Intelligent Evolution?

[amb]

Oh noes, he's an imposter...

Sure about that? Sure it's not an impostor? Why he could even have a secret twin.
The Bush we see on TV is proof intelligent evolution is bogus.

 

[President Bush]

Oh, all these 'needs' and 'beliefs' of information and what it 'cares about' is restricted to terrestrial information! And I thought information on, say, Mars would have the same kind of feelings and needs! But no! Martian information is much more frugal, correct?

On Mars information comprises indivisible entities known as bars.

 

[aggle-rithm]

That's sorta the problem here in discussing the analogy: at least one supporter of the analogy sees emergent properties as having a different form of existence from non-emergent properties and therefore can be "abstracted away" when they are inconvenient to the analogy.

Just wait till we get into emergent properties of emergent properties of emergent properties. That'll REALLY bake your biscuit!

 

[aggle-rithm]

On Mars information comprises indivisible entities known as bars.

Do you mean "invisible"? Because apparently they are, judging from the jpeg.

 

[plumjam]

President Bush, up to now I'm impressed by your grammar and spelling. Is Condie taking dictation on your lap?

 

[Henners]

This is interesting. At what point does "instinct" become "intelligence"? Does a pride of lions, for example, ambush its prey instinctively or intelligently?

You could tell by finding out whether they do better by being taught.

 

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by jimbob
No, self-replication is nescessary but not sufficient for life. A virus is not usually considered to be alive, but viruses self-replicate and evolve.


I am using "reproduction" simply because that is more common in biology than self-replication, but when biologists talk about reproduction they are talking about self-reporduction i.e. self-replication

Again you show that you don't get the analogy.

Information does not self-replicate. It USES other things to get itself replicated.

With that argument, how do you separate the different processes of selective breeding and evolution?

How does that argument allow you to seperate the processes of genetic engineering and evolution?

How does that argument allow you to seperate the (hypothetical) process Intelligent Design from evolution? "The information used a deity to evolve".

Do you think there is any difference in the process? Do you think that if we are discussing the process, it is good to be able to clearly distinguish between these cases?

How does your argument allow you to seperate the process of altering a design based on interpolation or extrapolation and random changes?

If I have a device with a certain set of features, and I alter one parameter based on extrapolation of experimental data, how can "the information that comprises that parameter" be said to evolve in any way akin to darwinian evolution?

The change is a result of extrapolation, and so was not "selected" but "calculated". Even if one puts a range of values aroung the extrapolated point, the change is still more akin to Lamarckian than Darwininian evolution.

 

[cyborg]

With that argument, how do you separate the different processes of selective breeding and evolution?

Identification of involved homo sapiens.

How does that argument allow you to seperate the processes of genetic engineering and evolution?

Identification of involved homo sapiens.

How does that argument allow you to seperate the (hypothetical) process Intelligent Design from evolution? "The information used a deity to evolve".

Identification of involved deity.

Don't you get how Occam's razor works?

Are you ever going to respond to my previous post?

 

[mijopaalmc]

Silly, jimbob there is no difference that can't be abstracted away.

 

[jimbob]

Which one cyborg?

 

[cyborg]

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3322208&postcount=2559

 

[Belz...]

With that argument, how do you separate the different processes of selective breeding and evolution?

Why would I want to ?

How does that argument allow you to seperate the processes of genetic engineering and evolution?

Same question.

How does that argument allow you to seperate the (hypothetical) process Intelligent Design from evolution? "The information used a deity to evolve".

Occam.

 

[President Bush]

Do you mean "invisible"? Because apparently they are, judging from the jpeg.

Somebody musta et yours.

Short derail:

The UK Mars Bar Index (MBI): In his informative and entertaining articles in the Financial Times (1981 and 1983), the late Nico Colchester introduced the concept of using the Mars Bar as a standard unit of currency. He argued that the recipe has stayed pretty much the same, as has the production, distribution and retailing methods. Therefore, other prices could be valued in terms of the typical price of a Mars Bar (1MB), allowing direct comparisons to be made over time.

http://www.hmcm.co.uk/hmcm/news/n112p1.htm

 

[Apathia]

Here comes the Recession:

Deep fried Mars Bars!

 

[Herzblut]

On Mars information comprises indivisible entities known as bars.

Superb. Now seeking information on Venus.

 

[President Bush]

Superb. Now seeking information on Venus.

The most powerful word in the English language... Uma.

 

[amb]

President Bush, up to now I'm impressed by your grammar and spelling. Is Condie taking dictation on your lap?

You'd need to be desperate wouldn't you? Even Bush has a much wider choice I would imagine.

 

[aggle-rithm]

The most powerful word in the English language... Uma.

"What's wrong, Homer? Never seen a naked chick in a clam before?"

-- Carl

 

[jimbob]

Originally Posted by jimbob
However all our ancestors did manage to reproduce, which is the only "test". The optimisation is towards "variants" that manage to produce at least one breeding offspring per parent.

Then it's not towards reproductive optimiality is it then?

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).

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.

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.

This sort of situation could happen with environmental changes. It could be tsimilar to the difference between Haddock and Cod at the moment for example...

