How is a raven like the idea of a writing desk?

So, to the title; a raven is an example of an organism that has evolved, and the idea of a writing desk is likewise, a physical representation of an idea that has evolved over time.

Reply to Roy Davies The raven evolved as a result of a biological process of self organization ( a consciousness ). Whilst the desk evolved as a result of human consciousness. Also a process of self organization. Am I in the ball park?

Could be. Like any good theory, it is only useful if it allows one to make testable predictions.

So, if an idea is like an evolving organism, what does this allow us to predict? That ideas adapt to fit their environment? That idea evolution is blind and without direction, but tends towards greater complexity?

Reply to Roy Davies That ideas adapt to fit their environment - good one :smile:

Those were examples of the sorts of predictions we should be able to make. One is not ‘right’ per se, and there are no doubt other sorts of predictions we should be able to make as well that could be useful in understanding then how ideas affect groups of people, and how they might evolve in given environments. I think sociologists would have a few words to say on the matter.

Quoting Roy Davies

I’m interested in the nature of ideas. I have a theory that ideas can be modelled as organisms and evolve according to the process of survival of the fittest.

You mean meme theory, as hypothesised by Richard Dawkins and ran with most notably by Daniel Dennett, two thinkers very much in the public eye?

It's a really good idea, makes a lot of sense, and has great power to explain.

But it's cultures, not minds. Memes are units of culture.

Yes, the meme concept is where my thinking started in this area. Yes, culture is the collection of minds and thus it is this collection that evolves ideas. But they don’t always go in a positive direction. In a certain culture of minds, ideas like nazism can grow very well. So, how can we ensure a fitness function that evolves ideas in a positive direction?

It makes sense to contextualize ideas in evolutionary terms. After all, ideas either make or break us and that being the case ideas would naturally align themselves with the evolutionary goal of survival. Someone, I can't recall who, once said that to believe falsehoods amounts to significantly reducing one's chances of living a full productive life. True ideas then are the equivalent of physical adaptations like agility, speed, strength, intelligence, etc.

That’s an interesting point. Though I don’t know about ideas being ‘true’ or not. Some very destructive ideas can exist in a society and thus keep it going, at least for a while.

I tend to think of ideas have a value to the society or group of minds in which it exists. That value is relevant only to that society at that time, but there I don’t know if there is absolute truth.

Quoting Roy Davies

That’s an interesting point. Though I don’t know about ideas being ‘true’ or not. Some very destructive ideas can exist in a society and thus keep it going, at least for a while.

By true ideas I mean those that are aligned to truths/facts about our world. As an example germ theory is an idea that's true in the sense it seems to be close enough to the actual truth about diseases to allow us to prevent/cure illnesses.

False ideas are the kind that's constructed around falsehoods and are particularly harmful. For instance belieiving your local shaman's diagnosis of your illness as the work of evil spirits is assuredly going to make things go from bad to worse for you.

However, I'm certain that I've failed to do justice to the complexity involved.

I agree. The concept of conjecture and refutation means that an idea is only as good as its ability to stand up to being refuted. A good idea also has to be refutable in its design.

Quoting Roy Davies

I agree. The concept of conjecture and refutation means that an idea is only as good as its ability to stand up to being refuted. A good idea also has to be refutable in its design.

I don't know. It's too early to tell whether it's true that all falsehoods are bad and that all truths are good, good and bad in re survival that is but as someone once said, "the truth will out" and that's going to be an embarrassment at best and a death sentence at worst.

I think the problem is suggesting that an idea is 'good' or 'bad'. Going back to the evolution of ideas, whether an idea survives or not is not about its goodness or badness, but whether it supports the idea's survival or not. Evolution's fitness function doesn't determine if an organism is 'good' or 'bad', just whether it will survive in the environment long enough to reproduce.

Reply to TheMadFool Ideas might contribute to the successful existence of the entity thinking it, and thus be a positive influence on the entity and idea together, but there are many ideas that can be thought that won't have a noticeable effect on the entity's survival, but may themselves survive or not depending on the environment they find themselves in. An example would be ideas related to a religious cult that self reinforce each other inside the cult, but that outside, would seem ludicrous. From the outside, we would think these are 'bad' ideas and ultimately, the environment they exist in will come to an end. Like an evolutionary enclave.

