On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 7:49 PM, John Clark <johnkcl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Wed, Jan 21, 2015 at 6:56 AM, Telmo Menezes <te...@telmomenezes.com> > wrote: > >> >> >> the man who invented the condom transcend Darwinism. >>> >> >> >I disagree. We are all still all the product of Darwinist processes. We >> are all at the end of a long line of machines that successfully produced >> viable offspring. >> > > Absolutely true, Evolution invented brains because the genome is not > nearly big enough to hardwired a animal on the best way to behave in every > environmental situation to get genes into the next generation. > Ok. > So yes, Evolution invented the brain that invented condoms, and if > Evolution had any foresight it would have certainly taken steps to ensure > that the brain never even thought of the idea of a condom; > We don't know that. In fact, evolution creates all sorts of mechanisms to limit procreation in response to environmental conditions. Maybe condoms increase the survivability of our species, by allowing us to be more selective on the moment when we invest our resources to procreate. If you play even with simple evolutionary algorithms you will realise that your intuition betrays you constantly. I'll tell you about a simple example that happened to me. I was coding a simple alife simulation and I had these creatures that looked for food. To test the evolutionary algorithm, I decided to make it evolve the vision range of the creatures. I assumed the algorithm would maximize the vision range, because a larger range had no cost whatsoever. Instead it stabilised at an intermediary value. Then I realised that limited information actually helped these simple creatures, because it made them stay in their local environment instead of going in long runs after big deposits of food that could be found by someone else meanwhile. Now, in an environment as complex as real biology, we must remain very humble in regards to our ability to understand all the incentives at play. > but Evolution has no foresight, not even the smallest speck of it, > Evolution doesn't have the concept of one step backwards and 2 steps > forward, it is only interested in things that improve reproductive success > *right now*. > > >> > The condom is just a recent change in reproductive strategies. Changes >> in reproductive strategies have been happening since the first life-forms >> appeared. >> > > But that is not a reproductive strategy, with a condom sex no longer has > anything to do with reproduction. > Well, it still has something to do with reproduction... > Inventing condoms was not the reason Evolution invented brains, and I > realize that neither Evolution nor my genes would like that invention (and > I also realize I'm using anthropomorphic language) because to them the only > important thing in life is to get as many genes into the next generation as > possible. > I use anthropomorphic language also, as a shortcut. But we have to be very careful. If creature A in region 1 makes as many copies of itself as it can, and creature B in region 2 makes only a few copies, reacting to environmental clues, creature A appears to be winning in the short term. But if you run this for a few iterations, creatures A's offspring will be all weeded out by resource depletion while creature B's offspring, while less numerous in the beginning, actually makes it past a few generations. This is a cartoonish example, of course, but I think you get my drift. In human society, condoms allow us to make strategic decisions. For example, a young couple might decide to further their education before reproducing. Then they will have a shorter reproductive window, but their offspring will inherit more resources. > But I am not Evolution nor am I my genes so I don't care, Evolution and > my genes have their opinion and I have mine. > That's impossible to know. Your brain is the product of evolution and it could be betraying you at a very deep level. Telmo. > > > 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- 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 everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
