Evolution not limited to life on earth?

[swansont]

1 minute ago, Arthur Smith said:

Yes. Evolution requires a selective bias for adaptive change to take place. Drift does not introduce selective bias. 

And?

If there was some statement saying there was no selection in any of this, I missed it.

[studiot]

15 hours ago, Arthur Smith said:

On 12/28/2023 at 12:05 PM, studiot said:

External intervention, deliberate or otherwise.

Would that not be artificial selection?

 I'm sorry I missed this reply.

 

No it would not be artificial , nor would it be selection in the darwinian sense.

 

I am suggestng the definition of the word evolution you are employing is too narrow to cover all possible/conceivable circumstances.

[Arthur Smith]

1 hour ago, studiot said:

I am suggestng the definition of the word evolution you are employing is too narrow to cover all possible/conceivable circumstances.

Not sure how much broader the idea could get. Selective bias on populations of reproducing individuals leads to change in time over those populations. Works with shovels, Covid virus, Great Auks, computer memory.

[exchemist]

3 hours ago, Arthur Smith said:

Yes. Evolution requires a selective bias for adaptive change to take place. Drift does not introduce selective bias. Your demand for a definition of "agency" may be perhaps answered by a selection process.

My understanding is that genetic drift is now a recognised mechanism in the evolution of organisms.

Evolution simply means change over time, does it not? It is Darwinian evolution that relies on natural selection. That is just one kind of evolution, surely?

[studiot]

1 hour ago, Arthur Smith said:

Not sure how much broader the idea could get. Selective bias on populations of reproducing individuals leads to change in time over those populations. Works with shovels, Covid virus, Great Auks, computer memory.

 

Whilst I agree that selection and evolution can be connected I don't accept that this is always the case.

They are separate distinct processes.

Change over time is another thing again, which I think too large in scope.

 

Usually the connection is that as small variation of an offspring of a member of a population leads to another slightly different member of that population. For example a smaller or larger elephant with a slightly longer or shorter trunk may have an evolutionary advantage, but is still an elephant.

A dinosaur faced with the external event of the chixelub meteor underwent an entirely different change, although top of the then evolutionary tree.

 

[AIkonoklazt]

8 hours ago, Endy0816 said:

The True random numbers are not the result of an algorithm.

Most of us are more familiar with a computer's typical pseudorandom numbers, but that isn't the only option.

 

Not sure what you mean by artifacts here.

This article talks about it:

https://futurism.com/neoscope/computer-human-brain-cells-perform-voice-recognition

 

I don't see any connection between RNG and possession of agency, which is the issue with terms like "by itself."

I'm using Webster https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/artifact

Those cells aren't built ground-up and thus are not artifacts. I discount the broad term "modification" since any person would then become an artifact as soon as they get a tattoo or even change hairstyle.

4 hours ago, studiot said:

 

Change over time is another thing again, which I think too large in scope.

 

As an side: I see many publications (including engineering ones) that use the term "evolution" and "change over time" interchangeably, which I object to. In certain contexts it can be misleading.

10 hours ago, swansont said:

Please define what you mean by agency. Repetition is not definition. I don’t know why you are sidestepping this.

I'm not side-stepping. I'm happy to provide definitions when asked. Please do not level accusations.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/agency/

Quote

In very general terms, an agent is a being with the capacity to act, and ‘agency’ denotes the exercise or manifestation of this capacity. The philosophy of action provides us with a standard conception and a standard theory of action. The former construes action in terms of intentionality, the latter explains the intentionality of action in terms of causation by the agent’s mental states and events.

As stated above, intentionality must be involved in agency.

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/intentionality/

Quote

In philosophy, intentionality is the power of minds and mental states to be about, to represent, or to stand for, things, properties and states of affairs.

 

[swansont]

16 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

I'm not side-stepping. I'm happy to provide definitions when asked. Please do not level accusations.

Don’t pretend I didn’t have to ask twice

16 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/agency/

“Usually, though, the term ‘agency’ is used in a much narrower sense to denote the performance of intentional actions.”

So agency requires intent.

Why does there need to be intent for this to happen? Where is the “agency” in biological evolution?

