Intelligent Evolution?

[articulett]

How can the consequence of something also be the cause of it, unless it's a circular process, like an internal combustion engine? Is that what you mean?

I think he may be the furthest from understanding and the most overconfident in his abilities to do so. I have to give up. His questions are loaded and not designed to clarify anything to himself-- they are designed to infer something that allows him to make a point in the game he's playing in his head. Not even the other "self appointed experts" seem to converse with him though they seem to share his confusion about the analogy.

They are all playing their own game in their own head. It just gets weird trying to even figure out what the point is. And then you realize they have no point. Their requests for information are just means of keeping their game alive-- the one they are always winning but no one else is even aware of. If they're not chatbots, they may as well be for all the communication they are capable of.

 

[President Bush]

How can the consequence of something also be the cause of it...

Think design and engineering.

Once the butterfly is selected because it has a mutation that confers a survival advantage, then the mutation has a chance to get itself copied by being part of a gamete that becomes a zygote that codes for a butterfly that successfully reproduces. It doesn't copy itself--it gets itself copied! Recombinations through sex and random mutations make for a great variety of product that the environment can then select from.

In your example... is the consequence of the mutation its cause?

No. Wings did not evolve for flight... lineages of organisms are not designed for some future purpose.

When the environment achieves a product that can fly through recombination and mutation of information (not unlike the process that achieved the butterfly mutation) then the environment acts upon that product. The environment of humans says, "hey us humans have evolved a design that codes for a machine that can reliably fly"-- and they they replicate the design and begin to evolve and hone that design. Info. that makes an airplane fly is info. that gets replicated in various manners by those who want to fly.

In your example... is the consequence of the design (change) its cause?

Yes. Airplane wings were designed and engineered (and re-engineered) for flying. Even faster and higher and more efficiently tomorrow.

The language of this analogy is still as bad as, like, whatever.

 

[cyborg]

The language of this analogy is still as bad as, like, whatever.

How erudite.

 

[Southwind17]

Definition of cause.

Definition of consequence.

As I erroneously thought until recently, Mr President, words don't actually have 'definitions'.

You'd do well to read this post, which, ironically, I started, and, as you'll see, led to my 'conversion': http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=2981031#post2981031

Watch & learn Mr President, watch & learn!

 

[Dancing David]

Sorry late arrival to the thread.

Yes, I prefer to think that in self-replicating systems, "self replication" is what is "supposed" to happen except for the darn universe getting in the way. In a system without self-replication the copying needs to started as opposed to stopped.

But part of natural selection doesn't care about self replication.

Especially in the abiogenesis area. If you have a catalyst it does not have to encourage itself, it can exclusively encourage other reactions.


And even in a self catalyzing set, if the precursor to a catalyst is abundant and the catalyst is likely to occur outside the set then a self catalyzing set does not have to be self contained in that all members of the self catalyzing set do not have to be supported by the members of that set.

So while it might be a set which could be considered 'self-replicating' it is not a requirement that the set create all members of itself.

So I don't see why it has a problem with 'starting', if the set exists , then it has a chance to spread or continue existing. So it starts.

If there is not self-replication, then I am arguing that you do indeed need a "start signal" (there are always external stop signals due to finite resources).

Replication does not have to be self replication.

Replication is simply replication, the ability to have the potential to succeed in an environment is not part of replication.

If there is self-replication I am arguing that the "start signal" is at the system's inception: timescales, lifetimes and methods etc. are just traits that evolve to optimise reproductive success. There are plenty of stop signals.

There is no start signal, if it begins with one chemical catalyzing another.

 

[Southwind17]

The language of this analogy is still as bad as, like, whatever.

Mr President, you've either forgotten the Sam & Ollie story at Post #1059, or you're completely ignoring the implications of it, or you don't understand it, or a combination of these. You commented on it at the time of posting, but only in the context of semantics over what constitutes an analogy, although you did post a couple of associated comments that seemed to indicate an agreement with it, which, if so, now seems misplaced.

