Intelligent Evolution?

[cyborg]

Our ancestors were all sufficiently adapted to reproduce. It didn't matter that other organisms reproduced more "optimally", as long as our ancestors reproduces suffficiently well, (whcih they obviously did).

Then we can agree that evolution is not necessarily geared towards optimal reproduction?

By any sensible definition of "optimal", "sufficient" is not optimal.

This is where I dislike articuletts statements about the information that is "best at getting itself copied". If there were many organisms, and one was far better adapted to reproduce, but another orgainsm was neither predator, prey, nor competition for this organism, providing that both have sufficient offspring , both would reproduce and evolve; should neither be sufficiently good at reproducing, it wouldnt matter if one was "better" if better is not good enough.

In a situation with infinite resources competition is avoidable.

As soon as resources became an issue the simple fact is that it is the organism with greater numbers and a greater reproductive rate that has an obvious advantage: more copies around means more chances for those copies to make more copies and they make more copies more quickly.

Imain two populations oone with an average reproductive success of 0.5 reproducing offspring per parent and noe with an average reproductive success of 0.99 per parent, both would become extinct, but one is "better" than the other.

Well yeah - that's kinda how numerical comparisons work.

It's a bit like complaining that 0.49 is less than 0.5 but 0.5 gets rounded up to 1 - that's the consequence of the definitions you used.

You are free to propose any other metric you desire to rank these things.

Why is that not self-replication of some type?

You tell me: you're the one who doesn't like the idea of being able to separate the "self" part from the "replicate" part and yet these abstract entities don't, in any physical sense, "self-replicate".

If the selection is self-defined, then it is self-replication.

That is my point.

It is? How in the hell does that follow from anything you've said previously?

This was a derail, but you keep asserting that there is no true randomness,

No I don't.

I assert that the existence or not of true randomness is irrelevant to the evolutionary principle. It is sufficient that there is variation. True randomness simply has some nice mathematical properties that makes it better than less-than-random mechanisms for these sorts of things. The fact that pseudo-random - i.e. the not random at all type of random - is often good enough for such tasks doesn't seem to register with you for a reason I cannot fathom.

No I am asking why you think that is not self-replication if

2) The selection of which objects are and are not included is self-defined by the objects themselves​

I don't see what "self-replication" has to do with that. The statement refers to how a natural selection can form, not how the entities got there in the first place.

Southwind's algorithm isn't. It could just as easily be altered to select for non-selling variants as for sellin variants, especially with the infinite resources allowed.

Uh, then guess which objects are part of the next iteration?

The non-selling items.

Guess which objects are not part of the next iteration?

The selling items.

They are taken out of the shop, never to be known of again whilst those left on the shelf propagate their economic incompetence...

Reproduce itself then.

So you won't consider it self-replication unless the data has the data for how to copy the data?

That seems a little wasteful when I can just centralise the data copying mechanism and achieve exactly the same effect...

Self-selection is the most important feature of self-replication, which I am agguing is needed for evolution.

I think you are getting quite muddled here: how on earth is self-selection a feature of self-replication?

You need a source of variation to work,

What you seem to have failed to grasp is that populations sizes themselves are a source of variation!

If there is not self-selection, which is the important feature of self-replication, then something else performs the selection.

Which is?

In your model, you have said that there is self-selection. Your system sounds as if all variants that are surviving at a certain time are copied imperfectly. Is this the case? In that case that is equivalent to self-replication at a fixed age, and with no ability for reproductive age to evolve.

Changing a constant to a variable is always possible. The point is that doing so here would also not significantly change the dynamics of the situation.

You seem to be obsessed with the overall feature-set of the available phenotype and missing the point about how little needs to actually be variable for the same principles to express themselves.

However this simulation is not in any way akin to technical development.

I think you're at a disconnect here somewhat. First let us be in agreement about the relationship between the evolutionary concept and the simulation and then we can move on to how it relates to more esoteric concepts.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Double post.

 

[mijopaalmc]

cyborg and Belz...-

I think that jimbob's point* was that, by the very criterion of abstraction you claim makes the analogy (i.e., that "[information] USES other things to get itself replicated"), the processes of selective breeding, (biological) evolution, genetic engineering, technological development, and intelligent design are all exactly the same. It is only by applying a second criterion, be it "dentification of involved homo sapiens [sic]" or Ockham's razor, that you are able to begin to make distinctions between the processes and understand why intelligent design is a scientifically barren concept.

*jimbob feel free to correct me if I have misconstrued your position

 

[cyborg]

Because they are different.

We know bees are not humans.

We know cows are not flowers.

But we also know that the evolution of bees has driven the evolution of flowers and vice-versa.

And we also know that the evolution of humans has driven the evolution of cows and vice-versa.

So are the process actually functionally identifiable as different or only instance identifiable as different?

 

[Belz...]

Because they are different.

Not really. Depends from where you look at them.

Evolution: mutation and natural selection

Selective Breeding: Mutation and Artificial selection (selection by an intelligent agency, not DNA using an intelligent agency to aid reproduction).

Genetic Engineering: Artificially induced and directed variation and artificial selection.

So, basically: mutation and selection. How are they different, significantly, as far as the analogy goes ?

I wasn't asking why it was implausible, I was asking how your viewpoint woud state that there was any difference in the process.

There's someone outside of the process. That's where the difference lies, I would think.

