h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>Survival depends on pure chance.<<


And yet survival is not random.

Those who are better adapted to survive - not will , that's to certain - but probably will. The relationship between a "better" adaptation and survival (or indeed proliferation*) is that they are causally linked.

Which individuals may succumb or flourish that is more like chance in the normal sense but the survival or the better adapted genotype lineage isn't really chance in the same way.


*I'm thinking of Richard Lenski's E-coli and them developing the sequence of mutations that led to them metabolising citrate in the growth media.

This was not a step change mutation - bam lets all eat citrate - it was the result of separate events which in effect scaffold the final outcome without these prior changes the last citrate metabolising mutation wouldn't have worked.

However those prior mutations didn't arise "becuase" the bacteria knew the citrate was there and wanted to get at it.

It was simply the case the the relatively random mutation process (random as compared to the differential survival of non-random selection) yielded up variations which themselves were then subsequently adapted in such a way that that strain then gained dominance by having a broader diet and the means to digest it.

It does seem rather shortsighted, I can just here in my head Neil DeGrasse Tyson talking about his "Stupid Design" talking about how scientists would make humans better if they were to create them now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oEl9kVl6KPc

Fathom

"As for “No it's not”, please support your statement with a positive as against to just applying the negative to my post"

Reply
“I did - I supported my response with a question”

A “question” is a form of expression used to make a request for information, my statement requested information so that you could support of your stance, not to be answered with a question.


“Does not 'intent' imply some form of choice?”

Intent has a side effect, it can be measured as either good or bad but both resulting side effects can only be measured retrospectively.
DNA is a real time messenger, reacting to real/current time events, liken to a computer programme, it has contained within it a set of instructions that is uses to perform specific operations or to exhibit desired behaviours, these influence the characteristics of the species .
Subsequent adaptation is not a “choice” as environmental issues creates a need for change, producing subsequent bi-products, the derived adaptations are either good or bad, and survival is the consequence of a good adaptation
Failing to survive as mentioned is an indication of a species inability to adapt, in time, not a deliberate choice.

“ Survival depends on pure chance”

In science, Indeterminism has been promoted by the French biologist Jacques Monod (Nobel Prize 1965) essay "Chance and necessity", amongst other things he was involved in such work as discoveries concerning genetic control of enzyme and virus synthesis, study of the control of expression of Genes, living cell controls its manufacture of proteins through a feedback mechanism, where not the only thing that talks to one and other , cells communicate too, they react to prior events, if they didn’t we would not be here.
A chance is an occurrence, an event unseen, once realised then adaptation to that event / environment follows, do not flowers follow the sun, they do so, so as to maximise its benefits or is that just chance.

Plants grow towards the sun not because of a desire to receive more sunlight or choice on their part; they actually grow towards a source of light because the side of the plant facing the light will receive stunted growth due to the radiation and stuff coming from the sun, so the part of the plant not facing the sun will grow faster making the plant tilt towards that source of light. Sorry, I'm a bit of a pedant.

Anyway, can you explain Indeterminism a little bit more, I kind of get it, but I think I'm still a little bit foggy on what it states and its implications.

Auxin is the resulting factor as to why flowers/plants follow the sun and as mentioned they do so, so as to maximise its benefits.
Darwin was interested in Auxin in the 19th century; it is a hormone and allows plants to take optimal advantage of local and changing conditions.
Auxin is a chemical product contained within a plant and acts to benefit the plant.
Auxin is an acting agent that evolved as part of a plants evolutionary development with a positive value, we see what we see as a result of positive development as development which is not conducive to a beneficial effect results in failure and extinction.
Choice is what you exercise when changing your socks.
Indeterminism is a concept that certain events are not caused deterministically(this is a philosophy stating that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen) by prior events.

Monkeylord5000

Oh and by the way, as your page suggest your interested in astronomy, don’t forget the Lyrid meteor shower as it will peak Saturday night April 21-22

Fair enough on the auxin thing. Um so would determinism state, essentially, that there has only been one path for the universe to take since the Big Bang and indeterminism state the opposite?

Thanks for the heads up on the meteor shower!

winternights:

"A “question” is a form of expression used to make a request for information, my statement requested information so that you could support of your stance, not to be answered with a question."

You should know that a question is a perfectly valid and often effective way of responding to an argument. If you say something I disagree with I'm entitled to question your reasoning or premises as much as I am entitled to offer a counterstatement. I notice you didn't actually answer the question.