So, Mr President, do you or do you not agree with the principles described in that story? If not, which of the four possibilities above apply? So far as I'm concerned, nobody yet has shown the story not to be a reasonably good analogy of natural evolution. Jimbob probably thinks he has, but his arguments against it (well, those that haven't been convincingly rebuffed) are still under close attack, and he seems to be retreating fast to me.

What's it to be, Mr President?

 

[jimbob]

If the "variation" arises as a result of a deliberate process, in technological development, where someone has produced alterations in response to previous failures, then the type of "variation" is different to the type of variation arising from mutation.

For the purpose of the analogy, the origin of the variation is irrelevant. I'm getting tired of repeating that.

And in actual evolution?

Random mutation is the easy part. There are direct analogues to "mutation" that are being used in engineering.

If we are talking about biological evolution, and someone observed that all "mutations" were beneficial, then that would be evidence in favour of some agency guiding the "mutations". I would also contend that anything created by such a process would be a top-down process, and unable to develop complexity greater than the analytical skills of such an agency.

As mutations can be both beneficial and deleterious (sometimes at the same time), this is actually an argument against any intelligent agency using such a mechanism.

Why is that false?

Because there are alternatives, such as stagnation. In a theoretical environment where there are no selection pressures, any and all mutations are go. Mutation does not bring about selection (unless you consider the viable lifeforms to be pressures in and of themselves).

That is one reason why I am arguing that self-replication is important. If there was no selection, then the population of self-replicating systems would expand infinitely. The constraint of finite resources alone is sufficient to provide selection.

These finite resources would affect both self-replication and non-self replication; however, only in the case of self-replication would there be selection for variants that are better at getting/using resources as opposed to constraints on the external copying system.

What else, other than (perfect or imperfect) self-replication is needed for natural selection?

Actual selection.

I am arguing that self-replication leads to selection, see above.

I am arguing that imperfect self-replication leads to evolution.

You mean, natural, biological evolution ?

Yes, or an exact analogue, as opposed to a partial analogue.

 

[jimbob]

In summary: mutation leads to variation, self-replication to natural selection, combine the two and you have evolution.

 

[cyborg]

No jimbob - the natural leads to natural selection.

There are many forms of "nature" that we can describe.

The important thing is self-representation, not self-replication. A system that self-represents itself by self-replication happens to be a "natural" one in biology. Our brains represent a self-representing system built by a self-replicating one. A system that does not represent itself cannot be said to be reproductive - i.e. reproductive systems must be representational by definition.

You must present the product before you can reproduce and represent the product.

Now as it relates to the analogy you must understand that an analogy tries to unite two separate worlds by showing that the concept represented by both can be united. That is the goal of the analogy is:

"Show that property 'evolution' in 'biology world' can be united with property 'intelligence' in 'technology world' by virtue of examining the iterations of the processes."

That is we must show that there is an equivalence between the iterations of 'evolution' and 'intelligence' - the algorithm - to show that in these different worlds they amount to the same thing.

Now we've already discussed many equivalences but I want to show that intelligence cannot be different from evolution by virtue of 'self-representation'.

Now I think we agree that the basic variants in the evolutionary process are "mutation" and "selection" - that is we can all imagine ways in which either can be deterministic or non-deterministic.

For example: mutation is non-deterministic but may not be if determined by some environmental factor like radiation.
Selection is non-deterministic because the phenotype does not guarantee selection but it may not be if we factor in all the determining variables.

Now the problem areas we are having are with regards to the "reproduction" and the "nature" : that is some of us contend a "self" is a necessary extra to the reproduction and others contend that there is an "artificial" where "intelligence" can achieve that which evolution cannot

Either way we all regard these processes as inherently deterministic - that is to say if we reproduce something then what is produced now was determined by what was produced before. We say that it is self-reproduced if the thing that was reproduced was also the thing that was reproducing. We say that if it is not self-reproduced then the production is determined by an "artificial" agent. We furthermore say that artificial agents are instigated by "intelligence".

