Intelligent Evolution?

[President Bush]

Here's another analogy for chatbot bush not to get... I think even the other nutters understand this much... You don't put together a jigsaw puzzle from the top down... it's always from the bottom up...

That's pretty funny.


Problem Solving in Open Worlds: A Case Study in Design

A top-down design strategy decomposes a problem into parts that can be solved (almost) independently. A bottom-up design strategy synthesizes a solution from primitive components, based on local interactions. The design process tends to be controlled from the top-down when it is driven by the task and expectations of the problem solver, and from the bottom-up when it is driven by the constraints and the structure of the problem.

For example, consider the task of assembling a jigsaw puzzle. A top-down approach would be to look at the picture on the box and systematically fill in the foreground first, or the sky, and so forth. A bottom-up approach would be to try to find random pieces that fit together and make commitments in terms of islands of assembled puzzle. Most people do a little bit of each, depending on how much information is provided by the picture.

 

[mijopaalmc]

(and not answered for 'convenience' at times, I would suggest)

You mean like you have ignored or dismissed the essential differences between biological evolution and technological development that jimbob and ImaginalDisc have listed for you repeatedly?

 

[Southwind17]

You mean like you have ignored or dismissed the essential differences between biological evolution and technological development that jimbob and ImaginalDisc have listed for you repeatedly?

I believe you're alluding to ID's 'infamous' list that you guys seem so desperately to be hanging your hats on. I think if you take the time to review this thread you'll find that I have absolutely not ignored them but dismissed them (you seem to be unsure which mijo, and there's a huge difference!) on perfectly logical grounds, repeatedly. But this is just another broken record mijo perpetuating the never-decreasing circle, so let's wait for jimbob to come back with the answers and responses that I've just requested of him. Let's see where we stand then eh! You can hold his hand, if you like!

 

[mijopaalmc]

I believe you're alluding to ID's 'infamous' list that you guys seem so desperately to be hanging your hats on. I think if you take the time to review this thread you'll find that I have absolutely not ignored them but dismissed them (you seem to be unsure which mijo, and there's a huge difference!) on perfectly logical grounds, repeatedly. But this is just another broken record mijo perpetuating the never-decreasing circle, so let's wait for jimbob to come back with the answers and responses that I've just requested of him. Let's see where we stand then eh! You can hold his hand, if you like!

I say the you ignored them because when it was pointed out to you that they were in fact essential differences between the two processes you continued to insist that "can, but doesn't have to" justified your dismissal. That logic would say that a butter knife and a steak knife are the same because the are both knives and can both cut butter and spread it. This ignores the fact that butter knives cannot cut steak, or even a large variety of items that are relatively firm. You are again overemphasizing one particular trait of biological evolution and technological development for the purpose of making a strong analogy.

 

[Southwind17]

I say the you ignored them because when it was pointed out to you that they were in fact essential differences between the two processes you continued to insist that "can, but doesn't have to" justified your dismissal. That logic would say that a butter knife and a steak knife are the same because the are both knives and can both cut butter and spread it. This ignores the fact that butter knives cannot cut steak, or even a large variety of items that are relatively firm. You are again overemphasizing one particular trait of biological evolution and technological development for the purpose of making a strong analogy.

... and here's the broken record, again!

 

[President Bush]

You mean like you have ignored or dismissed the essential differences between biological evolution and technological development that jimbob and ImaginalDisc have listed for you repeatedly?

Southwind17 may be (mathematically) abstracting, which is sometimes interpreted as the act of hiding irrelevant details.

Though, to be fair, mathematical abstraction is more generally defined as a mapping between formalisms that reduces the computational complexity of the task at stake.

The difference between biological evolution and technological development are being deliberately ignored in the "analogy" as the two have been removed from the realm of real world objects and generalised to "be" mathematical formalisms.

Abstractions obscure the differences between two analogs. This is what they do. They discard information about the differences in order to unify them.

