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Arthur Jackson (ajackson@SSA.CO.SANTA-CLARA.CA.US)
Fri, 20 Nov 1998 08:02:36 -0800

Luis Rocha wrote:
>
> Norman K. McPhail wrote:
> >
> > FRANCIS WROTE:
> >
> > > 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".
> > >
> >
> > Note that general short term fitness is often at odds with long term
> > adaptability. Thus we humans are slow afoot, poor swimmers and divers,
> > poor tree climbers, not very strong and have no fangs or claws.
> > Generally, without each other and all the weapons and defenses we've
> > learned to dream up, make and use, we would be sitting ducks for any
> > self respecting fit predators. So how can we explain our apparent
> > success?
> >
> > Adaptability!
> >
>
> As Alexei mentioned earlier, this idea was defended by Michael Conrad.
> Also, note that many bacteria, being simpler, can have higher
> adaptability to changing environments. They can withstand conditions
> that no other life forms could.
>
> > To me, this means that for some reason our forebears found a way to
> > change their genetic changing problems into thought problems. In other
> > words, their genes couldn't keep up with all the changing problems they
> > faced in their environment and ecosystems. So they changed this gene
> > changing problem into a thought problem. Thought enabled them to keep
> > up with all the changes around them.
>
> I had suggested a similar point in an earlier message (so did Jesper).
> Brains, language, and culture, gave humans a more efficient mechanism
> for problem solving and adaptability, which depends on a different kind
> of cultural evolution: the driven/active kind.
>
> Cheers,
> Luis
>
> _________________________________________________
> Luis Rocha (Postdoctoral Associate)
> Computer Research and Applications Group (CIC-3)
> Los Alamos National Laboratory, Mail Stop P990
> Los Alamos, NM 87545
> e-mail: rocha@lanl.gov or rocha@santafe.edu
> http://www.c3.lanl.gov/~rocha