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Re: Evolution-inLimited model?

John M. wrote:
Beavers exercise artistic (and technically useful)
designs in estuaries and coastlines. Male birds build
nests with colored ornamentation to catch the female.

Ah-- I was kind of hoping that this would be brought up. RR would argue that what beavers do in dam-building and what birds do in nest-building is generated more by instinct than by creativity-- if there is even any creativity involved at all. In fact, most living organisms don't have the option of actually deciding NOT to build their shelter/pursue their food/interact with their habitat, etc. in the characteristic mode of their species, at least to a large degree. The very fact that animal species have characteristic patterns, like the hexagonal symmetry of storage compartments in any honeybee hive, for example, suggests that whole species of organisms rarely behave in ways that are in opposition to their instincts. The fact that we can identify a species of bird by their nest construction, or a species of butterfly by their cocoon, or a species of spider by their web design .... clearly this sort of thing isn't a creative act. It's an instinctive imperative. Many species of organism are so bound to a particular food source that they will starve to death rather than start eating something else. This is one of the big concerns in global warming-induced climate/ecosystem change. Even a creature as highly evolved as a Panda bear (no single celled bacteria, this!!!) is in danger of extinction if their habitat changes too much to support the species of bamboo they eat. This represents the difference between encoded information and creative thought.

This is an area that requires some very serious study because, for example; nobody knows how much of what human beings do is guided by encoded information and how much is open to conscious will. There are aspects to "being human" that no amount of applied intelligence or creativity will change. We evolved to breath air, for example. We can use our intelligence and creativity to develop technologies which allow us to bend the rules for brief periods, or to work around the rules, but we can't alter our past history of having evolved the way we did without altering what being human means. This information is semantic information; it's entirely context-based. In essence, our evolutionary environment is encoded into us. As such, it's become a part of "being human". So, where are the boundaries, or "gray areas," between encoded information such as that of the "internal predictive models" and the capabilities of intelligence and abstract creativity of the human conscious mind? How much can those boundaries be manipulated without destabilizing the whole system?

And... how does this information get encoded in the first place??? Perhaps more important: How can we learn to recognize it for what it is in ourselves and in other living organisms.

Obviously, evolution proves that the encoded information is interactive, just like everything else in this universe, and the encodings can change over time because of that. Among the aspects which need to be studied in this whole area is the impact of relational causality on system behavior. The "mind/brain question" is a case in point. For example, it used to be widely believed that our autonomic body functions were beyond the scope of our conscious minds to control, but that wall came crumbling down with the advent of biofeedback technologies whereby they could test people who were well-practiced in meditation and had to recognize that there is a pathway for interactivity, even there. So, this relational effect became visible and measurable, which is what science requires, and I think we need to find ways to do a whole lot more of that before science will recognize the need to change.

There are still scientists who argue that everything organisms do is purely reactive in character and they say that to suggest anything like anticipatory system-control is to anthropomorphize; to attribute to "mindless" organisms behaviors which could only be generated by a conscious human mind. But this is not so. The "conscious human mind" is, itself, an organic phenomenon; a natural complex system. We could also describe it as a subsystem within a larger, self-organized and self-organizing, complex system. Indeed, my father would suggest that the "conscious human mind"is, itself, partly generated by the same sort of encoded information he was referring to in all living system organization. But, like many self-organized/ing complex systems, human consciousness (or "mind") transcends its own ontology.

Be that as it may, there are still many aspects of human behavior that are obviously coming from the direction of encoded information (and I'm not referring to genetics, here); the need for sleep during every cycle of the Earth's rotation is a perfect example. We have managed to find or create drugs which can actually thwart this imperative, but only temporarily. And there are serious side-effects created in the attempt which worsen the longer it goes on. Sleep deprivation can endanger both the body and the mind. But how much of what we do is hard-wired and how much is malleable? I've said before that I believe plants are the organisms to study "internal predictive models" in. There are some very highly evolved species of plants which have remarkable symbiotic relations with other species of organism, complex behavior patterns, multi-step reproductive patterns, highly differentiated types of body cells, etc.-- but they have no central nervous system. No brain. No human mind. Anyone who argued otherwise wouldn't be taken very seriously in science. So there is really no question of conscious thought or decision-making going on in the behavior of plants. Yet their behavior, as RR concluded all living organism's behavior, is "model-based behavior". There is no way to explain what they are doing via the reactive paradigm.

