Intelligent Evolution?

[fishkr]

Fishkr,

What is your objection to using the word "development" to describe technological change?

It can also describe a process of iterative change and will not get confused with biological evolution.

."

My objection is based on the fact that the words don't mean the same things, and therefore it seems like a mistake to use them interchangeably.

IMHO the compression of language is a bad thing. It may not be overtly obvious, and my point may seem abstract, but think about musical recordings: A live performance will always have more information than an analog recording, an analog recording will have more information than a digital one, and an MP3 digital recording will have even less.

In almost any context you can name, "develop" invokes one entity/thing doing something to another entity/thing. It is therefore laden with a "top down" implication. The word evolution actually has the opposite bias. It implies or invokes self-propagating phenomenon, or at least is neutral.

For example, one might say, "The man developed a tract of land and built a shopping mall". You would never use "evolved" the same way. Unless you very cynical, or reaching for extreme irony.

Therefore, by suggesting the words are interchangeable, or by using them interchangeably, you would be compressing the language and losing meaning(information). As in music, "compression" is fine if you want convenience, but it's no substitute for the real thing, or the next best thing, or the next to the next . . .

And also within the context of this thread, using a word that has a "top down" bias for tech evolution may fly in the face of meme theory, which more or less says, "Ideas have a life of their own" . . . definitely a bottom-up concept.

 

[fishkr]

Hey, the "Headless Watchmaker!"
Post #1857

Indeed! (wish I could claim I had that in mind)

 

[Paulhoff]

Nobody said they did.

But that is how many things that have been invented and/or changed happen, pick and choose ideas.

Paul

 

[articulett]

But that is how many things that have been invented and/or changed happen, pick and choose ideas.

Paul

Any specific examples?

Yes, humans are good at recombining and tweaking information created by generations of other humans...

This is irrelevant to the analogy. What is relevant is: the information that is copied preferentially-- just like in biological evolution...

 

[six7s]

No analogy is needed

Says you

evolution is simple already.

Followed by a non sequitor

It is not a very good analogy, and I do get it, that why I know it isn't a good one

Then why not simply and conveniently ignore it? (Y'know... like you simply and conveniently ignore that evolution, despite being "simple already", continues to flummox a significant proportion of the literate population)

 

[mijopaalmc]

To the supporters of the analogy:

Is there anything that those who have registered concern about the analogy's validity and usefulness could say to convince the supporters of the analogy that they understand it, short of agreeing that it is valid and useful?

 

[Paulhoff]

Then why not simply and conveniently ignore it? (Y'know... like you simply and conveniently ignore that evolution, despite being "simple already", continues to flummox a significant proportion of the literate population)

You seem to read a hell of a lot into things.

Paul

 

[Paulhoff]

Any specific examples?

Yes, humans are good at recombining and tweaking information created by generations of other humans...

This is irrelevant to the analogy. What is relevant is: the information that is copied preferentially-- just like in biological evolution...

Any specific examples, you’re kidding right, the computer, TV, radio, cars, trains, boats and planes.

Evolution does not recombined Information like it is done by humans, and also without intent like it is by humans, like taking a jet engine from a plane and using to on a boat.

Paul

 

[fishkr]

This thread is devolving.

I just read back through it and in doing so I am convinced that the important content of the various arguments on this subject has been stated and re-stated very very very thoroughly, and in many cases with great aptness and grace (you know who you are) and in many other cases just stated and re-stated (you won't know who you are) and in still other cases wherein some kind of Post Modernist deconstruction comes to mind (you don't even know who YOU are).

It's funny . . . was it Dr. Hooker who excaimed, upon reading Origin for the first time (and this is from my memory so I may have it askew), "How extremely stupid of me not to have thought of that before!"

He got it. But in his epiphany, he may have underestimated how subtle the idea really is.

149 years later people still don't get it. The absolute brilliance of an idea as clean and hard edged as a diamond, the explicative efficiency unmatched by any other single concept that I have ever been exposed to.

With this thought I'm reminded that the world of evidential truth doesn't require I.D. to explain how things are, and as long as that remains the case, you guys are pissing in the wind.

 

[articulett]

Any specific examples, you’re kidding right, the computer, TV, radio, cars, trains, boats and planes.

Evolution does not recombined Information like it is done by humans, and also without intent like it is by humans, like taking a jet engine from a plane and using to on a boat.

Paul

Those aren't specific examples... remember all kinds of hearts and brains and teeth and claws have evolved too... they all seem to fit in their respective organisms just fine... Communities of organisms such as coral reefs and Portuguese man-o-war have co-evolved just like motors and the various things that utilize them... beetles seem to pop up just about every where... they also seem to be like motors in that they are successful in a lot of different environments. You don't give specifics, because you don't have specifics... the biggest problem the few who don't understand the analogy seem to have is that they cannot separate the information (motor design) from what it codes for (the motor itself.)

