Re: OOL I - Manifesto and metatheory


"Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t"; <rem642b@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:d47a2n$2ndq$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > From: "Perplexed in Peoria" <jimmenegay@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>

[Considerable snippage and rearrangement in what follows]

This conversation is becoming mired in confusion - some yours, and
some mine. It started when you quoted Stuart Kauffman as follows:

Handicap theory is a theory of biological communication in which
information sent by a cell, organism, etc., must be costly to the
sender in order to be reliable to the recipient.

To which you responded:

(Which would usually require group selection within an enclosed
micro-ecosystem in order for natural selection to result in such
willingness of sender to pay that cost.)

OK. Point of confusion #1. Kauffman is referring to Zahavi's ideas
for trustworthy communication. Although Zahavi says that such
communication must be "costly", this does not mean costly in the
sense of altruism. Both sender and receiver benefit if the trustworthy
communication is believed, but if the signal were cost free, then it
would not be believed. This argument has nothing to do with altruism.

You may well be correct that the only three ways for altruism to
arise are kin selection, group selection, and reciprocity (which
you call tit-for-tat, incorrectly). But Zahavi's idea of handicaps
has nothing to do with altruism.

> > All that is required for kin selection to operate is that the actor
> > must socially interact with relatives more frequently than he does
> > with the general (breeding and competitive) population.
>
> Yes, but that can't be obtained unless the kin-altruistic individual
> can somehow either discriminate kin from enemy or happen to be in an
> environment where most nearby individual are kin so helping anyone
> nearby is good enough discrimination. Note that assuming anyone nearby
> is kin can be swamped by alien squatters, so a strategy based on that
> assumption might not be stable. I'm quite sure that freefloating
> chemical replicators are unable to achieve *any* way of interreacting
> only or predominately with kin.
>
> Furthermore, whereas kin altruism in animals involves direct
> interaction, kin altruism in simple chemical replicators would usually
> involve interacting with some *other* chemical which indirectly
> benefits the kin. So your criterion wouldn't be valid. For example, an
> altruistic replicator within a micro-ecosystem might attack invading
> chemicals to protect other replicators of the same micro-ecosystem, or
> might produce food that other replicators eat, or might produce lipids
> or DNA strands to enlarge or strengthen the cell membrane to better
> protect other replicators within it. I see no way, except group
> selection within a micro-ecosystem, that simple chemical replicators
> would have selection pressure to develop any kind of altruism.

This particular issue is not worth pursuing if you are primarily
interested in "kin selection" among chemical replicators. I agree
that the idea is absurd for a host of reasons.

[snip agreement that reciprocity, and even delayed reciprocity (as in
tit-for-tat), can result from restricted movement among interactors and
does not require "recognition" of individuals]

> > If the sending of trustworthy signals is classified as "cooperation",
> > then there are certainly ways of having an ESS that don't fit into
> > the above three.
>
> If there is a cost imposed to the altruistic sender, and benefit only
> to the passive receiver, then what other mechanism would somehow reward
> the sender for making that expenditure? With group selection, the
> sender prevents the whole micro-ecosystem from dying, hence achieving
> benefit eventually. With kin selection, copies benefit. With
> tit-for-tat, there is direct benefit during the next iteration of the
> game. What other delayed-reward system do you claim could exist? Please
> tell!

> > I said nothing about tit-for-tat, nothing about cooperation, and, in
> > fact nothing about communication at all other than the fact that
> > group selection is not necessary to explain it.
>
> And I said I know of only three ways (groupSel, kinSel, titForTat) that
> allow cooperation/altruism (*) to be an ESS, and you seem to say
> there's yet another, and I'd like to know what you have in mind.
>
> * ("cooperation" in the usual English sense requires both parties to
> "cooperate" in the tit-for-tat single-action sense. It's that latter
> sense that I am talking about here. Why should an organism be nice by
> cooperating unless there's some mechanism for rewarding it for the
> expense it incurred by being nice?)


And again, you are confusing issues of trustworthy signalling with
altruism. There is no delayed reward system. Both sender and receiver
benefit if the trustworthy signal is trusted. But the benefit to the
sender is limited by the fact that the signal must be costly to be
trustworthy.


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Challenges for Evolutionary Ethics
    ... Altruism and selfishness are crossed-purposes, so-to-speak, nested ... biological altruism is based on kin selection/group selection. ... Apparently the two forms of selection aren't the same but in kin ... the field is clear for selfish individuals to begin to prosper ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Perpetually Perplexed
    ... This is a common misconception about the kin ... If the organism's altruism is expressed ... > invariant for all social interactions), ... > holding b and c constant was certainly not part of many kin selection ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Challenges for Evolutionary Ethics
    ... Altruism and selfishness are crossed-purposes, so-to-speak, nested ... biological altruism is based on kin selection/group selection. ... Apparently the two forms of selection aren't the same but in kin ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • RE: Fw: Edward O. Wilsons "bombshell" on the reality of group
    ... selection -- and the same seems to hold true for humans. ... inclusive fitness concept has always been organism group centric (group ... revolutionary poly-centric argument for the evolution of "altruism" ... argument is argued to be gene centric. ...
    (sci.bio.evolution)
  • Re: Article: Group selection, a theory whose time has come...again
    ... Trait groups composed of altruistic animals can outcompete ... frequency of altruism may rise in the population as a whole. ... The thing is, when most people think of group selection, they ... Monogamy *is* subject to cheaters. ...
    (talk.origins)
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