[FRIAM] Group Selection Redux?

Tue Jan 4 18:28:50 EST 2022

Isn't Lamarckism alive and well with the existence of DNA methylation?   Finding a way to thread the needle to get altruism and so forth out of genetic inheritance seems rather academic?
________________________________
From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> on behalf of thompnickson2 at gmail.com <thompnickson2 at gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 4, 2022 3:27 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Group Selection Redux?

J.

You don’t address the point that Wilsons trait-group selection mechanism is actually an INHERITANCE mechanism.  Is that because you don’ get it, or because you don’t like it and are being polite.

n

Nick Thompson

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

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

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com> On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Tuesday, January 4, 2022 3:59 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Group Selection Redux?

:-) D.S. Wilson is one of the few who is on the right path. What he gets right is that social groups can sometimes be treated as adaptive units whose organization cannot be reduced to individuals or individual interactions [1]. This is what he emphasizes in his articles about group selection and in his book "Darwin's Cathedral" [2].

The question is what is selected? In natural selection a genotype is selected if the phenotype has high fitness and lots of offspring. For individual animals it is clear. For groups we can argue that successful groups are selected if their phenotype has high fitness and attracts lots
of new members. This naturally leads to the question "what is the genotype and the phenotype for groups" ?

The phenotype is apparently the group character which is characterized by group traits as you mentioned. The group traits are in turn created by the common rules of the group, which can be commandments or norms or laws. The only thing that I miss in Wilson's work is that these rules are identified as what they are (as the genes that can create a group if they are expressed and applied regularly).

If we define and identify the genotype and the phenotype correctly, then we can really shift the metaphor of the selfish gene and the metaphor of natural selection to the group level, as the title of your paper says.

[1] David Sloan Wilson, Elliott Sober, "Reintroducing group selection to the human behavioral sciences". Behavioral and Brain Sciences 17 (4) (1994) 585–654

[2] David Sloan Wilson, "Darwin's Cathedral: Evolution, Religion, and the Nature of Society", University of Chicago Press, 2002

-J.

-------- Original message --------

From: thompnickson2 at gmail.com<mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>

Date: 1/4/22 01:26 (GMT+01:00)

To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>

Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Group Selection Redux?

Dear Jochen,

Thank you so much  for your comments.  So nice to know that I am not the only person to have spent the last decade pounding on the locked conceptual doors of our profession’s minds.

Two quick responses:

Wilson is very much on my mind as I talk about things.  I think part of why Wilson didn’t get as much traction as he should have is that he failed to understand that his “trait-group” selection mechanism was not a selection mechanism but an inheritance mechanism.  My claim, here, is that if he had  said that group traits can be selected for and have played an enormous role in the evolution of species when they are endorsed by the inheritance of individual traits of differentiability.

Second, I regret that Wilson and Richerson and Boyd all went for the cultural variance enhancement hypothesis because I think that hypothesis begs the question how group selection so clearly works again and again to create levels of organization in biological systems.   It amounts, therefore, to another special creation hypothesis with respect to humans.   After thousands of years of thinking of humans as some sort of special case, I am ready to stop doing that for a while.

I am sorry to hear about your PhD experience.  Give me their addresses and I will have them killed.

Nick

Nick Thompson

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

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

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com<mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of Jochen Fromm
Sent: Monday, January 3, 2022 5:08 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Group Selection Redux?

"how do we get a group emergent property out of the aggregation of individual properties"

It is indeed an interesting question. I have tried two times to get a PhD, first in physics and then in computer science. Both times the professors cancelled the collaboration after one or two years and argued I had failed and accomplished nothing. This was one of the questions I tried to solve. As you know it is related to all the SFI topics of emergence, self-organization, evolution and group selection.

Group selection can be really complex. David Sloan Wilson is an expert in this topic who already published in 1975 a PNAS article about it... https://www.pnas.org/content/72/1/143

...but even 40 years later the idea is still controversial. I think it is because it is a complex phenomenon that happens during a transition of different evolutionary systems where multiple systems overlap, and both have an effect on the overall fitness
https://blog.oup.com/2015/01/kin-group-selection-controversy/

I believe it is a mistake to believe that stable properties of a complex group will emerge mysteriously from a few interactions or random fluctuations. Ephemeral interactions may lead to complex but unstable patterns (i.e. to short-lived group traits). They most likely will not lead to lasting structures unless they are recorded and stored somewhere.

A possible answer which I see for the question how a group property can emerge from individual properties in social systems is that a group agrees to follow common rules based on its history. Looking back on the shared history, the group will try to avoid the same mistakes in the future. Rules which prohibit a behavior are therefore often the result of events which were accidents or deliberate actions that had really bad consequences.