I am with Fishkr-- I am glad that I can understand... and glad to be able to help others understand... but I also recognize that some people cannot understand no matter how carefully explained. It's as if their brain is just going to search for differences because it cannot compute itself as just an "information processor" and selector--a product of evolution.

I feel lucky to "get it". I love it when I can help others "get it" --and I love that others DO get it too.

 

[six7s]

I can see why you're confused

Please do explain.

Why?

So you can consider my explanation and respond in a rational manner?

Or to provide you with yet another opportunity to go off on yet another irrelevant tangent, incorporating the theme that Everyone Else™ is wrong and you alone are right?

OK... call me naïve... or a troll-feeder... or both... but here goes

You have posted ad nauseum, from a self-professed position of authority, using the most ambiguous terms imaginable, to say (in essence) that the analogy fails on account of a distinction between technological development (TD) and biological evolution (BE)

After much cajoling, you finally tried to provide a coherent explanation of what you regard as 'an individual' with regard to TD... and waddaya know? You couldn't!

If the blueprint is the information in technological development, the individual is the thing whose construction the blueprint describes. In other words, the individual is, for example, the car you drive or the computer that you use.

What about IF the blueprint IS NOT the information in technological development? (i.e. Q. Why do you shift the focus on to a case where it IS? A. Strawman)

The reason that I see for you being confused is that your knowledge of TD (and, probably, BE too) is so sketchy, especially in comparison with your need to knock an anti-IDiotic analogy (i.e. your agenda blinds you from understanding), that you resort - even when expressly asked for clarification - to yet more inane waffle

If this really is your angle, it seems to me as though you regard TD as some sort of asexual reproduction, where the information for subsequent generations comes from one source - the blueprints - and, because the blueprints CAN contain 'notes' regarding previous failures, your view illustrates that TD is somehow distinct from BE...

Well mijo, it doesn't

Maybe something else does, but the view that you present as 'evidence' is not only half baked, its not even on the menu

The 'distinction' that you have drawn is irrelevant to the analogy and, therefore, this discussion.

However, based on your track record, I suspect that you will be unlikely to accept this and will continue to waste countless pixels in the futile pursuit of whatever it is that floats your boat

Good luck to you and all who sail in you

I, for one, am disembarking

 

[six7s]

You seem to read a hell of a lot into things.

Paul

Maybe

Maybe you're unaware of how sloppy your thinking appears c/- your sentence structure

 

[mijopaalmc]

six7s-

It is, again, not my fault that you refuse to accept what I define as an individual. It just shows that you are unwilling to engage in an honest and fair critique of your ideas. In evolutionary biology, an individual is the entity that is acted upon by natural selection and not natural selection itself. Likewise, in technological development, the individual is the actual technology and not the mind in which the blueprint exist (or anything else for that matter). Therefore, following from these definitions, the information in successive iterations of biological evolution cannot be modified in light of individuals who do not reproduce whereas the information in successive iterations of technological development can be modified in light of individuals who do not reproduce.

It is telling that neither you nor anyone else who supports the analogy (especially Belz... or articulett) can explain why biological evolution and technological development are the same from an information standpoint when they differ in the way I mentioned above.

 

[fishkr]

I, for one, am disembarking

Count me in as well. Or is that out? Whatever.

Bloody hell, I just have to point out, one more time, that not one argument has been put foreward by ID posters to rebuke my repeated proposition - that before we even need to consider ID, before analogies between technical EVOLUTION and ET are even required, ET must be shown to be invalid or in some significant way fail as a description of how life, as it is, came to be.

ET and ID are conceptually incompatable, but only one view is a demonstrable, functional description of reality.

Deadly silence in the room.

Good night, and good luck.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Count me in as well. Or is that out? Whatever.

Bloody hell, I just have to point out, one more time, that not one argument has been put foreward by ID posters to rebuke my repeated proposition - that before we even need to consider ID, before analogies between technical EVOLUTION and ET are even required, ET must be shown to be invalid or in some significant way fail as a description of how life, as it is, came to be.

ET and ID are conceptually incompatable, but only one view is a demonstrable, functional description of reality.

Deadly silence in the room.

Good night, and good luck.

It's funny that you and your cohorts refuse to realize that you yourselves are likening biological evolution to an intelligently directed process (i.e., technological development) to combat a supposedly alternative view of the origins of the complexity of life as an intelligently directed process (i.e., Intelligent Design).

 

[articulett]

Count me in as well. Or is that out? Whatever.

Bloody hell, I just have to point out, one more time, that not one argument has been put foreward by ID posters to rebuke my repeated proposition - that before we even need to consider ID, before analogies between technical EVOLUTION and ET are even required, ET must be shown to be invalid or in some significant way fail as a description of how life, as it is, came to be.

ET and ID are conceptually incompatable, but only one view is a demonstrable, functional description of reality.

Deadly silence in the room.

Good night, and good luck.

Me too. I think that every one who can understand the analogy has understood the analogy...and there's more than enough good information for anyone else who happens upon this thread.

I will now cede to those who need to have the last word to win whatever points they imagine they are winning in the game they are playing in their heads.

