[FullMtlAlcoholc]

This issue is pernicious in the biological sciences. Evolution is often depicted as having a will and is referred to as a marvelous creator which completely misses the point of evolution, a system driven by simple instructions that over time create emergent complexity (like a cellular automata). People assume that their is some mechanism for adaptation exercised. Adaptation happens at the species level and the only thing exercised is survival.

[SomeStupidPoint]

Does a baby have a will? How about a cat? Bacterium?

I'm actually curious why people believe one emergent system does (eg, people) but another doesn't (eg, evolution/biosphere).

What lets you determine when a composite object or pattern in an automata has crossed that threshold?

[FullMtlAlcoholc]

> What lets you determine when a composite object or pattern in an automata has crossed that threshold?

There isn't really a threshold beyond that pattern or object somehow communicating to you that it does indeed possess a will or some form of consciousness. The default assumption is to assume it doesn't until it shows it does instead of invoking an animist world view that imbues a spirit to every complex phenomenon (weather, death, etc.)

I'm in agreement with you though in general. It is arrogant to think that humans are at the terminal end of emergent complexity. Maybe our minds are too limited to conceive of something arising from a global or galactic scale.

Are our individual cells aware of the person?

[SomeStupidPoint]

Why is the animist view not the default assumption?

That seems a strictly more complicated model (with equivalent or even lesser predictive power), in that it supposes two classes of objects rather than a single class (in some sort of distribution), and supposes there must be some special quality to things, wherein they gain an extra trait.

The simpler assumption (at least to me) would seem to be the animist one, albeit that most wills don't look much like ours (since most things don't look like us).

I mean, I could see if you were arguing that humans don't have a will, but evolution doesn't either -- but to divide them in to categories based on feelings (which seems to be the case) seems to needlessly complexify the model.

[FullMtlAlcoholc]

> Why is the animist view not the default assumption? That seems a strictly more complicated model (with equivalent or even lesser predictive power), in that it supposes two classes of objects rather than a single class (in some sort of distribution), and supposes there must be some special quality to things, wherein they gain an extra trait.

Although you raise an interesting point, that was the default view of many, if not most, societies until modern times. Once that threshold is crossed, we reflexively imbue it with other superstitious traits. In theory it makes sense, in practice, it'll lead to shit like human sacrifice.

[smhost]

In what theory would that make even remote sense?

If there's no selective pressure for a will to emerge, a will will not emerge (barring some infinitely improbable random event).

[vectorpush]

> There isn't really a threshold beyond that pattern or object somehow communicating to you that it does indeed possess a will or some form of consciousness

I agree. It is a further anthropomorphism to even assume that the integrated sensory and memory perception phenomenon that we apparently experience as consciousness is inherently "human" in its quality rather than something more qualitatively similar to the bending of space-time by matter. An incidental consequence of homeostasis is that arbitrary pieces of matter are somehow a "self" and a cluster of sensory signals are somehow an "experience". The animist view isn't even necessary if we do not insist that "consciousness" be "a state of existence" for thinking creatures to "have" or not.

[adrianratnapala]

We don't have to get caught up in definitions of consciousness.

What we see in the case of microbe cell division is goal-directed behaviour. The physical details of how it happens are very important to cell biologists, but the bigger point is that one way or another the thing will behave in ways that help it grow and divide.

In that light it seems perfectly fine to say that the cell wants to divide. Indeed it is the most correct explanation I can think of -- and then I can invoke evolution as an explanation of how it came to want this.

[jamesrcole]

You're assuming it's a matter of some threshold (presumably of something like "complexity").

We have good reason to think that anything like "will" (leaving aside "free will" here, and just taking about things like the ability to achieve ends by developing plans and utilising information about the state of the environment) requires specific information processing capabilities. Capabilities that a process like natural selection does not have.

[SomeStupidPoint]

Or a threshold in information processing capabilities, yes. But could you describe these information processing capabilities?