Judith


Web address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com
BioTheory: An electronic journal of general science based on the Relational (Rosennean) Complexity Paradigm
On Sep 18, 2005, at 3:39 PM, John M wrote:

Judith, I will try to reflect on your text as long as
I can (truncate the rest)so look below
John

--- Judith Rosen <***> wrote:

Hi John M.

There's a lot to talk about here. Your post
addresses many different
aspects of numerous different subjects. The
following are just my
preliminary thoughts about a few of them.

I was waiting for more than a few (don't believe it: I
was plain procrastinating to reply in kind).
JM: "Speaking about "us" and our (open to
evolution)> DNA<: brings up the thought that -"we"-
are also models cut and limited by program -
potentials of our DNA - not
free to 'nature as a total'. That makes us really
a 'species' and cuts our evolution to 'within' the
species' boundaries. We do not grow gears and
wings to
fly. Or gills. Or magnetic resonance receptors...

There are at least two big issues here. The first is
whether our DNA is
a limit or simply a component in a series of
relational interactions
which, all together, make us a species.

I think you misunderstood my 'model': it was referring
to the ways science formulates: is not what we "are".
I still remember the ridiculous position that only ~4%
of our genetic DNA stuff is relevant - the rest is
garbage. I always represented the need to know more
and that DNA-functions only "build organs" the
activity of which is part of a complexity so far
undiscovered (eg. the neuronal (mental?)
connectivities and other functional balances in the
body).
With all the talk lately about
mitochondria and chloroplast DNA (and all the other
organelles which
may have independent DNA) it seems to me that we
cannot wallow in the
human chauvinism about our "genome" or believe that
it's all we need to
understand why and how we are the way we are. To my
knowledge, the
human genome mapping effort is concentrating
entirely on nuclear DNA.
What's more; RR felt quite strongly that DNA is, in
and of itself, not
the full story-- even if we add the organelle DNA
into the "human"
genome. In fact, the whole concept of "genetic blue
print" is a mechanistic viewpoint. The DNA are
simply > the material parts; tangible
aspects of a larger, interactive, story.

It feels good to be in agreement with RR. Especially
since this is not my field and it was his.
The second issue raised in the above paragraph is
one of human identity
as a species. This is a real "toughie"-- human
beings have been arguing
about this particular subject amongst ourselves
since the dawn of our
species' ability to perceive and argue at the same
time. My view is
that the human mind is what defines us as human.

(I suppose you have a good definition of it....)
It's not just our
"living-organism-ness"-- shoot even a slime mold has
that. It's not
just intelligence-- plenty of other species are
intelligent.

(Are we using the same definition of it?)
But, out of all the living creatures who have ever
lived on this Earth, in the
fossil record up to now, only humanity has the
abstract creative
ability to generate innovative new ideas and
thoughts which we then
transform/manufacture into material reality.

On another list someone wrote about his dog in playing
ball with, he through obloquly on the wall, so it
bounced back in an angle -failing the dog's presumed
aiming. After a while the dog watched his hadn an ran
exactly in the 'new' different direction. What woulod
you call this: intelligence or creative abstraction ?
Evidence of human artistic
and intellectual activity is everywhere. It's even
visible from space,
and has been for millennia. We create art-forms and
modes of play for
each of our senses and capabilities, including our
imaginations.

Have you ever discussed such topics with an animal?
Because of this capability, we really do, in
essence, "grow gears and
gills and sprout wings". Someone once said to me
that human beings are
actually beginning to direct our own evolution, and
I think this is the
truth. We are directing it with our minds, for good
or ill (probably
both). So our bodily evolution is being influenced
by our intellectual
capacities even more, it could be argued, than by
our entire genetic complement.

