Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id RAA25730 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Thu, 12 Apr 2001 17:40:10 +0100 X-Originating-IP: [209.240.220.183] From: "Scott Chase" <ecphoric@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: Determinism Date: Thu, 12 Apr 2001 12:36:02 -0400 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <F37Z2K4xDh9vXsFFsAi000021e6@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 12 Apr 2001 16:36:03.0221 (UTC) FILETIME=[A9FE5450:01C0C36E] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>From: <joedees@bellsouth.net>
>Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>Subject: Re: Determinism
>Date: Wed, 11 Apr 2001 22:18:27 -0500
>
>On 11 Apr 2001, at 16:22, Robin Faichney wrote:
>
> > 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.
> >
>And very difficult to consider superdetermined from the instant the
>Big Bang bung.
> >
> > 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.
> >
>It is not the mutation which is nonrandom, but the selection.
>
I'm not sure mutation is all that random. Mutation is non-directed. Some
mutations could be more likely than others. My vague recollection is that a
difference exists betwen transitions and transversions and on a different
front that certain parts of a genome could be hotter spots than others.
Still, even if not quite random, mutation is not directed towards any
predetermined end, especially of adaptive significance.
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