Re: Stephen Wolfram vs. Charles Darwin on natural selection

John Edser wrote:

dkomo <dkomo871@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:-

>> JE:-

Complexity is equated with an decrease of entropy mostly because
increasing complexity can be equated with increasing levels of order.


When discussing complexity it's best to stay as far away from mentioning
entropy as possible. When it comes to entropy, hardly anyone knows what
they're talking about.


JE:-
Entropy is a concept of physics which can be usefully incorporated into
falsifiable theories of biology. Like complexity, entropy remains almost
entirely subjective, so indeed, "hardly anyone knows what they're
talking about" with regards to either term. This does not render either
to be invalid or useless, _as long as both remain a part of a
falsifiable theory_.

I would agree with this. After all, sciences like geology and biology
were largely qualitative (I wouldn't say subjective here) rather than
quantitative throughout their early periods and yet were still
scientific and produced significant results.




However, crystals are well ordered while displaying a _higher_ level of
entropy compared to the same substance uncrystallized. I think what we
may need is a better definition of complexity.


Why? Complexity is like pornography -- you know it when you see it.


JE:-
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it may not be a duck.
Verification/non verification remains critically insufficient without
refutation within all of the sciences. The problem is, mathematics is a
not a science so all it has going for it is verification/non
verification. In today's regrettably Post Modern world mathematics
attempts to replace the sciences (e.g. Hamilton's Rule) rendering
subjective concepts of entropy and complexity as (mostly) misused. An
example is the recent discussion here about entropy within which some
contributers failed to comprehend that it, like complexity, has to be
totaled per fertile organism providing an entirely biological concept of
entropy "inside" and "outside" of a biologically critical fertile
organism boundary. Their error is not dissimilar to the ongoing gene
centric proposition of simply ignoring within what fertile organism each
gene finds itself (via the deletion of gene fitness epistasis within
population genetics).


I have yet to see a good quantitative measure of complexity. I don't
think the essence of complexity can be captured quantitatively.


JE:-
I did propose such a definition. Complexity is: the number of _nested
subsets of fitness_(proper subsets of fitness) within one Darwinian,
falsifiable unit of selection.

The trouble with this definition is that it applies only to biological
entities. Organisms are not the only complex systems in the known universe.

[sinp]

JE:-
Natural selection may only appear to reduce complexity e.g. cave fish
can be observed to be selected to cover their (now useless) eyes with
skin in order to avoid damage and therefore infection while losing most
of their body pigmentation. However, other body systems may increase in
complexity.


Not in the case of parasites. In general, I don't think complexity is
correlated to organismic fitness.


JE:-
I am not saying that it is. I am saying that complexity could be
measured as the number of _nested sets of dependent fitness within each
independent Darwinian mono-centric unit of selection_.


Describe in some detail how you would go about computing your complexity
measure for two organisms at different ends of the spectrum: a bacterium
and your favorite mammal. Show all your work. That is, for each
organism label all the "nested sets of dependent fitness" and how each
fits into "each independent Darwinian mono-centric unit of selection."
And define all your technical terms clearly.


--dkomo@xxxxxxxx


.

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