[FRIAM] gen'fur

Fri Sep 10 11:02:41 EDT 2021

Excellent! So we're back to discussing inter-species mind-reading, the similarities between the cognition/emotion of animals with those of humans and the false dichotomy between [in|de]duction. And on that note, I gandered this article while not sleeping this morning:

The Hard Problem of Consciousness Has an Easy Part We Can Solve
https://nautil.us/blog/the-hard-problem-of-consciousness-has-an-easy-part-we-can-solve

On 9/10/21 7:52 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> A GWAS scan that revealed a correlation for reading ability could be in a context that had a clear analog in monkeys or was already a known signature for more fundamental biology.   Then an experiment is possible that may elaborate connection in a knowledge graph.   Monkey becomes an astute observer, but higher probability of homicidal behavior, etc.
> 
>> On Sep 10, 2021, at 7:31 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Well, both the animal studies *and* those suffering from debilitating conditions *fail* to cover the case for "reading ability". I'm sure some of us would edit our genes in order to, say, make fat stacks of cash by increasing our "entrepreneurial" tendency to take risks. But such studies seem unlikely to get funded even from places like the Cato Institute.
>>
>>> On 9/10/21 7:21 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>> Much of the genome will be conserved across species, so animal models are one way to establish causation.  Another way is with motivated audiences, people that will suffer without an intervention.  They may still suffer (there is no causation) but at least with, say, gene therapy they have some agency.
>>>
>>>>> On Sep 10, 2021, at 7:07 AM, uǝlƃ ☤>$ <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> No, I'm not trying to suggest that gen-phen relations are special, only that the call to *write* segments previously shown through GWAS to be predictive might demonstrate a lack of causality ... a necessary experiment for the hypothesis that's ethically problematic. But more abstractly, as we've discussed recently, optimization to exogenously defined, precise objective functions can cause more problems than it solves.
>>>>
>>>>> On 9/10/21 6:30 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>>>> Guidance could have been to first vaccinate younger adults rather than older adults?   That statistical regularity is predictive of infection and of death.   Other statistical regularities are just correlations and the causality is not clear.   Are you saying there is something special about genotype/phenotype relations?  
>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Sep 10, 2021, at 3:26 AM, ⛧ glen <gepropella at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I can't help but wonder if there's an analog of Goodhart's law lurking, here.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On September 9, 2021 2:31:39 PM PDT, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> Or they are reprogramming their people to be smarter!
>>>>>>> (Actually, deCODE is owned by Amgen now.)
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Selection is already occurring, so it isn't as if this is some sci-fi thing.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2020/12/the-last-children-of-down-syndrome/616928/
>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
>>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, September 9, 2021 2:12 PM
>>>>>>> To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] gen'fur
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Aha!  This is why Iceland has the highest per-capita fraction of published authors in the world.  I had assumed it was the weather….
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Sep 10, 2021, at 2:17 AM, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> That can be screened as well with a large population-wide survey such has been done in the UK or Iceland.
>>>>>>>> Of course, it is unlikely that complex behaviors will be governed by isolated mutations, so the task is to look for highly predictive motifs (e.g. regular expressions).  
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
>>>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, September 9, 2021 10:12 AM
>>>>>>>> To: friam at redfish.com
>>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] gen'fur
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Ha! Now you're trolling. The answer is: "because the sites that generate reading ability (or whatever) *also* generate other 'abilities'", with "abilities" in scare quotes because many abilities are considered bad ... like the ability of a pimply faced white dude to shoot up a church or blow up a federal building.
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In addition to polyphenism, there's robustness. If more than 1 site generates the same functional ability (reading), then do we write them all? ... just one of them? ... a probabilistically predictive handful of them?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On 9/9/21 10:00 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>>>>>>>> So find the sites that correspond to reading ability, or whatever, and WRITE them.  
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>>>>>>> From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
>>>>>>>>> Sent: Thursday, September 9, 2021 9:51 AM
>>>>>>>>> To: friam at redfish.com
>>>>>>>>> Subject: Re: [FRIAM] gen'fur
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I was alerted to this article this morning:
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Can Progressives Be Convinced That Genetics Matters?
>>>>>>>>> https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/can-progressives-be-con
>>>>>>>>> v
>>>>>>>>> inced-that-genetics-matters
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> It should delight those amongst us who rant about the "woke". 8^D But it dovetails nicely with the fraught concept of equality in the other thread.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Coincidentally, also on 9/6, the BIAPT announced their early career prize winner Emily McTernan:
>>>>>>>>> https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwww.associationfo
>>>>>>>>> rpoliticalthought.ac.uk%2fbiapt-2021-early-care&c=E,1,Je9MVNdO8lpJQOd
>>>>>>>>> 6fZwUNe-4z5yuFq0upxNIzMBFjmLFh_h5a63ueVVpd8lkEdWeUx5Xx1RaoPg3T5Ph8YlG
>>>>>>>>> 0558qqHLZD8-DKeBPEC3YYM,&typo=1
>>>>>>>>> er-prize-winner-dr-emily-mcternan/
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> "In her forthcoming monograph, Dr McTernan develops her work on social equality further, to advance a pioneering conceptual account – and robust normative defence – of the phenomenon of ‘taking offence’. Therein, McTernan contends, we should understand taking offence, under appropriate conditions, as a civic virtue rather than a vice, as an emotion that embodies the resistance of social inequalities within a community."
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On 9/8/21 8:06 PM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> From about a cancer rate of 10% (without mutation) to 50% (with) but it depends on the BRCA variant.
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/disease/breast_ovarian_cancer/breast_ca
>>>>>>>>>> n
>>>>>>>>>> c
>>>>>>>>>> er.htm
>>>>>>>>>> <https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/disease/breast_ovarian_cancer/breast_c
>>>>>>>>>> a
>>>>>>>>>> n
>>>>>>>>>> cer.htm>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> On Sep 8, 2021, at 4:07 PM, Frank Wimberly <wimberly3 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>>>> Is the Braca gene that little correlated with breast cancer?
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> ---
>>>>>>>>>>> Frank C. Wimberly
>>>>>>>>>>> 140 Calle Ojo Feliz,
>>>>>>>>>>> Santa Fe, NM 87505
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> 505 670-9918
>>>>>>>>>>> Santa Fe, NM
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Sep 8, 2021, 4:57 PM Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Yeah, it is hard to get excited about “unusual” variance. Modern 
>>>>>>>>>>> classification algorithms like gradient boosting make it possible 
>>>>>>>>>>> to predict phenotypes, and to me that is a lot more interesting 
>>>>>>>>>>> (and still possible to deconstruct).____
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> *From:* Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> *On Behalf Of *Eric Charles
>>>>>>>>>>> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 8, 2021 3:53 PM
>>>>>>>>>>> *To:* The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
>>>>>>>>>>> *Subject:* [FRIAM] gen'fur____
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> __ __
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Gen'fur this, gen'fur that... and also the realities of biological complexity.... 

-- 
☤>$ uǝlƃ