 

[six7s]

So long, and thanks for all the fish

<unsubscribe/>

 

[Belz...]

cyborg and Belz...-

I think that jimbob's point* was that, by the very criterion of abstraction you claim makes the analogy (i.e., that "[information] USES other things to get itself replicated"), the processes of selective breeding, (biological) evolution, genetic engineering, technological development, and intelligent design are all exactly the same. It is only by applying a second criterion, be it "dentification of involved homo sapiens [sic]" or Ockham's razor, that you are able to begin to make distinctions between the processes and understand why intelligent design is a scientifically barren concept.

Of course, any analogy works differently once you apply different criteria. I don't see how this changes anything, however. Intelligence is only one more tool, under this analogy, so its presence is not relevant, just interesting.

 

[mijopaalmc]

There's someone outside of the process. That's where the difference lies, I would think.

Aren't humans outside of the processes of selective breeding and technological development?

 

[cyborg]

Aren't humans outside of the processes of selective breeding and technological development?

Given the fact that humans are intimately affected by these processes I would have to say no.

We may play at gods but that does not make us gods.

 

[hammegk]

But we also know that the evolution of bees has driven the evolution of flowers and vice-versa.

And we also know that the evolution of humans has driven the evolution of cows and vice-versa.

It could be argued bees & flowers evolve under a feedback loop concept, but as "drivers"? I'd say too many other factors are being ignored.

Humans have driven the evolution of cows with specific goals in mind. You could perhaps argue that the availability of cowsmilk has driven, for example, evolution of human lactose tolerance.
I see that loop as cause/effect rather than feedback.

So are the process actually functionally identifiable as different or only instance identifiable as different?

I lean towards functionally different.

 

[cyborg]

It could be argued bees & flowers evolve under a feedback loop concept, but as "drivers"?

Uhh... a feedback loop consists of two mutual drivers.

I'd say too many other factors are being ignored.

Such as?

I see that loop as cause/effect rather than feedback.

Uhh... feedback loops are inherently cause/effect.

I lean towards functionally different.

Why?

Having a specific goal doesn't really change that much.

 

[Belz...]

Aren't humans outside of the processes of selective breeding and technological development?

Considering how many times I've explained it to you, specifically, that humans are just a tool in this process, I find it odd that you ask this again.

Some people just don't WANT to understand.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Considering how many times I've explained it to you, specifically, that humans are just a tool in this process, I find it odd that you ask this again.

Some people just don't WANT to understand.

You mean like God is just the tool that information uses to get replicated in intelligent design?

You have essentially abstracted any meaningful explanation of the processes as they exist in the real world by using the criterion of "uses other things to get itself replicated".

 

[amb]

What is it about evolution by natural selection that some people find hard to fathom?
Why on earth do they think it needed some kind of super intelligence to make it work?
How many people realize that Darwin wanted to join the clergy before he realized that botany was his forte. Yet died an atheist after his discoveries of evolution by natural selection. Is it the enormous time span for intelligence to appear? [around 4 billion years]
that people find hard to fathom?, given our puny lifespans. Also, creation science has as yet failed to receive a single nomination for a Nobel Prize. I wonder why?

 

[Henners]

Also, creation science has as yet failed to receive a single nomination for a Nobel Prize. I wonder why?

Ironically, it is far more likely to score a Darwin Award for being a dead end.

 

[Belz...]

You mean like God is just the tool that information uses to get replicated in intelligent design?

You're so utterly predictable.

No, God is NOT part of the process because he is DEFINED as being outside the process. He also doesn't process information at all because he's already omniscient. Unless you hold a deistic view, of course, in which case Occam still makes short work of this deity.

You have essentially abstracted any meaningful explanation of the processes as they exist in the real world by using the criterion of "uses other things to get itself replicated".

Yes, other extant things.

 

[articulett]

You're so utterly predictable.

No, God is NOT part of the process because he is DEFINED as being outside the process. He also doesn't process information at all because he's already omniscient. Unless you hold a deistic view, of course, in which case Occam still makes short work of this deity.



Yes, other extant things.

watch this science video... it is fantastic and illustrates the analogy beautifully... and uses something similar in it's language. Mijo can't understand... but anyone who can will be impressed at this "seemingly" designed Dr. Seussian "city" built by aliens without intelligence or a plan... just information evolving over time--





http://brainstuff.howstuffworks.com/2008/01/17/youll-never-look-at-ants-the-same-way-again/

 

[mijopaalmc]

watch this science video... it is fantastic and illustrates the analogy beautifully... and uses something similar in it's language. Mijo can't understand... but anyone who can will be impressed at this "seemingly" designed Dr. Seussian "city" built by aliens without intelligence or a plan... just information evolving over time--





http://brainstuff.howstuffworks.com/2008/01/17/youll-never-look-at-ants-the-same-way-again/

Actually, I do understand that complex systems can arise without intelligent agency. However, complex systems don't always arise in the aforementioned way. Technological development is an example of a process where intelligent agency is often involved. That is the flaw in the analogy in the OP: there is no analog for intelligent agency of technological development in biological evolution, because biological evolution lacks intelligent agency.

 

[amb]

Actually, I do understand that complex systems can arise without intelligent agency. However, complex systems don't always arise in the aforementioned way. Technological development is an example of a process where intelligent agency is often involved. That is the flaw in the analogy in the OP: there is no analog for intelligent agency of technological development in biological evolution, because biological evolution lacks intelligent agency.

Given the right conditions and all other elements in the right order, eventualy intelligence WILL arise. It's happened at least once. Right here on Earth.

 

[President Bush]

Given the right conditions and all other elements in the right order, eventualy intelligence WILL arise. It's happened at least once. Right here on Earth.

I believe that's what cyborg and the crew are denying. Probably because they haven't managed to build it yet.