Where is the university? All you've shown me are buildings and grounds and students and faculty and books and equipment. Where in all of that is the university you promised to show me? — Pfhorrest

This went right over his head, I am afraid.

evolution is not, nor could be, a random process — Kenosha Kid

It is evidently a random process.

It is evidently a random process. — Olivier5

It is assuredly not.

Can anyone predict the next mutation? And how this mutation will play out?

Can anyone predict the next mutation? And how this mutation will play out? — Olivier5

Unpredictable and random aren't synonyms. Nor is the generation of genetic noise as important as what is done with it, which is algorithmic, not random.

The generation of genetic 'noise' as you say is what powers evolution. It matters quite a lot. And gene expression at phenotypic level is random to a degree because the whole environment has some inherent randomness. So one cannot predict how a gene will play out in its environment.

The generation of genetic 'noise' as you say is what powers evolution. — Olivier5

It is important, but it is not the only source of characteristics variation. Nor is it especially profound. All it means is that billions of complex copying events over millions of years haven't been 100% accurate. That's the bare minimum for noise generation, and we can take that as a given. Heredition and survival advantage are what powers evolution, i.e. they are what take the current ecological solution and drive it towards a more optimised solution.

Anyone who has experience with time-dependent optimisation algorithms -- the core of my PhD, postdoctoral work and my first post-academic position -- knows that noise is important to practically solving numerical optimisation problems, but no one would describe it as the thing "powering" that optimisation. And natural selection is nothing more than a very long optimisation algorithm.

noise is important to practically solving numerical optimisation problems, but no one would describe it as the thing "powering" that optimisation — Kenosha Kid

In addition, the nature of the noise generation is far less important than the fact that some means or locally exploring state space exists at all.

we can take that as a given. — Kenosha Kid

Indeed, we can take a great deal of randomness for granted. And without it, evolution would not work. I rest my case.

And without it, evolution would work. I rest my case. — Olivier5

I think that was closer to my case. No one is denying that noise generation is important to solving optimisation problems. The contention isn't even whether evolution can be described as a random process, which it is not, irrespective of the importance of unpredictable (not random) noise generation.

The point here is that Dawkins & co go to great pains in many books to strenuously explain that evolution is not a random process, and yet charlatans like the OP will, with gay abandon (read: religious zeal), cite these very same people as claiming the opposite. That is my beef. By all means disagree with evolution. By all means fail to understand it. Just don't lie about it.

optimisation problems — Kenosha Kid

Evolution is not just a question of adapting to an environment. It's about adapting to and competing in a constantly changing environment. The environment changes for a number of reasons, including of course the effect of life and evolution themselves on it. So your noise generation is random, and the algorithm with which you process it is randomly changing at all times.

Evolution is not just a question of adapting to an environment. It's about adapting to and competing in a constantly changing environment. The environment changes for a number of reasons, including of course the effect of life and evolution themselves on it. — Olivier5

Yes, the 'cost function' that evolution minimises is time-dependent and a function of the very genetic population it optimised. That is still an optimisation problem.

So your noise generation is random, and the algorithm with which you process it is randomly changing at all times. — Olivier5

You're still using random as a synonym for unpredictable. And it is still irrelevant to my point.

You're still using random as a synonym for unpredictable. And it is still irrelevant to my point. — Kenosha Kid

No no. Random as in quantic randomness that leads to random mutations that lead to random changes in the environment... Random random.

Darwinism is not a theory of random chance. It is a theory of random mutation plus non-random cumulative natural selection.
Natural selection is a non-random force, pushing towards improvement. — Richard Dawkins (Climbing Mt Improbable)

Mutation is random; natural selection is the very opposite of random.
Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators. — Richard Dawkins (The Blind Watchmaker)

What Darwin did was to discover the only known alternative to random chance which is natural selection — Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)

I have read and rebutted Dawkins's nonsense. If you think he has a sound argument, provide it.

I have read and rebutted Dawkins's nonsense — Dfpolis

This was the "nonsense" that earlier you told me to educate myself on evolution with. Now it's evident that Dawkins has repeatedly said the exact opposite of what you claimed, you're just going to dump him as a usable citation? Ha! Point still stands. You could not get one sentence into a paper without completely misrepresenting science.

A 'superior data processing and response' system must include self-reference. — Olivier5

Data processing contains no reference whatsoever. It is simply the physical manipulation of input signals to produce output signals. Evolution selects for systems that produce more adaptive outputs (actions give an advantage in the survival of offspring).

It is we, as thinking beings, who give input and output signals reference -- who see them as meaning something. There is no warrant for imbuing data processing systems, whether organic or artificial with such human attributes. To do so is anthropomorphizing them.

You can see that reference plays no role in signal processing, because whatever the signal means, it will be processed in the same way. Say a signal has a wave form. It will be processed in exactly the same way regardless of whether we see that form as referring to a water, light, sound or seismic wave.

