Algorithmic compression of empirical data: reply to Twardy, Gardner, and Dowe

This discussion note responds to objections by Twardy, Gardner, and Dowe to my earlier claim that empirical data sets are algorithmically incompressible. Twardy, Gardner, and Dowe hold that many empirical data sets are compressible by Minimum Message Length technique and offer this as evidence that these data sets are algorithmically compressible. I reply that the compression achieved by Minimum Message Length technique is different from algorithmic compression. I conclude that Twardy, Gardner, and Dowe fail to establish that empirical data sets are algorithmically compressible.     

Distribution of the milliped genus Narceus Rafinesque, 1820 (Spirobolida: Spirobolidae): occurrences in New England and west of the Mississippi River; a summary of peripheral localities; and first records from Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, and Minnesota

The milliped genus Narceus Rafinesque, 1820 (Spirobolida: Spirobolidae) occupies parts or all of 2 Canadian provinces, Québec and Ontario; every U.S. state east of the Mississippi River; and 9 states to the west including Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Records are detailed for the "western" states and New England and include the first from Minnesota, Connecticut, Delaware, and Maine; occurrence is projected for southeastern Minnesota and the Delmarva Peninsula. The genus presently comprises 2 valid species that are endemic to Florida— N. gordanus (Chamberlin, 1943) and N. woodruffi Causey, 1959—and 2 of uncertain status that occur throughout the generic range and are referenced as the " N. americanus/annularis complex"; geographic evidence suggests greater diversity, particularly in the south, and a 2nd generic revision is in order to update the existing one by Keeton (1960). Records cluster within a large, semicontinuous area whose northern, southern, and western range extremes, respectively, are Saint-Nicolas, Lévis Census Division, Québec; Key West, Monroe County, Florida, and northeastern Duval County and Rockport, Aransas County, Texas; and Garner State Park, Uvalde County, Texas. The eastern limit is the Atlantic Ocean, and records are available from Cape Cod and Tuckernuck Island, Massachusetts; Long Island, New York; Cape Hatteras, North Carolina; and James Island, South Carolina. The projected western boundary, based on peripheral localities, angles southwestward from Omaha, Nebraska, to Uvalde County; and the northern boundary passes through central Iowa and Wisconsin (encompassing the Door Peninsula) and the southern periphery of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The lone Minnesota locality, from Lyon County in the southwest, lies substantially north of the projected border in Iowa and well west of the expected area of occurrence in southeastern Minnesota. The northernmost record west of the Mississippi River, it may represent an allopatric population that extends westward into eastern South Dakota.     

Distribution of the milliped genus Apheloria Chamberlin, 1921; summaries of peripheral localities and ones of A. virginiensis (Drury, 1770) west of the Mississippi River (Polydesmida: Xystodesmidae)

The milliped genus Apheloria occupies a broad area in Québec and Ontario, Canada, and the United States east of the Central Plains, lying generally north of the Gulf Coastal states. It is reported for the 1st time from New Jersey, District of Columbia, Illinois, and Kansas; and the 1st localities are recorded for Massachusetts, Connecticut, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Wisconsin. The projected distribution encompasses all or parts of the District of Columbia and 27 states, including Vermont and Delaware, where the genus has not been taken; New Hampshire and Mississippi lie outside the range. Chesapeake Bay and the Connecticut River form apparent eastern boundaries in Maryland–Virginia and New England, respectively; the Tennessee River does likewise on the south in northern Alabama. Aside from Arkansas, comparatively few records exist from the 6 projected states of occurrence west of the Mississippi River. Only 1 each is available from Iowa and Kansas, and there are no definite localities in Nebraska, where occurrence is postulated at Omaha, the type locality of Fontaria luminosa Kenyon, 1893. Confirmation with fresh material is necessary, but this name seems referrable to Apheloria and may be senior to either A. virginiensis iowa or A. v. reducta , both by Chamberlin, 1939, if 2 distinct races occur west of the Mississippi River.     

Algorithmic randomness in empirical data

According to a traditional view, scientific laws and theories constitute algorithmic compressions of empirical data sets collected from observations and measurements. This article defends the thesis that, to the contrary, empirical data sets are algorithmically incompressible. The reason is that individual data points are determined partly by perturbations, or causal factors that cannot be reduced to any pattern. If empirical data sets are incompressible, then they exhibit maximal algorithmic complexity, maximal entropy and zero redundancy. They are therefore maximally efficient carriers of information about the world. Since, on algorithmic information theory, a string is algorithmically random just if it is incompressible, the thesis entails that empirical data sets consist of algorithmically random strings of digits. Rather than constituting compressions of empirical data, scientific laws and theories pick out patterns that data sets exhibit with a certain noise.     