A stop sign for example exists because there has been at least one accident at a similar place where a vehicle has not been stopped in time and another vehicle was hit. A do-not-steal rule exists because there has been at least one real property loss by theft, a do-not-murder rule exists because there has been at least one terrible loss of a life by a murder, etc. What is aggregated are rules to avoid events which are bad for the group.

>From the countless ephemeral interactions of the group only those stand out which have very good or very bad consequences for the group. They are remembered and can become the foundation of basic moral rules if it becomes clear in hindsight what is good and bad for the group. These cultural norms can be encapsulated in myths, stories or fairy tales that can be passed from generation to generation. When these rules are written down, it is possible to reach an evolutionary transition to a new dimension
https://blog.cas-group.net/2020/07/the-fractal-dimension-of-group-selection/

Does this make sense? I believe the uncertainty what constitutes a group trait is not a problem of finding the right definition. It is part of the group creation, which can be an evolutionary transition process (from random interactions to verbally transmitted myths to written rules which define a successful ethnic or religious group and become the genes of a new evolutionary systen).

-J.

-------- Original message --------

From: thompnickson2 at gmail.com<mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>

Date: 1/3/22 19:00 (GMT+01:00)

To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>

Subject: [FRIAM] Group Selection Redux?

Ok, I am still in the freezing cold room.

Narcissist that I am, I want to explore the implications of my own insight – yes, it was mine, all mine, hooo-ahh-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaahl—that the key to group selection is emergent properties of groups based on quantitative inheritance between “generations” of groups.  Sooooo, how do we get a group emergent property out of the aggregation of individual properties.  Not many individual properties are suitable.  But one  is.  TRACTIBILITY.  We see this in the immune system, or in bee hives, or in brain cells, etc.  What nature selects for at the group level is functional organization but that is achieved at the lower level by selection for tractability.  So, the human ability to learn is foundational to our capacity for “altruism”.  And vice versa.   This is all laid out in the final pages of  Shifting the Natural Selection Metaphor to the Group Level<https://www.researchgate.net/publication/288818273_Shifting_the_natural_selection_metaphor_to_the_group_level>.  Published in the mid-oughts, you could be the first to read it.  Download it, and I will come to your house [masked, of course] and autograph it.   C’mon.  What could be better than that?!  Hooo-ahh-ha-ha-ha-ha-haaahl

Ah.  The room temperature is up to 65 degrees.  Things are looking up.

Nick Thompson

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

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

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com<mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of David Eric Smith
Sent: Monday, January 3, 2022 5:15 AM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??

This is an interesting direction.

How small a minority does one have to be in, for it to count as an arbitrage opportunity?  In the El Farol and Minority Game abstractions, any minority is enough.

If we think about the dichotomy in public health, or in reason vs. hormonal aggression, the split in the US (at least by political commitments) is not so far from 50/50.  But as far as “profiting from the committed wrong”, that market seems to be cornered already by a very tiny percent, who have priced in much of the available surplus.  The difference between the dupes and the honest but powerless seems unimportant compared to the difference between both of those and the insiders with power, access, and control.  Somehow these richly structured extensive-form games with coalitional solution concepts seem very far from the market model in which we often think about arbitrage.

I am also reminded of the aphorism in that other realm “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.”  Or in the case of climate, agricultural, and social instability, alive.

I wonder what makes an adequate toolbox of concepts and analogies with which to think about this (at least somewhat) systematically.

Eric

On Jan 2, 2022, at 2:58 PM, Marcus Daniels <marcus at snoutfarm.com<mailto:marcus at snoutfarm.com>> wrote:

Nick writes:

< So, what does a healthy 2040 community look like.   What are we working TOWARD, here.  Once of the things that the Mcnamee podcast highlighted for me was my feeling that, in a chaotic world, people like me, planners, are just out of tune with the world. >

I don't think it really matters how people interact in social media or what they think.   What will matter is how people adapt to climate change and the exhaustion of food and energy, and the migrations resulting from climate change.  That's where the opportunities will be.   If there are millions of people that deny it is happening like they deny pandemics, then things simply must be arranged so that the natural accounting occurs.   The planners will look past the chaos and make their investments.. and wait.

Marcus

________________________________

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> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com<mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>>
Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2022 1:32 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??

So, what does a healthy 2040 community look like.   What are we working TOWARD, here.  Once of the things that the Mcnamee podcast highlighted for me was my feeling that, in a chaotic world, people like me, planners, are just out of tune with the world.

