Fabric of Reality Book Club
#3278·Benjamin Davies, 14 days ago… any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Why “through the population”? Doesn’t this presuppose a replicator needs to exist within a population to do what it does? The first replicator spread with no population to spread into.
A population of 1 is still a population.
#3278·Benjamin Davies, 14 days ago… any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Why “through the population”? Doesn’t this presuppose a replicator needs to exist within a population to do what it does? The first replicator spread with no population to spread into.
Accounts of the origin of replicators (such as RNA World) involve proto-replicators. By the time the first ‘full-fledged’ replicator came on the scene, it was already part of a larger population of proto-replicators.
#3278·Benjamin Davies, 14 days ago… any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Why “through the population”? Doesn’t this presuppose a replicator needs to exist within a population to do what it does? The first replicator spread with no population to spread into.
I suppose it’s theoretically possible for the very first replicator to exist in isolation until it replicates for the first time. But that’s what it does right away anyway.
#3279·Benjamin Davies, 14 days ago… any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Why “at the expense of its rivals”? Isn’t the concern to spread at all, regardless of the outcome of rivals?
I’m using standard neo-Darwinian phrasing. Compare, for example, BoI chapter 4:
The most general way of stating the central assertion of the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution is that a population of replicators subject to variation (for instance by imperfect copying) will be taken over by those variants that are better than their rivals at causing themselves to be replicated.
And, same chapter:
[T]he knowledge embodied in genes is knowledge of how to get themselves replicated at the expense of their rivals.
See also several instances in chapter 15 in the context of meme evolution.
Richard Dawkins’ The Selfish Gene has a ton on rivals (alleles), too, for example (chapter 2):
Ways of increasing stability and of decreasing rivals’ stability became more elaborate and more efficient. Some of them may even have ‘discovered’ how to break up molecules of rival varieties chemically, and to use the building blocks so released for making their own copies.
#3279·Benjamin Davies, 14 days ago… any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Why “at the expense of its rivals”? Isn’t the concern to spread at all, regardless of the outcome of rivals?
Rivalry means competition, win/lose outcomes. If one replicator spreads, it will be at the expense of its rivals (if any), eg taking up niches that rivals would otherwise have taken up.
#3289·Benjamin Davies revised 14 days agoMy charitable interpretation:
“Less and less possible” is a loose way of saying something like “more and more difficult to achieve”, or “occurs less and less often in the multiverse”.
That’s fine if you want to interpret it charitably, but that isn’t a criticism. Maybe you’re implying that I’m not being as charitable as I should be. That would be a criticism, but it should be made explicit.
#3285·Benjamin Davies, 14 days ago“([T]hey say)” presumably means he is paraphrasing people who get it wrong.
I realize that. I don’t see how that’s a criticism.
My charitable interpretation:
“Less and less possible” means something like “more and more difficult to achieve”, or “occurs less and less often in the multiverse”.
My charitable interpretation:
“Less and less possible” is a loose way of saying something like “more and more difficult to achieve”, or “occurs less and less often in the multiverse”.
My charitable interpretation:
“Less and less possible” means something like “more and more difficult to achieve”, or “a smaller and smaller occurrence in the multiverse”.
My charitable interpretation:
“Less and less possible” means something like “more and more difficult to achieve”, or “occurs less and less often in the multiverse”.
#2084·Dennis Hackethal, 2 months agoConsequently (they say), whether or not it was ever possible for one person to understand everything that was understood at the time, it is certainly not possible now, and it is becoming less and less possible as our knowledge grows.
If something already isn’t possible, how could it become less possible?
Isn’t possibility a binary thing? As opposed to difficulty, which exists in degrees.
My charitable interpretation:
“Less and less possible” means something like “more and more difficult to achieve”, or “a smaller and smaller occurrence in the multiverse”.
#2084·Dennis Hackethal, 2 months agoConsequently (they say), whether or not it was ever possible for one person to understand everything that was understood at the time, it is certainly not possible now, and it is becoming less and less possible as our knowledge grows.
If something already isn’t possible, how could it become less possible?
Isn’t possibility a binary thing? As opposed to difficulty, which exists in degrees.
“([T]hey say)” presumably means he is paraphrasing people who get it wrong.
#2276·Erik Orrje, 2 months agoBy the same logic, wouldn't neo-Darwinism also disqualify as a strand, since it's subsumed by Popperian epistemology?
Why does neo-Darwinism qualify as a strand, if it can be understood as a component of Popperian epistemology?
#2278·Dirk Meulenbelt, 2 months agoYou say that trade-offs and scarcity are fundamental to biology. I agree, and this implies economics as a more fundamental science than biology or evolution. It still applies in our computer models, where biological details may not.
Economics is simply at the intersection of evolution and epistemology.
While a lot of what’s involved in understanding a language is inexplicit, it is not possible to come to understand a language without ever dealing with it explicitly.
