Quote:

---

What is this search, searching?? And why search in the first place. To me, I can't get it out of my mind that someone triggered this search. Logically, by looking at the NA itself, we should someday be able to solve this. Which makes this ever more interesting.

---

Another good example of this bias I was talking about.

It's no critique, but these selective rules can't be seen as one sort of being pushing life (and us) around, how ever coherent the effects and the fact that apparently it happens on all scales, a lot of beings are being filtered out. What we are looking at is not the result of ONE species dodging the selective factors, no, what we are looking at is the result of adaptation through the system that filters on specific qualities in specific situations. I wouldn't call that 'search'.

Ignore if you like, since it's a linguistic/interpretative kind of thing but "search" would also suggest some sort of 'motive', right? But eventhough everything is trying to survive, some branches of evolution, some species, some beings don't really have a choice.

Evolution of life is not so much a search, but more so simply the result of survival.

Let's look at it this way, you've got 5 fish species in one basin and in order to survive they have to swim through 1 hole. Unfortunately, only 1 species of the 5 is small enough to be able to swim through. You can hardly call that 'search of life to survive', it's just the others are filtered out.

Common expressions like "life will find a way" are biased, because for some of life there won't even be a way.

The existence of the whole processes of evolution really is the only reason why 'life' hasn't died out already on this planet. These processes are complex and make that some of life per generation that get's 'filtered' will survive, but some branches of evolution come to dead-ends too, others split into several species and what more. My point being ...? The survival of life is to complex for a generalization of this kind.

Cheers

Quote:

---

This statement is idiotic. In the first statement he says evolution is not random at all and in the second sentence he says that "...variation due to sexual reproduction may be random

So that is ridiculous, and I see it in both camps, for evolution AND creation. The alleged process is neither random nor directed, it is both. So creationists are entirely correct when we say that genetic information arises by chance. It indeed arises by chance mutation. It is selected by other processes.

---

It's not idiotic. Ask yourself this, what causes a mutation? An error of some kind, right? Are errors random? If something is damaged they are the result of the damaging factor, if there has been made a 'mistake' of some kind in any of the processes it could appear as if 'random'. However if something has a cause it is not random, if it has a cause which get's influenced by an awful lot of factors then it would be more accurate to say it's random. If something ultimately happens to be unpredictable, I'd say it's random. It's not a black and white world.

Cheers

Quote:

---

To answer your question, the information was evolved with the method you have just described

---

Quote:

---

1. a population of organisms which have a lifetime and which can reproduce in a challenging/changing environment
2. a way of continually generating diversity in new 'child' organisms.

And that's the only two rules that 'govern' our universe. Even the survival of the fittest principle has emerged by these two rules(organisms which tend to have healthy, fertile children will dominate(i.e. their descendents will).

---

Yes. Pretty much the standard theory. It is even axiomatic is it not? However, if you or I found that this process did not work as a universal law(or governing 'rules' as you so aptly stated), or if we even cast a shadow of doubt upon it, we would placed under much disdain by Dr.David Corne and many other theorists. It would be intellectual suicide to blaspheme this rule in our education system. However, dont worry, while it is WAY too late for me (for I questioned it a looong time ago) I dont think its too late for you.

ok. All kidding aside.

Quote:

---

Just want to clarify here, that mutations are always random, and never biased or inherited. I'm sure we're on the same page but maybe someone else would find this post informative..

---

Quote:

---

through copying errors, although i wouldn't call them errors per se..

---

Here is the point of your error. You think that mutations are a 'good' thing. However it is a very serious thing, many people die from mutation. The amount of families hurt by genetic birth defects is tragically high. So mutation is a real catastrophic problem in our society and is not merely an academic problem. I dont see anyone hopping underneath an x-ray machine hoping to get a mutation.

But from a evolutionary perspective, as you have suggested, are mutations good?

For the last 100 years scientists have been trying to find mutations which have caused new, novel information, and I have to say that from what I have seen, there really havent been any mutations which have been seen to have unambigously created information. There certainly have been mutations which have been considered "beneficial" which however resulted in a loss of information rather than the creation of it. For illustration purposes some people might consider a broken car alarm to be "beneficial". However, even though such changes may be considered "beneficial", they still represent a "breakdown" of the car. This is an actual case, for example, in chromosonal mutations for for antibiotic resistances in bacteria. That bacteria has not evolved, it has become defective.

Yet evolutionists are persistent in believing that mutation/selection is the building block process responsible for all life. So we have to look at mutations closely. We specifically need to look at what kinds of effects mutations have on organisms. Limiting ourselves to point mutations as it relates to the amount of damage they can do they can come in three different flavors:

1)No effect at all
2)Subtle effects
3)dramatic effects

For current evolutionary theory to work, the mutations have to be relatively subtle (2) or have no effect (1) because a dramatic effect would be selected out fairly quickly.

(here is where some mathematicians come in and start to calculate the probabilities of mutations adding novel complexity to the genome)

To break it down to an analogy it does not take a genius to understand that most mutations are NOT going to add new protein building information, and there are huge amounts of harmful(3) or subtle effect (2) mutations for every one theoretical mutation which adds anything new.

So current evolutionary theory holds that these "harmless mutations" will not be selected out while the organism "waits" for all these good mutations to come together. Why wont they be selected out? Because they are harmless right? Wrong. They are harmless as individuals, but not in the huge numbers that they occur. Here is where the complexity issue comes in.

