Everything in existence serves a purpose, whether it’s for our own or someone or something else’s prior purpose. Which may in its turn be one of a series of purposes being served for the initial constructor of the first in that series of purpose servers; a series which will tend, with intelligent assistance from other purpose servers, to predictively multiply itself exponentially (but not necessarily in a perfectly mathematical sequence).
And since a purpose requires an intelligence to form itself, all purposive somethings have been constructed by and for their purposes intelligently. Some of these functional constructions having also been supplied enough of that existing intelligence to reconstruct and evolve themselves, and others more simply to consist of dullish servers in a train of future services.
And then if the initial purpose of all creative and constructive work in the universe was an intelligent one, who or what was the ultimate constructor? We can logically presume to have an answer, but we’ll never know to any certainty at all, or will we?.
Oh and yes, what was that initial purpose anyway, or what must it have been?
Or is it something that was always there?
And I didn't even mention how or why purposes can and will evolve in sequence to serve newer purposes countering those originally intended to be served.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Thursday, February 28, 2013
Acquired Causes
Could it be that causality involves awareness as an anticipatory function in a physical entity that will require a reaction to whatever forces it energetically encounters. And that the reaction will depend on the strategies (intelligently formed over time) that the entity has been evolved to operate with, either involuntarily or proactively, again depending on the nature of the awareness it, over its history, has been caused by an energetic nature to acquire. So that causation is an intelligent arrangement that nature continuously evolves, and that physicalists, by the logical limitations "caused" by their beliefs, are deprived of the ability to seriously consider.
Thursday, November 15, 2012
Everything that exists takes intelligent advantage of accidents.
Few of you will understand this and the rest of you will call it nonsense, but none of the latter will be able to cogently explain either how or why it's not correct.
12-21-2013: I just saw this comment on a site where a scientific article, “How People Drove an Evolution in Cliff Swallows,” showed that in a short period of time these birds must have changed their own wing spans to fit new nesting circumstances, etc.
“What this indicates is that selection can serve a purpose, and the long held theories that selection starts by accidents that happen to the organisms, and that are then occasionally found to be adaptive, have had it more or less backwards; and that if anything, accidental changes in environment are taken advantage of by the organisms for that organisms adaptive purposes.”
I hadn't seen it put in exactly that way before, and I like it.
12-21-2013: I just saw this comment on a site where a scientific article, “How People Drove an Evolution in Cliff Swallows,” showed that in a short period of time these birds must have changed their own wing spans to fit new nesting circumstances, etc.
“What this indicates is that selection can serve a purpose, and the long held theories that selection starts by accidents that happen to the organisms, and that are then occasionally found to be adaptive, have had it more or less backwards; and that if anything, accidental changes in environment are taken advantage of by the organisms for that organisms adaptive purposes.”
I hadn't seen it put in exactly that way before, and I like it.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Purposes of Kings Will Likely Have Preceded Them
Intelligent life forms that felt that nature's purposes were in some sense intentional looked for the reasons and purposes behind them to 'divine' those intents and in one way or another deal with them. And their learned instincts that felt that the forces were purposeful were correct, in that if life was purposeful at all (and it seemed to need us to select a purpose), so were the apparently selective natural circumstances that allowed life to exist.
But where the instincts were correct in the assumption that there were purposes to be found in the outer world or worlds, their conception as to the possible sources of those purposes was limited to what they had seen as more powerful and purposive on earth. And as we developed rulers and kings, we developed the conception of divine rulers and divine kings.
Where if we had (miraculously) developed scientific knowledge first, we could (and then should) have developed concepts that focused on the strategic natures of purposes as an element of all natural functions, and proceeded from there. (They tell me Buddha almost did it anyway.)
But where the instincts were correct in the assumption that there were purposes to be found in the outer world or worlds, their conception as to the possible sources of those purposes was limited to what they had seen as more powerful and purposive on earth. And as we developed rulers and kings, we developed the conception of divine rulers and divine kings.
Where if we had (miraculously) developed scientific knowledge first, we could (and then should) have developed concepts that focused on the strategic natures of purposes as an element of all natural functions, and proceeded from there. (They tell me Buddha almost did it anyway.)
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Our Freedom to Will is We Determined.
If our choices have not (or had not) been predetermined, we are then free to be affected by random circumstances, i.e., by the randomness of probability as opposed to the determinedness (and thus pre-determinedness) of certainty. Freed from the fixed to the flexible; from reactive to proactive determining, perhaps.
So then, at least according to my logic, the choice at hand is not so much between determined or undetermined as it is between determined and predetermined. And the future limits of the predetermined lie somewhere between the certainties and uncertainties of oncoming time and the lines to be drawn there by its sequential changes.
As it would seem that, by well informed choices, we can willfully act to both determine and predetermine their effects for an uncertain period, but that the perfectly informed and active predetermination of anything, by anything, for all of time, should be seen as logically impossible.
