Darwin's (and Turing's) "strange inversion of reasoning"

[Stranger]

I'm currently reading Daniel Dennett's new book but some of the ideas seem to be in this paper:-

Darwin's "strange inversion of reasoning"

Also available as a pdf.

"Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection unifies the world of physics with the world of meaning and purpose by proposing a deeply counterintuitive “inversion of reasoning” (according to a 19th century critic): “to make a perfect and beautiful machine, it is not requisite to know how to make it” [MacKenzie RB (1868) (Nisbet & Co., London)]. Turing proposed a similar inversion: to be a perfect and beautiful computing machine, it is not requisite to know what arithmetic is. Together, these ideas help to explain how we human intelligences came to be able to discern the reasons for all of the adaptations of life, including our own."

"If I could give a prize for the single best idea anybody ever had, I'd give it to Darwin."

[Jack Knave]

I'm currently reading Daniel Dennett's new book but some of the ideas seem to be in this paper:-

Darwin's "strange inversion of reasoning"

Also available as a pdf.

"Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection unifies the world of physics with the world of meaning and purpose by proposing a deeply counterintuitive “inversion of reasoning” (according to a 19th century critic): “to make a perfect and beautiful machine, it is not requisite to know how to make it” [MacKenzie RB (1868) (Nisbet & Co., London)]. Turing proposed a similar inversion: to be a perfect and beautiful computing machine, it is not requisite to know what arithmetic is. Together, these ideas help to explain how we human intelligences came to be able to discern the reasons for all of the adaptations of life, including our own."

"If I could give a prize for the single best idea anybody ever had, I'd give it to Darwin."

Nature isn't perfect and beautiful is a subjective concept....and nothing has been made it has evolved.

[torridon]

I'm currently reading Daniel Dennett's new book but some of the ideas seem to be in this paper:-

Darwin's "strange inversion of reasoning"

Also available as a pdf.

"Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection unifies the world of physics with the world of meaning and purpose by proposing a deeply counterintuitive “inversion of reasoning” (according to a 19th century critic): “to make a perfect and beautiful machine, it is not requisite to know how to make it” [MacKenzie RB (1868) (Nisbet & Co., London)]. Turing proposed a similar inversion: to be a perfect and beautiful computing machine, it is not requisite to know what arithmetic is. Together, these ideas help to explain how we human intelligences came to be able to discern the reasons for all of the adaptations of life, including our own."

"If I could give a prize for the single best idea anybody ever had, I'd give it to Darwin."

Aka Orgel's Second Rule.  'Intelligent Design' is inferior to blind trial and error plus selection.

[Stranger]

Nature isn't perfect and beautiful is a subjective concept....and nothing has been made it has evolved.

You appear to be responding the quote from a critic of Darwin in 1868, rather than the paper (in which you may find its relevance).

[Jack Knave]

You appear to be responding the quote from a critic of Darwin in 1868, rather than the paper (in which you may find its relevance).

Perhaps you could paraphrase it and then I'll comment. I don't have time to read things which are only on the periphery of my interest, and will no doubt be only a smidgen above the platitude range.

[Stranger]

Aka Orgel's Second Rule.  'Intelligent Design' is inferior to blind trial and error plus selection.

Well, yes - but it's also about how blind trial and error plus selection produces intelligent designers - how competence might become comprehension.

[Stranger]

Perhaps you could paraphrase it and then I'll comment. I don't have time to read things which are only on the periphery of my interest, and will no doubt be only a smidgen above the platitude range.

Nope - it's a relatively short paper that is already a summary of ideas that are better suited to a book. If you're not interested enough to read it, then don't - but you're hardly in a position to judge its content in that case. I suspect it would be well over your head anyway (based on what you post here).

[Jack Knave]

Nope - it's a relatively short paper that is already a summary of ideas that are better suited to a book. If you're not interested enough to read it, then don't - but you're hardly in a position to judge its content in that case. I suspect it would be well over your head anyway (based on what you post here).

Oooh, have I hit a sore nerve?

[Stranger]

Oooh, have I hit a sore nerve?

    Just responding in kind - sorry, but it's hard to resist...

[torridon]

Well, yes - but it's also about how blind trial and error plus selection produces intelligent designers - how competence might become comprehension.

Yes, intelligent design is an outcome of a grander process and can never surpass it.  Intelligence is always going to be bounded by the process that produces it.

[Sriram]

Yes, intelligent design is an outcome of a grander process and can never surpass it.  Intelligence is always going to be bounded by the process that produces it.

Intelligence is the cause of the evolutionary process...not its outcome. Just as Artificial Selection is the cause of several kinds of dogs, horses, cows, plants etc.  And just as human Intelligence is the cause of computer, car, plane evolution and development.

We just can't see and understand the Intelligence that produces us because we are its products and we have severe limitations.

[Gordon]

Intelligence is the cause of the evolutionary process...not its outcome. Just as Artificial Selection is the cause of several kinds of dogs, horses, cows, plants etc.  And just as human Intelligence is the cause of computer, car, plane evolution and development.

We just can't see and understand the Intelligence that produces us because we are its products and we have severe limitations.

This is a claim of knowledge: essentially that we are the products of 'Intelligence', so on what basis is this 'Intelligence' an item of knowledge?

