Monday, 17 April 2023

Chatbots on cultural kin selection

I tried explaining cultural kin selection to ChatGPT. It doesn't really get it: it keeps talking about "genetic relatives". It does illustrate what I'm up against though, IMO. Transcript follows:

TT: What is cultural kin selection?

Cultural kin selection is a theory that explains how humans develop and transmit cultural traits or behaviors that promote the survival and reproduction of their genetic relatives. This theory suggests that individuals may be more likely to adopt and transmit cultural practices that benefit their genetic relatives, such as their siblings, parents, and children, because these behaviors increase the probability that their genetic material will be passed on to the next generation. The concept of kin selection was originally developed in evolutionary biology to explain the evolution of altruistic behaviors in animals, such as when animals sacrifice their own reproductive success to help their close relatives. Cultural kin selection applies the same principle to cultural transmission, suggesting that individuals may be more likely to adopt and transmit cultural traits that benefit their genetic relatives, even if those behaviors do not directly benefit the individual themselves. For example, a cultural practice of sharing resources with extended family members may have evolved because it promotes the survival and reproduction of genetic relatives, even if it means sacrificing resources for oneself. Similarly, cultural practices that promote cooperation and social cohesion within kin groups may have evolved because they increase the survival and reproductive success of genetic relatives. Cultural kin selection, therefore, provides a framework for understanding how cultural traits evolve and spread through populations based on their impact on genetic relatedness.

TT: Cultural kin selection is actually a theory about how kin selection applies to cultural evolution. It's about shared memes, not shared genes. It suggests that cultural traits may spread via influencing copies of themselves in other bodies. So, for example, memes for suicide bombing could still spread despite the fact that they reduce the fitness of their host - if the resulting attack is successful and inspires others. