[FRIAM] random v stochastic v indeterminate

[Jenny Quillien]

Totally agree.

Maybe a few of us can read the Wagener book (apparently he  shows up at 
the Santa Fe institute from time to time as an external something or 
other) and see what we can do with the ideas.  I'll be in Amsterdam but 
can follow  e-mail threads to skype.   Jenny


On 8/9/2017 10:01 AM, Steven A Smith wrote:
>
> Jenny -
>
> What a powerful quote:
>
>     /Natural selection can //preserve//innovations, but it cannot
>     create them./
>
> In my own maunderings about the (continued?) relevance of Free Markets 
> and Capitalism, it has occurred to me that the value of said Free 
> Markets may well be restricted to the "innovation phase" of 
> development.  Once something becomes a (relative) commodity, it seems 
> it might be counter-productive to continue the illusion of competitive 
> development.  At best it is wasteful and even harmful, and at worst it 
> leads to an elevation of "innovation" to marketing and salesmanship.  
> This is why we have so many near-identical products on the market 
> being pushed on us through the hype of greed and fear when the 
> "generic" or "store brand" version is equal or (even) superior 
> (certainly in price, but also possibly in quality... lacking the 
> colorants and odorants and other embellishments required to 
> differentiate one product from the other?).
>
> - Steve
>
> On 8/9/17 8:56 AM, Jenny Quillien wrote:
>>
>> An excellent foray into such a topic is /Arrival of the Fittest: how 
>> nature innovates/ by Andreas Wagner.
>>
>> From the Preface:  the power of natural selection is beyond dispute, 
>> but this power has limits. Natural selection can /preserve/ 
>> innovations, but it cannot create them. And calling the change that 
>> creates them random is just another way of admitting our ignorance 
>> about it. Nature's any innovations- some uncannily perfect - call for 
>> natural principles that accelerate life's ability to innovate, its 
>> innovability.
>>
>> Dave West turned me onto the book and has promised a discussion about 
>> how it is relevant to 'evolution' in software. It is certainly 
>> relevant to Nick's e-mail.
>>
>> Jenny Quillien
>>
>>
>> On 8/9/2017 8:47 AM, Nick Thompson wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi everybody,
>>>
>>> Thanks for your patience as I emerge (hopefully) from post-surgical 
>>> fog.
>>>
>>> I figured I best start my own thread rather than gum up yours.
>>>
>>> First.  I had always supposed that a stochastic process was one 
>>> whose value was determined by two factors, a random factor AND it’s 
>>> last value.  So the next step in a random walk is “random” but the 
>>> current value (it’s present position on a surface, say) is “the 
>>> result of a stochastic process.”  From your responses, and from a 
>>> short rummage in Wikipedia, I still can’t tell if I am correct or not.
>>>
>>> Now remember, you guys, my standard critique of your discourse is 
>>> that you confuse your models with the facts of nature.  What is this 
>>> “evolution” of which you speak?  Unless you tell me otherwise, I 
>>> will assume you are speaking of the messy biological process of 
>>> which we are all a result: -- */The alteration of the design of taxa 
>>> over time/*.   Hard to see any way in which that actual process is 
>>> evidently random.  We have to dig deep into the theory that EXPLAINS 
>>> evolution to find anything that corresponds to the vernacular notion 
>>> of randomness.  There is constraint and predictability all over the 
>>> place in the evolution I know.  Even mutations are predictable.  In 
>>> other words, the randomness of evolution is a creation of your 
>>> imaginations concerning the phenomenon, not an essential feature of 
>>> the phenomenon, itself.
>>>
>>> So what kind of “evolution” are you guys talking about?
>>>
>>> Yes, and forgive me for trolling, a bit.  I am trying to wake myself 
>>> up, here.
>>>
>>> nick
>>>
>>> Nicholas S. Thompson
>>>
>>> Emeritus Professor of Psychology and Biology
>>>
>>> Clark University
>>>
>>> http://home.earthlink.net/~nickthompson/naturaldesigns/ 
>>> <http://home.earthlink.net/%7Enickthompson/naturaldesigns/>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
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> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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