This is what separates explanatory knowledge from other types of knowledge.
While a lot of what’s involved in understanding a language is inexplicit, it is not possible to come to understand a language without ever dealing with it explicitly.
This is part of what separates explanatory knowledge from other types of knowledge.
#2277·Dirk Meulenbelt, 2 months agoUndestanding does not flow from explanatory knowledge the way you imply. I understand Dutch and English, but a lot of my understanding of it is inexplicit.
While a lot of what’s involved in understanding a language is inexplicit, it is not possible to come to understand a language without ever dealing with it explicitly.
This is what separates explanatory knowledge from other types of knowledge.
#2200·Dennis Hackethal, 2 months agoIn the neo-Darwinian view, any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals. This view is what Dawkins (IIRC) calls the gene’s eye view, and it applies to ideas as much as it does to genes. Any adaptation of any replicator is primarily in service of this concern.
So I think the answer to your question, “Are ideas also guesses of how to survive in the mind and across substrates …?”, is ‘yes’.
… any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Why “at the expense of its rivals”? Isn’t the concern to spread at all, regardless of the outcome of rivals?
#2200·Dennis Hackethal, 2 months agoIn the neo-Darwinian view, any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals. This view is what Dawkins (IIRC) calls the gene’s eye view, and it applies to ideas as much as it does to genes. Any adaptation of any replicator is primarily in service of this concern.
So I think the answer to your question, “Are ideas also guesses of how to survive in the mind and across substrates …?”, is ‘yes’.
… any replicator’s primary ‘concern’ is how to spread through the population at the expense of its rivals.
Why “through the population”? Doesn’t this presuppose a replicator needs to exist within a population to do what it does? The first replicator spread with no population to spread into.
#2284·Erik Orrje, 2 months agoGuess: We can generalise economics further and let it be subsumed by epistemology.
When we choose to try to solve certain problems, we always make trade-offs from a place of scarcity. Likewise, our conjectures wouldn't evolve without the competition enabled by scarcity in our minds.
:+1:
#2334·Dennis Hackethal, about 2 months agoIn your revision, you asked me to let you know if you are doing things incorrectly.
You can revise ideas the way you did, it’s not wrong per se, but revisions are better for incremental changes. They’re not really meant for taking back criticisms or indicating agreement. If a criticism of yours is successfully counter-criticized and you would like to abandon it, I would just leave it counter-criticized and not revise it further.
If you are looking for a way to indicate agreement (with a counter-criticism, say), it’s something Dirk and I have been discussing offline, see #2169. I hope to implement something to that effect soon.
#2325 serves as an example. I had submitted a criticism which is now outdated and remains counter-criticized. It’s actually better that way because it shows that an error has been corrected, and makes it less likely for others to submit a duplicate criticism.
#2329·Erik Orrje revised about 2 months agoMost people (except in Alzheimer's, etc.) don't run out of memory in the brain. The reason most people don’t (permanently) run out memory (of either kind) isn’t that memory isn’t scarce, but that there’s a pruning mechanism in the mind. And there’s competition.
In your revision, you asked me to let you know if you are doing things incorrectly.
You can revise ideas the way you did, it’s not wrong per se, but revisions are better for incremental changes. They’re not really meant for taking back criticisms or indicating agreement. If a criticism of yours is successfully counter-criticized and you would like to abandon it, I would just leave it counter-criticized and not revise it further.
If you are looking for a way to indicate agreement (with a counter-criticism, say), it’s something Dirk and I have been discussing offline, see #2169. I hope to implement something to that effect soon.
Copypasted from your comment now in the revision. Please let me know if I'm doing things incorrectly.
Most people (except in Alzheimer's, etc.) don't run out of memory in the brain. If there's no scarcity for the space of ideas, why do they have to compete?
Most people (except in Alzheimer's, etc.) don't run out of memory in the brain. The reason most people don’t (permanently) run out memory (of either kind) isn’t that memory isn’t scarce, but that there’s a pruning mechanism in the mind. And there’s competition.
Thanks for clarifying! My criticism no longer applies.
Wait, I've probably misunderstood but in #2228 it seemed like you thought pruning was needed for scarcity, which is needed for competition between ideas and their evolution.
And you equated pruning with the meta algorithm.
And now you say the meta algorithm/pruning is not needed for the evolution of ideas?
Thanks for clarifying
Fix typo
Wait, I've probably misunderstood but in #2228 it seemed like you thought pruning was needed for scarcity, which is needed for competition between ideas and their evolution.
And you equated pruning with the meta algorithm.
And now you say the meta algoritm/pruning is not needed for the evolution of ideas?
Wait, I've probably misunderstood but in #2228 it seemed like you thought pruning was needed for scarcity, which is needed for competition between ideas and their evolution.
And you equated pruning with the meta algorithm.
And now you say the meta algorithm/pruning is not needed for the evolution of ideas?