"Intent has a side effect, it can be measured as either good or bad but both resulting side effects can only be measured retrospectively."

Good or bad may depend on who's doing the measuring but that doesn't answer my question; does intent not imply some form of choice?
You state that adaptation is not a choice and I agree with that because adaptation is driven by two factors - the ability to adapt and the need to. To use the word 'intent' or, to come back to the original phrase, 'direction and purpose' seems to assign some form of sentience to a physical process driven by simple rules.

"A chance is an occurrence, an event unseen, once realised then adaptation to that event / environment follows..."

The problem with that sentence is the word 'realised'. I think this anthropomorphism is due to the way we talk about evolution as if a species suddenly decided to grow more hair because the weather was getting colder or longer legs because its predators were getting a bit fast on their feet. The reality is some members may be lucky enough to survive the pressure from the changed environment and their offspring may inherit whatever it was that enabled them to survive. A species does not 'realise' there is a problem and then adapt to it, it either survives the problem or it does not and either way that is pure chance. (Some) flowers follow the sun (phototropism) because at some point in the distant past one of their ancestors did. It may not even have been a flower at the time. If that benefits present day flowers then they are likely to continue to inherit that trait but if it suddenly becomes a liability they can't decide not to do it anymore. Either way the fact they can do it goes back to a lucky mutation millions of years ago.

F.

monkeylord5000
“Fair enough on the auxin thing. Um so would determinism state, essentially, that there has only been one path for the universe to take since the Big Bang and indeterminism state the opposite?”

Interesting one, will get back to you on that one

Fathom
There are many factors which influence people's judgments, the understanding of these factors goes to illuminate whether an action was done intentionally.
Intention is an agent and these agents vary dependant as to their origins, if we were to say “does intent not imply some form of choice?” in the concept of Human agency, then this is the capacity for human beings to make choices and to impose those choices on the world.
If we are to say “does intent not imply some form of choice?”, in the concept of Natural forces, then no, as these are caused involving only unthinking deterministic processes.
When I say “agent” this infers it has a specific purpose in performing an action.
Experimental research has shown that unintended side effects are often considered to be done intentionally if the side effect is considered bad and the person acting knew the side effect would occur before acting. Yet when the side effect is considered good, people generally don't think it was done intentionally, even if the person knew it would occur before acting.
Yet these mentioned side effect as measured in the concept of Natural forces result in evolution (good) or extinction (bad), as we are human it is only natural to apply any attribution of human characteristics or similar vagaries to the world.
I do not state that “species suddenly decided” and the term realised does not infer an intelligence demonstrated by an unthinking deterministic process. Realised is a reflective commodity but describes the result of actions taken as a consequence of environmental change which act upon a species.
DNA and the chemistry within each species are the active agents that effect change, to best suit that species in accordance to its environment and they only do so as a need to survive, not by chance or the need to casually change for change sack. Mutation is change but change as a result of missed, defective or additional DNA/ chemistry, the resulting species survives only if it is compatible or capable to manage in its environment.
Luck would suggest alternatives and that a form of intelligence opted for what resulted in a beneficial result but luck is part of Human agency not Natural.

Oh I think I get it. WN is saying with intent implies good & bad determinations.

Let's see if I am right.


Essentially because humans are the most successful of all mammals it is "natural" for us to conclude even if evolution is true that our providence was directed and so ignore and thus be untroubled by the yawning great contingency of it all which is most directly felt when some other species or genus goes extinct (say dinosaurs or dodos) and so we feel - and thus rather like the gloomy walk of the condemned to the catholic pyres -"there but for the grace of god go we."

This is something I wrote about 5 years ago on the topics of free will and determinism. It's not quite on topic, but it's still relevant to certain aspects of the discussion, and, I think, interesting in itself.

A recent topic drift on a thread on hootoo, on the question of whether we can “choose” what we believe, (which I was unable to contribute to at the time due to my dead laptop), has prompted me to a few thoughts on the subject, and on the subject of free will in general.

Perhaps the most common mistake that people make is to disregard the way we actually use words, leading either to a denial of the possibility of choice and freewill, or to the postulating of abstruse metaphysical principles to justify a usage which is not, in fact, the normal one for the terms in question.

