[FRIAM] random v stochastic v indeterminate

[Grant Holland]

Steve,

According to Jacques Monod, chance mutations are the /only /form of 
innovation in living systems.

On p. 112 of  his book "Chance and Necessity" he says "...since they 
[chance mutations] constitute the /only/ possible source of 
modifications in the genetic text,...it necessarily follows that chance 
/alone/ is at the source of every innovation, of all creation in the 
biosphere. [Emphasis is his.]

Geneticist Monod was a winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Medicine or 
Physiology.

Grant


On 8/9/17 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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>>
>>
>>
>> ============================================================
>> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
>> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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>
>
>
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> FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
> Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
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