Quote:
Without the variants "breeding", nothing.

Jimbob, if "breeding" stops then there are no further iterations are there?

YES. That is why self-replication works wirhout any arbitary selection criteria, whilst other systems don't

Quote:
If the selection is completely haphazard, then there will be no selection pressure.

I don't see anyone defining the selection pressures out here, do you?

You leave the system long enough and it'll formulate it's own, natural, selection pressures iff:

1) Not all current objects in consideration in the current iteration will be part of the next iteration
2) The selection of which objects are and are not included is self-defined by the objects themselves

Why is that not self-replication of some type? Where is the difference?

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

That is my point.

Quote:
No, you keep asserting that there is no randomness; there is strong evidence that quantum events, like radioactive decay are truly random, these can cause mutations, so at least some mutations are random, even if most might be merely pseudorandom.

I cannot understand that random stream of text.

This was a derail, but you keep asserting that there is no true randomness, whilst there is evidence that quantum effects are. If these events can get maginified by chaotic systems to affect macroscopic events then macroscopic events can also be truly random. the classic example is Schrondinge's cat. A more relevant one might be a radioactive decay causing a mutation that leads to cancer in an organism before it breeds, or causing some offspring to have a slightly different set of traits that affect their prey's survival...

(You seem to forget that computers are strictly non-random by definition - if you're going to be silly and talk as if the fundamental substrate of reality is ultimatelty consequential in these models then so will I).

I cannot understand that random stream of text.

Quote:
At this stage I would be asking how the simulation worked as you seem to be saying that there is no selection criteria.

Predator/prey.

1) Not all current objects in consideration in the current iteration will be part of the next iteration

Predator eats prey - survives.
Predator does not eat prey - dies.
Predator replicates.
Prey eats grass - survives.
Prey does not eat grass - dies.
Prey replicates.

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

Predator eats prey.
Prey avoids predator.

I imagine at this point you're screaming, "OH THE HUMANITY, WHERE IS THE RANDOMNESS!?!?!"

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​

Quote:
So you are selecting on "survivability".

Kinda impossible to avoid - objects not utilised in the next iteration are, well, not utilised in the next iteration.

That's true of any algorithm.

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.

Quote:
Did the surviving code "reproduce". If so then it is self-replicating according to my definition.

See above. I don't think you're considering the pure abstract of what it must mean for code to "reproduce". (Any time data is copied it's "reproduced" - think about the etymology of that word.)

Reproduce itself then.

With Southwind's analogy, the selection is external to the object being selected, with your description, you have said there is self-selection

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

Quote:
After a certain time, those organisms that are still surviving are copied, but with (pseudorandom?) alterations. This next generation is left in the same fashion and the process repeaded many times.

Don't even need the alterations to prove my earlier points - the newer simulation didn't add a whole lot of difference. Predators/prey (effectively) switching roles doesn't significantly change the dynamics.

You need a source of variation to work, analogues of sexual reproduction would "breed" the best combination of the available traits, but further pseudorandom alterations in the gene-analogues would be needed to improve on this.

Quote:
If that is the case, you are selecting for organisms that survive and using "artificial selection" to "breed" them.

What exactly is artificial about it? Be consistent now - you said artificial selection is where one tries to attain a specific variant as a goal. I have no specific variants in mind at all. I don't control the simulation once I start it (unless I choose to).

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

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.

Quote:
In this case the selection would not be for surving for any length of time, but for reproducing, which would include "surviving long enough to reproduce". It is quite possible that a "parent" organism could evolve to sacrifice some if its resources to boost the reproductive success of its offspring.

I have no idea, none whatsoever, as to why you think what you proposed is significantly more accurate other than for the obvious reason that it is a richer world model.

There's more functional possibilties afforded the variants by the world itself which allow for more reproductive strategies but apart from that I fail to see why what I had made previously is more "artificial" than this.

I would agree, but reproductive strategies are important parts of evolution. Remaining aware that you are not going to get evolution of reproductive strategise, I would say that is a good model of evolution, with the above caveat, because it relies on a special case of self-replication.

I would say it is in a grey area, and whether you say you are selecting for survivability to a certain lifetime or say it is limited evolution is semantics.

However this simulation is not in any way akin to technical development. In engineering, evolutionary algorithms are used to solve problems, and usually more tightly defined problems than that. You could think of it for a weapons-system development, but you would want to ensure that harming your interests would not be an evolutionary viable option. You would want to introduce selection against harming your interests.

 

[jimbob]

O

riginally Posted by jimbob
With that argument, how do you separate the different processes of selective breeding and evolution?

Why would I want to ?

Because they are different.

Quote:
How does that argument allow you to seperate the processes of genetic engineering and evolution?

Same question.

Because they are even more different.

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.

Quote:
How does that argument allow you to seperate the (hypothetical) process Intelligent Design from evolution? "The information used a deity to evolve".

Occam.

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

Where does the following differ from your viewpoint:

"The information used whatever means available to evolve, sometimes this doesn't involve any intgelligent agents* using any intelligences, sometimes it does. It wouldn't matter if these intelligences are supernatural or not, they are still being used by the DNA to replicate the DNA"