<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><br class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On Apr 13, 2022, at 3:39 AM, Marcus Daniels <<a href="mailto:marcus@snoutfarm.com" class="">marcus@snoutfarm.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><div class="">Or to put it another way, what good is cultural evolution?<br class=""></div></div></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><div>1. The “technology” of institutions and norms (?); and </div><div><br class=""></div><div>2. Getting close enough to be within some basin of attraction (?).</div><div><br class=""></div><div>The former would be a bit analogous to DNA. There’s a lot of practical know-how in making a certain style of political system, firm, market ecosystem (with its supports of law, money, credit, etc.), and I guess canons would be somewhat-durable programs for scaffolding human development. I think of the articles I have read about the “privatization” of the Russian economy following glasnost, and the claims that even if it had not been an exercise in pure predatory narcissism of the Chicago Boys, it still would not have worked as a sink-or-swim exercise, because such fundamental things as usable markets for price discovery, and the habits of using them, were not part of the daily resource of the full number of people who needed to be using them right away. On the cultural developmental norms, someone recently told me of the existence of this:</div><div><a href="https://www.netflix.com/jp-en/title/81506279" class="">https://www.netflix.com/jp-en/title/81506279</a></div><div>and took from it both the “this is who we are” manifesto, and also the sense that enough of a critical mass need to be on board for it to work.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>I envision the latter as being like needing a working cell for DNA to become “meaningful” in the sense of producing activity in the world. If you find a genome from a mammoth, you could try to put the chromosomes into an elephant egg, and see if you can get anything to germinate, but probably not a Xenopus egg or a Drosophila egg. Venter can put an M. genitalium genome into an M. capircolum (or whatever it was) cell, and that is enough for the genome to eventually replace all the components. In principle, by now he can probably build up all the assembly from individually-sterilized cell-free reagents. But at the end of the day, he has to embed the genome in some setting that is close-enough to get to a viable and persistent attractor. </div><div><br class=""></div><div>I actually agree completely with your take on what “understanding” seems to consist of, and your example of QM is just the one I would raise, having had so many decades of work with aged aged men who loved to ponder the angst of the 1920s and 1930s as their happy-place. I was constantly trying to dig us both out of that morass, and of course accomplished nothing.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>But somehow, there seems to be enough simple mechanics under cultural evolution to not leave it completely empty. For instance, I would like to not lose the Enlightenment, but don’t see what I should be doing to help head that off.</div><div><br class=""></div><div>Eric</div><div><br class=""></div><div><br class=""></div><div><br class=""></div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><div class=""><br class="">-----Original Message-----<br class="">From: Friam <<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com" class="">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>> On Behalf Of glen<br class="">Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2022 11:36 AM<br class="">To: <a href="mailto:friam@redfish.com" class="">friam@redfish.com</a><br class="">Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Selective cultural processes generate adaptive heuristics<br class=""><br class="">But going back to less memorable/intuitive communicated heuristics, *if* our minds/cognitions are loosely coupled to our bodies (I'm thinking more polyphenism and robustness, not dualism), then we should be able to see the memorability/intuitiveness increase. But if there's a large portion of mind/cognition embedded/embodied in our flesh, then memorability/intuitiveness of new ideas will remain unrelated through generations of dead/replaced bodies.