Now in a world where "selection" and "mutation" are non-deterministic the only way that a reproducing process could exist is if an artificial agent decided what reproduction entailed - that is an intelligence would have to define an arbitrary standard of what is "self-representation". Being an arbitrary standard the only "self-representation" this system could perform is that of the non-determinism of the system itself - which is nothing new - or else it would have to create something deterministically.

Hence the "free-will" argument for human intelligence performing things evolution cannot is arguing that "free-will" is non-deterministic.

Now if we vary the system such that "mutation" is now deterministic then we will still be selecting products at random but now there will be natural relationships from one product to the next.

Let us take a deterministic binary mutation as an example.

0 -> 10, 00
1 -> 01, 11

So we produce two new products for every original one like this:

0 -> 10, 00 -> 01, 11, 10, 00, 10, 00, 10, 00 ...

Now the pattern of the mutation will come through even with non-deterministic selection as long as not all of the products are eliminated since there will be a progressively increasing "memory" in the deterministic pattern being expressed - i.e. the deterministic changes can be spotted by observing what the overall trend in the sequence is.

Non-deterministic selection:

0 -> [10], 00 -> 01, [11], 10, [00] -> 01, 11, [10], 00 -> 01, 11, 10, 00 ...

Now in this system what an "intelligence" can do is decide it wants to know more about the deterministic mutation that is being "hidden" by the non-deterministic selection of the patterns. Now it can do this by "artificially" placing agents into the system.

That is I want to know about "0" so I do:

0 -> 10, [00] -> 10, [00], 10, [00] -> 10, 00, 10, 00, 10, 00, 10, 00, 10, 00

The pattern is much more readily apparent in fewer iterations than the above. We also end up with a "self" representing system.

In a system with non-deterministic mutation and deterministic selection the determining factor of selection is what is natural. An intelligent system would have to be "non-deterministic" in order to be able to select a mutation differently - i.e. artificial selection is non-deterministic and "free-will" is random again.

When the system is deterministic in all regards it will eventually cycle. An artificial agent will be the only thing able to break the the deterministic chain. That is to say an intelligent agent can produce things not found in this system by finding the cycle and producing something not found in that cycle - i.e. it can be non-deterministic. Self-reproduction is a natural consequence of the system being deterministic in this case.

Both cases where mutation and selection were either both non-deterministic or both deterministic lead to cases where an intelligence can introduce an artificiality to the system in order to make it deterministic or non-deterministic. In both cases it could achieve this deterministically.

In both cases where there was a difference the intelligence could not achieve anything more than evolution alone could achieve in self-representation other than to accelerate it: either by deterministically testing or non-deterministically creating.

 

[Walter Wayne]

When the system is deterministic in all regards it will eventually cycle.

Is selecting successive digits of pi determistic?

 

[cyborg]

Is selecting successive digits of pi determistic?

If it is not then how could you identify pi?

 

[Walter Wayne]

If it is not then how could you identify pi?

That's the thing. I think it is deterministic, but it doesn't cycle.

 

[cyborg]

Category error - the program cycles, its result does not - given an infinite sized output buffer.

The program, "add 1 and loop" achieves much the same effect.

 

[Walter Wayne]

The mutation laws remain constant whether dealing with biological mutation or with our determistic sequence. That one produces a non-periodic sequence by virtue of randomness in physics, and one by a carefully selected algorithm is no different.

Both apply a constant program (algorithm/law of physics) constantly, both produce a non-periodic sequence. Of course, just about any intelligent designer will base his selected mutations on the current environment (and possibly on expected future environment) and since each generation affects the environment, the mutation process will change.

Of course the above is completely irrelevant to the point of what the differences are between biological evolution and technologic innovation. For any mutation that an intelligent designer chooses, random mutation could have choose the same on by chance. But what it won't do is base a new design on a complete failure.

