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Re: Reactive vs. Anticipatory in adaptation/evolution

Hi Jamie,

Comments, interspersed:
Jamie wrote:
I would prefer being circumspect and -not- link
'optimality' with these ideas. In the same way that
'improvement' and 'perfection' are not identical,
'adaptation' (random improvement) and 'optimization'
aren't logical equals.

I don't think it's possible to be "circumspect" in that way. How else can one account for the notion of "health" which co-emerges with life? Metabolism and repair have definite set-points, which are optimality-based. More than that, they are functions which have a built-in potential for an interactive future to them. These are capabilities which are entailed and generated before they are needed. The existence of capabilities like metabolism and repair is anticipatory and the capabilities, themselves, must be based on some internally generated value of optimality.

Question: Why do we have an immune system? Answer: Because it will be necessary. An immune system is both species-based and individual. It's also interactive and context dependent. As a component of the function of repair, the immune system also necessarily has a collection of set-points which are partly based on the systemic values for optimality but the entailments for optimality are greater than simply a set-point for health. This has to be true, because the immune system has entailments allowing the definition of optimality to be altered in response to certain circumstances; invasion by a pathogen, for instance. Fever is one of the weapons wielded by the immune system which it only invokes during a systemic invasion of a certain magnitude. Why so rarely? And why does even a low fever make us feel so lousy? Because the higher heat is sub-optimal for the brain. How can this kind of entailment exist without a rather sophisticated model of optimality?

Improvement and perfection are human intellectual concepts. Perfection, in particular, is a human aesthetic value, not a physiologic one. This is why "optimality" is such a useful word-- it doesn't have any information specific to a particular species about it but it clearly gets across the idea that there are constraints involved. In other words; there are parameters which guide the processes of living such as metabolism and repair.

We can conclude certain things about these parameters, based on the information we already have about them, using logic (not the rigid, mathematical term here but the more all-inclusive version of intellect plus common sense). For example: Because there are metabolic and repair set-points which are demonstrably similar by species, and because different species in the same environment have different species-linked metabolism and repair behaviors/set-points, we can deduce that the parameters which guide the functional systems of metabolism and repair aren't generated by the environment. They must be internally generated, and they must be, at least in part, information-based. How else could they be genetically linked?

In fact, I think that genetics is irrefutable proof that encoded information IS part of the organization of living systems and the existence of genetic functional capability is further proof that "encoded information" guides or influences a great many aspects of organism behavior and capability. I think that, while there must also be other modes of information exchange and encoding at work in addition to the genetic category, the genetic forms are proof of the existence of anticipatory models guiding the behavior patterns of living organisms.

It's not as outlandish as some empiricists can make it sound! To wit: How else shall we account for the fact that a fertilized human embryo has within itself the entailment to develop into a fully-grown human being? The process by which it happens is a species-based pattern, always going from single cell through recognizable stages, to full-term baby, then through childhood, through puberty, etc. in a pattern we all recognize. Yet each human being is a unique individual organism as well-- similar to, yet different than, the two gene pools from which it sprang. There are many interacting entailments at work here, and the foundation for the whole shebang is anticipatory (future and past at work in the present). How else could we explain the fact that human babies are born with their reproductive organs already developed? The whole entailment is present from fertilization! There's no way to explain any of this via a reactive paradigm or "random accident" or "luck". Thus, one of my father's more controversial assertions was that the entailments of evolution are another aspect of living systems that are actually quite different from the way science has so far described them... and yet we are making decisions about the survival, the evolution, of untold numbers of species... I have to not think about it too much or it begins to really upset me how our species is just blundering around, smug in our arrogant assumptions about what we think we know via science.

I would put it more bluntly than my father did: It seems to me that life as we know it would be an impossibility in a purely reactive universe.