Quoting Roy Davies

Ideas might contribute to the successful existence of the entity thinking it, and thus be a positive influence on the entity and idea together, but there are many ideas that can be thought that won't have a noticeable effect on the entity's survival, but may themselves survive or not depending on the environment they find themselves in. An example would be ideas related to a religious cult that self reinforce each other inside the cult, but that outside, would seem ludicrous. From the outside, we would think these are 'bad' ideas and ultimately, the environment they exist in will come to an end. Like an evolutionary enclave

Possible. Very possible.

Quoting Roy Davies

So, how can we ensure a fitness function that evolves ideas in a positive direction?

Quoting Roy Davies

A good idea also has to be refutable in its design.

Please elaborate, with solutions.

Reply to Pop For the latter, I suggest reading Popper's "Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge" if you haven't already done so. He says it way better than I ever could. All good hypotheses are formed in this way, take for example, Newtons equations. These are all clearly put and testable, and thus one can attempt to find ways to refute them - situations where they might break down, such as sub-atomically, which Einstein did. This doesn't mean Newton's equations are wrong, but now their area of correctness is more carefully defined.

Reply to Roy Davies :up:

Reply to Pop For the former - that is indeed the question. One would have to first decide what a positive direction is. For example, for the good of society? For the good of the planet? For the good of my country? For the good of my religion? Unfortunately, sometimes 'for the good of X' also means 'not for the good of not X'.

It would be like driving evolution. So, I want a dog that has floppy ears and fluffy fur. Selective breeding can probably attain that result in time. Therefore, I guess we need to start with a goal, as in business, decide where you want the end result to be, and work back from there. Now, of course, we would have to debate about what is desirable in terms of ideas. A totalitarian state would have quite different views than a democratic one, but even different democracies will differ in their desire for, say stability vs chaos.

Selective breeding of ideas is exactly what those that use facebook to influence political systems are doing now.

Therein, by the way lies another interesting debate as to whether a stable and safe society (as one might wish to attain) breeds apathy and depression?

Reply to Roy Davies It would be difficult to apply Popper's standard to philosophy.

How do you feel about panpsychism. A panpsychist world would be similar to a Buddhist world, I believe.

Reply to Roy Davies

Quoting Roy Davies

Could be. Like any good theory, it is only useful if it allows one to make testable predictions.

Hey, I think that if you want to make testable hypotheses about the evolution of ideas, it'd be required to find a measurable representation of ideas. I mean, an idea must be first measurable by some parameter before you can study how such parameter (an the idea) evolves, how it is transmitted from generation to generation (vertically) and from person to person (horizontally), and how it changes by its interaction with other ideas. You must also be able to quantify variation in order to understand how variation is introduced into ideas. So, the parameter(s) that you choose to measure ideas must be such that you can determine its/their rate(s) of change with respect to time or any other variable that may affect the evolution of an idea (i.e population number, age, generation).

Reply to Daniel Good points. I’ll need to think about that a bit, but I think you are now getting into the next stage of my rather loose theory, which is most excellent. I am also still trying to define exactly what an idea is. Coming at that from a neural network / cognitive science point of view, an ‘idea‘ is a neural response to a set of inputs. So, an idea could be a very low level response to a sensory input, eg the ideas that are triggered by the smell of bacon, such as vague memories of happy childhood breakfasts.

Reply to Pop Indeed. Popper talks about what I would think can best be described as how to value practical ideas. The scientific process, and in essence it is an attempt to remove human bias from the process of idea evolution. Humans tend to see patterns that are not always there, and tend to want to believe they are right. Scientists are human, so the process of conjecture and refutation is about mitigating that.

But an idea represented by an art installation, say? Or a piece of music? Or a philosophical concept (eg panpsychism)? Hmm, conjecture and refutation certainly doesn’t make sense there.

Writing desks can't write, and ravens can't rave.

