[FRIAM] The fractal dimension of group selection

[Jochen Fromm]

For me Darwin's "natural selection" is mainly a metaphor that nature selects the best fit animals naturally just as a breeder selects his animals manually. Dawkins' selfish genes are a metaphor too: genes act selfishly just as egoistic people.A fractal dimension is a broken dimension. I think it can be a good description for the dimensionality of a system that is already halfway towards a new system, by simulating and approximating the elements of the new system. I am not sure if my calculation is mathematically correct, I have simply applied the concept in a casual and informal way, as physicists often too. I think the values make sense though. I like this idea of a fractal dimension for an evolutionary system.-J.
-------- Original message --------From: thompnickson2 at gmail.com Date: 7/5/20  19:00  (GMT+01:00) To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The fractal dimension of group selection Interesting. Reading it gave me one of those, “OH Crap!  Why didn’t I thing of that?” moments.   I now realize that I don’t know whether “fractality” is a descriptive concept (it presents a state of affairs that requires explanation) or an explanatory concept (gives an account of a state of affairs that has been presented) or a “tethered” concept, in which an explanation and a description are bound analytically to one another.  George Williams once [wrongly] defined adaptation as “that which natural selection produces”.  Thus Adaptation and Selection became tethered and statements of the form, “natural selection produces adaptation” became analytically, not empirically, true.   Is the fact of fractality tethered to an explanation of fractality?Nicholas ThompsonEmeritus Professor of Ethology and PsychologyClark UniversityThompNickSon2 at gmail.comhttps://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/   From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Jochen FrommSent: Sunday, July 5, 2020 6:52 AMTo: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <Friam at redfish.com>Subject: [FRIAM] The fractal dimension of group selection We recently discussed the concept of a fractal dimension, and today morning I had the idea that we can apply it to the concept of group selection to measure how many dimensions an evolutionary system has. If you are interested take a look athttp://blog.cas-group.net/2020/07/the-fractal-dimension-of-group-selection/ -J. 
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