I'm not a huge fan of larding.... but I'm going to attempt it below. ----------- Eric P. Charles, Ph.D. Department of Justice - Personnel Psychologist American University - Adjunct Instructor <[email protected]>
On Mon, Jul 27, 2020 at 12:09 AM Jon Zingale <[email protected]> wrote: > Thank you, Nick and Eric, for the corrections, direction, and help as I > grapple with these ideas that you both are so familiar with. Taking a > step back, it appears that evolutionary theorists identify *function* in > the *epiphenomena* arising from *underlying mechanisms*. <I'm not sure > what you mean by "mechanism" here, but I'm leaning towards agreement. > Function can be identefied independent of mechanism.> What connection the > epiphenomena have to the mechanisms can often be elusive, illusory, and > hotly debated. <Yes. Nick and I have been putting forth well worn > examples, but in the moment there is often hot debate, including assertions > that certain complex phenomena are non-functional (spandrals, genetic > drift, etc.). For example, there are decades of arguments about the > function of primate mating strategies (monogy, polyandry, polygyny), the > liturature is huge and gnarled.> Must the mechanisms related to a flowing > river give rise > to a meaningful[Ȣ] function? Moreover and seemingly less to the point, > evolutionary functions are sought after that can be identified as being > preserved inter-generationally in some sense. <Well... kinda.... I would > say that, among evolutionary biologists, "Because it serves an evolutionary > function" is a strongly desired answer to the question "Why did X preserve > inter-generationally?"> The survival of gulls is > an *unintended consequence* of selection upon eggshell removal. <I'm not > sure I would phrase it that way, but it seems like a plausible phrasing. > That would be one way of emphasizing the "natural" part of the "natural > selection" metaphor. Gulls that removed egg shells out-reproduced those > that did not and, as a result, over countless generations, we now only have > gulls that remove egg shells. (In that species.) However, contra examples > of domestic-animal selection, there is no being that is intendeding the > consequence for the gulls; and in that sense, it *is* unintended.> > While *goals* are related to the satisfaction of the individual, the > *function* is not so simply defined. As Nick has pointed out many times in > our conversations, *function* may better be understood in relation to a > concept of *design*[‖]. Perhaps it would be better to imagine *function* > as > needing to satisfy the specification of some *design*[※]. <Yes, in Nick's > solution to various conceptual problems in evolutionary theory, "function" > and "design" and "adaptation" become roughly (possibly completely) > synonymous. The three terms get at the way the organism matches it's > circumstances, which we can only tell through experimentation and > higher-order comparisons of various kinds.> The styrofoam > herding robot *knows nothing* of styrofoam, the bent metal in my thermo- > stat *knows nothing* of comfort, the maple pod *knows nothing* of the > journey or what it means to be distributed evenly, and the gull makes > no connection between removing shells and predation. However the theory > is to account for function, it will need to be in a language capable of > describing *side effects* as *first-class citizens*. <That sounds > promissing.> > > Eric relates the discovery of a goal-function distinction in evolutionary > theory to the discovery of the surface tension-PH distinction in chemistry. > Whether intentionally identified or just a side effect of his argument, > surface tension and PH are decidedly examples of intensive quantities and > so are of a type best characterized by contravariant functors[⁂]. <It > would seem that was accidental, but maybe it was a fortuitous accident!> > The > connections here to contravariant logical notions (pullbacks, sections, > equalizers, finite limits, etc...) may have very real manifestations wrt > how we *must* investigate such ideas *empirically*. Ideas like this are > hinted at in Lawvere's work, but also seem to trace back further to > thinkers like Clifford Truesdell and others that struggled with rational > thermodynamics. From what I gather from those works, there ought > to be a tight connection between the logic of a notion and the methods > we employ in coming to understand the notion. <This whole paragraph > sounds plausible... but it would probably be a pretty long discussion > before I fully understood what you were getting at. The last part sounds > very Pragmatic (philosophically).> > > To the extent that this much may be passable, I hope to find some time > this week to work through the possible connection to contravariant > functors, to reason further in analogy to free constructions, and extend > the analogy to *exaptations* and *spandrels*. Again, I invite additional > corrections, comments, and nuance. > > Jon > > [Ȣ] By meaningful I exactly mean non-arbitrary. I would say that notions > like *energy* and *momentum* are *meaningful* to the physicist, for > instance, > not because they are *arbitrary* but because they have a *privileged* > place > relative to the *art* and the artisans that work there. The scientific > enterprise is a meaning-making enterprise and to say that such-and-such > idea is meaningful to the artisan is to emphasize its value relative to > the art. > > [‖] In a parallel post, I attempt to spell out a mathematical construction > that I believe can be an example if not a template relating design, > epiphenomena, and higher-order structure in mathematics. That this > construction can alternatively be interpreted as a post hoc justification, > gives a limiting case for not needing a designer to have a *design*. > > http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/How-is-a-vector-space-like-an-evolutionary-function-td7597965.html > > [⁂] Footnoted again, but this time with an added emphasis on page 20: > > https://altexploit.files.wordpress.com/2017/06/1992-categories-of-space-and-quantity.pdf > " > > > *By contrast, an intensive quantity-type is a contravariant functor,taking > coproducts to products, from a distributive category, but now afunctor > whose values have a multiplicative structure as well as anadditive > structure.*" > > [※] To act as touchstones, I am adding this list of functions: > 1. herd styrofoam (http://www.verena-hafner.de/teaching/didabots.pdf) > 2. maintain a comfortable temperature in the house > 3. spread seeds far and evenly > 4. avoid predation > - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn GMT-6 bit.ly/virtualfriam > un/subscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com > archives: http://friam.471366.n2.nabble.com/ > FRIAM-COMIC http://friam-comic.blogspot.com/ >
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