The evidential significance of thought experiment in science

The most promising way to regard thought experiment is as a species of experiment, alongside concrete experiment. Of the authors who take this view, many portray thought experiment as possessing evidential significance intrinsically. In contrast, concrete experiment is nowadays most convincingly portrayed as acquiring evidential significance in a particular area of science at a particular time in consequence of the persuasive efforts of scientists. I argue that the claim that thought experiment possesses evidential significance intrinsically is contradicted by the history of science. Thought experiment, like concrete experiment, has evidential significance only where particular assumptions—such as the Galilean doctrine of phenomena—are taken to hold; under alternative premises, in themselves equally defensible, thought experiment is evidentially inert.     

Absence of Contingency in the Newtonian Universe

I argue that, contrary to thestandard view, the Newtonian universe containsno contingency. I do this by arguing (i) thatno contingency is introduced into the Newtonianuniverse by the initial conditions of physicalsystems in the universe, and (ii) that theclaim that the Newtonian universe as a wholehas contingent properties leads to incoherence.This result suggests that Newtonian physics iseither inconsistent or incomplete, since thelaws of Newtonian physics are too weak todetermine all the properties of the Newtonianuniverse uniquely.     

Discovery of the milliped Scytonotus granulatus (Say, 1821) in Oklahoma and Alabama, with a review of its distribution (Polydesmida: Polydesmidae)

Scytonotus granulatus (Say, 1821) (Polydesmida: Polydesmidae), the most widely ranging polydesmid species in North America and the 4th most widely distributed indigenous continental milliped, is recorded from LeFlore and Latimer Counties, Oklahoma, and Jackson County, Alabama, the 1st records from these states. It also occurs in Logan and Independence Counties, Arkansas. The Latimer County record corresponds approximately to the terminus of the eastern forested biome and extends the distributions of the species and the genus some 255 miles (408 km) westward; along with literature records from Shawnee County, Kansas, and Cass County, Nebraska, it constitutes the western range limits. The projected overall distribution extends around 1100 miles (1760 km) east-west and 985 miles (1576 km) north-south and encompasses parts of Ontario, Québec, and 19 states, including all of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. New localities are detailed as are those from Missouri and that from Dare County, on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.     

Distribution of the milliped Virgoiulus minutus (Brandt, 1841): first records from Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas (Julida: Blaniulidae)

Virgoiulus minutus (Brandt 1841) (Julida: Blaniulidae), the only indigenous representative of the family in the New World, occurs, or can be expected, in parts or all of 24 states east of the Central Plains plus the District of Columbia; it is documented for the 1st time from Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Texas. The northern-, southern-, and westernmost localities are in Berrien County, Michigan; Putnam County, Florida; and Angelina/Rusk Counties, Texas, respectively. New England, Utah, Wyoming, Canada, and Mexico are deleted from the range, and specific localities are reported to augment previous generalized citations; those from Mexico represent misidentifications of Nopoiulus kochii (Gervais, 1847), an introduced European species that is recorded from Mexico City, Distrito Federal. Records of V. minutus from Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, West Virginia, Ohio, Illinois, Michigan, and Missouri are the 1st definite localities from these states; a sample from ""Anechar,"" believed to be a misspelling of ""Arrochar,"" a neighborhood in Staten Island, is considered the 1st definite record from New York. The published statement of occurrence in Delaware in general is the only known record of an indigenous diplopod from this state.     

Composition and distribution of the milliped tribe Pachydesmini west of the Mississippi River (Polydesmida: Xystodesmidae)

The xystodesmid milliped tribe Pachydesmini is supported by the autapomorphic absence of bold aposematic pigmentations and possibly also by relative somatic inflexibility; it comprises 3 component genera: Pachydesmus Cook, 1895; Dicellarius Chamberlin, 1920; and Thrinaxoria Chamberlin and Hoffman, 1950. Three representatives occur west of the Mississippi River— P. clarus (Chamberlin), P. crassicutis crassicutis (Wood), and T. lampra (Chamberlin). New localities are documented in Louisiana and Texas, and literature records are summarized for these states and Arkansas; records of P. clarus from Cherokee County, Texas, are the westernmost in this state for the east-Nearctic xystodesmid fauna. An apparently allopatric population of P. crassicutis crassicutis occurs in Evangeline and Lafayette Parishes, Louisiana. These are the first records of this species from west of the Mississippi River, and new localities of this form are cited from east of the watercourse. Thrinaxoria lampra , known previously in Texas from only Gregg County, is documented from Bowie, Cass, Harrison, Rusk, Sabine, and Titus Counties plus Webster Parish, Louisiana. Diagnoses and pertinent anatomical illustrations are provided for each species including the first cyphopod drawings for P. clarus and T. lampra ; occurrences west of the river are depicted on a map. A new tribal diagnosis is published along with a distribution map.