The corollary to this is, of course, that what we choose to do today would seem to be for us, instead of for our past, to most willfully, successfully, and responsibly determine.
So then, at least according to my logic, the choice at hand is not so much between determined or undetermined as it is between determined and predetermined. And the future limits of the predetermined lie somewhere between the certainties and uncertainties of oncoming time and the lines to be drawn there by its sequential changes.
As it would seem that, by well informed choices, we can willfully act to both determine and predetermine their effects for an uncertain period, but that the perfectly informed and active predetermination of anything, by anything, for all of time, should be seen as logically impossible.
The corollary to this is, of course, that what we choose to do today would seem to be for us, instead of for our past, to most willfully, successfully, and responsibly determine.
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Sequential Dimension
I have decided (or discovered) that there's such a thing as a sequential dimension. Some have referred to a similar concept as the dimension of time, but have seemed unaware that time is actually our measure of change, and change has no choice except to be sequential. Otherwise there'd be no such thing as measurable "time." And we then are led to see that time shows us nothing if not measurable sequence.
I'll leave it at that while I study this a bit to see what else has been written or discussed in this area, since as far as I've learned to date, it seems very little.
But wait: If the above is so, causation, as measured by the sequential dimensions of change, is by that measure endlessly multidimensional. And universal strategies, for example, must be effectively sequentially dimensional!! And they causatively go in all directions, so how does that fit into a dimensional paradigm? (Considering of course that in theory, energetic nature never stops. And that sequence is not necessarily reversible.)
Lots of thought to ensue here!!
(Such as about sequential purposes.)
(Not about sequence space, however.)
11-16-1012 : Notes seen on another site, apparently a facetious play on sequences:
"The point is in any case that it's not "time" that dilates, it's the nature and rate of change. Special relativity theories didn't change that. Time is a dimension of measurement. But unlike other measurements, it's also sequential. The ramifications of sequence are yet to be completely thought out. You can slow down change, but we don't know if we can slow sequential steps. We know we can't reverse them non-sequentially."
"Let me explain that change is guided by the movements of electron spins, which we don't seem to be able to slow down, even though we can appear to slow down at times the rate of structural changes at the molecular level and above . But if sequences are at bottom consistent with the movements of electrons, we can neither slow them down or speed them up. Time at the molecular level can thus be inconsistent with time at the level of their electrons. But the rate of sequential changes anywhere seems to always stay the same."
Wow, it's almost like they're mocking me!
But this doesn't answer the question either, if the movement of electron spins can't be slowed down, because there's a clear inconsistency there with the rate of slowing down changes at the molecular level. What can we now mock of that?
I'll leave it at that while I study this a bit to see what else has been written or discussed in this area, since as far as I've learned to date, it seems very little.
But wait: If the above is so, causation, as measured by the sequential dimensions of change, is by that measure endlessly multidimensional. And universal strategies, for example, must be effectively sequentially dimensional!! And they causatively go in all directions, so how does that fit into a dimensional paradigm? (Considering of course that in theory, energetic nature never stops. And that sequence is not necessarily reversible.)
Lots of thought to ensue here!!
(Such as about sequential purposes.)
(Not about sequence space, however.)
11-16-1012 : Notes seen on another site, apparently a facetious play on sequences:
"The point is in any case that it's not "time" that dilates, it's the nature and rate of change. Special relativity theories didn't change that. Time is a dimension of measurement. But unlike other measurements, it's also sequential. The ramifications of sequence are yet to be completely thought out. You can slow down change, but we don't know if we can slow sequential steps. We know we can't reverse them non-sequentially."
"Let me explain that change is guided by the movements of electron spins, which we don't seem to be able to slow down, even though we can appear to slow down at times the rate of structural changes at the molecular level and above . But if sequences are at bottom consistent with the movements of electrons, we can neither slow them down or speed them up. Time at the molecular level can thus be inconsistent with time at the level of their electrons. But the rate of sequential changes anywhere seems to always stay the same."
Wow, it's almost like they're mocking me!
But this doesn't answer the question either, if the movement of electron spins can't be slowed down, because there's a clear inconsistency there with the rate of slowing down changes at the molecular level. What can we now mock of that?
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Reminder
*In the pragmatic way of thinking in terms of conceivable practical implications, every thing has a purpose, and its purpose is the first thing that we should try to note about it.*
Charles Sanders Peirce
Charles Sanders Peirce
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Proposal
The "survival" strategy of the universe's energetic system is to learn of and anticipate the "known" and concurrently expect the "unknown."
Thus organisms with conscious connections to their surroundings learn to anticipate events and consequentially come to trust the accuracy of the anticipated. And to distrust those signals that have not been to the same extent expected. And the signalers learn in turn to make signals conform to their competitive and predatory needs, and thus these "deceptive" actions (as the more abstract thinkers have come to call it), have arisen and continue to fuel the evolutionary advancement of all purposive strategies.
