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Author Topic:   How is Natural selection a mechanism?
AndrewPD
Member (Idle past 2415 days)
Posts: 133
From: Bristol
Joined: 07-23-2009


Message 138 of 191 (816294)
08-02-2017 12:14 PM
Reply to: Message 131 by ringo
07-30-2017 2:08 PM


ringo writes:
Then why do you expect "motivation" for molecules changing from non-living to living?
It is not what I expect it is what we see.
There are elaborate process taking many steps for reproduction to happen. Whereas Object .A. hitting Object .B. is instantaneous.
Humans express and enact numerous motivations But humans aside there are such elaborate ways of reproducing including elaborate mating rituals, long pregnancies etc all just to preserve and insensate piece of genetic material.
This is beyond a basic picture of instant deterministic causation. It is also serious entropy reversal (which I think has been a valid criticism of the theory)
Nevertheless I don't see how science can comment of purpose in nature using the language and method they do. Science uses model and other constructs to attempt to describe phenomena.
One of the big problems for studying the mind is whether you can ever coherently reduce reason-giving explanations or semantics to mechanical descriptions.
Reason giving explanations can be highly explanatory and to convert these to the behaviour of atoms or neurons would not only be incoherent but be I credibly complex. So for example if someone says "I crossed the road to buy some milk because my fridge is empty" That explains all we need to know about their action but to translate that into what each atom and neuron was doing would be insane. For examples neurons and atoms don't know that my fridge is empty and we don't see beliefs like this in neuronal activity.

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 Message 131 by ringo, posted 07-30-2017 2:08 PM ringo has replied

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AndrewPD
Member (Idle past 2415 days)
Posts: 133
From: Bristol
Joined: 07-23-2009


Message 139 of 191 (816295)
08-02-2017 12:21 PM
Reply to: Message 137 by New Cat's Eye
08-02-2017 12:07 PM


New Cat's Eye writes:
You don't have direct access to my favorite color, but it's red. Now you know that. Why does it matter that your access to my favorite color was indirect?
People see colours differently and people experience things differently so for instance a vivid red sensation can make some people repulsed.
A famous case is Knut Nordby who had achromatopsia
"Knut studied at the University of Oslo, receiving a BS in Human Physiology (the Faculty of Medicine), an MA in Philosophy of Sciences (the Faculty of History and Philosophy) and a Magister Artium (the equivalent of a Ph.D.) in Psychology (Faculty of Social Sciences)."
He studied colour vision but said ...he had no idea.. what it was like to see colour. No amount of theory could replace the experience. That was a part of what constitutes "The Knowledge Argument" or "Mary's room" about the nature of experience.
http://www.achromatopsia.info/knut-nordby-achromatopsia-p/

This message is a reply to:
 Message 137 by New Cat's Eye, posted 08-02-2017 12:07 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

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AndrewPD
Member (Idle past 2415 days)
Posts: 133
From: Bristol
Joined: 07-23-2009


Message 155 of 191 (816391)
08-03-2017 9:27 PM
Reply to: Message 144 by Taq
08-02-2017 4:18 PM


Taq writes:
If energy is added to a system then you can have entropy reversal (i.e. negative entropy). This is why we are able to use things like refrigerators which produce negative entropy. If refrigerators don't violate the laws of physics, then neither does life.
A Refrigerator is intelligently designed. I don't see how the sun reduces entropy simply by giving off energy.
Does it reduce entropy on Mars?
There are complex processes like photosynthesis to utilise the suns energy.
Also entropy under one description relates to degrees of freedom. This is the example given in a gas.
So it is statistically unlikely that all the molecules in a gas will go into one corner of a jar because there are to many other possible arrangements. So entropy reflects the unlikelihood of certain formations or order when there is a huge range of other probabilistically available outcomes.

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AndrewPD
Member (Idle past 2415 days)
Posts: 133
From: Bristol
Joined: 07-23-2009


Message 170 of 191 (816519)
08-05-2017 1:51 PM


Here is a simple analogy of entropy.
You drop an uncooked egg and it shatters.
I don't think there has ever been an instance where that egg has in the next moment or later returned to being an unbroken egg.
Now you can imagine the same with a vase. A vase shatters. You could leave it for a million years and it would never reform into the same vase. However a human can intelligently intervene and quickly glue the vase into a whole again.
Human interventions do seem to effect entropy because volitional actions and intelligent perception allow us to create improbable states of order.
So it is this kind of intelligent intervention that can reduce the rate of entropy.
This is a true selection process and very effective.

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AndrewPD
Member (Idle past 2415 days)
Posts: 133
From: Bristol
Joined: 07-23-2009


Message 171 of 191 (816520)
08-05-2017 2:08 PM
Reply to: Message 169 by RAZD
08-05-2017 12:21 PM


Re: the original topic issue was ... ?
I have found this definition of natural selection.
"Evolution acts through natural selection whereby reproductive and genetic qualities that prove advantageous to survival prevail into future generations."
Mechanisms of Evolutionary Change | Nectunt
This is survival of the fittest that has been described as tautologous because it means that anything that survives is defined as fit.
But this led making a value judgement about traits which had a negative social effect. And so people decided which traits they thought were being or would be selected.
But anything that survives is being selected. As soon as something dies without having offspring it is deselected, trivially so.
There is no trait that can't easily be made extinct. Why a trait survives is down to the properties it was freely given by biochemistry.
Natural selection seems entirely negative. It implies nature is deselecting bad traits. But all it seems to be is banal observation that somethings survive and somethings don't.
When you start giving a hierarchy of desirable traits or reductive explanations we've seen where that leads.
I am exclusively gay and that has led to the puzzle of how this ruthless mechanism wouldn't have weeded that out. That is a teleological standpoint like we knew the mind of nature and can describe what it wants to create.
Then there is issue of what was selected as opposed to what is a spandrel. A Spandrel is certainly any easy way for any unevolutionary trait to get a free ride.

This message is a reply to:
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AndrewPD
Member (Idle past 2415 days)
Posts: 133
From: Bristol
Joined: 07-23-2009


Message 173 of 191 (816526)
08-05-2017 2:45 PM


I like this quote from Dawkins. (In a non endorsing kind of way)
"We are survival machines — robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. "
It is is an extreme statement of what being a human is on his picture.
It is not the case for him at least that evolution is just an observation but that it is a paradigm that should govern how we view ourself and our behaviour and how we should seek to interpret reality.
This is where you cross the is/ought line.
I don't think science is or should be in the service of an ideological stance such as the mechanical world view.
I think Selfish and Selection are unfortunate "metaphors".
Dawkins has also supported a theory for the universe being selected from a range of possible ones put forward by Lee Smolin.

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