Consider a simple example. I am walking down a road, and I come to its end. I can turn either left or right. Plainly I have a choice. That is there are two recognisable options presented to me by the world. I can only do one of them, but both are logically possible.

Now, in fact, I choose to turn left. The question then appears to be, “if all the conditions leading to the original choice were exactly reproduced, could I in fact end up turning right? But this is a non-question. No empirical demonstration is possible. Nor can we look that closely at the internal working of the mind/brain.

The real question here is whether we can make sense of the non-deterministic viewpoint. If in this situation I could in fact turn right, what is it that makes the difference? If there is nothing that makes the difference, the “choice” is purely random – it is not what we think of as a choice that has some sort of reason or purpose behind it, however right or wrong that purpose may be. If there *is* something that makes a difference, then the conditions are not identical.

Many people worry that this undermines morality and ethics, and takes away our freedom to choose. Others say we still have real choices, and that those choices are mine in a way that is not possible if my actions are not causally connected to my ongoing plans, projects, experiences etc.

What about choice of belief? The situation is essentially the same. There are certainly a myriad of ways that we could organise our experiences and expectations into a belief system. We certainly can and do make judgements (choices) about which of these gives us the best fit, the best “handle on the world”. We believe what we believe because we think this is what has the greatest probability of being true. It would make no sense to choose to believe something that we thought was false.

It is also not logically possible to choose “all the way down”, for the criteria by which we make choices would then themselves be matters of unrestricted choice, and so on ad infinitum, so that our choices would “float free” of all reasons. Every free choice, to have meaning, has ultimately to be grounded in something that is not a choice, in some aspect of the way the world is, or at least how we think it is.

Our choices are our responsibility because they are ours. This responsibility does not rest on some incomprehensible principle of metaphysics, but on the ordinary everyday meanings of the language with which we describe the way we live.


Noggin

Hi again winternights.

I'm beginning to suspect that English is not your first language.

You are using 'intent' in a way in which it is not normally used. For example:

My dog intends to chase a cat.
The cat intends to run away.
I intend to throw a ball to distract the dog.
The ball intends to land in the bushes where the dog can't find it.

In the first three sentences most people would, I think, say that is a correct use of the word 'intent' but in the fourth sentence attributing intent to an inanimate object is usually only acceptable in children's stories. Equally, attributing intent to a purely physical process; gravity, fire, the weather or evolution, however complex or unpredictable the process, is not a correct use of the word because intent implies conscious decision making. Yes it does, really, look it up.

F.

Fathom

“is not a correct use of the word because intent implies conscious decision making. Yes it does, really, look it up.”

I qualified this statement quite clearly in post 30129

[Intention is an agent and these agents vary dependant as to their origins, if we were to say “does intent not imply some form of choice?” in the concept of Human agency, then this is the capacity for human beings to make choices and to impose those choices on the world.
If we are to say “does intent not imply some form of choice?”, in the concept of Natural forces, then no, as these are caused involving only unthinking deterministic processes.]

I then qualified what an unthinking deterministic process was in respect of its acting agent.

[DNA and the chemistry within each species are the active agents that effect change, to best suit that species in accordance to its environment and they only do so as a need to survive, not by chance or the need to casually change for change sack. Mutation is change but change as a result of missed, defective or additional DNA/ chemistry, the resulting species survives only if it is compatible or capable to manage in its environment.]

Simple put “intent” is a word better used to describe a humans actions, “attributing intent to a purely physical process” as you so stated, the word intent has no logical relationship but if we are to accept that “intent” is an agent of action, then this agent can be applied to a purely physical process.

Clive

“Oh I think I get it. WN is saying with intent implies good & bad determinations.”


When I went on to say “Experimental research has shown that unintended side effects”, this was my angle on the concept of intentional action in Experimental philosophy.
I still maintain that, if intent is an agent with a specific purpose in performing an action whether in the concept of “Human agency” or “Natural” , the consequent outcomes that are unanticipated as in “Human agency” are known as Unintended consequence, or Side effect as in the “Natural”.
Both could be described as being “good” or “bad” retrospectively.
The results could also be reported as in the case of “Human agency” as being Positive (unexpected benefit usually referred to as luck or a windfall), Negative (unexpected detriment occurring in addition to the desired effect of the action) or a Perverse effect (contrary to what was originally intended).
As previously stated “Yet these mentioned side effect as measured in the concept of Natural forces result in evolution (good) or extinction (bad) , simplistic maybe but certainty not by “grace of god go we”.

winternights

>>"is not a correct use of the word because intent implies conscious decision making. Yes it does, really, look it up.”