Thus organisms with conscious connections to their surroundings learn to anticipate events and consequentially come to trust the accuracy of the anticipated. And to distrust those signals that have not been to the same extent expected. And the signalers learn in turn to make signals conform to their competitive and predatory needs, and thus these "deceptive" actions (as the more abstract thinkers have come to call it), have arisen and continue to fuel the evolutionary advancement of all purposive strategies.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
And So?
Perhaps the elemental "truth" of the cosmos is that any energetic system with the most minimal strategic purpose will learn to self-organize its operation; and that somewhere there has always been a form of strategically motivated energy.
All such organizing will thus be in turn strategic and all strategies by necessity manipulative, and in that sense competitive with all other potentially intervening strategies. What we then have come to see as strategic cooperation will have been the result of competition at some more basic level of these strategies' mutual existence.
So that we, as evolved strategic entities, can now cooperate to compete, somewhat as our cosmological forbears had much earlier competed to cooperate.
All such organizing will thus be in turn strategic and all strategies by necessity manipulative, and in that sense competitive with all other potentially intervening strategies. What we then have come to see as strategic cooperation will have been the result of competition at some more basic level of these strategies' mutual existence.
So that we, as evolved strategic entities, can now cooperate to compete, somewhat as our cosmological forbears had much earlier competed to cooperate.
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Because?
All forms of our universe's nature are by the logic of its "laws" anticipating an answer to the "what comes next" question (i.e., a matter forming the basis of a problem requiring resolution). Evolving preparations for dealing more safely with prospective answers will have sequentially become their strategic purpose. Finding ways to better "ask" that central question becomes purposive as well.
Initial on-off optional systems develop safer sub-optional strategies. Which, trial and error wise, concurrently redevelop the forms that can more reasonably apply them.
Which (still the "big question" exactly how and when) allowed the arising of the simplest self-calculated questions and independently usable responses, that then developed individually separate yet inevitably cooperative strategies for discovering better questions, and better "living" forms from which to functionally ask them.
(And it may be that the universe has virtually always had symbolic pattern based strategies prepared to be adjusted and acted on self-sufficiently when opportunities required it, or circumstances were best suited to such processes.)
Initial on-off optional systems develop safer sub-optional strategies. Which, trial and error wise, concurrently redevelop the forms that can more reasonably apply them.
Which (still the "big question" exactly how and when) allowed the arising of the simplest self-calculated questions and independently usable responses, that then developed individually separate yet inevitably cooperative strategies for discovering better questions, and better "living" forms from which to functionally ask them.
(And it may be that the universe has virtually always had symbolic pattern based strategies prepared to be adjusted and acted on self-sufficiently when opportunities required it, or circumstances were best suited to such processes.)
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Why
Why not?
Serving a biological purpose means, in effect, serving an intelligent purpose, if, as I believe, all biological functions were self engineered intelligently in anticipation of attending properly to expected problems.
And chances seem quite good that all systems functioning in the universe were self-engineered, even though more by reactive than pro-active choice, to nevertheless have, and thus serve, an intelligent purpose.
Which may be why so many are confused as to the use of the word purpose, since service of a purpose still implies a purpose somewhere behind the service. And we're taught that, outside of man and beasts at least, the universe has no purpose for its actions. But it seems to me our inferential feelings are correct after all, and that service of a purpose is always for an intelligently acquired and required reason.
Serving a biological purpose means, in effect, serving an intelligent purpose, if, as I believe, all biological functions were self engineered intelligently in anticipation of attending properly to expected problems.
And chances seem quite good that all systems functioning in the universe were self-engineered, even though more by reactive than pro-active choice, to nevertheless have, and thus serve, an intelligent purpose.
Which may be why so many are confused as to the use of the word purpose, since service of a purpose still implies a purpose somewhere behind the service. And we're taught that, outside of man and beasts at least, the universe has no purpose for its actions. But it seems to me our inferential feelings are correct after all, and that service of a purpose is always for an intelligently acquired and required reason.
Friday, May 6, 2011
More Reasonable Purposes
Conceptual versus Factual Premises
A lot's being written now with titles such as "Why do humans reason?" and "Arguments
for an argumentative theory." Interesting but as usual no-one is looking at our system's deeper evolutionary purpose. The points they are missing in a nutshell are these:
Our predictive systems are using probabilistic logic in one sense, but not necessarily as in Bayesian or other factual premise driven systems. Because what we in our subconscious processing are looking for are familiar patterns, and we assess them not so much for consequences of expected behaviors but for past purposes that those patterns must (from historical assessments) represent.
The problem then becomes one of how those predicted or predictive purposes might help us to anticipate the tactical natures of apposing learned or inherited strategies.
The probabilities depend on the perceived purposes, hence the premises involved are not so much factual as conceptual.
The concept of conceivable purposes.