Why attempt to manipulate ideas and concepts as if they were mathematical formalisms?

 

[Southwind17]

Southwind17 may be (mathematically) abstracting, which is sometimes interpreted as the act of hiding irrelevant details.

Though, to be fair, mathematical abstraction is more generally defined as a mapping between formalisms that reduces the computational complexity of the task at stake.

The difference between biological evolution and technological development are being deliberately ignored in the "analogy" as the two have been removed from the realm of real world objects and generalised to "be" mathematical formalisms.

Why attempt to manipulate ideas and concepts as if they were mathematical formalisms?

Do you write in any other languages that we can maybe understand, such as English, for example?

 

[President Bush]

Do you write in any other languages that we can maybe relate to, such as English, for example?

You do not understand what your own "analogy" has become?

 

[Southwind17]

You do not understand what your own "analogy" has become?

Not in the "terms" that you choose to "describe" it. But I'm not here to "analyse" and "eulogize" the "concept" of an "analogy"; I see that as a "distraction" to the "purpose" of the thread. I know how and why "analogies" can be helpful in "explaining" things (helpful to people who similarly "understand" and "appreciate" the "notion" of an "analogy", that is), and that's "enough" for me!

 

[cyborg]

Why attempt to manipulate ideas and concepts as if they were mathematical formalisms?

To avoid the kind of bullflop being engaged in here and force people to be precise about what they mean.

And also to allow precise reasoning. That is the point of logical formalisms.

But by all means if you'd rather spin round and round and round...

 

[President Bush]

Why attempt to manipulate ideas and concepts as if they were mathematical formalisms?

To avoid the kind of bullflop being engaged in here and force people to be precise about what they mean.

And also to allow precise reasoning. That is the point of logical formalisms.

But by all means if you'd rather spin round and round and round...

Thank you for your answer.

But ideas and concepts are already abstractions (from concrete experience or objects). Is it valid to further abstract an existing abstraction (into a mathematical formalism)?

 

[jimbob]

I think the reason we all seem to be going around in never-decreasing circles is that questions are being asked but not answered (and not answered for 'convenience' at times, I would suggest), and requests are being made but not responded to. Many of these questions and requests are fairly direct, so shouldn't be confused for general comment or rhetoric. Here are the pertinent questions and requests that I've asked and made more recently, mostly of jimbob. So, jimbob, care to address them directly, i.e. without resorting to your broken record?:

I have answered many of these before. However...

"That is just what happens"! So the dolphin and the cheetah 'just happen' to pursue prey until they land lucky? They don't apply some selective criteria in 'deciding' where to hunt, at what time, which prey to pursue, for how long, what dangers to look out for, etc?

Please respond.

The dolphin and cheetah do not decide to perform selective breeding on their prey; they are part of the myriad selection pressures on the other organisms in their ecosystem, which includes their predators, competitors and prey.

Talk to the story jimbob. Show me where Sam's designs were altered with the aim of fixing the 'fault'. Show me where Sam consciously considered some of the features 'good' in his initial and subsequently failed designs. No doubt in one of his initial failures he happened to have the battery connected to the switch but not the bulb. Show me where he recognized that and consciously retained that arrangement whilst he messed around with the switch configuratioin only. SHOW ME!

Please show me.

In this unrealistic example, that did not happen. In real life it does.

Where is Sam's evolutionary algorithm? It does show how technological development works in reality - the story is real - both Ollie and Sam developed their technologies!

Please identify Sam's evolutionary algorithm to me.

The story only has "poetic truth", and I would argue that it doesn't even have that. As it is an unrealistic representation of development, but quite a good example of an evolutionary algorithm.

Hidden for brevity

I offered to buy each of them a junior electronics set, and suggested that they could make useful things and sell them to their mates. I explained that if they made a modest profit on each item they sold they could then buy more electronics components and make even better things. This appealed to them, so I bought the electronics sets and left them to it in their respective playrooms.

