[lostmsu]

You will find no breakthrough there. It is just a very long philosophicalish stream of consciousness revolving about a thought, that everybody fails at AI because they forgot about replication.

The examples in the article are totally meaningless. An idea is _not_ better accepted by some _because_ it replicates better in their brains. That's a tautology.

[dchacke]

> The examples in the article are totally meaningless.

Which ones and why are they meaningless?

> An idea is _not_ better accepted by some _because_ it replicates better in their brains. That's a tautology.

I'm not sure it's a tautology, as the same phenomenon could be explained (poorly) through updating of "credences," for example, or other explanations. In any case, if you think that acceptance of an idea must involve replication (or is indeed synonymous with successful replication at the expense of rival ideas), isn't that an argument in favor of the theory?

[lostmsu]

It an argument against wasting your time reviewing a "theory", because if the author failed to spot a simple tautology, what does it say about him being logical in the rest of the work?

Especially with the extraordinary claims.

[dchacke]

You didn't answer my question about which claims you find meaningless and why. But now you've changed to calling the claims "extraordinary," which is quite different from "meaningless"--one might argue a claim couldn't be both at the same time. Which is it? Or which claims are which and why?

Btw, neo-Darwinism generally has been criticized for being tautological (the "better replicators spread better" stuff). The article even addresses that. Do you find neo-Darwinism generally to be a logical mistake because it contains this well-known tautology? Or do you only find the tautology problematic in this particular instance because it's a new application of neo-Darwinism?

If you found logical mistakes in the rest of the article, I'd be interested in hearing them.

[lostmsu]

I did not know about neo-Darwinism prior to your comment. I was addressing specific statement.

Because of your request, I skimmed through parts of the article again, and again only found tautology: "Why do some people believe some things over others? Because some ideas spread through their minds better than others."

I can not claim it is illogical, but because it is highly tautological, it is very useless, and I don't wish to spend any more of time on it.

[dchacke]

I'll respect your wish not to spend any more time on it, and will leave you with two closing comments:

1. Like I said, the article is aware of and addresses the tautological nature of neo-Darwinism generally.

2. The part you quoted is not useless because, if true, it refutes other (en-vogue but false) theories about "reasons for belief," such as higher/lower numeric credences, stronger neuronal connections, etc.