A lot's being written now with titles such as "Why do humans reason?" and "Arguments
for an argumentative theory." Interesting but as usual no-one is looking at our system's deeper evolutionary purpose. The points they are missing in a nutshell are these:
Our predictive systems are using probabilistic logic in one sense, but not necessarily as in Bayesian or other factual premise driven systems. Because what we in our subconscious processing are looking for are familiar patterns, and we assess them not so much for consequences of expected behaviors but for past purposes that those patterns must (from historical assessments) represent.
The problem then becomes one of how those predicted or predictive purposes might help us to anticipate the tactical natures of apposing learned or inherited strategies.
The probabilities depend on the perceived purposes, hence the premises involved are not so much factual as conceptual.
The concept of conceivable purposes.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
In Service of My Purposes
When Something Serves a Purpose
If to be a "something" is to have a place in the scheme of things (once we've assumed there are schemata to be had), then the consistency with which that something may take its place will signify that being in such a place predictively amounts to at least one purpose (if not the greater purpose) that this something serves., i.e., its schematic need to take that time and place in nature.
Purposes to which these somethings are put? Not necessarily.
Found to fit? More likely.
If to be a "something" is to have a place in the scheme of things (once we've assumed there are schemata to be had), then the consistency with which that something may take its place will signify that being in such a place predictively amounts to at least one purpose (if not the greater purpose) that this something serves., i.e., its schematic need to take that time and place in nature.
Purposes to which these somethings are put? Not necessarily.
Found to fit? More likely.
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Could Non-Reason Ever Serve a Purpose?
The universe by virtue of its apparent lawfulness is reasonable - the most probable consequences of its interactions are logically predictable. And yet a strictly determinative universe would have no need for logic or predictability.
Why? Because it seems a system with unregulated cause and effect would be more than just chaotic - there would arguably be no movement at all in a non-regulated and thus non-purposive universe.
Why not? No 'compelling' reason.
Why? Because it seems a system with unregulated cause and effect would be more than just chaotic - there would arguably be no movement at all in a non-regulated and thus non-purposive universe.
Why not? No 'compelling' reason.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
From 'Is' to 'Could' to 'If and Why we Should'
On deriving 'Ought' from 'Is' effectively (from Hume's problem of induction).
And, as we shall see, on 'purpose.'
Baron P said...
Science cannot say what 'ought' to be with anything like precision, but what it can do is predictively determine, from what more accurately 'is,' the more likely parameters as to what 'could' be. The jump from could to should or ought will then be up for grabs. It has always seemed to me that Hume saw 'is or isn't' as somehow equivalent to 'can or can't' and had left the choice of 'could' out of the game plan - and thus saw the jump from is to ought as an essentially bad move. Presenting us with a form of "you can't get there from here" paradox.
February 16, 2011 4:25 PM
Baron P said...
Massimo, you wrote: "But no amount of 'could' can possibly determine your values or the logic of your moral reasoning."
Logic is eliminative as well as determinative (and I'm not talking about eliminative materialism which is inherently illogical). 'Could' is a probability assessment - an attempt to sort out the less probable - to go from could to couldn't or vice versa. We all make those assessments and I don't see how we could survive to, in the end, be moral agents without having made them. I suspect there'd be no science without the necessity to improve the quality of that process. Has our science then brought us to the philosophical point or level where we no longer need to turn to it for improvement? (This is not an argument in support of Harris' thesis - just one that if he felt he could have made, he must not have felt he ought to.)
February 16, 2011 6:08 PM
Baron P said...
Massimo, Bayesian confirmation involves eliminative induction, no?* Choices are 'restricted' to their seemingly more proper places in the range of possibilities. Science, which has helped in that endeavor in the past, might by that measure be asked in future to help alleviate or lighten those restrictions, as we all seem to agree could well be needed. Our logical processes are anticipatory, and we move from is to could to why we should accordingly. I expect/anticipate that science will be a major player in how and why we make our moves.
February 16, 2011 6:44 PM
These excerpts from blog commentary re Hume's problem of induction didn't sit too well with the blog owner (who poo-pooed eliminative logic in particular) or with its coterie of the usual suspects - liberals of the status quo is the best way I know to describe them. A new idea to them is the fine tuning of some last surviving old one. And worse, they are encouraged to have the narrowest view possible of purpose.
So I've happily removed mine from the blog. They'll have neither me nor Nixon to kick around s'more. (OK so I've posted since - nobody's perfect.)
But here's what I would like to have left them with:
Science is a method we developed for a purpose, which was and is to perfect the use of our predictive faculties, our forms of logic. How we could move from 'is' to where we 'ought' to move with a better understanding of why we felt the need to; the need from which we derive/acquire our purposes, which create in turn the need to examine and perfect them. How should we act to achieve those purposes if in factual terms we could.
And the 'how' can't be accomplished as separate from 'why' - 'why' depends on all of the above in combination. There is no linear progression from is to ought, just as there is no purely linear causation in the universe. Our brain, as our science tells us, is a parallel processor - and of what, if not each aspect of our logic.