[Stranger]

Intelligence is the cause of the evolutionary process...not its outcome. Just as Artificial Selection is the cause of several kinds of dogs, horses, cows, plants etc.  And just as human Intelligence is the cause of computer, car, plane evolution and development.

We just can't see and understand the Intelligence that produces us because we are its products and we have severe limitations.

He asserted without the first hint of a suggestion of any supporting evidence or reasoning. I'd suggest you read the paper but as you seem unable to grasp basic natural selection (as evidenced in the evolvability thread), it would probably be a waste of time.

[Stranger]

Yes, intelligent design is an outcome of a grander process and can never surpass it.  Intelligence is always going to be bounded by the process that produces it.

Clearly our intelligence as been produced by evolution and we are capable of designing things using a very different process to evolution. I'm not sure that there is some arbitrary limit. I'm not even sure how you would express such a limit. How could you compare the two?

Orgel's Second Rule that you referred to before (as I understand it) is basically about trying to "reverse engineer" evolution: if you can't imagine how something evolved, it's because you don't have a good enough imagination...

[torridon]

Intelligence is the cause of the evolutionary process...not its outcome.

There's no justification for that, and neither is there any evidence in support of it.  What the evidence suggests, most abundantly, is that various forms of intelligence have evolved over time on this planet. This is further mirrored by 'cultural' evolution, trends in thinking, Newton famously said he stood on the shoulders of giants who came before, and that is how it works.  Intelligence emerges and develops incrementally.

[Sriram]

There's no justification for that, and neither is there any evidence in support of it.  What the evidence suggests, most abundantly, is that various forms of intelligence have evolved over time on this planet. This is further mirrored by 'cultural' evolution, trends in thinking, Newton famously said he stood on the shoulders of giants who came before, and that is how it works.  Intelligence emerges and develops incrementally.

We have already discussed many times how if robots, cars, computers and stuff like that, could get together and talk but not sense biological life, they would come up with exactly the same ideas about their evolution that we have of ours. The same random variation, NS, Emergent Properties etc.  There will be no difference.

[Stranger]

We have already discussed many times how if robots, cars, computers and stuff like that, could get together and talk but not sense biological life, they would come up with exactly the same ideas about their evolution that we have of ours. The same random variation, NS, Emergent Properties etc.  There will be no difference.

That's a particularly silly assertion, even for you.

[Jack Knave]

The problem with the article is that it makes a quantum leap and an unfounded assumption that evolution is responsible for morals and the like. This issue hasn't been qualified yet but is still in the air.

[Stranger]

The problem with the article is that it makes a quantum leap and an unfounded assumption that evolution is responsible for morals and the like. This issue hasn't been qualified yet but is still in the air.

Not entirely sure what you mean by "morals and the like". However, taking morality (which is somewhat peripheral to the paper) - much has been written about its evolution and instances of "moral" behaviour have been observed in non-human animals. Why do you think the issue is "in the air"?

[Jack Knave]

Not entirely sure what you mean by "morals and the like". However, taking morality (which is somewhat peripheral to the paper) - much has been written about its evolution and instances of "moral" behaviour have been observed in non-human animals. Why do you think the issue is "in the air"?

Didn't you read it? Or did you just see what you wanted?

It was talking about "bottom up" (look at the title of the thread - strange inversion) saying from the "bottom" had come everything else above it, including things like morals. I'm saying that's very questionable!!!

Why would animals' moral behaviours have anything to do with this issue?

[Stranger]

It was talking about "bottom up" (look at the title of the thread - strange inversion) saying from the "bottom" had come everything else above it, including things like morals. I'm saying that's very questionable!!!

Yes, but why do you think it's questionable? The idea that we are the products of evolution is hardly controversial and evolution is a bottom up process.

Why would animals' moral behaviours have anything to do with this issue?

Because you questioned that "evolution is responsible for morals" - it's presence in other animals that are close relatives to us (in terms of evolution) would suggest that it is.

[Jack Knave]

Yes, but why do you think it's questionable? The idea that we are the products of evolution is hardly controversial and evolution is a bottom up process.

Because you questioned that "evolution is responsible for morals" - it's presence in other animals that are close relatives to us (in terms of evolution) would suggest that it is.

Am I actually talking to an intelligent person here?

I never questioned evolution as a mechanism that creates somas.

Just because animals have some level of moral responses doesn't mean that it is a consequence of the evolutionary process per se. All this tells us is that it didn't suddenly appear in us over night and could just be a parallel process with some other source which is dependent on other conditions for its extent of its expression. At the moment we don't know either way.

[Stranger]

Am I actually talking to an intelligent person here?

It must troubling for you, not being able to tell...

I never questioned evolution as a mechanism that creates somas.

Just because animals have some level of moral responses doesn't mean that it is a consequence of the evolutionary process per se. All this tells us is that it didn't suddenly appear in us over night and could just be a parallel process with some other source which is dependent on other conditions for its extent of its expression. At the moment we don't know either way.

And your evidence or reasoning for supposing that there might be this additional, parallel process, would be what? I mean, obviously it isn't impossible but then some god creating the universe last last Tuesday isn't impossible.