[AIkonoklazt]

1 minute ago, swansont said:

Don’t pretend I didn’t have to ask twice

I don't know what you're talking about. I don't like it when people keeps accusing me of bad engagement when I'm honestly engaging. You don't read my mind and I don't yours.

2 minutes ago, swansont said:

“Usually, though, the term ‘agency’ is used in a much narrower sense to denote the performance of intentional actions.”

So agency requires intent.

Why does there need to be intent for this to happen? Where is the “agency” in biological evolution?

Let's get back to what exact issue is under dispute here, namely a titular claim of certain articles that artifacts do things "by itself" or "by themselves." What does the process of evolution have to do with whether an object possess agency or not?

[Arthur Smith]

5 hours ago, exchemist said:

My understanding is that genetic drift is now a recognised mechanism in the evolution of organisms.

Evolution simply means change over time, does it not? It is Darwinian evolution that relies on natural selection. That is just one kind of evolution, surely?

Well, I don't dispute that random genetic drift happens (or at least convincing models exist in the sphere of population genetics). But the clue is in the "random" bit. In small populations, genes may fix randomly which leads to loss of diversity and extinction. Resulting empty niches may be opportunities for other populations (the Chicxulub bolide did that for mammals around 65 million years ago) but without selection change does not produce the fit of species to niche. You need that feedback for change to be adaptive.

I'm curious to learn of other ways that feedback can lead to an evolutionary process.

5 hours ago, studiot said:

For example a smaller or larger elephant with a slightly longer or shorter trunk may have an evolutionary advantage, but is still an elephant.

Goodness me. All life on Earth, ALL life, is on the same branching tree. Admittedly the roots are a little tangled but the evidence is overwhelming.

Perhaps I should make a distinction between shovels and entities such as biological organisms that reproduce.

Tool use (not restricted to humans) evolves adaptively. If you want to access tubers, a stick is handy. A stick that doesn't break is better, a hardened point more so. Observing and learning from others even better. The bias is stronger when the learning is retained over generations. Human cultural evolution has swamped human biological evolution.

[studiot]

33 minutes ago, Arthur Smith said:

Goodness me. All life on Earth, ALL life, is on the same branching tree. Admittedly the roots are a little tangled but the evidence is overwhelming.

Perhaps I should make a distinction between shovels and entities such as biological organisms that reproduce.

Tool use (not restricted to humans) evolves adaptively. If you want to access tubers, a stick is handy. A stick that doesn't break is better, a hardened point more so. Observing and learning from others even better. The bias is stronger when the learning is retained over generations. Human cultural evolution has swamped human biological evolution.

How exactly does this address any of my principal points, rather than mocking my attempt as simple examples to help understand them, which you obviously don't.

 

1) There are several different types of evolutionary process.

2) Not all evolutionary processes involve selection.

3) Selection is itself a complicated process that involves criteria or standards to 'select' against.

4) Darwinian evolution involves what he dubbed Natural Selection, which was another word for the prevailing conditions.

5) For such a process to operate the prevailing conditions must remain sensibly constant for a long enough time.

6) The prevailing conditions can suddenly change (as with the dinosaurs) in the middle of such an evolutionary process.

[swansont]

59 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

I don't know what you're talking about. I don't like it when people keeps accusing me of bad engagement when I'm honestly engaging. You don't read my mind and I don't yours.

My two requests are there for you, or anyone, to read.

59 minutes ago, AIkonoklazt said:

Let's get back to what exact issue is under dispute here, namely a titular claim of certain articles that artifacts do things "by itself" or "by themselves." What does the process of evolution have to do with whether an object possess agency or not?

This is a thread about things evolving, which was the context was for your complaint “AI systems don't evolve and can't EVER evolve“   

Obviously, a program such as an AI algorithm can’t change until it exists. And if subsequently changes without further intervention, then “changing all by itself” is valid description of the process, regardless of your posturing.