Given similar "step sizes" of mutation available, biological evolution will at each step produce a mutation based on a successful entity. That is, for any given selection "landscape" there must be a string a viable stepping stones between A and B. In technological inovation, the failure of an intermediate form does not prevent from being built upon. A radio receiver, which never receives radio, can still be the predecessor to a success.

The difference is even more alarming in a dynamic environment. Biological evolution relies on variation within a type (species) to provide for environmental changes of the future. Because technology is not only reliant on descent of the current generation, products can be cloned without worry that a change in environment will result in extinction.

The reliance of biological evolution on variation is one of the reasons a robot mimicing evolution on technology will not produce anything like what one sees today. The reliance on viable intermediaries another.

Walt

 

[cyborg]

That one produces a non-periodic sequence by virtue of randomness in physics, and one by a carefully selected algorithm is no different.

Ah - so nothing is random.

But what it won't do is base a new design on a complete failure.

That would be stupid. You don't base designs on failures.

A radio receiver, which never receives radio, can still be the predecessor to a success.

Hmm... can a bacterial structure that does not flagell be the predecessor to a success?

How many radio receivers do you think were out there before one was actually used in a meaningful way? (The answer, BTW, is a whole truck load).

Because technology is not only reliant on descent of the current generation, products can be cloned without worry that a change in environment will result in extinction.

Technologies have gone extinct by virtue of obsolescence.

The reliance of biological evolution on variation is one of the reasons a robot mimicing evolution on technology will not produce anything like what one sees today. The reliance on viable intermediaries another.

Please provide an example of such a technology that cannot be said to have a reliance on a previous viable intermediary.

 

[President Bush]

As I erroneously thought until recently, Mr President, words don't actually have 'definitions'.

Am not entirely sure what you intend by posting these these words... but concerning "definition" I recommend reading these words.

Mr President, you've either forgotten the Sam & Ollie story at Post #1059, or you're completely ignoring the implications of it, or you don't understand it, or a combination of these. You commented on it at the time of posting, but only in the context of semantics over what constitutes an analogy, although you did post a couple of associated comments that seemed to indicate an agreement with it, which, if so, now seems misplaced.

Concerning Sam & Ollie... referring to Sam having connected "wires to components and wires to batteries in a thoughtless fashion", putting "components together haphazardly", all with an "absence of intent and forethought" the same as being engaged in a design process... seems just plain goofy.

I see your analogy roughly the way that an Idaho potato, despite having ten times as many eyes, wouldn't.

So, Mr President, do you or do you not agree with the principles described in that story? If not, which of the four possibilities above apply? So far as I'm concerned, nobody yet has shown the story not to be a reasonably good analogy of natural evolution. Jimbob probably thinks he has, but his arguments against it (well, those that haven't been convincingly rebuffed) are still under close attack, and he seems to be retreating fast to me.

What's it to be, Mr President?

Your analogy erases the distinction between genius and trial and error and is left to defend absurdities... how that convinces anyone that creationshit "Intelligent Design" arguments suck eggs I can't figure out.

My model for the "analogy" remains that it be best understood as a parody posted here by fundamentalist creationshits out to see just what ridiculous things atheists might be induced into saying in defense of a seemingly atheist argument.

 

[Walter Wayne]

Ah - so nothing is random.

Not what was said.

That would be stupid. You don't base designs on failures.

In technology you do. Because if you can deduce why it failed, you can take a step based on that failed design rather than going back to square one. You can produce something which is completely inferior to anything out there, or doesn't work at all, and still base the next generation on that.

Hmm... can a bacterial structure that does not flagell be the predecessor to a success?

I can only guess what you mean by flagell. In the context would I guess correctly that it is the action of a flagellum?

How many radio receivers do you think were out there before one was actually used in a meaningful way? (The answer, BTW, is a whole truck load).

Thats my point. In addition, there are still many produced that are completely inferior to current receivers, or altogether useless. They still serve as stepping stones in innovation.

Technologies have gone extinct by virtue of obsolescence.