Basically I have a bunch of people here that are saying that complexity does not matter and that simple reductionist thinking that it all just somehow "works" with the amazing machine of mutation/natural selection, yet they really have no idea why it doesnt work, why it cant work, and why it has never been observed to work. Well Ive got some news for you, most of you dont know anything about how mutations act on organisms and on populations, yet you depend on the mutation/selection scheme to create the new information needed to produce an eye. Its crazy. And Larry_Laffer, as I will show you given enough time(for this post is just an abbreviated version just lightly skimming on some facts)your evolutionary computing is just a theoretical dream which makes very little sense in the light of real genetics research.(edit:well perhaps I shouldnt say in that way, because I know nothing of that kind of thing evolutionary algoritms are not something I ever really learned about) I am just saying that I am 99% positive that there are things involved with population genetics and genetic research which are definitely not considered in most evolutionary computing algorithms.

Quote:

---

It's not idiotic. Ask yourself this, what causes a mutation? An error of some kind, right? Are errors random? If something is damaged they are the result of the damaging factor, if there has been made a 'mistake' of some kind in any of the processes it could appear as if 'random'. However if something has a cause it is not random, if it has a cause which get's influenced by an awful lot of factors then it would be more accurate to say it's random. If something ultimately happens to be unpredictable, I'd say it's random. It's not a black and white world

---

1)I definitely didnt say you or the guy is idiotic, I just think his statement is because he says in one breath "its not random" in the next he says "its random"

But you are right about cause and effect, nothing is random considering that a dice will fall based on real physical properties. However for the purposes of this discussion the word "random" should suffice.

Quote:

---

Yep thanks, that would be the answer I was looking for, and I can go one step further in saying that it would be the standard answer. Just about every technically oriented college student in America would probably answer the same way. Because this is what is taught as standard evolutionary theory here and I am sure elsewhere.

---

Quote:

---

However, if you or I found that this process did not work as a universal law(or governing 'rules' as you so aptly stated), or if we even cast a shadow of doubt upon it, we would placed under much disdain by Dr.David Corne and many other theorists.

---

Quote:

---

However, dont worry, while it is WAY too late for me (for I questioned it a looong time ago) I dont think its too late for you.

---

Quote:

---

well...no, but thats ok, its an irrelevant point, and we are probably saying the same thing in different ways.

inherited mutations

---

Quote:

---

How would you go to solve this? You could try to reason what the best orginization could look like, or you could do an exhustive (brute force) search of ALL POSSIBLE COMBINATION OF EVERYTHING, or use some other search algorithm, such as.. NA.

---

Quote:

---

Considering there may be a creator, or group of creators, that actually made our world happen isn't stupid.. It's actually pretty reasonable to think like that.

---

Quote:

---

I see, now I understand where you're coming from. I tend to agree, however the selective factors are constantly changing so would life be possible in any other way but the 'brute force' way? I don't think so.

---

Quote:

---

On tues. you said the fittest human is the one who re-produces
> more. So i guess it's safe to say that if we figure out which people
> reproduce the most, we have our fitness criteria. With the minesweepers,
> we intervene every minute and choose which mineswepers would re-produce
> according to who collected more mines. And the criteria is always the same
> until we find a solution. Looking at human history however, the human that
> would re-produce more seems to change all the time! I mean, thousands of
> years ago, the physically strongest man would be the one that would
> survive all dangers(i'm talking pre-historic times..) and probably knock
> the most women unconsious before mating with them. However, in our times,
> it's mostly about the more socially successfull people, or the most
> atractive one. Attractive itself is also an issue that is never the same.
> "Attractive" women today would be considered to be ugly, years ago. So
> what helps if more attractive women are breeded by nature's GA algorithm,
> if at some point in the future, they are not considered to be attractive
> anymore? So to me, it looks like there's another level of abstraction on
> the fitness criteria, that we don't enforce in AGA's yet.. But to be
> honest, i'm just comfused..

---

Quote:

---

- what natural evolution actually *optimises* is still under hot debate,
but it is just as much to do with what's good for the species as it
is to do with number of fertile children.
- personal fitness (e.g. what an individual human wants to attain
or improve in him/herself) is entirely separate from evolutionary
fitness. Evolution measures you in one way, you are free to measure
yourself in any way you like, and that may be quite different.
- Evolution is pretty damn good at what it does, but it is most
certainly very far from perfect. In many cases, it adapts too
slowly in relation to changes in the environment. This is why
dinosaurs are gone, why polar bears will follow them, and so on.
So we shouldn't (as many people do) bring it up in a context
like "this is what evolution "says" " so it must be right.

---

Quote:

---

I have no interest in arguing with you whether Natural Evolution is correct or not. All I'm doing is repeating how it works, and how it is defined. If you don't agree with something I'm saying, I don't care to hear what you don't like about it. You could maybe take this arguement to some scientist forum or whatever, that are willing to defend the theory. I'm merely stating what it says. You're free to believe whatever you want

---

oh sorry I didnt realise you were so touchy. You probably just dont know me that well, I am confrontational by nature. So it is no problem for me to disagree with others or to be disagreed with. As a matter of fact I really do enjoy debating and fighting in general, it is simply my nature. While I certainly have plenty to say about mutations Im afraid you might interpret it as some type of hostility, which I certainly dont try to "make it about you and me", so I think I'll refrain

Quote:

---

I thought we were having a serious discussion about how Natural Algorithms work here, and by definition, mutations are beneficia

---

Just one thing...as I said in my previous post I really know nothing about evolutionary computing or natural algortims except what I can read in wikipedia So I think I'd be useless in any such discussion.