Quoting Roy Davies

So, if we consider human minds to be the environment in which ideas breed and grow, then I wonder what the measure of fitness is for an idea?

The measure of fitness is survival.

Dumb ideas are like dandelions that seed themselves in poor disturbed [s]soil[/s] minds and spread like gossip. Social forms are like trees that stabilise the [s]soil[/s] mind and enrich it with [s]falling leaves[/s] implications and ways of living. Philosophy is like a cow that eats ideas and shits all over them and also enriches the soil.

The idea that ideas are like organisms in the environment of mind is an analogy that can be pushed too far.

Quoting unenlightened

The measure of fitness is survival.

Yes, but what is the rule that ensures survival? In natural systems, it is survival of the fittest, but in an artificial system, one has to create the fitness function to match the desired outcome. So, for example, when using genetic algorithms to grow neural networks, the fitness function is defined to grow the networks to perform as desired. So, if we had to define a fitness function for growing ideas within humanity, or for that matter, a fitness function for growing AIs to benefit humanity, what might it say?

Reply to unenlightened I'm sure it is, but one has to push an analogy beyond its limits in order to define the border.

Quoting unenlightened

Philosophy is like a cow that eats ideas and shits all over them and also enriches the soil.

I think this has to be the quote of year... Though perhaps one could even say that "Philosophy is like a cow that eats ideas, chews over them again and again like it chews its cud, digests them, and shits them out thus enriching the soil to grow new ideas."

Quoting unenlightened

ravens can't rave.

Oh, I don't know: A dancing crow

Peckish maybe, but hardly ravenous. Looks a bit tame for a rave anyway, I mean rave - on carpet?

Quoting Roy Davies

Yes, but what is the rule that ensures survival?

Seriously, for a moment... Dawkins played with this, talking about memes. But look at nature and see if you can find a rule. The only one I can think of is 'don't destroy the environment you depend on.'

It would be nice if truth or usefulness or intelligence were aids to survival, but dogmatic simplicity and narrative empathy do pretty well too. Perhaps ideas that can stick together and make a coherent whole have an advantage in forming a stable ideo-system.

Think rhymes and rule of three, think rhetoric. I imagine science as a top predator; powerful against weaker less substantial religious ideas, but sadly unaware of its total dependence on the complex web of morals and customs that make education to such heights possible.

Quoting unenlightened

But look at nature and see if you can find a rule. The only one I can think of is 'don't destroy the environment you depend on.'

The problem with a collection of self-interested persons or self-conserving structures is that they always seek to conserve their local environments and autonomy (power) at someone/thing else's expense. This works as much in a symbiotic relationship as a parasitic one.

I bite into a KitKat bar with no knowledge of the physical/social monstrosity behind it because to some extent it is irrational to think about with regard to the priorities of self-interest. It is not in my interest to justify what I do. I want a KitKat bar. I want a job at the KitKat bar factory... in the white collar part... so I can buy more KitKat bars.

Quoting Nils Loc

of self-interested persons or self-conserving structures

Bloody Dawkins. Utter not these terms in the same breath. The notion that genes are selfish is an analogy. Accordingly, take note that a self- interested person is not necessarily self-conserving, and vice versa. If you eat too many KitKats you will get fat and die young.

Quoting unenlightened

The notion that genes are selfish is an analogy.

Genes are selfish like dogs are selfish. To call a dog selfish is an analogy because a dog has no self to conserve. :sad:

Quoting Nils Loc

Genes are selfish like dogs are selfish. To call a dog selfish is an analogy because a dog has no self to conserve. :P

But nobody calls dogs selfish; cats, maybe. Anyway dogs think they are humans so they must think they have selves, and as Descartes demonstrated, there is nothing more to being a self than the thought.

Quoting unenlightened

The notion that genes are selfish is an analogy. Accordingly, take note that a self-interested person is not necessarily self-conserving, and vice versa. If you eat too many KitKats you will get fat and die young.

Dying young from KitKat gluttony expresses mindless self-conservatism (analogical selfishness) which is only distinguishable from self-interest in that the latter rationalizes after the fact with a personal narrative, it seems to me.

