[FRIAM] gen'fur

Fri Sep 10 23:56:43 EDT 2021

Marcus, 

Would require a conversation.  The chance that you and I use either of those words in the same sense is vanishingly small.  Both Jon and EricC understand both senses and could mediate, if, and when, anybody has time.  Briefly, to me, a goal is that object or state of affairs toward which the organization of behavior points.  A function is the selective advantage that the organism gets from pursuing the goal.   See page  34 ff, (PDF) SIGNS AND DESIGNS <https://www.researchgate.net/publication/333455804_SIGNS_AND_DESIGNS> .  Genes themselves are intentional devices, in this sense.  The genfur X, of course, just makes a protein, which in the context of the developmental complex of which it is part, brings about an organism with trait X.   

It’s already 1.30 and I don’t have my socks on.  Time to do that. 

n

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 Marcus Daniels
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2021 1:25 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] gen'fur

Fine, the goal is some composition of functions and it is all interdependent.  

Sure.  Of course.  Why is this so profound to y’all?  

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of thompnickson2 at gmail.com <mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com> 
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2021 10:20 AM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> >
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] gen'fur

Which takes us back to thermostats, intentionality, intensional inexistence, Sober’s epiphomenator, spandrels, and Lorenz’s law: The goal is never the function.  If you build a bird that measures competing male robins in terms of “brown stick with red fluff” you eventually get an ethologist who gets that bird to attack by providing only brown sticks with red fluff.  

See.  It’s all connected. 

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 <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> > On Behalf Of Steve Smith
Sent: Friday, September 10, 2021 12:30 PM
To: friam at redfish.com <mailto:friam at redfish.com> 
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] gen'fur

Sometimes all you need is a good aphorism

https://sketchplanations.com/goodharts-law

or maybe boost it up with a cartoon

https://sketchplanations.com/

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  <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com> <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  <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> <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  <mailto:friam at redfish.com> <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  <mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com> <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  <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
Sent: Thursday, September 9, 2021 10:12 AM
To: friam at redfish.com <mailto: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  <mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com> <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of u?l? ?>$
Sent: Thursday, September 9, 2021 9:51 AM
To: friam at redfish.com <mailto: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_cancer.htm> <https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/disease/breast_ovarian_cancer/breast_c
a <https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/disease/breast_ovarian_cancer/breast_cancer.htm> 
n <https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/disease/breast_ovarian_cancer/breast_cancer.htm> 
cer.htm <https://www.cdc.gov/genomics/disease/breast_ovarian_cancer/breast_cancer.htm> >

On Sep 8, 2021, at 4:07 PM, Frank Wimberly  <mailto:wimberly3 at gmail.com> <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>   <mailto: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>   <mailto: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>   <mailto: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.... 
   ____

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