Why my dad is pretty fucking cool, part 783.

[Triple Zero]

Ahh thanks for writing that Kai, see I know my basics of biology, but now you gave me a more exact definition of Selection.

now I understand better where you're coming from in the other thread, that Selection is separate from Emergence.

i still disagree, but now I can explain why

see first I wasnt entirely convinced that selection is non-random. but the way you defined it here, it is. I just figured that since the environment isnt non-random, neither is the way organisms are selected, as Selection. but if you define Selection as just the process which selects, and nothing else, in that sense it is a very non-random process as a function of environment and organism.

okay.

but is it separate from Emergence? I dont think so. See, Emergence is all about levels, right? Parts on one level create a larger functioning whole on a higher level, that cannot be expressed in terms of the lower level parts.
And what is a non-random process of Selection [of organisms in their environment] on a lower level becomes just another gear in the larger ghost of an Emergent process on a higher level [an ecosystem].

IMO Selection is just another ingredient that can be part of an Emergent process, or not.

Now you made me wonder if one can have Emergent creative problem solving without Selection as part of the process. But I have already found a counterexample, swarm computing and the wisdom of crowds. The latter I already talked about in another thread, crowds--when facilitated--can find a creative solution without a Selection process because the solution can be represented as an average over the crowd, not a "best of". Swarm computing is something similar, except simulated, based (very loosely) on ants and pheromones, which can efficiently find solutions to all sorts of shortest-path problems in a changing environment (network infrastructures is one example), the solution is obviously Emergent, since a single ant-unit can never compute it (except by astronomically unlikely chance), but all the units work together, they aren't selected.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

Eris K Discordia, responsible for it all... AGAIN.

So random chance, chaotic mutation, random genetic drift... all come together to create species as we know it.

Meanwhile, Black Swan events, random chance, accidents, mutations within the environment etc all come together to bring a species to extinction.

It's like Eris' own planned obsolescence. 

But what about completely nonrandom natural selection? O.o

~Kai,

Thinks you forgot something there.

I was commenting on the above:

But if natural selection wasn't driving the evolution of our genes, then what was?  Kimura's answer was simple: chaos.  Pure chance.  The dice of mutation & the poker of genetic drift.  At the level of our DNA, evolution works mostly by accident.  Your genome is a record of random mistakes.

Is there natural selection that isn't based on the random expressions of DNA or Black Swan events in the environment?

Yes. Actually, natural selection as it's defined is a nonrandom process.

As I've said before, the biggest argument in Evolutionary Biology is what is more important: random events of catastrophy and genetic drift, or natural selection, a nonrandom process. Biologists don't even agree which is more important.

Perhaps I need to be more clear. Natural selection as a process is the selective forces of the environment nonrandomly acting upon the organism. For example, a flood that kills a population of beetles would be considered a random event, or a small isolated population of butterflies that randomly drifts in wing pattern coloration from orange to red due to random mating (genetic drift).

Natural selection would be a particular population of a species of grass is resistant to disease and over time replaces the other populations, or a tree with higher sugar content in the fruit attracting more birds for transportation thus dispersing over a wider area, or an invasive plant which takes over a region causing many other plants to be displaced or go extinct due to the invasive's vigor and immunity. Natural selection does not cover how variation comes about, only how it continues (or discontinues) by nonrandom effects of the environment. Read the previous sentence again. Mutation is not a part of natural selection, as the whole premise starts with "there is variation".

You could say that everything is reducible to random processes and that any order we impose on the world is illusory, but I think thats a major copout to actually understanding what goes on in this universe.



This all isn't even getting into the argument of gradualism vs saltationism vs punctuated equilibrium. That's a whole 'nother can of worms.

So then... what you're saying is that if we look only at a part of the overall process, its non-random. If however, we look at the entire process, it is random? That is, Natural Selection may be non-random, but the traits that are being selected came about in a random way??

I don't see how that changes what I said before. Eris/Discordia/Chaos./Discord/Balck Swans/etc may not have their fingers in every aspect of a species evolution or extinction, but it still seems like the basic first factor.

I mean,. the kicker isn't always on the field, but you don't really have much of a ball game without the kickoff.

[Kai]

So then... what you're saying is that if we look only at a part of the overall process, its non-random. If however, we look at the entire process, it is random? That is, Natural Selection may be non-random, but the traits that are being selected came about in a random way??

I don't see how that changes what I said before. Eris/Discordia/Chaos./Discord/Balck Swans/etc may not have their fingers in every aspect of a species evolution or extinction, but it still seems like the basic first factor.

I mean,. the kicker isn't always on the field, but you don't really have much of a ball game without the kickoff.

Is it bad that the first thing I thought of from your first statement is the double slit experiment and what we decide to observe determines what conclusions we will come to?

If we're talking about natural selection, if we're focusing on the selective aspects that lead to transmutation, then yes, we will see a nonrandom process. If we look at catastrophe, genetic drift, and how variation comes about in the first place, then yes, we will see a random process (or set of processes). Depending on how you frame the thing, you either see it as random or nonrandom, but its really both, and sorta nonintuitive that way. I just wanted to make it clear that when I talk about selection (and when you come across other conversations of natural selection in specific) I'm talking about a nonrandom process, which does play a part in transmutation.