<snip>

Sam explained that he’d simply connected wires to components and wires to batteries in a thoughtless fashion, and that he’d taken his ‘creations’ to school to try to sell them. Understandably, nobody was interested; they served no useful purpose. Then Sam explained that one day, purely by chance, he’d happened to connect up a battery with a switch and a light bulb in a particular order and the bulb had lit. He’d taken it to school and his mates had apparently now shown great interest, so much so that one of them bought it from him. So, like Ollie, Sam proceeded to make simple torches by copying what he’d made and sell them to his mates.

"I explained that if they made a modest profit on each item they sold they could then buy more electronics components and make even better things. "

"So, like Ollie, Sam proceeded to make simple torches by copying what he’d made and sell them to his mates. "


The algorithm is: "make random variants and see if they sell for a profit within a certain time. If a variant does sell, then copy it, and make variations, copying those that sell best."

What, exactly, do you mean when you use the term 'self-replication'?

Please answer this question.

Again I have answered this question many times:

A self-replicating system can considered to consist of two parts:

1). The "design blueprint" or "instructions" needed to perform the replication. Alterations to this information (i.e. mutations in biological systems) are the source of variation.

and

2). The "vehicle" or the physical system that carries the information, and interfaces with the environment to perform the copying. This vehicle includes the rest of the system that actually enable the information to copy itself. different features or "traits" in the vehicle can affect the success or otherwise of the information copying. In any environment, traits can be positive, negative, or neutral. Natural-selection acts on the vehicle. If the information has "built" a variant that doesn't reproduce, then the information is not replicated further.

The important factor is that the "replication instructions" are embodied in the vehicle, so that anything that affects the replication process, by selecting out the vehicle, also selects out the "blueprint".

I believe that by 'self'-replication you are alluding to the fact that in nature there is no 'external agent' that performs the replication process. In other words, an organism has to survive long enough to breed (or otherwise multiply) in order for replication to occur, whereas a machine can be replicated at any time by its designer. Assuming this belief is correct, though, what implication, exactly, do you consider it has on the validity of the analogy?

Please answer this question.

"whereas a machine can be replicated at any time by its designer".

Whether the machine is copied or not is not the result of the dumb univers, but the result of an external, arbitary decision.

I can easily think of three different cases.

1). The copy selection is (either) random (or pseudorandom). There would be no selective pressures in this case, so there would be no evolution, just a drunkard's walk.

2). The selcetion itself is not performed by an intelligent agent, but according to a set of arbitary rules that have been ultimately derived from an intelligent agency. An example would be "If an electronic thingimybob sells at a profit within one schoolday, then copy the thingimybob with a few random alterations... If not, then copy (with a few random alterations) the last thingimybob that did sell"

3). The selection is performed by an intelligent agent actively assessing what shall be selected. I think this is the one that the IDers want us to fall for. "Select* any changes that will make some of this organism's remote descedants want to worship a sky fairy". Just as a farrmerr selects cattle for milk yield. Of course IDers also think that the mutations are directed, probably by "fortuitous" cosmic rays..

*By acts of god, And no that doesn't explain what wentr wrong with the Neanderthals, as if they buried their dead, that would seem to be evidence for potential Sky-Fairy belief.

What, exactly, is it about Sam and Ollie being the mechanisms by which their electronics devices are copied that you seem unable to reconcile with an organism being the vehicle by which it gets itself copied? All we end up with is copies of something we had before. Where's the problem with that, and again, what implication, exactly, do you see that it has on the validity of the analogy that you seem so strongly averse to disregarding?

Please answer these two questions.

The important factor is that the "replication instructions" are embodied in the vehicle, so that anything that affects the replication process, by selecting out the vehicle, also selects out the "blueprint".

Sam and Ollie are intelligent agents. They were "selecting" according to arbitary selection criteria. They could have just as well have been selecting according to what made the loudest noise, or what looked the most interesting. That is perfectly valid for technological development with evolutionary algorithms, but the decision to copy has to be taken somewhere whilst with self-replication it doesn't.

