On Saturday, April 20, 2013 4:15:17 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: > > > On 19 Apr 2013, at 19:52, Craig Weinberg wrote: > > > > On Friday, April 19, 2013 9:59:34 AM UTC-4, Bruno Marchal wrote: >> >> >> On 18 Apr 2013, at 22:05, Craig Weinberg wrote: >> >> >> >> On Thursday, April 18, 2013 1:29:29 PM UTC-4, Brent wrote: >>> >>> On 4/18/2013 8:15 AM, John Clark wrote: >>> >>> On Wed, Apr 17, 2013 meekerdb <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> > It's been proposed that the susceptibility to mutation is itself a >>>> characteristic subject to natural selection. >>>> >>> >>> If a animal is undergoing stress (too hot, too cold, too thirsty, too >>> hungry whatever) that means there is something about it that is not well >>> adapted to its environment; I can imagine a gene that in times of stress >>> would switch on and produce a chemical that increases the rate of random >>> mutation in the genes of the offspring of that stressed animal. Most of the >>> offspring would have mutated in the wrong direction and die but they would >>> have probably died anyway because they would have been as poorly adapted as >>> there parent was, but if the mutational effect was not too strong (even if >>> it's in the right direction you can change things too far) it could >>> increase the likelihood that at least one of its children would be better >>> adapted than its parent. However I maintain that such a stress induced >>> mutation producing gene has had no significant effect on the history of >>> life, at least not in animals that reproduce sexually. >>> >>> >>> That's a kind of Lamarckian adjustment of mutability. What I was >>> referring to is simple Darwinian adjustment of mutability. There are error >>> correcting mechanisms for DNA reproduction. Suppose they worked perfectly: >>> then there would never be any genetic variation and when the evironment >>> changed the species would go extinct. But if they had a slight error rate >>> then there would develop a range of genetic diversity that might, under >>> environmental change, result in survivors or even new species. So on >>> strictly Darwinian theory the DNA error correction may be selected to be >>> less than perfect. >>> >> >> How does a deterministic universe invent something which is intentionally >> less than perfect? I'm not saying that it couldn't, or didn't, but why >> would there really even be any possibility of volatility built into physics >> in the first place? What, in a deterministic universe, constitutes an >> 'error'? >> >> >> >> A deterministic reality might be unable to make an error at the "bottom >> level", but if it can emulate high level complex processes, like running >> some complex software, and such software can make an error with respect to >> the goal (like "survive"). Look at some youtube "crash investigation" >> showing why today some plane crash are due to computer errors. The error >> can have multiple origin, hardware or software. >> Likewise it is reasonable for a biologist to say that when a DNA >> polymerase introduces an unwanted supplementary nucleotide, it is making an >> error. In fact living cells contains a lot of error correction code to >> handle such cases, with 'error' taken in a sense similar to the one used in >> computer science. This illustrates that some errorless low-level can >> support higher level errors. >> >> Bruno >> > > It seems like you are bringing in empirical evidence of errors in the real > world and using that to justify the expectation that at some point between > low-level and high-level, this 'error' potential emerges as a condition of > complexity. > > > OK. > > > > > What I am asking for though is precisely that this point be explained by > theory. What is the theory of the emergence of the first error? > > > It is when god put the tree of knowledge in the garden :) > > More seriously, it is when universal machine/number begins to refer and > self-refer. That ability makes it possible to accelerate the computations > relatively to each other, but entails the possiblity of error. >
Why does it entail that possibility, i.e. how does 'error' become a possibility? > > The deep reason is already contained in Gödel's second incompleteness: if > I am consistent then it is consistent that I am inconsistent (Dt -> ~BDt). > Simple but rich correct theories can be come inconsistent, or consistent > but unsound. > Not satisfying. A paradox does not automatically conjure a phenomena where determinism arbitrarily fails on a infrequent but quasi-inevitable basis. Craig > Bruno > > > > > > > Craig > > >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> Craig >> >> >>> Brent >>> >>> >>> Such a stress-mutation gene has never been found in a sexual animal and >>> it's easy to see why. In sex all the genes are not inherited in one big >>> package but are shuffled around with the genes of the other parent, so a >>> animal that was lucky enough to inherit the good genes produced by the >>> hypothetical stress-mutation gene but not the stress-mutation gene itself >>> would do just as well or better than a animal that got both the good genes >>> and the stress-mutation gene that is no longer active because the animal is >>> no longer under stress. So even if such a stress-mutation gene did occur in >>> one individual in a population it would vanish in just a few generations >>> from the gene pool. Natural Selection doesn't figure "I better keep that >>> stress-mutation gene because even though there is no stress now that could >>> change and such a gene might come in handy in the future". Evolution has >>> no foresight and can't think and all that matters to it is what's happening >>> right here right now. >>> >>> John K Clark >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send >>> an email to [email protected]. >>> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en >>> . >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >>> >>> >>> >>> No virus found in this message. >>> Checked by AVG - www.avg.com >>> Version: 2013.0.3272 / Virus Database: 3162/6252 - Release Date: 04/17/13 >>> >>> >>> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to [email protected]. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. >> >> >> >> >> http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ >> >> >> >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected] <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> > . > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > > > > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