Philosophy is like a bull that asks ideas out, entertains them, has a few drinks with them, dances with them in the dark, then f them brutally, without any regard whether it was good for the idea as well or not.

Quoting Nils Loc

Genes are selfish like dogs are selfish. To call a dog selfish is an analogy because a dog has no self to conserve.

But surely you can call a shellfish selfish. Or a shelf-ish piece of furniture shelfish. Or a selfish person when you are drunk shelfish.

EDIT: Maybe this is what you referred to as "trashing threads" in your post to me? Here I am not intending to trash... instead, make a play on words. It's not germane to the topic, so you can ask the mods to delete this post. Mine here is an innocuous fancy of word play. To say I am trashing your post is a misinterpretation. If not of the fact, at least of my intention.

Quoting Roy Davies

I’m interested in the nature of ideas. I have a theory that ideas can be modelled as organisms and evolve according to the process of survival of the fittest. From a cognitive science point of view, this makes some sense because an idea is taken into someone’s mental framework if it fits in some way with what they already believe. So, if we consider human minds to be the environment in which ideas breed and grow, then I wonder what the measure of fitness is for an idea?

Interesting proposition. Ideas are not reproducing by themselves; it is the mind that makes similar, but not identical, replicas of an idea when it progresses it in a line of thought. So if you insist that it's an evolution, of an organism, ideas are, then I suggest that ideas are parasites that completely depend on their hosts for survival, and their transmission from host to host happens by way of language and communication of thought.

If you think, @Nils Loc, that my bull-example or analogy of what philosophy is, I patterned after the quote below. I carried the joke and the analogy to a different field of biological and social similarity to philosophy. That's all. I wasn't trashing anything or anyone. I responded with a jokular joke to another previous joke.

Quoting Roy Davies

Philosophy is like a cow that eats ideas and shits all over them and also enriches the soil.
— unenlightened

I think this has to be the quote of year... Though perhaps one could even say that "Philosophy is like a cow that eats ideas, chews over them again and again like it chews its cud, digests them, and shits them out thus enriching the soil to grow new ideas."

Quoting unenlightened

Accordingly, take note that a self- interested person is not necessarily self-conserving, and vice versa.

The basic fact though is organisms use up scarce resources to sustain themselves and that this adaptive functionality is mediated by genes through natural selection. All creatures are self-conserving insofar as they are living things. How long does one need to live in order to be called "self-interested"? Do we require theory of mind? To be interested in others is to be self-interested insofar as one depends on others to survive or not.

If you were a three headed person and I was one of the heads we might need to coordinate ourselves to go buy a KitKat. It would depend on who controls what and the consequence of a distribution of other traits. Would I have the freedom to eat as many KitKats as I wanted?

If you were a sheep farmer and wolves were eating your sheep you'd shoot the wolves, law permitting. This is not a morally circumscribed action until it becomes one by an outside concern. The interest of other selves come to bear on your lifestyle and you may not take kindly to the hardship it imposes on you.

Quoting god must be atheist

I responded with a jokular joke to another previous joke.

Yes. Just seemed kind of irreverent, mocking and superfluous.

Reply to unenlightened I don't have a dog, but I know that cats can be selfish. If I put a pile of treats between our two cats, they won't stand back to let the other one in first.

Quoting god must be atheist

Interesting proposition. Ideas are not reproducing by themselves; it is the mind that makes similar, but not identical, replicas of an idea when it progresses it in a line of thought. So if you insist that it's an evolution, of an organism, ideas are, then I suggest that ideas are parasites that completely depend on their hosts for survival, and their transmission from host to host happens by way of language and communication of thought.

An interesting and valid point. Of course, parasites evolve as well. One area where the analogy breaks down is that ideas are not self ambulatory, and have no mind of their own, so to speak. They don't direct their actions towards survival - there is no will or force to survive, if that is what one can call it. This has to be artificially induced.

