[FRIAM] what complexity science says ...

[thompnickson2 at gmail.com]

Hi, Roger, 

 

Have I ever sent you THIS <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288818273_Shifting_the_natural_selection_metaphor_to_the_group_level>  before?  It makes the argument that group selected individuals will be selected for flexibility, like some classes of  immune cells, for instance.  Or honey bee workers.  I am not sure how this idea works with the idea in the paper you sent out.  Flow IS an emergent trait, so that works.  But it’s hard to think of LeBron James as a “generalist”.  I guess we could argue that if his team is to have “flow”, he has to have enough versatility NOT to do the thing he’s best at when it’s not called for by the demands of “flow.”   I certainly agree with the Aeon article that there are “flow-catalysts” among us and that they are great to have on a team. 

 

Here is the relevant text from the article  (pp 97-8).  

 

If trait-group selection is to play the role of a "genetic mechanism" in group selection theory, then it must be the case that, for instance, groups with more "group promoting" individuals (an aggregate trait) must be better organized and more harmonious (emergent traits). What sorts of individuals would be group promoting in this way? What sort of elements which, when aggregated, would foster emergence of some group trait? The answer that comes to mind immediately is "flexible elements." A boat would be a poor competitor if it had all the best coxswains in the race or all the best stroke oarsmen; but a boat with all the most educable rowers in the race might be a very good competitor, since  educable rowers could learn the skills appropriate to each position in the boat. Thus, the relationship between emergent traits as a selective force and  trait-group  selection as an inheritance mechanism may account for why complex organizations in nature seem so often to be composed of generalist elements that become  specialized during development to serve different functions within the whole. Think of the body's cells, for instance, which all contain the same genetic information but come to serve very different functions during the course of development. Think of the neurons of the human cortex, which become structured and organized by position and by experience. Think of the workers in a beehive (Seeley, 1995). …

 

The analysis of this paper . suggests another reason why humans might be generalists--powerful group selection. Selection for aggregate properties at  any level is impotent to select for functional differentiation. It can, however, select for differentiability. Thus, the undifferentiated brain tissue and generalized behavior potential that characterize human beings and that make human language  and culture a possibility may be a direct result of group selection (Boyd & Richerson, 1985; Boehm, 1997). The exact mechanism by which this selection would come about is a combination of group selection, which would assure that functionally integrated groups generate more offspring groups than their nonfunctionally integrated alternatives, and trait-group inheritance, which would assure that aggregations of differentiable individuals are available to form functionally integrated groups.

 

 

Roger, I have to admit that this is one of the papers that causes me to display “howling in the wilderness” syndrome.  I think it is one of my most interesting, both in the conclusion it reaches and in the formal analysis of metaphor that leads to that conclusion.  Yet, nobody seems to see any reason to discuss it.  Any thoughts on this quandary would be deeply appreciated.  

 

Nick 

 

Nick Thompson

 <mailto:ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com

 <https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/

 

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Roger Critchlow
Sent: Wednesday, February 3, 2021 8:27 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <Friam at redfish.com>
Subject: [FRIAM] what complexity science says ...

 

Thanks to hackernews:

 

https://aeon.co/essays/what-complexity-science-says-about-what-makes-a-winning-team

 

-- rec --

 

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