[FRIAM] Formalizing the concept of design

Wed Nov 7 00:02:54 EST 2018

Thanks, Eric!

Eric writes:

> I think of the two (principle of least action (PoLA) and natural selection
> (NS)) in completely decoupled thoughts.
>

Yes, but can they both be understood as "selection" principles?

with PoLA as a "selection principle" in this sense:

The principle of least action is the basic variational principle of
particle and continuum systems. In Hamilton's formulation, a true dynamical
trajectory of a system between an initial and final configuration in a
specified time is found by imagining all possible trajectories that the
system could conceivably take, computing the action (a functional of the
trajectory) for each of these trajectories, and *selecting* one that makes
the action locally stationary (traditionally called "least"). True
trajectories are those that have least action.
 Scholarpedia
<http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Principle_of_least_action> (
http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Principle_of_least_action)

For now, not wanting to get hung up on technical use of principle vs law or
theory nor that NS has more mechanism/algorithm defined in its principle
than PoLA.

If you're cool with PoLA as a selection principle, I have a follow up email
question.

-Stephen

On Tue, Nov 6, 2018 at 12:58 PM Eric Smith <desmith at santafe.edu> wrote:

> Steve, hi,
>
> > As we've discussed over the last few years, The Action Principle (energy
> * time) and least (stationary) action may provide a more fundamental
> selection principle in biology than natural selection and could be a
> mathematical formulation you're asking for. Many applied problems in
> complexity like ant algorithms using dual pheromone fields, level-set
> methods, and route search on a road network using simultaneous floodflill
> from both origins and destinations might be considered least action path
> selection. I make the claim on intuition - I expect Eric Smith would reject
> or accept this based on more formal understanding.
>
> I don’t want to just drop this, but I don’t know how to respond to it
> usefully.  I think of the two (principle of least action (PoLA) and natural
> selection (NS)) in completely decoupled thoughts.  For me, PoLA in the
> classical form is equivalent in content to dynamical equations, but because
> it formulates them as an extremization principle it more readily exposes
> consequences of symmetry.  In quantum mechanics, I can find the same thing
> as a stationary-path consequence of interference of phase advances over
> many paths.  In statistical mechanics I can find a “stochastic effective
> action” that captures stationarity through a similar kind of interference,
> but no longer among quantum phases, rather in some interaction of
> distributions with the shadows of late-time questions we might ask about
> them.  (Sorry that formulation is so cryptic; for those who prefer that one
> just show what one means by calculating, there is this:
> https://arxiv.org/abs/1102.3938
> )
>
> For me, NS comes up in response to a completely different collection of
> questions (which may or may not be about the same phenomena).  I think of
> NS as being about whatever it is that makes time different from just
> another dimension of space, so that there is always something falling apart
> that can only be maintained by being passed through a filter.  I would
> prefer to use NS (or maybe, better, “Darwinian selection”) as a subset of
> the previous general sentence, to refer to phenomena that are organized in
> architectures of individuals and populations, as distinct from simple
> kinetic phenomena in general.  Of course one does not have to draw the
> boundary there, but I find it a good way to use a new word to distinguish
> individual/population-based phenomena from general kinetic organization,
> for which we have other terms already.  Also NS is about information in the
> same sense (exactly) as Bayesian filtering is about information.  Sometimes
> effects of any of these, as they act in populations, can be expressed in
> terms of actions, but I don’t think of the service that action gives in
> displaying the nature of a calculation as being the same thing as NS does
> in declaring what kinds of phenomena we are talking about.
>
> Sorry I could not offer better, or more likely I am not understanding
> where the conversation is.
>
> Best,
>
> Eric
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Oct 28, 2018 at 12:32 PM Eric Charles <
> eric.phillip.charles at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Bob Shaw has spend a good chunk of his career trying to do this at what
> I would call a "lower level of analysis" even though that might not be the
> right term. His "intentional dynamics" are about trying to use
> dynamic-systems math to try to say what "intentionality" looks like in the
> topology of an action. Thus, when I say "lower level" I mean that he is
> interested in how one moves through the room to accomplish a goal, rather
> than that one is doing a move-through-the-room option, which is what Nick
> tends to focus on. That said, both approaches connect strongly, I believe,
> with E.B. Holt's assertion that a central task of psychology is to
> determine what aspects of the world our behavior is a function of, i.e.,
> the assertion that one is "trying to leave the room" is a description about
> how one is acting, contextualized by an array of actions that would result
> in an array of various outcomes.
> >
> > https://commons.trincoll.edu/robertshaw/
> > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om0HV5TQkXw
> >
> > Bob's work might really appeal to some on the list, which is why I have
> linked both to his webpage and a talk from a few years ago. Differential
> geometry, Feynman path integral, system dynamics, etc. If you want to skip
> the less contextualized technical stuff and get to the big picture of his
> effort, regarding the relation between the math he is using and psychology,
> you could start at minute 50 and watch for about 10 minutes.
> >
> > For a touch more context: Bob was a crucial player in the second
> generation of "ecological psychologists", those who kept James J. Gibson's
> work alive after his death. Gibson's work is now extremely influential in
> the emerging fields of "embodied cognition" (often called "enactivisim" in
> European contexts). That said, most researchers in the field aren't
> mathematically sophisticated enough to connect with Bob's work, and it is
> technically challenging to implement in experiments, as such, few are
> working on the project besides Bob, which is unfortunate.
> >
> >
> > -----------
> > Eric P. Charles, Ph.D.
> > Supervisory Survey Statistician
> > U.S. Marine Corps
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Oct 28, 2018 at 6:53 AM ∄ uǝʃƃ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
> > This description suffers from the same criticism I made before: you're
> assuming a *strict* hierarchy, where the higher order can only operate over
> whole components from the lower order.  I.e. the gun's algorithm 1st
> chooses the type/medium of target (ballistic, air, water), then uses that
> type to select the specific tracking sub-algorithm.
> >
> > And while this is mostly how it's done in artificial systems, I suspect
> biology does NOT use strict hierarchies.  A higher order function can
> operate over a mixture of operands, some complex wholes in that higher
> order and some from the lower orders.  E.g. if the gun's higher order
> selection is based not only on the 3 types (ballistic, air, water), but
> also on a lower order measure like *speed*, then it may well use he same
> sub-algorithm for both air and water.  So, it takes both high order
> constructs and low order constructs as its operands.
> >
> > You see your assumption of a strict hierarchy peeking through when you
> say sex is the only motive that is ESSENTIALLY social.  What do you mean by
> "essentially"?  Couldn't we say that *all* the behavior of all the social
> animals is, in part, social?  ... including following others to the water
> hole?  So, these functions would be mixed ... do not obey a strict
> hierarchy.
> >
> > On 10/27/18 11:32 PM, Nick Thompson wrote:
> > > But the function that connects the two arrays will be different in the
> two kinds of gun because a surface target is capable of different sorts of
> motion from an aerial target.
> > > [...]
> > > So, the gun would display two levels of design, the lower level that
> relates trajectory to firing and the higher level that relates the lower
> level design to target type.
> > > [...]
> > > This conception of multiple hierarchical layers of design is a useful
> way to describe many of the phenomena that ethologists and socio-biologists
> are required to explain. …
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > ∄ uǝʃƃ
> >
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