Jesus, this all is like discussing "is a photon more a particle or more a wave?" No wonder so many biologists argue about random vs nonrandom, cause the ridiculousness of the argument hasn't hit them yet. I'm going to start framing it in the above way more often.

[LMNO]

Woot!  Cross-discipline!

[Triple Zero]

"is a photon more a particle or more a wave?"

The correct answer is, of course, tapioca.

[LMNO]

"is a photon more a particle or more a wave?"

The correct answer is, of course, A TORPEDO!

\

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

So then... what you're saying is that if we look only at a part of the overall process, its non-random. If however, we look at the entire process, it is random? That is, Natural Selection may be non-random, but the traits that are being selected came about in a random way??

I don't see how that changes what I said before. Eris/Discordia/Chaos./Discord/Balck Swans/etc may not have their fingers in every aspect of a species evolution or extinction, but it still seems like the basic first factor.

I mean,. the kicker isn't always on the field, but you don't really have much of a ball game without the kickoff.

Is it bad that the first thing I thought of from your first statement is the double slit experiment and what we decide to observe determines what conclusions we will come to?

If we're talking about natural selection, if we're focusing on the selective aspects that lead to transmutation, then yes, we will see a nonrandom process. If we look at catastrophe, genetic drift, and how variation comes about in the first place, then yes, we will see a random process (or set of processes). Depending on how you frame the thing, you either see it as random or nonrandom, but its really both, and sorta nonintuitive that way. I just wanted to make it clear that when I talk about selection (and when you come across other conversations of natural selection in specific) I'm talking about a nonrandom process, which does play a part in transmutation.

Jesus, this all is like discussing "is a photon more a particle or more a wave?" No wonder so many biologists argue about random vs nonrandom, cause the ridiculousness of the argument hasn't hit them yet. I'm going to start framing it in the above way more often.

Wow, that reads like Discordian Inspiration

I think I have just been enlightened in some sense.

[Kai]

So then... what you're saying is that if we look only at a part of the overall process, its non-random. If however, we look at the entire process, it is random? That is, Natural Selection may be non-random, but the traits that are being selected came about in a random way??

I don't see how that changes what I said before. Eris/Discordia/Chaos./Discord/Balck Swans/etc may not have their fingers in every aspect of a species evolution or extinction, but it still seems like the basic first factor.

I mean,. the kicker isn't always on the field, but you don't really have much of a ball game without the kickoff.

Is it bad that the first thing I thought of from your first statement is the double slit experiment and what we decide to observe determines what conclusions we will come to?

If we're talking about natural selection, if we're focusing on the selective aspects that lead to transmutation, then yes, we will see a nonrandom process. If we look at catastrophe, genetic drift, and how variation comes about in the first place, then yes, we will see a random process (or set of processes). Depending on how you frame the thing, you either see it as random or nonrandom, but its really both, and sorta nonintuitive that way. I just wanted to make it clear that when I talk about selection (and when you come across other conversations of natural selection in specific) I'm talking about a nonrandom process, which does play a part in transmutation.

Jesus, this all is like discussing "is a photon more a particle or more a wave?" No wonder so many biologists argue about random vs nonrandom, cause the ridiculousness of the argument hasn't hit them yet. I'm going to start framing it in the above way more often.

Wow, that reads like Discordian Inspiration

I think I have just been enlightened in some sense.

I think I may have just lost my mind in sombunal senses.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

So then... what you're saying is that if we look only at a part of the overall process, its non-random. If however, we look at the entire process, it is random? That is, Natural Selection may be non-random, but the traits that are being selected came about in a random way??

I don't see how that changes what I said before. Eris/Discordia/Chaos./Discord/Balck Swans/etc may not have their fingers in every aspect of a species evolution or extinction, but it still seems like the basic first factor.

I mean,. the kicker isn't always on the field, but you don't really have much of a ball game without the kickoff.

Is it bad that the first thing I thought of from your first statement is the double slit experiment and what we decide to observe determines what conclusions we will come to?

If we're talking about natural selection, if we're focusing on the selective aspects that lead to transmutation, then yes, we will see a nonrandom process. If we look at catastrophe, genetic drift, and how variation comes about in the first place, then yes, we will see a random process (or set of processes). Depending on how you frame the thing, you either see it as random or nonrandom, but its really both, and sorta nonintuitive that way. I just wanted to make it clear that when I talk about selection (and when you come across other conversations of natural selection in specific) I'm talking about a nonrandom process, which does play a part in transmutation.

Jesus, this all is like discussing "is a photon more a particle or more a wave?" No wonder so many biologists argue about random vs nonrandom, cause the ridiculousness of the argument hasn't hit them yet. I'm going to start framing it in the above way more often.

Wow, that reads like Discordian Inspiration

I think I have just been enlightened in some sense.

I think I may have just lost my mind in sombunal senses.

Well, its the same thing... Discordian Enlightenment/Losing One's Mind...

[Bu🤠ns]

 Bump for legacy

[Telarus]