If this has nothing to do with evolution, why did you bring it up? You appear to keep trying to drag the discussion away from the topic at hand and forcing it into another direction, despite the invitation to start a new thread (and other requests to stay on-topic)

[exchemist]

7 hours ago, Arthur Smith said:

Well, I don't dispute that random genetic drift happens (or at least convincing models exist in the sphere of population genetics). But the clue is in the "random" bit. In small populations, genes may fix randomly which leads to loss of diversity and extinction. Resulting empty niches may be opportunities for other populations (the Chicxulub bolide did that for mammals around 65 million years ago) but without selection change does not produce the fit of species to niche. You need that feedback for change to be adaptive.

I'm curious to learn of other ways that feedback can lead to an evolutionary process.

Goodness me. All life on Earth, ALL life, is on the same branching tree. Admittedly the roots are a little tangled but the evidence is overwhelming.

Perhaps I should make a distinction between shovels and entities such as biological organisms that reproduce.

Tool use (not restricted to humans) evolves adaptively. If you want to access tubers, a stick is handy. A stick that doesn't break is better, a hardened point more so. Observing and learning from others even better. The bias is stronger when the learning is retained over generations. Human cultural evolution has swamped human biological evolution.

As I understand it, the thing about evolution through genetic drift is that it is not adaptive. Not all evolutionary processes are. They can be neutral or have negligible benefit and still become established in a population.

[Arthur Smith]

4 hours ago, exchemist said:

As I understand it, the thing about evolution through genetic drift is that it is not adaptive. Not all evolutionary processes are. They can be neutral or have negligible benefit and still become established in a population.

Indeed. Drift is the process by which an allele (a variant of a gene) will fix in a sexually reproducing population in the absence of selective pressure. The effect is noticeable, particularly in small populations lacking genetic diversity, and often results (or contributes to) in loss of a species by extinction.

Perhaps it would be an idea for commenters to identify what sort of evolution is being referred to. Biological evolution seems to be the subject of the thread, but there is also cultural evolution and using evolutionary algorithms to solve problems such as the evolved antenna.

11 hours ago, studiot said:

1) There are several different types of evolutionary process.

2) Not all evolutionary processes involve selection.

3) Selection is itself a complicated process that involves criteria or standards to 'select' against.

4) Darwinian evolution involves what he dubbed Natural Selection, which was another word for the prevailing conditions.

5) For such a process to operate the prevailing conditions must remain sensibly constant for a long enough time.

6) The prevailing conditions can suddenly change (as with the dinosaurs) in the middle of such an evolutionary process.

1. Why not list them, then, for clarity?

2. Disagree. But I am open to correction by an example.

3. There's nothing complicated about the idea of selection in biological evolution. Darwin categorized three sorts of selection: artificial, natural, sexual. The process is change in allele frequency in all those cases.

4. Not really. I would use the word "niche".

5.  Allele variation and fixation can be a slow process where generation times are long, but evolution can be fast enough to be observable. Here is a classic.

6. Yes, biological evolution can be outstripped. Rapid climate change is a disaster for many species. Mass extinction events are unfortunate for those caught up in them, but the subsequent opportunities for survivors got us here.

 

[swansont]

15 minutes ago, Arthur Smith said:

Perhaps it would be an idea for commenters to identify what sort of evolution is being referred to. Biological evolution seems to be the subject of the thread

No, it decidedly is not. 

[sethoflagos]

3 minutes ago, Arthur Smith said:

Indeed. Drift is the process by which an allele (a variant of a gene) will fix in a sexually reproducing population in the absence of selective pressure. The effect is noticeable, particularly in small populations lacking genetic diversity, and often results (or contributes to) in loss of a species by extinction.

Isn't it pretty well established that 'evolvability' is itself under strong selective control? And that genetic drift, the ability of a population to lose non-vital alleles at some optimal rate as a kind of spring cleaning exercise is all part and parcel of that evolvability?

Genetic drift is a particularly interesting case wrt the OP as it represents a steady source of decline in the diversity of a complex system running counter to the main thrust of the linked article.

Perhaps the message of genetic drift is to remind us that non-transitory structures in complex systems require sufficient energy flow passing through the system to maintain their low entropy configuration. 

Of course, Dawkins has pointed out that these structures are not confined to living forms but also include the evolution of their extended phenotypes such as beaver lodges, weaver bird nests, termite mounds and AI technology.  

[dimreepr]

13 hours ago, AIkonoklazt said:

Those cells aren't built ground-up and thus are not artifacts.