I'm coming at this more from an evolutionary algorithms point of view, which is an approximation of the evolutionary process as modelled in a computer. In that instance, one constructs the whole evolutionary process in order to attempt to achieve a desired goal. A key question is always the choice of the 'fitness function' which determines which 'organisms' survive each generation and can 'reproduce'. I put these terms in quotes because thse are numbers in a computer and mathematical functions, but the concepts are the same.

My thesis is that a similar approach could be used to direct people's thinking towards ideas that are beneficial for the planet, societies and each other. But in this case, the computer is 'wetware' (our brains) rather than hardware, and the 'software' is probably managed through the internet. This is already happening, but not to a positive effect with the likes of facebook.

Quoting god must be atheist

But surely you can call a shellfish selfish. Or a shelf-ish piece of furniture shelfish. Or a selfish person when you are drunk shelfish.

Sometimes a little humour can help lighten the mood.

Quoting Nils Loc

This is not a morally circumscribed action until it becomes one by an outside concern. The interest of other selves come to bear on your lifestyle and you may not take kindly to the hardship it imposes on you.

This is the crux of the dilemma facing decisions made for the best of the planet, societies and people. We are now having the interests of another self (the planet) imposed on us through increased climate variability, and people don't like it.

Another theory of ideas comes more from the cognitive and behavioural science areas. We perceive, and this activates parts of our brains. Through interaction, we learn about the world around us, and formulate more complex ideas, and even abstract concepts. So, a simplified view of that is that all ideas are in essence laid over the top of existing ideas in a framework that exists inside our heads. One can argue that all learning and hence ideas is a part of metaphor building, in that all ideas have to somehow link to other ideas otherwise they don't fit well within the mind.

From a neural network point of view, the same sort of the things happens - one can train a neural network to respond in certain ways to patterns of input. Patterns of input that are close to but not exactly the same would generally produce an output that is some combination of the learned responses for which the input pattern is closest. Further, if one was to retrain a neural network without first wiping it, it will learn more quickly to respond to inputs that are similar to previously trained inputs/output combinations. This seems to be analgous how animals find it easy to learn things that are similar to something they already know (ie metaphors).

Just thinking further about the difference between ideas and organisms. True, an idea doesn't itself have a will, but does it induce a will in the mind that thinks it? An idea that fits well into a mind induces senses of pleasure in the organism, and thus the idea is accepted and incorporated into existing ideas, and thus it combines with other ideas and becomes part of the a chain of reasoning that propogates.

Quoting Roy Davies

An idea that fits well into a mind induces senses of pleasure in the organism, and thus the idea is accepted and incorporated into existing ideas, and thus it combines with other ideas and becomes part of the a chain of reasoning that propogates.

What you are describing is a mental algorithm. I have gone as far as to say consciousness works something like this. It is a great way for biological systems to self organize, but in a world of eight billion people and growing, I feel, it is not going to work. One person's pleasurable idea is another person's or something's painful idea. How this plays out on the world stage is going to be mostly painful, as a few powerful people enact pleasurable ideas that are ultimately painful for the great many.

Yes, the fitness for survival of an idea would be largely determined by it being painful or pleasurable, and this would be the underlying algorithm underpinning the ideas that have created the world as we know it. Unfortunately we also know the world to be in a precarious state, and I feel it can not take much more of the same.

Quoting Pop

the fitness for survival of an idea would be largely determined by it being painful or pleasurable

The idea of a loving and omnipotent god. Survived and spread like wildfire from day one of its inception.

Quoting Pop

It is a great way for biological systems to self organize, but in a world of eight billion people and growing, I feel, it is not going to work.

Fornicating is still the most pleasurable activity... not idea creation. Hence the overpopulating of the planet. Which in turn causes all our global ecological troubles. NO amount of ideation and idea creation without violence will reverse this process. The pleasure difference is way too biassed toward sex over idea harmonization.

Quoting god must be atheist

Fornicating is still the most pleasurable activity... not idea creation. Hence the overpopulating of the planet. Which in turn causes all our global ecological troubles.

It is hard to disagree with this. But some people believe there is an even greater pleasure. The first 5mins of the below video would explain.