This requires a mental 3D map, the modelisation of movements within that 3D map, and therefore I think some sense of self vs the rest of the world. — Olivier5

You are confusing having data or manipulable representations with knowing data or representations. A physical data processing system will produce the same outputs whether we assume that it is aware of the data it processes or not. So, the assumed awareness can have no physical effect. If it has no physical effect, there is no way for natural selection to prefer it.

Self preservation requires a sense of self. — Olivier5

No, it does not. It only requires adaptive physical behavior. We may identify them and project our human experience, our sense of self, into them, but there is no evidence requiring us to do so.

Dawkins who takes great pains to explain that evolution is not, nor could be, a random process, you charlatan. — Kenosha Kid

I have read Dawkins, and I stand by my claim. I said neither that evolution is entirely random, nor that Dawkins claimed that it was. If you read my paper, you would know that. As you refuse to open your mind and consider any evidence or arguments that might shake your prejudices, there is no point in spending more of my time responding to you.

have read Dawkins, and I stand by my claim. I said neither that evolution is entirely random, nor that Dawkins claimed that it was. If you read my paper, you would know that. — Dfpolis

I read the part of your paper that claimed that philosophical naturalists characterise evolution as a purely random process, which is a lie. And I read your response to me that claimed that Dawkins' books back up this lie, which is also a lie. So what I know for sure is that you're a charlatan. When the same charlatan explains to me that my view would change if only I read more of his charlatanry, I will take that with a pinch of salt. I don't treat backward works of fiction as sources of truth. I do get that, thanks to the brainwashing you were victim to as a child, you are obliged to though, and to that extent you have my sympathies. But you're still a charlatan.

There is no warrant for imbuing data processing systems, whether organic or artificial with such human attributes. To do so is anthropomorphizing them. — Dfpolis

Data means something. It's provided by the senses, and it therefore refers to the world out there, or rather to our perception of it.

Self preservation requires a sense of self.
— Olivier5

No, it does not. — Dfpolis

Logically, it does... To protect something, one needs to be aware of that something.

Data means something. It's provided by the senses, and it therefore refers to the world out there, or rather to our perception of it. — Olivier5

Data means something to humans, not in its physical representations. Data in a computer is simply a physical state, typically accumulations of electrons or sets of magnetic orientations. Data in neural systems is also a physical state, typically neuron firing rates and dendritic connections. No purely physical state has intrinsic reference. It is simply what it is, without being "about" anything else.

To protect something, one needs to be aware of that something — Olivier5

No, to intend to protect, one needs to be aware of it. Mere protection requires no awareness. Overlaying rocks protect underlying rocks without a hint of intent or awareness.

I read the part of your paper that claimed that philosophical naturalists characterise evolution as a purely random process, which is a lie. — Kenosha Kid

Yes, you wrote a lie. You can quote nothing in my paper saying that. Please do not lie about my work again.

Life results from the non-random survival of randomly varying replicators. — Richard Dawkins (The Blind Watchmaker)

(emphasis added)

Survival has it's own sources of randomness, like genetic drift.

Mating is generally viewed as random by default, and population genetics therefore draw on probabilities. Eg gametes released in the ocean and meeting one another, or a butterfly meeting another butterfly, or some polen spore blown by the wind to one pistil among many... Hard for me to think of those things as anything else than random events. When a species is rare / endangered, a few generations of unfortunate matings can lead to the species demise by genetic drift into extinction. A species can survive longer when mating is random over large numbers because the probabilities of rapid genetic drift from one generation to the next are lower then.

Data in a computer is simply a physical state, typically accumulations of electrons or sets of magnetic orientations. — Dfpolis

Yeah but somebody keyed it in, or connected to the computer a camera or another sensor, itself designed by some folk at pointed somewhere by another. Data means "given" and it's given by something or somebody. There's always a source to the data and it is always collected for a reason or another.

Overlaying rocks protect underlying rocks without a hint of intent or awareness. — Dfpolis

Rocks are not been chased by predators. It's easier for them.

I read the part of your paper that claimed that philosophical naturalists characterise evolution as a purely random process, which is a lie.
— Kenosha Kid

Yes you wrote a lie. You can quote nothing in my paper saying that — Dfpolis

Astonishing! You can't even cite your own paper honestly.

Philosophical naturalists claim macroevolution shows order emerging by pure chance.

The very first sentence!!!

Yeah but somebody keyed it in, or connected to the computer a camera or another sensor, itself designed by some folk at pointed somewhere by another. Data means "given" and it's given by something or somebody. There's always a source to the data and it is always collected for a reason or another. — Olivier5

Yes, data is the given, but it is not a cognitive given for the computer, but for to us. As you note, someone, some human, has keyed it in or arranged some other input. It is to that person that the physical state of the computer has meaning and reference.