By that definition a sharp rock doesn't count as a descendant of a bread knife and therefore cannot be used to study sharpness, or bread...

Quote

I discount the broad term "modification" since any person would then become an artifact as soon as they get a tattoo or even change hairstyle.

Of course you do 🙄, since any possible argument, is impossible; bc you have spoken the truth already...

[Arthur Smith]

4 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Isn't it pretty well established that 'evolvability' is itself under strong selective control?

It wouldn't surprise me that evolvability would be a trait subject to selection.

4 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

Genetic drift is a particularly interesting case wrt the OP as it represents a steady source of decline in the diversity of a complex system running counter to the main thrust of the linked article.

Perhaps the message of genetic drift is to remind us that non-transitory structures in complex systems require sufficient energy flow passing through the system to maintain their low entropy configuration. 

Yes, it is my view that drift is not an adaptive process but becomes insignificant in large populations.

I'm not quite sure what you mean about energy and entropy in this context. Certainly one attribute of known living entities is that they maintain themselves out of thermal equilibrium with their immediate environment by using an available energy source

[TheVat]

I think of genetic drift and gene flow as sort of the yin and yang of evolution, with gene flow increasing adaptive diversity while drift tends to reduce it with alleles sometimes dropping out completely, as in bottlenecks and founder effects.  I think of the Afrikaaners who have a terribly high rate of Huntington's, the infamous "sampling error" of the founder group in South Africa.  Due to cultural forces of isolation, the Afrikaaners couldn't benefit from a compensatory gene flow from other African populations that would have greatly reduced the incidence of the Huntington alleles.  

Another thought - drift, when filtered through natural selection, can sometimes give the illusion of an adaptive effect.   I think of my college days and being fairly gobsmacked by SJ Gould's spandrels, in this context.  If I recall rightly, polar bears were implicated.  Ursine albinism was a fairly neutral mutation and stayed at some consistent level in the bear population as it was a "spandrel" trait that piggybacked on some other trait that was adaptive.   Then a group that has a large and non-random sample of the albino alleles gets pushed northward and becomes a founder group in the land of endless snow.  So this group serendipitously finds that all those individuals who blend well on white backgrounds are better able to sneak up on seal pups.  The evolutionary form of dumb luck.  Dumb luck that looked adaptive.

 

[sethoflagos]

9 hours ago, Arthur Smith said:

Yes, it is my view that drift is not an adaptive process but becomes insignificant in large populations.

 

2 hours ago, TheVat said:

Another thought - drift, when filtered through natural selection, can sometimes give the illusion of an adaptive effect.

When an allele changes its frequency of occurrence in a population, is it because of adaptive pressure or just chance? The mechanism is the same either way: individuals with that particular allele just happened to have a greater or lesser mortality/reproductive success than the population mean for some period. 

So to me it seems that genetic drift is not some fundamentally different 'process' to evolution by natural selection. Rather they are two sides of the same coin. Given that the thrust of the OP is specifically related to the overall behaviour of complex systems; systems where we typically expect emergent properties of the whole to dominate over action at the level of the individual; systems where we typically expect the whole to be greater than the sum of the parts; I think we should be more wary than usual of the reductionist splitting of pertinent parts. None of the parts exist in isolation.

9 hours ago, Arthur Smith said:

I'm not quite sure what you mean about energy and entropy in this context. Certainly one attribute of known living entities is that they maintain themselves out of thermal equilibrium with their immediate environment by using an available energy source

The OP is concerned with some apparent similarities in the development or 'evolution' of increasing diversity with time in a wide variety of disparate complex systems such as nucleosynthesis, earth's mineral composition and life.

While I think the article over-eggs the pudding to a certain extent: two unifying features struck me as I read it.

1) The Arrow of Time is a major factor in all cases therefore the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is a dominant factor. Nothing else in physics has this feature.

2) Pound for pound, systems with more types of 'thing' have significantly higher entropy than those with less so what is driving the diversity of these systems? Given a temperature gradient and a few basic building blocks to get the ball rolling the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics will (eventually) build any new structures it is possible to build quite spontaneously, and use these as building blocks for constructing yet more. 

