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Arthur Jackson (ajackson@SSA.CO.SANTA-CLARA.CA.US)
Thu, 19 Nov 1998 07:53:49 -0800
Francis Heylighen wrote:
>
> Howard Pattee:
> > It should be obvious that by common definition,
> > "progress" is in no way related to growth of complexity. In fact progress,
> > like success, is meaningless unless it is applied to a pre-established,
> > well-defined goal. Evolutionary progress is therefore meaningless (survival
> > is not a goal, it's just whatever is not extinct).
>
> Stanley Salthe:
> >So, I don't agree with Gould and Luis
> > and Heylighen that cultural evolution will be progressive BY WAY
> > OF SELECTION.
>
> Alexei Sharov:
> > I am not sure that "complexity" is a right word to characterize progress.
> > In many cases progress goes by finding SIMPLE solutions! What is more
> > simple than a wheel? But in many cases good solutions are also complex.
> > We need to distinguish short-term fitness and long-term fitness which is
> > ignored by neodarwinists. Michael Conrad suggested the term "adaptability"
> > for the long-term fitness. Progress is associated with adaptability
> > rather than with short-term fitness.
>
> In this discussion on progress, I basically side with Alexei, and against
> Howard, Stanley and Luis. Let me summarize the argument which I developed
> in more detail in my paper on the growth of complexity during evolution
> (http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/ComplexityGrowth.html) and in somewhat
> less detail in my paper on "Global Progess" (in human society)
> (http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/Papers/Progress.html).
>
> For me, evolutionary progress does result from selection, while increase in
> (structural) complexity is merely a side effect of that progress. I see
> evolutionary progress first of all as *increase in fitness*. Fisher's
> "fundamental theorem" of genetics shows that all populations undergoing
> natural selection will increase in average fitness. This follows directly
> from the definition of fitness as "that what survives and multiplies".
> Therefore, increase of fitness is a tautology, comparable to the tautology
> that underlies the statistical interpretation of the 2nd law of
> thermodynamics: systems tend to evolve to their most probable state.
>
> Of course, the main objection to equating fitness increase to progress lies
> in the fact that Fisher's theorem only applies to unchanging environments,
> where the conditions that determine fitness remain invariant. As we all
> know, unchanging environments do not exist, and therefore there is no
> absolute standard of fitness. As Gould notes, the evolution from hairless
> elephant to woolly mammoth is merely the result of a change in climate; if
> the climate becomes warmer again the mammoth will lose its fitness relative
> to its hairless cousin. However, there is a way to increase fitness in an
> absolute way: an organism will be more fit it it can adapt to a larger
> range of environments or circumstances. For example, warm-blooded mammals
> can adapt to a larger range of temperatures than cold-blooded reptiles.
> This "second-order", long-term fitness is what Alexei proposed to call
> "adaptability". This is a term I should perhaps also adopt, to avoid
> confusion with the more traditional usage of "fitness".
>
> Because of Ashby's Law of Requisity Variety, increased adaptability
> requires increased variety of actions and therefore increased *functional
> complexity*. This may or may not translate into increased *structural
> complexity* (which is what McShea and others are talking about). In some
> cases, increase in fitness does require decrease in structural complexity
> (simpler, more "streamlined", solutions often work better).
>
> However, following the Saunders and Ho argument (see my paper on Complexity
> Growth), I have argued that because of the inertia of evolution, it seems
> easier for selection to increase than to decrease complexity, at least in
> biological evolution. In cultural evolution, because of its "Lamarckian"
> (vicariously selected) character, it is much easier to "go back to the
> drawing board", and start anew with a much simpler solution. Thus, increase
> in structural complexity, is at best merely a side effect of fitness
> increase (i e. progress), not a necessary component.
>
> The increase in functional complexity happens most spectacularly during a
> metasystem transition (MST), which creates a higher level of organization
> or control. (see http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MST.html ). Most MST's also
> increase structural complexity to a drastic extent. Examples of MST's are
> the origins of life, multicellularity, symbiosis, sexual reproduction, and
> symbolic cognition. Each MST creates a new "treshold of complexity". In
> between MSTs there is probably little change in structural/functional
> complexity. That is why Gould's "minimum treshold of complexity" reasoning
> obscures the overall trend. Within a given metasystem level it will be very
> difficult to find clear trends in complexity increase, although I do
> believe that these can be found if one would observe in more detail,
> because the on-going increase in adaptability will generally also bring
> about increase in complexity. But if one would look at evolution across
> metasystem levels, the trend to produce ever higher levels of complexity is
> very noticeable.
>
> Norman McPhail:
> > Are you inferring
> >that human thought can be fully explained as a complexification of
> >elementary particles? [...]
> >I also want to suggest that these subjective non physical realities are
> >of a different logical type. This means that they can't be fully
> >explained by any systems modeling formula including a systemic systems
> >modeling formula. [...]
