<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div dir="auto">For me Darwin's "natural selection" is mainly a metaphor that nature selects the best fit animals naturally just as a breeder selects his animals manually. Dawkins' selfish genes are a metaphor too: genes act selfishly just as egoistic people.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">A fractal dimension is a broken dimension. I think it can be a good description for the dimensionality of a system that is already halfway towards a new system, by simulating and approximating the elements of the new system. </div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">I am not sure if my calculation is mathematically correct, I have simply applied the concept in a casual and informal way, as physicists often too. I think the values make sense though. I like this idea of a fractal dimension for an evolutionary system.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div dir="auto">-J.</div><div dir="auto"><br></div><div><br></div><div style="font-size:100%;color:#000000" dir="auto"><!-- originalMessage --><div>-------- Original message --------</div><div>From: thompnickson2@gmail.com </div><div>Date: 7/5/20 19:00 (GMT+01:00) </div><div>To: 'The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group' <friam@redfish.com> </div><div>Subject: Re: [FRIAM] The fractal dimension of group selection </div><div><br></div></div><div class="WordSection1" dir="auto"><p class="MsoNormal">Interesting. Reading it gave me one of those, “OH Crap! Why didn’t I thing of that?” moments. I now realize that I don’t know whether “fractality” is a descriptive concept (it presents a state of affairs that requires explanation) or an explanatory concept (gives an account of a state of affairs that has been presented) or a “tethered” concept, in which an explanation and a description are bound analytically to one another. George Williams once [wrongly] defined adaptation as “that which natural selection produces”. Thus Adaptation and Selection became tethered and statements of the form, “natural selection produces adaptation” became analytically, not empirically, true. </p><p class="MsoNormal">Is the fact of fractality tethered to an explanation of fractality?</p><div><p class="MsoNormal">Nicholas Thompson<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal">Clark University<o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="mailto:ThompNickSon2@gmail.com">ThompNickSon2@gmail.com</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/">https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/</a><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div style="border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in"><p class="MsoNormal"><b>From:</b> Friam <friam-bounces@redfish.com> <b>On Behalf Of </b>Jochen Fromm<br><b>Sent:</b> Sunday, July 5, 2020 6:52 AM<br><b>To:</b> The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group <Friam@redfish.com><br><b>Subject:</b> [FRIAM] The fractal dimension of group selection<o:p></o:p></p></div></div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class="MsoNormal">We recently discussed the concept of a fractal dimension, and today morning I had the idea that we can apply it to the concept of group selection to measure how many dimensions an evolutionary system has. If you are interested take a look at<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://blog.cas-group.net/2020/07/the-fractal-dimension-of-group-selection/">http://blog.cas-group.net/2020/07/the-fractal-dimension-of-group-selection/</a><o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal">-J.<o:p></o:p></p></div><div><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></body></html>