So that you can get there from here. Life forms have done so successfully for millennia.
And their strategic methodology has given purpose to that which we call science.
*Also see this reference re eliminative induction:
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/H/James.A.Hawthorne-1/Hawthorne--Bayesian_Induction_IS_Eliminative_Induction.pdf
And, as we shall see, on 'purpose.'
Baron P said...
Science cannot say what 'ought' to be with anything like precision, but what it can do is predictively determine, from what more accurately 'is,' the more likely parameters as to what 'could' be. The jump from could to should or ought will then be up for grabs. It has always seemed to me that Hume saw 'is or isn't' as somehow equivalent to 'can or can't' and had left the choice of 'could' out of the game plan - and thus saw the jump from is to ought as an essentially bad move. Presenting us with a form of "you can't get there from here" paradox.
February 16, 2011 4:25 PM
Baron P said...
Massimo, you wrote: "But no amount of 'could' can possibly determine your values or the logic of your moral reasoning."
Logic is eliminative as well as determinative (and I'm not talking about eliminative materialism which is inherently illogical). 'Could' is a probability assessment - an attempt to sort out the less probable - to go from could to couldn't or vice versa. We all make those assessments and I don't see how we could survive to, in the end, be moral agents without having made them. I suspect there'd be no science without the necessity to improve the quality of that process. Has our science then brought us to the philosophical point or level where we no longer need to turn to it for improvement? (This is not an argument in support of Harris' thesis - just one that if he felt he could have made, he must not have felt he ought to.)
February 16, 2011 6:08 PM
Baron P said...
Massimo, Bayesian confirmation involves eliminative induction, no?* Choices are 'restricted' to their seemingly more proper places in the range of possibilities. Science, which has helped in that endeavor in the past, might by that measure be asked in future to help alleviate or lighten those restrictions, as we all seem to agree could well be needed. Our logical processes are anticipatory, and we move from is to could to why we should accordingly. I expect/anticipate that science will be a major player in how and why we make our moves.
February 16, 2011 6:44 PM
These excerpts from blog commentary re Hume's problem of induction didn't sit too well with the blog owner (who poo-pooed eliminative logic in particular) or with its coterie of the usual suspects - liberals of the status quo is the best way I know to describe them. A new idea to them is the fine tuning of some last surviving old one. And worse, they are encouraged to have the narrowest view possible of purpose.
So I've happily removed mine from the blog. They'll have neither me nor Nixon to kick around s'more. (OK so I've posted since - nobody's perfect.)
But here's what I would like to have left them with:
Science is a method we developed for a purpose, which was and is to perfect the use of our predictive faculties, our forms of logic. How we could move from 'is' to where we 'ought' to move with a better understanding of why we felt the need to; the need from which we derive/acquire our purposes, which create in turn the need to examine and perfect them. How should we act to achieve those purposes if in factual terms we could.
And the 'how' can't be accomplished as separate from 'why' - 'why' depends on all of the above in combination. There is no linear progression from is to ought, just as there is no purely linear causation in the universe. Our brain, as our science tells us, is a parallel processor - and of what, if not each aspect of our logic.
So that you can get there from here. Life forms have done so successfully for millennia.
And their strategic methodology has given purpose to that which we call science.
*Also see this reference re eliminative induction:
http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/H/James.A.Hawthorne-1/Hawthorne--Bayesian_Induction_IS_Eliminative_Induction.pdf
Friday, October 29, 2010
Determine this
I was reminded today of the following fundamental tenet of quantum mechanics: Events at the level of fundamental particles do not have causes. If so, at least in our universe, such events can neither be determined in advance, nor can they have been predetermined by some heretofore supernatural force or forcer. Determination of any sort being, of course, causative.
Predetermination on the macro level will at best determine some measure of probability, such measure decreasing exponentially over time. At least if that's the present state of particle affairs in this particular world. On the micro level we start with 50/50 odds, and conceivably it's 50/50 all the way down. (Or not.)
Not much chance here for omnipotence or omniscience, whether you'd like your God to be a creator or just prefer to see the universe as intrinsically intelligent, all by its lonesome.
One caveat as to fundamental particles not having causes: If they exist at all to serve a strategic function that permits nature to evolve, with randomness a necessity for that function, then in effect they have a strategic role to play, and have been "caused" to play it.
Predetermination on the macro level will at best determine some measure of probability, such measure decreasing exponentially over time. At least if that's the present state of particle affairs in this particular world. On the micro level we start with 50/50 odds, and conceivably it's 50/50 all the way down. (Or not.)
Not much chance here for omnipotence or omniscience, whether you'd like your God to be a creator or just prefer to see the universe as intrinsically intelligent, all by its lonesome.
