[FRIAM] what complexity science says ...

[Roger Critchlow]

Nick --

I don't remember seeing it before, and I'm up to my ears in fourier
transforms and do loops, so I'm not going to try to read it now.

Blove on!

-- rec --

On Wed, Feb 3, 2021 at 3:28 PM <thompnickson2 at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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
>
> ThompNickSon2 at gmail.com
>
> 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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