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Intelligent Evolution?

What part of "you can't dictate the intelligent qualities," don't you get?
 
Since when can't anyone dictate the meaning of any word in a conversation for clarification?
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You're so wrong here I can't even think how to correct you.
 
Southwind, did this (post #1987) answer some of your questions about the need for self-replication?

On a completely different tack:

six7s said:
I'm not sure that I understand what you mean by reproduce

To paraphrase:
  • technological development is a process that can incorporate information from individuals that don't reproduce

Please clarify what you mean by 'reproduce'

I assume you're not talking about individuals (who are in some way connected to the technological development of 'widget X') who do not get lucky ;)

Are you talking about individuals who don't pass on information (e.g. views, opinions, facts, figures, etc, etc) about previous iterations of the product?

If so... I don't understand what relevance this has to the discussion and I would (most sincerely) welcome clarification
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OK, I am not mijo, but I think my viewpoint is similar on this:


This is one of the fundamental differences between technological development and evolution:

In biological evolution, "information" is passed on in traits from organisms that reproduce. An unfit organism (even with a "splendid" trait that in itself would be advantageous) will not pass on any of its traits. There isn't even any negative information (e.g. along the lines of "don't eat the yellow snow").

An engineering prototype that fails to meet its requirement specifications will still provide some information: maybe it is that the new steam engine has the potential to be economic, but it is a really vital idea to have an emergency pressure release valve in the next iteration.

In other words: there are partial successes and partial failures in engineering, but only complete success or failure in biological evolution (reproduction or not).

In my experience of engineering, most attempts produce partial success or failure, and almost all (complete failures included) provide some information.
 
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What role does scientific research play in technological development? To what extent, if any, are new inventions based on new scientific theories?
Does nature, apart from human culture, do science?
 
jimbob said:
Southwind, did this (post #1987) answer some of your questions about the need for self-replication?

On a completely different tack:



OK, I am not mijo, but I think my viewpoint is similar on this:


This is one of the fundamental differences between technological development and evolution:

In biological evolution, "information" is passed on in traits from organisms that reproduce. An unfit organism (even with a "splendid" trait that in itself would be advantageous) will not pass on any of its traits. There isn't even any negative information (e.g. along the lines of "don't eat the yellow snow").

An engineering prototype that fails to meet its requirement specifications will still provide some information: maybe it is that the new steam engine has the potential to be economic, but it is a really vital idea to have an emergency pressure release valve in the next iteration.

In other words: there are partial successes and partial failures in engineering, but only complete success or failure in biological evolution (reproduction or not).

In my experience of engineering, most attempts produce partial success or failure, and almost all (complete failures included) provide some information.
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In engineering (as you know) there is a goal, there is a so-called intelligence. Evolution does not have any goal and no so-called intelligence.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Paulhoff said:
In engineering (as you know) there is a goal, there is a so-called intelligence. Evolution does not have any goal and no so-called intelligence.

Paul

:) :) :)
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But that's not the only reason that biological evolution and technological development are different. That's all jimbob was pointing out.
 
Indeed Paulhoff:

Even evolutionary algorithms are working against a set of requirement specifications.

The example in the analogy, as well as needing a specified lifetime (i.e. analogue of death) also requires "the customer" to choose which variants shall be copied.

It is merely a variation of the blind watchmaker, and there are now real examples showing that evolutionary approaches can produce complex, working systems.

This is fine as far as it goes, but, as you say, there is still the goal (or requirement specifications). That need for a goal can only be removed with self-replication, which (fortunately for the argument about biological evolution) life has as one of its defining features.
 
mijopaalmc said:
But that's not the only reason that biological evolution and technological development are different. That's all jimbob was pointing out.
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I didn't say that was the only reason, the list is long, but how long does it have to be before the point is made.

Paul

:) :) :)
 
Paulhoff said:
I didn't say that was the only reason, the list is long, but how long does it have to be before the point is made.

Paul

:) :) :)
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Tra da:

ImaginalDisc said:
Design can overhaul, evolution cannot.

Design can plan for long-term development, evolution cannot.

Design can lift elements from one type of thing and apply them to another, evolution cannot.

Design can retain the plans of a form indefinately, evolution cannot.

Living things are produced by autonumous reproduction, machines are not.

Living things have heritable traits, machines do not.

Living things mutate, and those mutations are passed on. Machines neither mutate, nor pass on mutations.

I could go on for some time. At each point, you have dismissed these differences as irrelevant, or generalized the terms into useless vaugeness, whereas the peculiar contraints of living things, the struggle to survive, and the pressures of impersonal, unguided selection, are the very essence of Evolution. Without these elements, living things would not exist, whereas machines and design do not need any of these traits.


I, however, can, AND HAVE, by not refusing to abstract the concept of design to include everything.
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Unfortunately living things and the proccess of Evolution are not at all absract. Living things are not patterns and ideas scribbled onto blueprints and patterns to be fabricated by intelligent actors with an understanding of the intended results; living things are breathing, eating, killing entities continuously reproducing themselves and giving rise to new forms entirely without any abstraction. The Theory of Evolution is a description of the origin and properties of the very visceral living things in the natural world and it is, to date, the most compelling, most accurate, and most parsimonious explanation for these diverse and contradictory organisms.

As machines lack all the elements Evolution seeks to explain, I fail to see any reason for using machines an analogy to teach it.
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ambnp said:
Because we have evolved to the prevailing conditions on Earth, we think and perceive design where there is none. If you land in Antarctica or the Sahara Desert with the conditions there, would we still perceive design? The living hell of such places would suggest otherwise, methinks. :D
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The stuff that does live there (and yes there are things that live in such places) will seem to be amazingly well adapted for living in such places. One, sure wouldn't get the idea that such places are designed with humans in mind.

It is funny the way we see things as fitting together so well, without realizing that things that evolve together and drive eachother's evolution cannot appear any other way.
 
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