What, exactly, do you mean when you use the term 'natural selection'?

Please answer this question.

Have I yet?

Well, when a cheetah is stalking a group of antelope patiently observing and waiting for some tell-tale sign of apparent weakness that inherently informs the cheetah that it might have just identified dinner, how, in principle, does that differ from a school boy at the bring-and-buy fare perusing all of the alternative novelties on offer just waiting for one to catch his eye because of something about it that informs him that he's likely to get the most enjoyment from it?

Please answer this question.

The cheetah and dolphin are part of the environment. See above.

 

[cyborg]

But ideas and concepts are already abstractions (from concrete experience or objects). Is it valid to further abstract an existing abstraction (into a mathematical formalism)?

Yes.

 

[six7s]

Has to involve an intelligent agency??? Are you sure that this is "conventional evolutionary theory"?

I am talking about the differences between intelligently driven technological development, and emeergent natural-selection that drives evolution.

A simple "no" would have sufficed - although a supplementary acknowledgement and/or clarification of your reasons for obfuscating the point would have been appreciated too

How is it creationist to point out that evolution requires self-replication for natural selection to work.

I assume this is a rhetorical question

However, you have (conveniently?) ignored my literal question re whether or not you are an overt advocate of IDiocy - in light of your post that said

There is nothing wrong in seeing the work of intelligence in systems that were designed using intelligence

I will assume you are an IDiot until you assert otherwise

...it is such a tenet of conventional evolutionary theory

By 'it', do you mean the involvement of an intelligent agency

If so, I can understand why "it is hard to find explicit papers referring to this", simply because it is bollocks

Your link to PHILIPP HOLLIGER's In vitro evolution of DNA and RNA polymerase function (the one you labelled 'Medical research Council') has NO MENTION of intelligence - although it does use what seems to be one of your favourite phrases:

A critical event in the origin of life is thought to be the emergence of a molecule capable of self-replication as well as mutation, and hence evolution towards more efficient replication.

What were you aiming to illustrate?

I ask simply because I have no idea

Von Neumann, is the mathematician I was talking about.
Here is an informatics course module from Indiana University.

Likewise, I have NO IDEA why you copied and pasted that excerpt

What is your intent in this thread?

• to educate?
• to obfuscate?

Either way, I suspect that you are failing, dismally

If there is another motive, please do tell

Back to the GFP mouse

4⁷⁰⁰=2.7669029702758120146491942186875 x10 ⁴²¹
That is a big number.

Indeed

Of a magnitude in keeping with your ability to make inaccurate and erroneous assumptions that are based, presumably, on some perverse personal need to obfuscate

There is no practical chance that a fluorescent mouse could have evolved with the same GFP gene sequense as a jellyfish

So what?

Even if you're right (on the 'same GFP gene sequence as a jellyfish' count) it does NOT validate your absolutist stance that a glowing mouse could NEVER evolve (even without the conscious, wilful GE-style intervention of another organism)

Go outside, into the sun, sometime

You'll see there are already many influences at play on the diversity of life on this planet

Or maybe you won't see... blinded as you are by bull-science

 

[jimbob]

Six7s, I was answering the question as to why self-replication is vital for evolution to work.

Many mice are observed to lack the GFP gene sequence.

Some mice are observed to have this sequence.

Therefore this sequence must have either arisen or vanished from the mouse population recently.

Some jellyfisyh species are observed to have this gene sequence.

What are the odds of this sequence arising independantly in both some mice and jellyfish? (As most vertebrates lack this protein, we can discount the idea that maybe this gene was a result of common descent).

This is far far less than the odds of winning the national lottery jackpot every week for a year when entering only one ticket in each week.

The only reasonable explaination is that the GFP protein was put into the mouse by an intelligent agency, which of course it was.

The point is that this same sequence could not have evolved indepedently in mice and jellyfish, given that some mice do not have this sequence.