By the way, I think “surfing the web” , as it has been used, is a terrible metaphor.  What most of us do is like water skiing the web.  Bouncing over the wake, never actually getting into the water.   Gives surfing a bad name.  A surfer finds the few survivable paths through an immense concentration of hostile forces.  Surfing is more like martial arts.  In fact we must begin to surf the web.   To realize the manners in which its hostile forces constrain us and find the few paths that allow us to master those forces and come out of the curl safely.  We thought it was a playground; now we see it’s a minefield.

n

Nick Thompson

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

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,-Fd2M0MU4wX5y1N6mhhnNrFlsG64cdcJ8jOErlxB0hvFzR4dcEnKSSt2EqX5s2fb-wPOBqSH4X2Ap1mYP24zv3_muYGYijRLpnFKTxxN3dQyGtSp1B6x&typo=1>

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com<mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2022 2:18 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??

Nick writes:

< Imagined a world in which we all worked at home, everything was on zoom, and everything was delivered by Amazon by drone.  I realize this is a reductio, but hum along with me for a few bars.  There would be no intermediate social landscape between the home and the distribution center.  No intermediate human scales.

I can’t say immediately why this would be a bad thing, but my gut doesn’t like it.>

I can't think of many examples where the intermediate scales are anything but wasteful or intrusive.   Maybe to see a tailor coupled to the purchase of certain clothes?  I still drive to services (dentist, doctor, hair stylist), just not to redistributors, because they don't really add anything.   There's still a farmer's market that seems as popular as ever -- but they DO offer something unique.    I can drive five minutes to Home Depot but honestly half the time their inventory is exhausted for what I want, and I end up ordering it online.

Marcus

________________________________

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> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com<mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>>
Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2022 1:03 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??

Marcus,

I would like to be convinced …. But

Imagined a world in which we all worked at home, everything was on zoom, and everything was delivered by Amazon by drone.  I realize this is a reductio, but hum along with me for a few bars.  There would be no intermediate social landscape between the home and the distribution center.  No intermediate human scales.

I can’t say immediately why this would be a bad thing, but my gut doesn’t like it.

Nick

Nick Thompson

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

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,p4rsPfl7qCnkvPDXzYT5M-1fZBZKaCDIB1z2Osc-CfFDLgw598S0mD13_Sppk4ua_2uMIZVWNAECmtZ8s2kblHg2quJex4YawfboMGbRTDU_u15bu8836eLAHQ,,&typo=1>

From: Friam <friam-bounces at redfish.com<mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com>> On Behalf Of Marcus Daniels
Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2022 1:38 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??

I can see living without Facebook (I do), but why can't we live with Amazon?   It seems like they did a pretty good job of displacing the likes of Walmart.  It could happen again.  What added inherent value do stores have, other than as a mechanism to prevent he consolidation of market influence w.r.t. to prices?

________________________________

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> <thompnickson2 at gmail.com<mailto:thompnickson2 at gmail.com>>
Sent: Sunday, January 2, 2022 12:03 PM
To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam at redfish.com<mailto:friam at redfish.com>>
Subject: [FRIAM] Roger Mcnamee !!??

I just listened to this podcast

https://feeds.megaphone.fm/VMP5489734702<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2ffeeds.megaphone.fm%2fVMP5489734702&c=E,1,G87ToIzgI5DT4ZpiKuXcRc2EHcS4lpVgIftU98yiNor7PFNa9lCoDMtpA2GT4_2eudXeeatF6BgR-Peqwvf8pBQOnsbOiuYBI693rGSZCjDA8-JbvEUZ&typo=1>

a conversation between the former prosecutor, Joyce Vance, and the musician, financier, turncoat Facebook investor Roger Mcnamee, who likens this moment with big tech to the moment before the food industry regulations of the early 1900’s and anti-pollution legislation of the 60’s, moments when Da People reasserted control over over-weening industry interests.  He is author of the book, Zucked.

An hour-long pod cast is a terribly inefficient way to learn about something, so I hope that one you, for whom none of this is news, can offer a more condensed source.

We are basically talking about the Amazon paradox, here: can’t live with it; can’t live without it.  How much ARE we willing to pay to have the trains run on time?

As usual, I am in need of instruction.

Nick Thompson

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

https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/<https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fwordpress.clarku.edu%2fnthompson%2f&c=E,1,AekdfP2MBl31iUxGjknOMPY6CLKTWZ0Uy_4dTUwGKgNke6kg7BN0qwu3VC8xzay12y6vtDYGszhL0ussBgpgtjOzZjJu9AWkUutwzgaFOibLSYQ0DDICSZg,&typo=1>

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