Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id VAA22985 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 11 Apr 2001 21:04:05 +0100 Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 16:22:30 +0100 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Determinism Message-ID: <20010411162230.A1443@reborntechnology.co.uk> References: <013f01c0bd6b$21682e80$5eaefea9@rcn.com>; <3AD133AA.6664.BBCD42@localhost> <00ca01c0c113$29cfd680$5eaefea9@rcn.com> <20010409183947.A685@reborntechnology.co.uk> <003001c0c120$2cb138a0$5eaefea9@rcn.com> <20010410091320.A553@reborntechnology.co.uk> <3AD2DB0C.10E293B9@bioinf.man.ac.uk> <20010410133332.D1720@reborntechnology.co.uk> <3AD45C63.71DDD7BF@bioinf.man.ac.uk> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.15i In-Reply-To: <3AD45C63.71DDD7BF@bioinf.man.ac.uk>; from Christopher.Taylor@man.ac.uk on Wed, Apr 11, 2001 at 02:30:11PM +0100 From: Robin Faichney <robin@reborntechnology.co.uk> Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Wed, Apr 11, 2001 at 02:30:11PM +0100, Chris Taylor wrote:
>
> I'm interested in how we generate our choice - competing 'solutions'
> will often be ranked by a closer evaluation (i.e. a deeper comparison
> with relevant stuff), but where that does not occur, for example in a
> snap decision, or with poor knowledge (the classic casket choice, most
> famously in The Merchant of Venice, for example), do we just have a
> pseudorandom number generator to toss a coin? Is it a case of which
> memes have most recently been active (had a nice dream about a forest,
> therefore picked a green thing over a turquoise thing, had a nice dream
> about the sea, therefore vice versa - the one I think Dennet would go
> for).
Seems to me in the vast majority of cases choices are not evenly weighted.
What makes the difference is subjective probability: what I think is
most likely to be true, or to be optimal. Then there's the distinction
between what I think likely to be really true, or good, on one hand,
and what I'd like to be true, or to do, on the other. And sometimes, of
course, I actually toss a coin. This stuff is so complex and so varied
that it's really difficult to generalise about. But I'm sceptical of
the utility of the pseudorandom number generator concept. The concept
of randomness, as most often used, is a subjective one. Not "these
events have no pattern", but "these events have no interesting pattern".
That's what's meant when it's said that genetic mutation is random: in
evolutionary terms, it is, but individual cases often have clear causes,
and without wanting to get into areas I've recently been avoiding,
we might suppose that all cases are actually caused -- it's just that
the causes are not generally of interest to evolutionary biologists.
So what's random is a matter of opinion. In the case of an actual p-r
n g, it can clearly be distinguished from the rest of the machinery of
which it is part, at least in terms of its usage, but in the natural
world (in which I'm including our minds, for present purposes) there
are no such distinctions.
> Ecosystem evolution is as much about serendipity as it is about
> 'fitness'; here chance decides who fills the niche. Where determinism
> comes in is that in hindsight (frankly, predictive power, or power to
> act, is irrelevant joe) we can see why one species, rather than another,
> was available; why the weather killed off the other possible candidate
> last summer; why the blah blah blah (yadda yadda - I like that one).
This is an example of "it's not caused in a way I find significant,
so I'll call it chance". In general terms, we don't need hindsight to
see that there are always reasons for these things. Taking the broadest
possible view, chance just never comes into it.
-- Robin Faichney Get your Meta-Information from http://www.ii01.org (CAUTION: contains philosophy, may cause heads to spin)=============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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