Re: Is technology part of evolution?

On Aug 10, 4:33 pm, c...@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) wrote:


JGCASEY <jgkjca...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Aug 10, 9:01 am, c...@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) wrote:
WC:
That's consistent with my other post where I explained
that evolution in the universe was the same basic process
that makes humans intelligent (trial and error learning
systems). The intelligent universe created intelligent
humans.

JC:
You didn't exactly *explain* that evolution was the same
basic process that makes us intelligent, you merely made
that assertion.

WC:
Where you not able to follow the explanation? Again?

What is missing, is only the proof of what the brain is
actually doing. I've explained in detail,

JC:
No, you have never explained it in detail, it is those
wild claims that amaze me about you .. general high
level statements do not constitute detail.

WC:
what I believe it's doing, and from that, you should be
able to follow the explanation of why the process of
evolution is the same basic process.


If you reject my belief about what the brain is doing,
then you will likely reject my explanation of evolution
being intelligent. But you shouldn't be able to say I
didn't explain it, because I did.

JC:
I also see the notion of "trial and error" to be a rather
high level description of the selective process that is a
natural outcome of the way things are structured.

WC:
It's as high level as you can get. It's meant to be.

JC:
It is not as high level as you can get. This is the highest
level! "Things change over time" that covers the lot
including things that change via trial and error and is
nearly as useless as an explanation true though it may be.

JC:
Life did not evolve simply as a result of trial and error
learning, it also required the right kind of mechanisms for
implementing flexible heredity and reproduction.

WC:
I don't see it that way. It's not even important that life
evolved here. Structure has evolved everywhere. The structure
we like to call life just happens to be one particularly
interesting set of structure that evolved on Earth.

The mountains and rivers are just as interesting. They
evolve on Mars as well as on Earth. Why are they not just
as interesting as life? They are just as complex in many way.

JC:
Your notion of complexity is somewhat skewed. It is not
even about complexity as such. It is about the image of
something recognizable on your screen as opposed to a
screen filled with random pixel values. I guess the noisy
screen is "more complex". I guess you find the noisy
screens just as interesting and ones with pictures?

WC:
A large mountain range has more complexity of structure than
a human does. It was created out of a cloud of gas like the
rest of the planet.

JC:
Another example of a pointless observation. I assume you
mean mountains formed on the earth which itself formed
out of a cloud of dust which in turn was due to various
physical constraints? A better explanation of mountains,
once the formation of the earth is explained, is they
result from the tectonic plates colliding with each other,
like the folding of a carpet pushed against the wall, or
one plate sliding over the other.

WC:
Why does no one seem to want to talk
about who designed the mountains?


JC:
I don't know who wants to talk about who designed it.
I am talking about the constraints that exist, the laws
of physics if you like, that determined all these forms
in the first place.

WC:
What I would say in response to needing the "right mechanism"
is simply that it needs the right mechanism to support trial
and error learning - which the matter in this universe happens
to have (for unknown reasons). In other words, simply by
saying that it happened by trial and error learning assumes
it has the right mechanism to evolve complexity.

JC:
And that right mechanism is .... it is the explanation!

You take as a given the thing to be explained like
Skinner did when he called "beauty" a stimulus.

And how does my calculator add numbers? Oh it does it
by having the right mechanism. What kind of explanation
is that? Oh it does computations (trial and error type
"explanation"). Gee blind Freddy knows that, give us
the details of how it does these calculations not what
we already know.


JC:
Just as a system will not learn by trial and error alone
it will also need the right kind of mechanisms.

WC:
Any system that supports trial and error learning in any form
does learn.

JC:
That was a tautology Curt.

I never wrote "trial and error learning" I wrote "learn by
trial and error". If something tries something, has an error,
and doesn't have the means to do something about it, it will
not learn a damn thing. Our cat tries things all the time
and fails to learn what to do to achieve some outcome like
get me to feed it because it hasn't the mental what for all
(mechanisms) to figure out how to get me to do it. All it
has to do is meow at the rest of the family, which is its
main repertoire of things "to try" to get a feast.

So trial and error only results in learning if the appropriate
mechanism is there to support it. Some things are never learned
no matter how much trial and error because the entity doing
trying and getting the errors doesn't have what it takes. That
is what I meant by trial and error also needs the right kind
of mechanism without which it explains nothing.

[...]

JC:
A major part to the solution to the combinational explosion
I believe will turn out to be due to the inherent constraints
in any system. Shake a bag of ordinary buttons and the
combinational explosion will make a column of buttons unlikely
to happen any time soon. Shake a bag of magnetic buttons
and the outcome is assured. Of course this is not sufficient
for life, I could go on about other requirements, the point
is that trial and error is not in itself sufficient as an
explanation as to how it happened.

WC:
The bag of buttons do learn. Any assertion that they do
not is just invalid. It is however a good example of how
the mechanism dictates the path taken. There is no reason
to believe that the "column of buttons" configuration is one
that should be formed. It just happens to be one that is
unlikely to form in the button bag because its formation
has no survival advantage over the other configurations.

JC:
Even if it did have a survival advantage the probability
of it happening anytime soon while shaking the bag is still
just as unlikely. Survival value is about the resulting
pattern surviving not about its likelihood in the first
place.


WC:
What you actually have in the bag of buttons is an example
of strong survival skills. The buttons themselves are
strong survivors. Shaking the bag doesn't "kill" the buttons
- aka force them to loose their current structure. Before
you can get the buttons to change to a different form, you
have to direct higher amounts of energy to the bag - at
which time, the button's will die, and new structures will
form. Again, trial and error learning with the test for
error simply being the ability for the current structure
to survive.

JC:
You call the survival of buttons to a shaking a skill!!

And why do you change the whole argument by moving from
a discussion about the bag of buttons to the buttons
themselves? That is as silly as moving from how proteins
behave to how the amino acids behave. Yes Curt buttons
are different to bags of buttons and amino acids behave
differently to proteins.

Why are you so resistant to trying to understand the basic
requirements for things to evolve by going on about the
buttons when it is the likelihood of an event I am talking
about. An event that has to occur at least once to be
selected and understanding the constraints that make
something likely I see as a big part in understanding why
it was possible in the first place.

It is this tendency for you to go off the beaten track
that makes it virtually impossible to make any kind of
progress in these discussions.

--
JC

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