This highlights a fundamental difference between evolution and design. Design can reuse features in ways that evolution can't. Conversely evolution has "signatures" that design doesn't. If someone can design an eye, they would not design an eye differently in the same organism, whilst this does happen in evolution.

Biological systems (GMO's excepted) show none of the unique signatures of intellignece in design, whilst they often show the signatures that are uncommon in design.

"Intellignet Design" doesn't explain how humans evolved, whilst evolution does.

Originally Posted by jimbob

Originally Posted by six7s
Has to involve an intelligent agency??? Are you sure that this is "conventional evolutionary theory"

?
I am talking about the differences between intelligently driven technological development, and emeergent natural-selection that drives evolution.

A simple "no" would have sufficed - although a supplementary acknowledgement and/or clarification of your reasons for obfuscating the point would have been appreciated too

You mean yes. Without self-replication there can be no natural selection. Without natural selection there can be no evolution. Organisms self-replicate and they evolve, technological artifacts do not. That is conventional evolutionary theory.

I do accept thayt uncapitalised "intelligent design" occurs in technological development which is driven by humans.

Evoluton has no need for intelligence, whilst technological development, lacking self-replication requires it.

...it is such a tenet of conventional evolutionary theory

By 'it', do you mean the involvement of an intelligent agency

No, silly, that evolution requires self-replication. Indeed that evolution follows from imperfect self-replication.

 

[cyborg]

The important factor is that the "replication instructions" are embodied in the vehicle,

Nope.

 

[articulett]

Not in the "terms" that you choose to "describe" it. But I'm not here to "analyse" and "eulogize" the "concept" of an "analogy"; I see that as a "distraction" to the "purpose" of the thread. I know how and why "analogies" can be helpful in "explaining" things (helpful to people who similarly "understand" and "appreciate" the "notion" of an "analogy", that is), and that's "enough" for me!

I "concur".

I'm "glad" I can "comprehend" the "communications" of the intelligent "people".

 

[mijopaalmc]

Nope.

So organisms do not contain the DNA that directs the synthesis of proteins the interactions among which determine the phenotype of the organism which is in turn selected by the environment?

Do see how this different from technologies which do not contain the instruction for their own reproduction?

 

[articulett]

Jimbob... you are confusing the info. for the thing it creates yet again. The info. just has to be good at getting itself copied... Organisms don't copy themselves... they copy info. which give rise to creatures like themselves. Viruses don't copy themselves. You keep confusing this very important fact to see something hugely "different" that isn't there. You ignore all examples given where intelligent agencies evolve products or people without any intelligent input or intent... just lucky accident that have something about them that make others want to copy the "accident". You also referred to organisms as self replicating yet again. That's a very strong creationist misnomer propagated by Behe--. Read your own quote as six7's highlighted. Self replication is NOT want you keep assuming it is.

Read Cyborg's word "nope". Concentrate on it. He's right. You are using a lot of words to convince yourself of a lot of nothingness. You are not clear on any point and missing the boat entirely when it comes to the easy stuff that the majority understand without problem.

The only people on your side are people that even you can't understand. Use the clue.

"wash, rinse, repeat"...

(That's info. that guarantees the replication of itself... why?)

 

[six7s]

No, silly...

I suggest that, when using text-based media, you postpone your use of condescension until you can and have demonstrated at least an elementary grasp of language

The point is that this same sequence could not have evolved indepedently in mice and jellyfish, given that some mice do not have this sequence

What is it about you and your apparent obsession with jellyfish? Is it cos they too are spineless?

Whatever, they are irrelevant to your absolutist claim

You mean yes

No

You might want to believe in a yes

However, my question concerened your use of the phrase "Has to involve an intelligent agency"

Your answer did not even begin to address this issue

Evoluton has no need for intelligence, whilst technological development, lacking self-replication requires it.

And you STILL resolutely, obstinately FAIL to grasp the essence of the analogy