One caveat as to fundamental particles not having causes: If they exist at all to serve a strategic function that permits nature to evolve, with randomness a necessity for that function, then in effect they have a strategic role to play, and have been "caused" to play it.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
No purpose, no responsibility
(Prompted in part by reactions to an 'experimental philosophy' paper on Moral Responsibility and Determinism.)
We are choice makers by default. Unless we can turn off our unconscious (i.e., emotional) processes entirely, we cannot react with logical consistency to any assumption that in the end there's no such thing as choice, where we would also feel required to assume that choices are part of that deterministic world, yet at the same time be functionally illusory.
Our underlying "theories" are based on instinctive assumptions that all things (living or not) that act against our interests do so with some element of intent. Some seek to be trusted, some seek to violate that trust, some seek primarily to harm or eat us with any "trust" relationship being secondary to that. It's all about some aspect of trust, and trust would not come into existence in a determinate world. Everything there would already be in a permanent state of neutrality, no trust required, since there would be no contrasting distrust.
We can't deal instinctively or intuitively with a "logical" assumption that trust is not to be considered.
We also can't set up an "experiment" where we "accept" that people in a determinate universe would nevertheless act as if they had the right to choose. We "know" instinctively that such a universe would contain no such behaviors without the illusion of indeterminacy being a permanent part of that world. In which case we would act toward others accordingly, continuing to punish them as the illusion requires.
Cultural differences cannot in the end erase these instincts, only channel the ways that we choose to apply consequences. We can't be barred from choosing that some consequences are applicable.
This does not require us to have anything like an innate ‘moral responsibility module.’ We have an innate responsibility strategy that is archetypical.
And any differences that divide us into compatibilists versus incompatibilists (a false dichotomy in any case) are in themselves strategic responses based on our pecking orders, learned tactics, cultural differences, etc.
We don't have "compatibilist" intuitions as opposed to "incompatibilst" ones. We are basically incompatibilists by "nature" - we function probabilistically with an overlay of logically abstract certainties as to the inevitability of fate.
We act as if to outsmart nature for the short term, "knowing" it will outsmart us for the long term.
We are choice makers by default. Unless we can turn off our unconscious (i.e., emotional) processes entirely, we cannot react with logical consistency to any assumption that in the end there's no such thing as choice, where we would also feel required to assume that choices are part of that deterministic world, yet at the same time be functionally illusory.
Our underlying "theories" are based on instinctive assumptions that all things (living or not) that act against our interests do so with some element of intent. Some seek to be trusted, some seek to violate that trust, some seek primarily to harm or eat us with any "trust" relationship being secondary to that. It's all about some aspect of trust, and trust would not come into existence in a determinate world. Everything there would already be in a permanent state of neutrality, no trust required, since there would be no contrasting distrust.
We can't deal instinctively or intuitively with a "logical" assumption that trust is not to be considered.
We also can't set up an "experiment" where we "accept" that people in a determinate universe would nevertheless act as if they had the right to choose. We "know" instinctively that such a universe would contain no such behaviors without the illusion of indeterminacy being a permanent part of that world. In which case we would act toward others accordingly, continuing to punish them as the illusion requires.
Cultural differences cannot in the end erase these instincts, only channel the ways that we choose to apply consequences. We can't be barred from choosing that some consequences are applicable.
This does not require us to have anything like an innate ‘moral responsibility module.’ We have an innate responsibility strategy that is archetypical.
And any differences that divide us into compatibilists versus incompatibilists (a false dichotomy in any case) are in themselves strategic responses based on our pecking orders, learned tactics, cultural differences, etc.
We don't have "compatibilist" intuitions as opposed to "incompatibilst" ones. We are basically incompatibilists by "nature" - we function probabilistically with an overlay of logically abstract certainties as to the inevitability of fate.
We act as if to outsmart nature for the short term, "knowing" it will outsmart us for the long term.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Experience drives the evolution of strategies which apply that knowledge to the evolution of their forms.
An archetypical biological strategy, defensive or aggressive, would require the entity to equip itself with a limited array of varied or variable forms - the equivalent of tactical restructuring according to anticipated needs. The initial experiences from which it developed strategies had to give rise to expectations of environmental change as well - those prospects limited of course by the history of its species' cumulative experiences.
Thus the strategy that can "choose" a more effective form won't have to engineer a new version on the spot if there's an appropriate one already in the bank. It won't require that long, long wait for a chance mutation either. Which doesn't preclude such events from happening - but nevertheless these strategies, if any good at all, will have provided other options for themselves as a consequence of their own evolvement.
(I'm reminded that Hermit Crabs choose empty shells as protective structures - and the shells weren't there for the expectant purpose of being chosen by a crab. But of course this could be consistent with either of the rules in play here. Except we see that strategies are essentially opportunists.)
So if it looks to neo-Darwinists that the accidentally acquired longer neck of the Giraffe gave an advantage to an existing strategy for eating leaves, and that strategy adapted itself to the new neck, that might ( theoretically) have happened. Except the mistake has been to rule out other roads the adaptive process could have taken. Such as the one I recommend above.