We build on those technologies even though they are now extinct. Biological evolotion won't produce a variation on the t-rex now, because it sees a niche.

Please provide an example of such a technology that cannot be said to have a reliance on a previous viable intermediary.

I should have said relied on unviable designs as well. It should have been noted from context that unviable stepping stones can exist in the technological tree.

Walt

P.S. Can you provide an example of a living organism that counts a non-functional organism amongs in predecessors?

 

[jimbob]

Walter, By "non-functional", I guess that you mean one that didn't reproduce?

 

[Southwind17]

Am not entirely sure what you intend by posting these these words... but concerning "definition" I recommend reading these words.

So to what should one turn to identify the 'definition' of a particular word? Did you take the time to check out the linked thread that I posted? You might do well to invest a little time in understanding how dictionary publishers go about 'defining' words!

Concerning Sam & Ollie... referring to Sam having connected "wires to components and wires to batteries in a thoughtless fashion", putting "components together haphazardly", all with an "absence of intent and forethought" the same as being engaged in a design process... seems just plain goofy.

Did I suggest a similarity to 'being engaged in a design process'? On the contrary, I'm inferring that Sam was anything BUT engaged in a design process, but still created complex devices. That was EXACTLY my point! It promts one to think about what it is that's inherently 'special' about the design process, and do you know what, other than it saving time and money (in a commercial world), there is nothing special!!! Hence, there's nothing 'special' about the notion of ID, either!

I see your analogy roughly the way that an Idaho potato, despite having ten times as many eyes, wouldn't.

That doesn't surprise me one iota!

Your analogy erases the distinction between genius and trial and error ...

I think you have a very inflated perception of what happens, fundamentally, during a design development process compared to trial and error!

... and is left to defend absurdities...

Only in the eyes (including Idaho potatoes!) of those who fail to 'get it'!

... how that convinces anyone that creationshit "Intelligent Design" arguments suck eggs I can't figure out.

That's because you're one of those who simply fail to 'get it'!

My model for the "analogy" remains that it be best understood as a parody posted here by fundamentalist creationshits out to see just what ridiculous things atheists might be induced into saying in defense of a seemingly atheist argument.

I've been likening in my mind the inferior comprehension of fundamental creationists with those involved in this thread who fail to 'get it' for some time now! It's either that or the same predisposition to blind dismissal of astract but logical proposition!

 

[Southwind17]

In technology you do. Because if you can deduce why it failed, you can take a step based on that failed design rather than going back to square one. You can produce something which is completely inferior to anything out there, or doesn't work at all, and still base the next generation on that.

We discussed this previously. A 'failed design' is no different from a failed mutation in nature. Given that only a miniscule proportion of recently replicated organisms underwent the mutation, those that didn't could be said to be the 'step back', to which, in the case of some, other mutations (designs) will be applied and 'trialled'. The only difference with design technology is that the failure might well provide information as to what changes (mutations) might overcome the failure. That, too, happens in nature, but by trial and error instead. As I've written on many ocassions throughout this thread, the only real difference is time.

Thats my point. In addition, there are still many produced that are completely inferior to current receivers, or altogether useless. They still serve as stepping stones in innovation.

See above. They're not stepping stones (apart from any good aspects that are retained (evolution!)). They simply consitute the mutations that failed to proliferate because of weakness, and maybe gave the engineers clues as to what might actually work (again, the alternative being continuous trial and error).

We build on those technologies even though they are now extinct.

Exactly. We keep what works and ditch what doesn't. Isn't that what nature does?

Biological evolotion won't produce a variation on the t-rex now, because it sees a niche.

Irrelevant to the comparison. The case for increased complexity over time has already been proven - just look around you!

I should have said relied on unviable designs as well. It should have been noted from context that unviable stepping stones can exist in the technological tree.

See above.

P.S. Can you provide an example of a living organism that counts a non-functional organism amongs in predecessors?

What, exactly, do you mean by 'non-functional'?!