Since evolution does process information about iterative states, it's not the mere existence of feedback, so there must be some threshold in capabilities that requires crossing.

Please describe them in a manner that includes or excludes as you see fit babies, cats, and bacteria but doesn't leave it a continuum (ie, there must be a cutoff where on one side you have some and the other none).

[jamesrcole]

Describing how evolution works, and why it is completely blind, is not something for the size constraints of a HN comment. I'd recommend books like Dawkin's "The Blind Watchmaker" or "Climbing Mount Improbable", or Dennett's "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" for good, readable descriptions.

[FullMtlAlcoholc]

I think it is a bit presumptuous to say that evolution is completely blind. Here is a paper that, based on deep learning, explores how evolution can be seen as learning from previous experience like a neural net.

http://www.kurzweilai.net/why-evolution-may-be-intelligent-b... [Summary]

http://eegjournalclub.weebly.com/uploads/2/6/5/0/26509069/wa... [Actual Paper]

I often wonder if there are "intelligences" at the stellar scale or above and if they existed, would we have the lobes to be aware of their existence.

[fenomas]

I think the point here was more that saying people have will but evolution doesn't is a lot like saying fish swim but submarines don't. Obviously the two can be distinguished, but we distinguish them because we look at the mechanisms by which the function - whereas if we only looked at the externalities, we might consider them one and the same.

Personally I think it's quite an interesting point; much moreso than the point you seem to have replied to (i.e. the notion that evolution isn't blind, which I don't think GP was arguing by any stretch).

[SomeStupidPoint]

I always found it interesting to ask if my fish toy swims: it has a fish shape and propels itself through the water by wiggling its tail.

Similarly, if cephalopods swim. And if they do, why not jetskis?

Also, I was arguing it, but mostly to see the responses -- everyone seems so sure it is, and yet, the answers come down to "because it doesn't remind me of monkey cognition". (Similar to why I asked about animism -- everyone is so sure it was wrong, but doesn't seem to know why.)

[SomeStupidPoint]

I'm well aware of how evolution works. I disagree with your assessment that it's any blinder of a process than your own will is.

I'm especially skeptical when you can't even describe the distinction in the span of a few paragraphs and instead resort to ad hominems.

[vectorpush]

> I disagree with your assessment that it's any blinder of a process than your own will is.

I understand what you're saying, but the two concepts cannot be effectively compared. An organism's "will" is a label for the reactive tendencies we observe in physical systems that exhibit homeostasis, whereas evolution is the description of a physical process that is perpetually ongoing and has no physically discrete meaning.

[jamesrcole]

First, what ad hominems? Show me what you're referring to.

I think you misunderstand what I said. The sort of information processing in something like a nervous system can hardly be characterised as blind.

Also, if it can easily be done in a few paragraphs then why did people have to write books hundreds of pages long (which still get misunderstood)?

[goatlover]

> Since evolution does process information about iterative states

Evolution is a computer?

> Please describe them in a manner that includes or excludes as you see fit babies, cats, and bacteria but doesn't leave it a continuum

What's the cutoff between a heap of and non-heap?

[SomeStupidPoint]

Evolution does compute in the broad sense, yes.

My exact point is there isn't such a meaningful distinction. I'm challenging people who think there is a distinction to elaborate on that.

[arkades]

>This issue is pernicious in the biological sciences.

It is?

I only ever see this come up in layman's discussions of evolution. I've never seen the anthropomorphism of evolution come up among actual biologists / grad students.

[FullMtlAlcoholc]

I am speaking directly to that circumstance. It gives some people the idea that evolution has a goal

[__jal]

That one has always annoyed me a bit, too. I think it is partly to sugar-coat the mechanisms for humans. "Adaption" sounds much nicer when one thinks of adapting to a hotter climate or a smaller paycheck than what actually happens.

[yk]

In my experience that claim gets one an earful from biologists. (However it is of course always interesting what people in the different fields tell themselves all the time, because that are the easy mistakes.)