And we are already learning that there are preadaptive elements in our genomes that may be there for just that purpose - to avoid the wait for randomness to make a structural alteration that can (and not just theoretically) be arranged in advance in anticipation of its future usefulness.
(Certainly these variations were in wolves that dog breeders used to form new varieties of dogs, fitting the breeder's strategic goals to wolf/dog primary strategies in the process. Manufacturing "learned" behaviors that, voila, became almost immediately heritable! And don't tell me the wolf was always man's best friend somewhere within its backup planning).
Aphorism of the day: Experience drives the evolution of strategies which apply new "knowledge" to the evolution of their forms.
Thus the strategy that can "choose" a more effective form won't have to engineer a new version on the spot if there's an appropriate one already in the bank. It won't require that long, long wait for a chance mutation either. Which doesn't preclude such events from happening - but nevertheless these strategies, if any good at all, will have provided other options for themselves as a consequence of their own evolvement.
(I'm reminded that Hermit Crabs choose empty shells as protective structures - and the shells weren't there for the expectant purpose of being chosen by a crab. But of course this could be consistent with either of the rules in play here. Except we see that strategies are essentially opportunists.)
So if it looks to neo-Darwinists that the accidentally acquired longer neck of the Giraffe gave an advantage to an existing strategy for eating leaves, and that strategy adapted itself to the new neck, that might ( theoretically) have happened. Except the mistake has been to rule out other roads the adaptive process could have taken. Such as the one I recommend above.
And we are already learning that there are preadaptive elements in our genomes that may be there for just that purpose - to avoid the wait for randomness to make a structural alteration that can (and not just theoretically) be arranged in advance in anticipation of its future usefulness.
(Certainly these variations were in wolves that dog breeders used to form new varieties of dogs, fitting the breeder's strategic goals to wolf/dog primary strategies in the process. Manufacturing "learned" behaviors that, voila, became almost immediately heritable! And don't tell me the wolf was always man's best friend somewhere within its backup planning).
Aphorism of the day: Experience drives the evolution of strategies which apply new "knowledge" to the evolution of their forms.
Monday, October 18, 2010
How instinctive strategies have evolved
Excerpt from: Stomatopod Deceptive Use of Reputation, Roy L Caldwell, In: Deception: Perspectives on Human and Non-Human Deceit. R. W. Mitchell and N. S. Thompson, eds., State University of New York Press, pp. 129-145.
"The use of reputation and bluff in stomatopods should not be viewed as conscious acts. Rather, they are the product of natural selection operating on probabilities of performance and response. The selective equation has balanced over many generations the costs and benefits of generating, as well as accepting or discounting, signals that correlate with the probable outcome of a contest. The resulting product is further tuned by experience and by the degree to which information so derived is available and accurate.
I hope that by demonstrating the occurrence of such supposedly complex mechanisms as reputation and bluff in relatively simple animals such as stomatopods, I can suggest the existence of similar processes producing "deceptive" interactions in more sophisticated animals whose sensory and integrative capacities make objective analysis much more difficult."
My comment: Note how the writer avoids direct reference to the heritability of the lessons of experience, yet at the same time lays out fairly clearly how it leads to to the evolvement of non-conscious strategizing in a species.
Excerpt from: A 21st Century View of Evolution,
James A. Shapiro
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637
"Molecular genetics has amply confirmed McClintock's discovery that living organisms actively reorganize their genomes (5). It has also supported her view that the genome can "sense danger" and respond accordingly (56). The recognition of the fundamentally biological nature of genetic change and of cellular potentials for information processing frees our thinking about evolution. In particular, our conceptual formulations are no longer dependent on the operation of stochastic processes. Thus, we can now envision a role for computational inputs and adaptive feedbacks into the evolution of life as a complex system. Indeed, it is possible that we will eventually see such information-processing capabilities as essential to life itself."
My comment: To "sense danger" equates to a suspicion of potential harm. We can see how the necessity for a strategic response has evolved in the complex strategies of "deceptive interactions" employed by the stomatopods. So did the strategies produce the forms, or the forms select the strategies? The answer should be obvious.
"The use of reputation and bluff in stomatopods should not be viewed as conscious acts. Rather, they are the product of natural selection operating on probabilities of performance and response. The selective equation has balanced over many generations the costs and benefits of generating, as well as accepting or discounting, signals that correlate with the probable outcome of a contest. The resulting product is further tuned by experience and by the degree to which information so derived is available and accurate.
I hope that by demonstrating the occurrence of such supposedly complex mechanisms as reputation and bluff in relatively simple animals such as stomatopods, I can suggest the existence of similar processes producing "deceptive" interactions in more sophisticated animals whose sensory and integrative capacities make objective analysis much more difficult."
My comment: Note how the writer avoids direct reference to the heritability of the lessons of experience, yet at the same time lays out fairly clearly how it leads to to the evolvement of non-conscious strategizing in a species.