I raised eyebrows at an evolution-conference (~1998-9?
Drew Univ. Madison NJ)when I said that in the 'fitness
to survive' the human species (society) evolved
"MONEY" which (eg. by buying a Lamborghini) gets to
the boy a better breeding partner girl. Margaret
Mead's daughter (also prof in the field) replied:
"surprizing idea, but I could not argue against it
..." -
Animnals create art, eg. chimps entertain with 'funny'
individually created jumps and it also "gets the
girl".
Beavers exercise artistic (and technically useful)
designs in estuaries and coastlines. Male birds build
nests with colored ornamentation to catch the female.
(I don't want to mention the lyrics of fish: Christian
Morgenstern wrote a poem "Fisches Nachtgesang"* using
half circles and hyphens in formal verses imitating
the mouth-movement of fish - well that was ChM's
joking).
Artificial Intelligence is our label for a concept
we have in our
minds. It's intended to refer to our attempts at
recreation of certain
aspects of our intellectual capability, insofar as
we perceive them
whilst we are both observer and observed. We are
attempting to
transmute the capability of "intelligence" into a
disembodied form. AI
is supposed to repesent essentially a functional
capacity of ours,
recreated using entirely different means. Will we
succeed? If we do,
what have we achieved? Intelligence changes
according to definition but
I doubt anyone would say that this alone defines
humanity or "human
life". There is far more to human conscious
awareness than intelligence.

All of that begs the question, though: Have we
succeeded in
artificially re-creating our own intelligence in a
machine? In my
opinion; no. Not even close. We have created a more
interactive form of
a reference library, with a few other labor-saving
devices thrown into
the mix at the same time. But computers are rated as
"stupid" on my
intelligence meter. Talk about linear! Sheesh! My
dog has better
problem solving abilities than my computer. The way
I see it; computers
are empty of intelligence but full of knowledge--
human knowledge. The
only trouble is that all human knowledge, detached
from its contextual
meaning, is just a pile of empty meaningless data.
Electronic zeros and
ones... You can't even compost that.

I think you simplified 'knowledge' to the (denied) AI
stuff. We 'use' dimensions (mental, emotional, goa; -
oriented, anticipatory (!!!) etc.,) without clues so
far for digitalization. The "Implications (validity?)
of a legal argument" or "the joy of listening to
music"
"laugh at a good joke" "raising adrenalin level (male)
by a pretty girl" (or vice versa) are in domains of
knowledge which fortunately so far are not
computerized
The internet, however, is something else again. It's
a
social/intellectual complex system of a completely
unique nature. I've
been fascinated with the development of it, and
privileged to be around
to observe and participate from close to the
beginning of it (certainly
as a widespread phenomena, anyway). The internet
represents human
mental interaction on a species-wide scale...
disembodied from any
material aspects. It's completely different from the
"hive mentality"
that insects like bees and ants manifest (where
there are behaviors and
capabilities seen in a hive which are not present in
the behavior of individuals).

I like the hint to define 'hive-behavior' so far it
was not clear to me. However:
1. We don't know how information spreads and even
rules in insects the ways of a 'collective
consciousness' may exceed our physical physiological
measurement domains. (We don't even know our own
ways).
2. Internet spreads and acts by ways which are NOT
present in the human individuals (Who is a telephone -
line or a Windows?) Show the internet to a higly
educated person of the 19th c., would he differentiate
it from the 'hive-behavior' as you defined it?
....
It seems I got to the end of your post. Happy Birthday
(belatedly) to your daughter
....
Cheers, everyone;
enjoy the day.

Judith

John
---*: Translation: "The Night Song of Fish"
Web address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com
BioTheory: An electronic journal of general science
based on the
Relational (Rosennean) Complexity Paradigm
On Sep 10, 2005, at 11:50 AM, John M wrote:

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