necessary letters, words, and punctuation needed for my future desired pieces. Maybe I could change its simple message into something more useful!
At first I took that relatively simple yet coherent message and tried rearranging it into my own message. But I found the process laborious, unsatisfying, and ultimately futile. The amount of available letters and words limited the extent of information I could convey. Despite all my efforts, all I could do was make a mess of that first beautiful missive. I simply could not stretch the limited information content of this lively little medley of matter into new information describing novel ideas, fresh features, or any other advanced, coherent, meaningful message.
One day while pondering my miraculous microbe of meaningful material, something very interesting happened. In an effort at safeguarding my treasured tome, I replicated it onto an external hard drive. Upon opening the file from the hard drive, I noticed something unusual: a few of the letters were erroneously transposed, one or two were deleted by chance, and several more were randomly inserted. I repeated the copying over and over, only to find that the copying errors multiplied without plan or purpose with each generation. So much gibberish!
That’s when an idea fluttered down as if on the wings of an English Peppered Moth. I found that if I simply ran the first primitive message through my makeshift replicator millions, even billions, of times sometimes bits of a new, more complex message would appear! Usually, with each replication new random errors entered the message until the numbers of nonsensical gibberish messages multiplied into the billions. But every so often hints of a new snippet of information, a useful bit of literature, or a novel notation appeared.
That’s when a second idea struck me like the large beak of a Galopogos Finch. I arranged for each replicated message to go through a filter program. Any message exhibiting any new letters or words that might be useful to a future proper message was preserved to replicate again. All other replicates were filtered out—deleted—from further replication. Although only preserving some of the products of multiple replications of random copying errors, the filter program helpfully reduced to extinction much of the digital gibberish generated by the random mutations of literary junk. I sometimes refer to the filtering process as the survival of the digits.
I began to call the entire process of preserving certain random errors and discarding others The Theory of Convolution by Natural Correction. With greater computing power, I increased the rate of random copying errors to compress millions of years of convolution into mere days or weeks. With the filter of Natural Correction, in accord with my theoretical process, the amount of gibberish for me to sift through to discover publishable pieces became minimal. If I ever write a book about this process, I will entitle it On the Origin of Pieces by Mean of Natural Correction.
Of course Natural Correction does no actual correcting; everyone knows that such a function would require an intelligent mind. The correction ability of Natural Correction amounts only to the removal of some erroneous copies from other erroneous copies. As such, you might conclude that the removing function of Natural Correction plays no role in the creation and existence of all my existing essays. And you would be correct.
The digital filter of Natural Correction does nothing to explain the existence of all current surviving essays; it explains only why there are not many more. Without Natural Correction in my essay-writing process, all—every single one of—my essays would nevertheles be “born” and continue to exist. Each published essay existed before the filter of Natural Correction, and each existed, unchanged, after the filter of Natural Correction. Without Natural Correction, the survivors would simply exist among a much larger population of essays for me to glance over looking for one with new and useful information. Ughh!
A cynic might say that all my Substack posts exist, not because of Natural Correction, but despite Natural Correction eliminating other already-existing posts. The naysayers might add that only the apparent magic of random mutations can produce any new essay material as the object of any filter. Well, it’s true that the only function of Natural Correction in my process of essay evolution is to remove certain already-existing copies. It’s true that it does nothing to change, adapt, modify, or otherwise explain all the survivors. In fact, the only reason I utilize the filter of Natural Correction is for convenience: to reduce time sifting through the pages of unfit versions.
Tell me if you think I can sell The Theory of Convolution by Natural Correction as science by publishing my findings in a sciency-sounding book. First I will detail the origin of new essays as the product of the surefire process for creating increased meaningful complexity in literature: random mutations through copying errors. I will refer to this part of the process as “descent with modification.” Every existing post and essay you read here was produced simply and only by descent with modification.
But will anyone believe that all my new and useful essay information arises solely via repeated copying errors from that first primitive, serendipitous essay that landed on my computer long ago? Probably not; no reasonable person could buy that. That’s why, despite its complete lack of explanatory value, I think I should keep the notion of Natural Correction central to my thesis. Natural Correction, although a misnomer, adds just that touch of scientific-sounding semantic secret sauce to perhaps sell my idea to those desiring to believe that they, too, can get something from nothing.
I won’t call it magic. I won’t call it miraculous. I’ll call it science. I’ll insist that, scientifically speaking, the design of each essay and post is merely apparent design. Scientifically speaking, I will state with all seriousness, the unbelievable increase in information with each new essay is simply the inevitable, meaningless result of enough random jumbling and re-jumbling over generations of error-producing mutations of a previous jumble. And finally, I’ll maintain with a flourish of of words suitable for the greatest parlor trick of all time, that the Natural Correction filter truly corrects mistakes, adapts nonsense, and modifies text to bring trickles of new essays out of the flood of gushing gibberish.
I’m just kidding. Surely such a ludicrous idea would be rejected out of hand by all.
Or would it?
For a more serious (but no more accurate) explanation of the failure of natural selection, enjoy more explanations for The Natural Selection Paradox. The best written explanation is entitled Natural Selection: Evolution’s Deceptive Disconnect. And in a video, Roddy Bullock explains The Natural Selection Paradox in a deductive argument form. Enjoy!
(C) 2024 Creation Reformation. Roddy Bullock is the founder of Creation Reformation and author of several books related to creation and evolution. For more information, visit www.creationreformation.com, or visit (and follow!) us at Facebook.
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