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Author Topic:   Evolution by Definition
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 51 of 74 (454403)
02-06-2008 8:36 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by Organicmachination
02-06-2008 8:33 PM


Re: Emergent Properties
You are not forgetting what/how Pascal thought about dice are you?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 50 by Organicmachination, posted 02-06-2008 8:33 PM Organicmachination has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 52 by Organicmachination, posted 02-06-2008 8:39 PM Brad McFall has replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 56 of 74 (454410)
02-06-2008 9:26 PM
Reply to: Message 52 by Organicmachination
02-06-2008 8:39 PM


Re: Emergent Properties
His correspondence with Fermat and writing on the Arithmetic Triangle?

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 Message 52 by Organicmachination, posted 02-06-2008 8:39 PM Organicmachination has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 58 by Organicmachination, posted 02-06-2008 9:29 PM Brad McFall has replied

  
Brad McFall
Member (Idle past 5032 days)
Posts: 3428
From: Ithaca,NY, USA
Joined: 12-20-2001


Message 62 of 74 (454419)
02-06-2008 10:07 PM
Reply to: Message 58 by Organicmachination
02-06-2008 9:29 PM


Re: Emergent Properties
Mac Arthur wrote in The Theory of the Niche
quote:
“People who insist that all such terms be operational will reject “niche” just as they must reject “phenotype” and “genotype, “ as involving an infinite number of measurements; but statements about differencesbetween niches are perfectly testable and that is all that matters. (In fact, the parallel between “niche “ and “phenotype” is more than formal. “Phenotype” embodies all the measurements which can be made on an individual during its lifetime, including those measurements which constitute its niche. Thus “phenotype” includes “niche.” And to the extent that all relevant phenotype parameters affect fitness, “niche” almost includes “phenotype.”) Hence, the term “niche” will mainly appear in comparative statements.
(page 160-1 in Population Biology and Evolution ed by Lewontin 1968).
I feel you are hiding emergence in the “differences” inhere sometimes.
But I personally think that Poincare’s complaint (in “Science and Method” that pasigraphers (think logicians if nothing else comes to mind) that finite numbers (whatever are thought in games or dice)are thought of in this roundabout (same word you used to mention Tesla) from infinity only hinges on Hilbert’s program giving the “feeling” of an empty form and yet if the infinity of MacArthur is really extant then it seems to fit in this roundabout way. So, I have invested Croizat’s method with a content of incidence geometry that is not ”empty’(http://www.axiompanbiog.com)which leaves your notion of emergence somewhat suspect even from a purely formal point of view. I know I have a rather odd perspective but hiding emergence between phenotype and genotype is easy to do as long as we really do not have a good handle on what *true* levels are or the long list of relations of physical forces to mutations as Tesla mentioned. If mutations are so important why is it that no one has found out how to relate physical forces to them mathematically? This is why Gould proposed three conditions for his levels of selection. He tries to avoid the whole thing logically.
There was a recent (2004) article out of AMNH supporting Gould’s notion but it admitted THREE hierarchies (selective, ecological, and somatic (which might be part of ecological (they said). Regardless, these things really can only be thought about from the “roundabout” direction (Gould's or mine etc) if they are to remain only up to infinite induction of Pascal but should other infinite thought processes be involved, well, then the variables may not be infinite but the properties might not be emergent either. Gould simply wants to imagine emergence just like Poincare complained that Cantorians wanted to imagine the difference of cardinal and ordinal numbers. I really cant see any difference here and yet we have from MacArthur no less, that NS sees infinity itself. Poincare complaint was that one has to "select" what science to think about. This needs to be thought of in terms of natural selection. But with infinite measurements a la MacArthur we HAVE to use Cantorianism.
This is actually the simplest way that I can resovle the tension in historical biogeography. To say otherwise implies a lot of smart people are actually stupid and the avergae person who knows little to nothing is more correct. That is hard to believe or fathom.
If you wish to say that there is no need for all this in science, biology etc then for me with or without emergence, you need to explain why there has not developed a proper historical biogeography. If the answer simply is that history is by lucky accident then one has to say that Croizat's claim that there are patterns in distributions is just his imagination.
If I die with only my imagination intact that is not a deal breaker for me. The loss is only for those who can not follow it.

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