Excerpt from: A 21st Century View of Evolution,
James A. Shapiro
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology,
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637
"Molecular genetics has amply confirmed McClintock's discovery that living organisms actively reorganize their genomes (5). It has also supported her view that the genome can "sense danger" and respond accordingly (56). The recognition of the fundamentally biological nature of genetic change and of cellular potentials for information processing frees our thinking about evolution. In particular, our conceptual formulations are no longer dependent on the operation of stochastic processes. Thus, we can now envision a role for computational inputs and adaptive feedbacks into the evolution of life as a complex system. Indeed, it is possible that we will eventually see such information-processing capabilities as essential to life itself."
My comment: To "sense danger" equates to a suspicion of potential harm. We can see how the necessity for a strategic response has evolved in the complex strategies of "deceptive interactions" employed by the stomatopods. So did the strategies produce the forms, or the forms select the strategies? The answer should be obvious.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Blind to one's purposes?
A typically ignorant comment on purposive behaviors in organisms, recently received (at another site) went like this: "Likewise, there is no purpose in a human sense behind a stick insect's camouflage. It just so happened that its ancestors did not die because they just happened to have random mutations that conferred this morphology when without it they would have."
Except that commenters like this fail to realize that the individual entity here will be born with instinctive knowledge, in the form of an inherent strategy, so that if this insect responds in a certain way to threats, for example, the morphed structure is expected to be useful. The insect doesn't have to know the purpose to act exactly as if it did. Somewhere back down its evolutionary line, something, in some sense, was cognizant of the deceptive value of the camouflage, whether or not that something was instrumental in its morphological acquisition.
Camouflage has become that morphology's acquired purpose, because the insect uses it deliberately to achieve that purpose.
It's simplistic to explain that "without it" the insect would have died, yet "with it" was allowed to survive, regardless of any advantage the insect would have learned to take from its acquisition. Of course these simple folk might not accept that an insect could learn, or worse, that such learning could be heritable. The watchmaker, if blind, can't learn by his experience to see the watch - or can he?
*****
Deceptive strategies being common (if not basic) in the biological world, it's more likely that the opportunity afforded for the adaption of the archetypical mimicking strategy drove the evolution of the structure, rather than the structure having influenced the development of the strategy. One reason being that strategies adapt themselves to environments, and the forms that activate their functions are made to suit their strategic purposes, rather than the reverse.
*****
But wouldn't this mean that life forms engineer their own structures? If so, how would they manage the replication process? Wouldn't it be the same way they supposedly manage to replicate a mutation "engineered" through (somehow) selecting from a series of random trials made by some unknown force of nature?
But then what exactly is the makeup of any such replicative mechanism? If it allegedly allows the organism to copy an accidental restructuring of a gene, why can't it copy one that has to some extent been deliberately restructured? Either way, it will have taken advantage of the randomness of opportunity. So the question would seem to come down to this: Can an organism participate at all in its reconstruction? Because it surely seems that all those we've been able to examine want to.
(Disclaimer: The preceding questions have been for the most part rhetorical.)
Except that commenters like this fail to realize that the individual entity here will be born with instinctive knowledge, in the form of an inherent strategy, so that if this insect responds in a certain way to threats, for example, the morphed structure is expected to be useful. The insect doesn't have to know the purpose to act exactly as if it did. Somewhere back down its evolutionary line, something, in some sense, was cognizant of the deceptive value of the camouflage, whether or not that something was instrumental in its morphological acquisition.
Camouflage has become that morphology's acquired purpose, because the insect uses it deliberately to achieve that purpose.
It's simplistic to explain that "without it" the insect would have died, yet "with it" was allowed to survive, regardless of any advantage the insect would have learned to take from its acquisition. Of course these simple folk might not accept that an insect could learn, or worse, that such learning could be heritable. The watchmaker, if blind, can't learn by his experience to see the watch - or can he?
*****
Deceptive strategies being common (if not basic) in the biological world, it's more likely that the opportunity afforded for the adaption of the archetypical mimicking strategy drove the evolution of the structure, rather than the structure having influenced the development of the strategy. One reason being that strategies adapt themselves to environments, and the forms that activate their functions are made to suit their strategic purposes, rather than the reverse.
*****
But wouldn't this mean that life forms engineer their own structures? If so, how would they manage the replication process? Wouldn't it be the same way they supposedly manage to replicate a mutation "engineered" through (somehow) selecting from a series of random trials made by some unknown force of nature?
But then what exactly is the makeup of any such replicative mechanism? If it allegedly allows the organism to copy an accidental restructuring of a gene, why can't it copy one that has to some extent been deliberately restructured? Either way, it will have taken advantage of the randomness of opportunity. So the question would seem to come down to this: Can an organism participate at all in its reconstruction? Because it surely seems that all those we've been able to examine want to.
(Disclaimer: The preceding questions have been for the most part rhetorical.)
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