<br class=""><br class="">My claims that communication is illusory and all thought is tightly coupled to one's body reject the former. I.e. I don't think memorability/intuitiveness increases as ideas age. Rather, as bodies die, the new bodies are slightly restructured to better fit those ideas. It's a fake-it-till-you-make-it. The only reason we have young kids that understand quantum coherence (or Instagram) better than the old farts did is because the young kids grew into the idea.<br class=""><br class="">No dead bodies ⇒ no cultural evolution.<br class=""><br class="">On 4/12/22 11:19, Marcus Daniels wrote:<br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">The contrast between fewer replication cycles of vampires that live thousands of years vs. many generations of short-lived mortals seems related..<br class="">Is the walk deep and informative, or is the key thing to stay away from attractors?<br class="">If there are truly billions of individuals, then short trips can explore a large space -- if there is communication between individuals and across generations.<br class="">-----Original Message-----<br class="">From: Friam <<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com" class="">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>> On Behalf Of glen<br class="">Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2022 11:05 AM<br class="">To: <a href="mailto:friam@redfish.com" class="">friam@redfish.com</a><br class="">Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Selective cultural processes generate adaptive heuristics<br class=""><br class="">What always seems to be missing in these discussions is the (my?) always present ability to [re]parse the world at will. Yes, there are gravity wells or attractors where if you start insisting on a security detail everywhere you go, you'll end up like Trump, Romney, or Sanders, surrounded by a nearly impermeable membrane that disallows authentic "go with the flow" non-consciousness/non-deliberation. But my tendency to (or ability to) prefer writing a script/macro over doing some computation manually doesn't interfere in a substantial way with my ability to do the manual labor in any given iteration. The size of the computation can interfere, but not the attractor.<br class=""><br class="">That's what makes me episodic, the lack of stickiness to whatever professionalization I've engaged in before. On a humble day, I claim it's because I'm just too stupid and lazy to really invest in building the attractor. On an arrogant day, I claim those who build and get stuck in such attractors are mindless automatons who can't think their way out of a paper bag. >8^D<br class=""><br class="">On 4/12/22 10:42, Marcus Daniels wrote:<br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class="">Vitalik Buterin remarked, “An emotional part of me says that once you start going down that way, /professionalizing/ is just another word for losing your soul” [1]<br class=""><br class="">That sounds plausible. However, I have long thought that an important part of productivity is to find consciousness-lowering habits. Just attach to whatever is front of you and forget about the motivations and the big picture. For one thing, it is rare that one can really change the big picture. For two it is necessary to get in the critical path of a process to disrupt it. The nihilistic episodic personality doesn’t have to impose a narrative before going on excursion. Too much evaluation and reflection and one’s action as a virion cannot move forward! There is plenty of time to wake up a judgmental brain process once embedded. But what are judgements really informed by if sampling is based on an outsiders’ view? This kind of ties into Glen’s local reset idea.<br class=""><br class="">[1] <a href="https://time.com/6158182/vitalik-buterin-ethereum-profile/" class="">https://time.com/6158182/vitalik-buterin-ethereum-profile/</a> <<a href="https://time.com/6158182/vitalik-buterin-ethereum-profile/" class="">https://time.com/6158182/vitalik-buterin-ethereum-profile/</a>><br class=""><br class="">*From:* Friam <<a href="mailto:friam-bounces@redfish.com" class="">friam-bounces@redfish.com</a>> *On Behalf Of *Steve Smith<br class="">*Sent:* Tuesday, April 12, 2022 10:19 AM<br class="">*To:* <a href="mailto:friam@redfish.com" class="">friam@redfish.com</a><br class="">*Subject:* Re: [FRIAM] Selective cultural processes generate adaptive heuristics<br class=""><br class="">Marcus -<br class=""><br class=""> Steve writes:<br class=""><br class=""> < Arguments for generational rather than Individual/personal growth and transformation...