I qualified this statement quite clearly in post 30129

[Intention is an agent and these agents vary dependant as to their origins, if we were to say “does intent not imply some form of choice?” in the concept of Human agency, then this is the capacity for human beings to make choices and to impose those choices on the world.
If we are to say “does intent not imply some form of choice?”, in the concept of Natural forces, then no, as these are caused involving only unthinking deterministic processes.]<<

You can't redefine 'intent' for your own purposes half way through an argument. Calling intent an agent merely shifts the question along one place. Now you are attempting to permit inanimate objects and processes to assign agents.

In other words I do not accept that intent is an agent of action which can be applied to purely physical processes.

F.

I kinda agree with Fathom here. A natural process can not have any intent without the guided direction of some other being. If you believe in God, that's fine, but a process in itself cannot drive itself to some purpose. If you were to take intelligence out of the picture, it seems that your argument would have it so that there is no intent?

The only reason we can look at these arguments is that because in this situation evolution did lead to intelligence, and while evolution might eventually come to intelligence, it is not because of some drive to get there, merely that intelligence leads to an evolutionary edge and will eventually be gotten by pure chance whether in a billion years or 50 billion or 2 trillion years. There's a theory, well not really a theory, in science I quite like that people should remember more often. We can only think about this stuff because it has already happened. Even if life was such an improbability that in the vastness of the universe the prospects of life would be essentially zero such that one life filled planet existed that yielded intelligence, those creatures would be the ones contemplating everything. There aren't any rocks or snails going around wondering about why they didn't develop life or intelligence. We can only talk about it because intelligence came to fruition, but that does not mean in anyway way that it was destined due to some intent.

Although I lot of your arguments seem to deal with the semantics of wordplay....

Thank you Monkeylord5000.

You are right on both counts.



F.

I don't understand Winternights reply to me.

Monkeylord on the otherhand - very well put!

Life (as in biological life) would originally have had to evolve form inorganic matter through natural processes; this took place in the Eoarchean era.
Amino acids can form via natural chemical reactions unrelated to life and other equally fundamental biochemical’s such as Nucleotides and Saccharides can arise in similar ways.
In all living things, these biochemical’s are organized into more complex molecules, including Macromolecules, such as Proteins, Polysaccharides and Nucleic acids.
These three molecules are essential for all life functions and make up all living organisms.
The first living things on Earth are thought to have been single cell Prokaryotes and the oldest ancient fossil microbe-like objects are dated to be 3.5 Ga which is approximately one billion years after the formation of the Earth itself.
By 2.4 Ga, the action of living things on inorganic minerals, sediments and molecular biomarkers indicate photosynthesis, demonstrating that life on Earth was widespread by this time.
You could use the word Nature by this time as the word is derived from the Latin “natura“, or essential qualities and “natura” was a Latin translation of the Greek word “physis” which originally related to the intrinsic characteristics that plants, animals, and other features of the world develop of their own accord.
Nature may refer to the general realm of various types of living plants and animals, and in some cases to the processes associated with inanimate objects – the way that particular types of things exist and change of their own accord, such as the weather and geology of the Earth, and the matter and energy of which all these things are composed

There are some key words starting to appear, as in “essential qualities”, “intrinsic characteristics”, “develop of their own accord” and “change of their own accord”.

When we look at the word intent, its meaning is said to be as an agent’s specific purpose in performing an action or series of actions, the “agent” or agency is the capacity of an agent (a person or other entity) to act in a world, note the word “entity”.
The word “action” typically describes actions as behaviour caused by an agent in a particular situation , as does “behaviour” in that it is referred to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems or artificial entities in conjunction with their environment,
The above goes to describe intent as a “Natural agency” working within a nature, a process existing in or produced by nature and its environment not as being brought into being by a human consciousness or a human mind…

You need to understand the complexities of process and not be so literal in your interpretations; I have not “redefine 'intent' for your own purposes” as the word intent as view conceptually in a natural environment has a value, direction, meaning and purpose.

“I don't understand Winternights reply to me.”

Post 30133 was posted hopefully to reaffirm my views as your post 30130 seemed to edge on sarcasm “Let's see if I am right.”