> >Finally, I want to suggest that there are real non physical differences
> >between what we call life and the lifeless realms of elementary
> >particles, atoms and molecules. [...]
> >I have one final set of questions for you Francis: Why do you think
> >scientists keep insisting that everything is physical?
>
> I have the impression that Norman has seriously misunderstood me here,
> accusing me of being a physical reductionist just because I note that life
> and intelligence *evolved* from elementary particles. The essence of the
> systems approach, which underlies the theory of metasystem transitions, is
> just that every level of system organization is characterized by "emergent"
> properties, that cannot be reduced to the properties of their components.
> In a sense, Norman is correct in asserting that these emergent systems (in
> particular metasystems) belong to a "different logical type". The fact that
> evolution continuously generates such emergent features illustrates the
> inherent creativity of evolution, and the impossibility to predict or
> explain its results by mere laws of physics.
>
> Stanley Salthe:
> >Gould maintains that complexity increases would not evolve by
> >selection, and that is quite true -- nothing can EVOLVE by way of
> >selection alone. Selection is a local generation to generation
> >process which merely picks out types of organisms that happen to
> >be more successful at reproduction in the local environment, while
> >evolution is (usually viewed as) a large scale (multigenerational)
> >phenomenon of organismic change, focusing on traits like eyes,
> >etc..
>
> Stanley notes that *selection* alone cannot produce complexity. Of course
> not: all evolutionary processes require variation AND selection. It is the
> variation which may produce more complex entities, which can then be
> preferentially maintained or multiplied by selection. As I note in the
> following paragraph, there are many ways in which variation can produce a
> more complex system.
>
> Luis Rocha:
> >Furthermore, I do think that cultural evolution has aspects of blind
> >variation, and biological evolution has aspects of evolution by
> >adoption/amalgamation/crossover, but blind variation is the prime mover
> >of biological evolution, and evolution by adoption the prime mover of
> >cultural evolution.
>
> By blind variation I understand not only mutations, but also processes of
> recombination, combination, exchange, amalgamation, adoption, etc. As long
> as these processes do not "know" what they are supposed to produce in order
> to satisfy selection, there is no reason not to include them under blind
> variation. A new embryo that "adopts" a genome from its parents does not
> know whether that genome will allow it to survive and reproduce
> succesfully. It is just that because the parents themselves survived until
> the stage where they were able to produce an embryo, that the chances of
> success are reasonably good.
>
> Similarly, if a cultural group "adopts" some habit from another, obviously
> successful group, it does not know for sure that this habit will also make
> them more successful. It is likely that the habit will not be deleterious,
> but you never know for sure. For example, one of the problems with
> economically less developed societies is that they try to emulate the
> apparently successful Western culture, but do that in an inadequate way,
> e.g. by adopting innovations such as Coca Cola, alcohol, cigarettes, fast
> food, bottled milk for newborn babies, etc. which are rather harmful for
> their way of life, while ignoring the really important but more difficult
> to imitate innovations, such as scientific testing of beliefs and
> superstitions, rational management, enforceable contracts, etc.
>
> Thus, the fact that cultural evolution works "horizontally" and biological
> evolution "vertically" will at best make cultural evolution more efficient
> in innovation, because new discoveries diffuse more quickly, but it will
> not eliminate the essential blindness of variation. By the way, there are
> some computer simulations in memetics, by people such as Liane Gabora and
> Michael Best, that clearly demonstrate how "cultural learning", "imitation"
> or "horizontal transmission" mechanisms accelerate evolution compared to
> either "vertical transmission", "Darwinian inheritance" or "individual
> learning".
>
> More important on the fundamental level, perhaps, is that, because of the
> implied positive feedback, horizontal transmission tends to lead to a
> homogeneity of beliefs within a group. This was shown by Boyd and Richerson
> in their classic mathematical analysis of cultural evolution. Donald
> Campbell and me (see our paper on "selection of organization at the social
> level",
>
ftp://ftp.vub.ac.be/pub/projects/Principia_Cybernetica/WF-issue/Social_MST.txt)
> conclude from this that it is much easier to achieve "group selection" for
> cultural groups than it is for biological groups, with the result that it
> becomes easier to evolve cooperation and some form of social control. This
> in turn, lies at the base of another metasystem transition, leading towards
> a "social superorganism".
>
> In conclusion, there are important differences between biological and
> cultural evolution, but not to the degree that both cannot be encompassed
> within the larger "blind variation and natural selection" paradigm.
>
> _________________________________________________________________________
> Francis Heylighen <fheyligh@vub.ac.be> -- Center "Leo Apostel"
> Free University of Brussels, Krijgskundestr. 33, 1160 Brussels, Belgium
> tel +32-2-6442677; fax +32-2-6440744; http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HEYL.html