<br class=""><br class=""> “I don’t think we should try to have people live for a really long time,” Musk recently told Insider. “It would cause asphyxiation of society because the truth is, most people don’t change their mind. They just die. So if they don’t die, we will be stuck with old ideas and society wouldn’t advance.” ><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""> Maybe not?<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""> <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01769-4" class="">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01769-4</a> <<a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01769-4" class="">https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01769-4</a>><br class=""><br class="">I do think there is plenty of room for individual growth/transformation in one lifetime and perhaps Psi research will (continue to) provide yet-more tools for facilitating that.<br class=""><br class="">It isn't clear to me that merely loosening up neural pathways so that they can be re-created yields healthy growth as such. I'd like to think it can be, but as the neo-luddite that I tend toward, I can't help but seeing the myriad ways it can go wrong as well. This negative ideation is probably a self-referential example of the topic itself.<br class=""><br class="">Following RECs original subject: I'm interested I suppose in understanding more-better the myriad scales and dimensions of adaptivity of "Life Itself", with the human (individual as well as cultural) experience being the one most relevant to my own life, but not exclusively.<br class=""></blockquote><br class=""><br class=""></blockquote><br class="">-- <br class="">Mɥǝu ǝlǝdɥɐuʇs ɟᴉƃɥʇ' ʇɥǝ ƃɹɐss snɟɟǝɹs˙<br class=""><br class=""><br class="">.-- .- -. - / .- -.-. - .. --- -. ..--.. / -.-. --- -. .--- ..- --. .- - .<br class="">FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv<br class="">Zoom Fridays 9:30a-12p Mtn UTC-6 <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2f%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,K1URQoqSkF-sSgyg0o8vSsoKQ7sCNDph64mkl8w5gOtQlUEyFuzDOg7CwqSD2pjVEZbYOypcaxcLEWFgECOLwAj48VKAwwkPJMrZYnz6XKttGg,,&typo=1" class="">https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2f%2f%2fbit.ly%2fvirtualfriam&c=E,1,K1URQoqSkF-sSgyg0o8vSsoKQ7sCNDph64mkl8w5gOtQlUEyFuzDOg7CwqSD2pjVEZbYOypcaxcLEWFgECOLwAj48VKAwwkPJMrZYnz6XKttGg,,&typo=1</a><br class="">un/subscribe <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,i6bG2rIj0vc7u6mWMx0CgS7__TkBaXvDvKZRXHE3Z-BRtC0m3WsUqEEZwId-3SIPJr_E9obq_kum_Hr3ekW2wGF1TFgE8MyWjFXQTnpVhan_1nqbxyppBcclTw,,&typo=1" class="">https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fmailman%2flistinfo%2ffriam_redfish.com&c=E,1,i6bG2rIj0vc7u6mWMx0CgS7__TkBaXvDvKZRXHE3Z-BRtC0m3WsUqEEZwId-3SIPJr_E9obq_kum_Hr3ekW2wGF1TFgE8MyWjFXQTnpVhan_1nqbxyppBcclTw,,&typo=1</a><br class="">FRIAM-COMIC <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,Bor-ylJjoD8DkZHJMGi_AHl3Mg_AyGvFjGJsr6v_njVao4nYeWnaQw3Bz0QDKr6P1VUOCOsNCHmEnFKnbmnLWcVE1ZBMWLL2nG5IkI6KU4Kyc0vwlX8UyYyK&typo=1" class="">https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=http%3a%2f%2ffriam-comic.blogspot.com%2f&c=E,1,Bor-ylJjoD8DkZHJMGi_AHl3Mg_AyGvFjGJsr6v_njVao4nYeWnaQw3Bz0QDKr6P1VUOCOsNCHmEnFKnbmnLWcVE1ZBMWLL2nG5IkI6KU4Kyc0vwlX8UyYyK&typo=1</a><br class="">archives:<br class=""> 5/2017 thru present <a href="https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,s1UuG36HMUqXbRs-24wocZFy-f7SSi02f1UpiaYxWOOxYCOSIM7E-MCD8hJRAhJhPElV573Oh9jnsiuNc942VOOV-YO-Vd8g5XxdplgcNg,,&typo=1" class="">https://linkprotect.cudasvc.com/url?a=https%3a%2f%2fredfish.com%2fpipermail%2ffriam_redfish.com%2f&c=E,1,s1UuG36HMUqXbRs-24wocZFy-f7SSi02f1UpiaYxWOOxYCOSIM7E-MCD8hJRAhJhPElV573Oh9jnsiuNc942VOOV-YO-Vd8g5XxdplgcNg,,&typo=1</a><br class=""> 1/2003 thru 6/2021 <a href="http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/" class="">http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/</a><br class=""><br class="">.-- .- -. - 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