I've placed a cleaned up copy here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NQ7vi5JCv97WPyC88Ym0DRdERFZSUCyKJsHrx9q5QP8/edit?usp=sharing
I've added a couple of questions as comments on that document. If you care to edit it, let me know your gmail address and I'll add you as an editor. > -------- Original message -------- > > From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > > Date: 4/26/20 23:05 (GMT+01:00) > > To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' > <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> > > Cc: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>, > [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > > Subject: [FRIAM] Warring Darwinians for Glen, Steve > > > > Hi, everybody, > > > > I am striving mightily to get my brain out of the corvid19 cesspit, and > Stephen and Glen have been helping me, in part by talking about an old > wrangle that Stephen and I have shared over the role of selection (if any) in > evolution. In these arguments, I have always felt that Stephen has strived > to maneuver me into the sights of his largest gun, but, whenever he fires it, > the shells seem to go whizzing by me as if fired at somebody else entirely. > So this letter is written primarily to Glen and Steve, but I post it here > because I think some few of you (Dave?) may have something to say about what > I say, here. > > > > I have often said that FRIAM saved my intellectual bacon. I say this > because when I came to Santa Fe in 2006, it was to help my wife help my son > and his wife raise my infant grandchildren -- clearly not a full time job. > I justified the venture to my provost with vague hope that I would attach > myself either to the evolutionary psychology group at UNM or to the Santa Fe > Institute or both. In fact, neither panned out. > > > > And thus, cast loose in Santa Fe, I fell into the arms of Stephen, Carl, > and Owen, and … FRIAM. The attached abstract of piece I never wrote > (because I never could dragoon Gillian Barker into writing for me) reveals > the state of my mind at the time. I was clearly already teetering between > selectionist and systemist thinking. It had dawned on me during my previous > sabbatical down the corridor from Lyn Margulis that any theory of natural > selection required /as a precondition/ additivity of variance, and nothing > that we had learned about epigenesis in the previous gave us much hope that > additivity of variance was a likely condition of inheritance. So, if > additivity of variance was not an obvious consequence of epigenetic > relations, it must somehow be an achievement of them. Two possibilities > occurred to me at the time: one is that genetic mechanisms were themselves > selected for “fairness” – a selectionist explanation; or, that fairness > somehow fell out of the > underlying chemical and biological structures – a systemist explanation. > > > > This is already enough biography to choke a horse, so I shall wrap up, > here. Suffice it to say that, when Stephen showed me Wolfram’s book I was > stunned. Here was a demonstration of how simple rules could generate complex > structures without any nudges from any selection mechanism. Could additivity > of variance and, therefore, natural selection, itself “fall out” of chemical > and energetic relations. Could systems coddle natural selection the way rear > flank downdrafts coddle a tornado. Could we have natural selection for free. > > > > Only in my late 60’s at the time, I harbored the illusion that I myself > could be come a master of the art of computation. Alas, that ship had > sailed. So, now you see me. “I yam what I yam,” as Popeye used to say. > But one thing I yam NOT is the ferocious adherent to genic selection theory > that Stephen needs me to be if I am going to be felled by his biggest gun. > > > > And now I have to cook dinner for my 13 and 17 year old grandchildren. > The oldest is learning rendering from Stephen. Life will go on! -- ☣ uǝlƃ .-. .- -. -.. --- -- -..-. -.. --- - ... -..-. .- -. -.. -..-. -.. .- ... .... . ... FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/