(Sorry, I've a bit of a thing about the 2nd Law)

Anyway, that's the pattern that the authors are picking up on.    

Edited December 31, 2023 by sethoflagos
Clarification

[Arthur Smith]

9 hours ago, TheVat said:

I think of genetic drift and gene flow as sort of the yin and yang of evolution, with gene flow increasing adaptive diversity while drift tends to reduce it with alleles sometimes dropping out completely, as in bottlenecks and founder effects. 

I wonder if the claimed positive effect of random genetic drift could be (or has been) measured. 

The hypothesis I imagine would be something like "Under the effect of selective pressure on a population of sexually reproducing organisms, a locus with fewer alleles lost to drift will move to fixation in fewer generations than a locus with more variants". 

Consider population 1. A gene is fixed in the population of 100 and 1 beneficial allele enters the gene pool. Consider then population 2 (also 100). A locus has 10 neutral alleles at 10% frequency and 1 beneficial allele enters the gene pool. Is the rate of selection of the beneficial allele going to be different between population 1 and population 2, all else being equal?

7 hours ago, sethoflagos said:

(Sorry, I've a bit of a thing about the 2nd Law)

You, me and Sir Arthur Eddington. 😉

[AIkonoklazt]

On 12/29/2023 at 4:08 PM, swansont said:

This is a thread about things evolving, which was the context was for your complaint “AI systems don't evolve and can't EVER evolve“   

Obviously, a program such as an AI algorithm can’t change until it exists. And if subsequently changes without further intervention, then “changing all by itself” is valid description of the process, regardless of your posturing.

If this has nothing to do with evolution, why did you bring it up? You appear to keep trying to drag the discussion away from the topic at hand and forcing it into another direction, despite the invitation to start a new thread (and other requests to stay on-topic)

You've pointed out that the term "evolve" can simply mean "change." If that's the way the term is used, then I have no issues with it.

However, that's not the way some "offending" articles use the term. They portray it as a process that's not manually guided:

Algorithmic operations are always guided by the creators of those algorithms.

Yes, the thread is about unguided evolution. What I'm saying is that if something doesn't actually involve unguided evolution, then it shouldn't be portrayed as if it is.

Again, I was honestly engaging and still am. When I know I'm specifically being asked of something, I'm more than happy to answer.

On 12/30/2023 at 4:03 AM, Arthur Smith said:

Perhaps it would be an idea for commenters to identify what sort of evolution is being referred to. Biological evolution seems to be the subject of the thread, but there is also cultural evolution and using evolutionary algorithms to solve problems such as the evolved antenna.

I'm assuming the thread is about unguided evolution. That is, changes over time that are not the result of design decisions.

Edited January 1 by AIkonoklazt

[npts2020]

3 hours ago, AIkonoklazt said:

I'm assuming the thread is about unguided evolution.

What is the difference? If an organism manages to propagate, I would say whatever new features are propagated (regardless of how they became a part of it to begin with) have become part of the organisms evolution.

[swansont]

11 hours ago, AIkonoklazt said:

I'm assuming the thread is about unguided evolution. That is, changes over time that are not the result of design decisions.

“Guided evolution” as I’ve seen it used, has an end goal in mind. Unguided does not.

Unguided follows the rules that exist within its realm. The source of those rules doesn’t matter.

 

[Luc Turpin]

2 hours ago, swansont said:

“Guided evolution” as I’ve seen it used, has an end goal in mind. Unguided does not.

Mind, my favourite topic.

I believe (backed by evidence) that most if not all living things show some sense of intelligence (a substrate of mind to me) and that if we are to discuss evolution in living things, then we cannot not bring it into the discussion! Intelligence in living things provides partial vision to the blind watchmaker. Also, intelligence is only one piece (although an important one) in the puzzle that we call evolution in living things.

And yes, it is guided evolution that we like it or not. Even if we allow only humans to possess it and that it is only an emergent property, it is still influencing evolution.

If the discussion remains on non-living things, then please disregard my comment.

[iNow]

Define: Living

Define: Intelligence

Explain: How they’re measured objectively, and whether it’s binary or exists along a spectrum

Do so: Elsewhere, as it’s off topic here