Judith





Web address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com
BioTheory: An electronic journal of general science based on the Relational (Rosennean) Complexity Paradigm
On Nov 8, 2005, at 10:24 AM, James N Rose wrote:

Judith,

I would prefer being circumspect and -not- link
'optimality' with these ideas. In the same way that
'improvement' and 'perfection' are not identical,
'adaptation' (random improvement) and 'optimization'
aren't logical equals.

A bomb exploding - doesn't optimize or improve
its -form- - even though it does envolve an
entailed 'achieved-goal'; where an alternative
set-of-circumstances is arrived at.

And, backtracking to pick up your phrase
"Environments don't adapt to organisms",
I'd suggest that an environment's repertoire
-does- include adaptation (not just adjustment).

Adaptation has only to do with process plateaus -
majoritive consistency of integrated performances.

One of my favorite examples is one I encountered
as a college student studying comparative anatomy.
Very wise professor; there are more typically than not
no -direct- cause and effect events in evolution,
just attained abilities -- from tendencies and combined
circumstances.

Throw a fish on land and it dies - it doesn't 'evolve'.
Give it lungs; no evolution. Fins that become walking
appendages; no evolution. Skin that retains moisture;
no evolution. Food gatherings behaviors; no evolution.
But add in with those (neccesary) aspects, a crucial
-internal whole metabolism restricturing- that includes
kidneys which processes water - fresh water - in a new
way than saline ocean water; and suddenly there is suffient
integrated systemics to support living in gaseous air
rather than water.

The way I put it in UIU is, it took a fundamental
change of life's relationship with water to eventually
enable it to have a relationship with fire. And humans
know just how important fire is (compact appliable energy)
for our success and level of civilly achieved evolution.

--more tonight. leaving for work.

Jamie



Judith Rosen wrote:
Jamie Rose wrote:

So..... the important aspect of dynamic entities within
dynamic extended environments .. is their ability to
encounter and cope with .. options & options spaces.
More so than it is for entities to be behaviorally
consistent

Yes, with one nitpick: "Dynamic" entities... I'm not sure
how you mean it. My experience of that word is that it can
refer to any changing systems, including simple ones. In his
published work, my father used the phrases; "dynamical systems,"
"dynamical equations," and "classical dynamics" when describing
simple systems and the approach of contemporary physics for
dealing with them. So, I see a need to clarify a bit. The thing
is, adaptation is not purely a reactive-- or even interactive--
behavior. Environments don't adapt to organisms, although
environments do interact with organisms, organisms have more
ptions: they can react or interact, but they can also adapt to
environments and they can also actively change the environment
to suit their own requirements. In either case, the agent of
change is coming from the organismal side. This is partly why
the explanation for evolution as developed post-darwin is not
explaining the evidence adequately: it's all developed within "a
reactive paradigm" where all systems are only capable of reacting.
In order to adapt, either physically or behaviorally, to a
changing environment, a system would have to be capable of
something more than merely reacting to change. Adaptation has
to do with optimality and the only systems capable of adaptation
are systems with an internally generated value for "optimality"--
anticipatory systems. Organisms.

Judith

Web address: http://www.rosen-enterprises.com
BioTheory: An electronic journal of general science based on the Relational (Rosennean) Complexity Paradigm
On Nov 8, 2005, at 12:36 AM, James N Rose wrote:

Judith Rosen wrote:

"Negative" and "Positive" are in the eye of the beholder;
it's all relational and it's context dependent.

[snipped]

I think it's all part of the capability that being organized as an
anticipatory system can achieve in an interactive, relational universe.

Judith

So..... the important aspect of dynamic entities within
dynamic extended environments .. it their ability to
encounter and cope with .. options & options spaces.

More so than it is for entities to be behaviorally
consistent - or as modern science would prefer it
- perfectly 'repetitive' and free of 'alternate
performances' (which are define by current science as "errors").

How many children have there been born with 6 fingers per hand?
chopped off in the delivery room as an anomaly.

Can you image the side species of 12 fingered humans ..
and how they would play piano or any fingered instrument??! Wow!

J2