We can explain every operation of a computer without the slightest appeal to the meaning of the data it is operating upon. Thus, meaning is irrelevant to computers.

It may be that some other species has consciousness, perhaps porpoises. If so, it is not because they can process data, but because they are aware of some of the data they process.

As I have argued in an earlier thread, it is impossible to reduce intentional operations such as knowing and willing, to physical operations. And, because evolution is a theory about the physical world, it does not have the power, by itself, to explain the emergence of knowing and willing as opposed to processing sensory inputs to produce adaptive responses.

Rocks are not been chased by predators. It's easier for them. — Olivier5

Yes, but even amoebas respond to their environment.

It may be that some other species has consciousness, perhaps porpoises. If so, it is not because they can process data, but because they are aware of some of the data they process. — Dfpolis

Superior animals look purposefully for data, in an active manner, they don't collect them passively. They are looking. This indicates an awareness of the world out there and of their presence in it.

All data has a source and a cost (beyond the most basic and passive systems) and therefore it has a darwinian advantage, or it wouldn't be collected and analysed in the first place. It wouldn't exist if it wasn't useful. There's no data without some import or another, and therefore there's no data without some possibility of a referent. Data is always about something, or it won't get collected by a living organism at all.

What you are saying is that the mental system of a porpoise or donkeys may not include this mirror effect we call consciousness. That means they may be aware of something (as proven by their displaying behavioral signs of knowing of a nearby predator for instance, or showing interest for a potential mate) but not aware that they are aware.

I conclude tentatively that superior animals could well be self-aware but not self-self-aware. Their awareness is (perhaps) not reflective.

I'm making that up as I speak of course. Still chewing on it.

Philosophical naturalists claim macroevolution shows order emerging by pure chance.

The very first sentence!!! — Kenosha Kid

1. That does not say what you claimed I said, i.e. that evolution is purely random.
When you take one sentence out of context, you can twist its meaning. That is why you need to read articles instead of twisting the first line of an abstract.

2. "Random" has many meanings, one of which is mindless. It should be evident to anyone who read the title ("Mind or Randomness in Evolution") that the meaning of "purely random" in the abstract is totally mindless. That evolution is mindless is the argument that naturalists use against William Paley's watchmaker argument.

Surely, you are not saying that Dawkins supports Mind in nature?

3. Had you read the article, as a fair-mined person would have before criticizing it, you would have read:
"Evolution rests on three points. (1) The existence of variant genotypes. These result from “random” mutations and transcription errors; (2) A selection mechanism favoring variations enhancing reproduction and survival; and (3) Inheritability – the capacity to pass on variations that lead to enhanced survival and reproduction."

This is not saying that evolution is purely random as you claim I did. Only the first point involves randomness. In fact, the article spends pages on the role of deterministic laws of nature in evolution.

4. I explicitly quote Dawkins discussing the non-random aspect of evolution:
"In nature, the usual selecting agent is direct, stark and simple. It is the grim reaper. Of course, the reasons for survival are anything but simple – that is why natural selection can build up animals and plants of such formidable complexity. But there is something very crude and simple about death itself. And nonrandom death is all it takes to select phenotypes, and hence the genes that they contain, in nature (Dawkins 1996a: 87)."

So, once again, you have shown your willingness to criticize what you have not taken the trouble to understand.

Superior animals look purposefully for data, in an active manner, they don't collect them passively. They are looking. This indicates an awareness of the world out there and of their presence in it. — Olivier5

This does not argue intentionality. Looking for predators, food and water is adaptive behavior selected by evolution. It is not evidence of a rational decision-making process.

All data has a source and a cost (beyond the most basic and passive systems) and therefore it has a darwinian advantage, or it wouldn't be collected and analysed in the first place. — Olivier5

This is true of practical knowledge, but not of wanting to know for the sake of knowing, i.e. theoretical knowledge.

There's no data without some import or another, and therefore there's no data without some possibility of a referent. Data is always about something, or it won't get collected by a living organism at all. — Olivier5

We humans see that neural states as representational, but that does not mean that they need to be recognized as representational by the organism they belong to, to generate adaptive behavior.

What you are saying is that the mental system of a porpoise or donkeys may not include this mirror effect we call consciousness. — Olivier5

Awareness is what I am discussing, and awareness is not mirroring, but knowing. Awareness does not reflect anything back. We are aware when what was merely intelligible is actually known. Actualizing the knowability of neurally encoded data gives those contents something new, a relation to a knowing subject. This is a relation no amount of physical processing can achieve because the subject is not part of, or even latent in, the representation.

I'm making that up as I speak of course. Still chewing on it. — Olivier5

I appreciate your time and considered reflections.

Likewise; most welcome.