 

[jimbob]

Fishkr,

What is your objection to using the word "development" to describe technological change?

It can also describe a process of iterative change and will not get confused with biological evolution.

."

My objection is based on the fact that the words don't mean the same things, and therefore it seems like a mistake to use them interchangeably.

IMHO the compression of language is a bad thing. It may not be overtly obvious, and my point may seem abstract, but think about musical recordings: A live performance will always have more information than an analog recording, an analog recording will have more information than a digital one, and an MP3 digital recording will have even less.

In almost any context you can name, "develop" invokes one entity/thing doing something to another entity/thing. It is therefore laden with a "top down" implication. The word evolution actually has the opposite bias. It implies or invokes self-propagating phenomenon, or at least is neutral.

For example, one might say, "The man developed a tract of land and built a shopping mall". You would never use "evolved" the same way. Unless you very cynical, or reaching for extreme irony.

Therefore, by suggesting the words are interchangeable, or by using them interchangeably, you would be compressing the language and losing meaning(information). As in music, "compression" is fine if you want convenience, but it's no substitute for the real thing, or the next best thing, or the next to the next . . .

And also within the context of this thread, using a word that has a "top down" bias for tech evolution may fly in the face of meme theory, which more or less says, "Ideas have a life of their own" . . . definitely a bottom-up concept.

So Fishkr, you thikink that it is better too confuse Lamarck with darwin?

Does this phrase imply a "top-down" process: "the development of the foetus"?

As you work in product development, maybe you could see the particular parts where I think the memetic analogy doesn't hold up particularly well.

When considering a multivariate process, I would consider the process conditions to be the information that should be subjected to the memetic evolution. Suppose that I wish to optimise the process conditions to produce a particular outcome. There are several approaches I could take, some more amenable to a memetic analogy than others:

1) Evolutionary algorithm: randomly alter many parameters simultaneously and "breed" from the best forsevceral iterations or "generations".

This is akin to Darwinian evoloution, but with artificial selection criteria instead of natural selection.​

2) Theoretical analysis: Trying to understand the process and working out what should give the right reaults, and altering the parameters likewise.

This is probably how many people think engineering works, but it only works for simple processes. It is akin to Lamarckian evolution.​

3) Structured experimentation: Find the main factors affecting the process results (by experimentation), and deterimne whether they are appropriately linear. If not, then you will have a major problem with process control. If these factors are linear enough, then map out the responses to these factors (best using a new set of experiments). Once the "parameter space" has been mapped out, one can then choose the optimum process parameters.

I don't think this fits well wth a memetic interperetation, because one is merely maping something and then choosing the placement. Is it really helpful to say that there is a "meme" that says the Sun is about 150 million km from us? There might be a "meme" for the choice of units, but the actual distance? The choice of optimum process conditions only depends on what the proceess does; the "variation" is akin to the "variation" in position of a ball bearing rolling down a slope.​

Indeed I see no need to invoke memetics for the information contained in the results of any measurement, as the variation is the measurement error, and should be accounted for, and there is no need for "selection" of results. There is no "evolution" of the information once obtained, either.

With the bridge example, an intelligence chooses to increase length of the poles to fit the span. Do you really need memetics to explain that?

 

[amb]

I don't say "technology reproduces"... I say that information that gets itself copied drives evolution. Moreover, DNA persists even when it's not copied... it's how we solve crimes. Information stored in DNA can exist for some time before degrading... just as information in books never read can still exist.

Mijo goes out of his way to keep from understanding something relatively simple...
And he says he's not an "intelligent design" proponent? He sure has all the obtuseness of one. I see no difference between him and Behe and Kleinman except that he keeps his "intelligent designer" more hidden to try and sound "sciency" while promoting his ignorance.

Reading the posts, and Mijo in particular, I reached the same conclusion.
Mijo is a clone of Behe. They have to be carefull of any mention of god, but their thoughts never stray from ID.

 

[mijopaalmc]

Reading the posts, and Mijo in particular, I reached the same conclusion.
Mijo is a clone of Behe. They have to be carefull of any mention of god, but their thoughts never stray from ID.

You. know, I can do very little about how you choose to perceive me. However, I must say that the insistence on the validity of the analogy is like saying that making cheese is the same as making butter because they both include altering the chemical composition of milk. It is essentially true but it conveys little, if any, useful information about either of the processes separately; nor does it explain how making cheese or butter is different from making yogurt.

 

[Belz...]

No, I'm not. I have explained to you that when a specific variant fails to reproduce in biological evolution, the information in contained (i.e., its genome) is lost until it can be re-formed by mutation and recombination; however, when when a specific variant fails to reproduce in technological development, the information from which it was constructed (i.e., its blueprint) still exists and is therefore available to inform future iterations of process.

So remind me: How are the two processes "the same from and information perspective"?

1.) It doesn't change the fact that the information gets itself copied in both scenarios; biological and technological.

2.) The only difference with the failure data remaining is that it accelerates the progression of the technology.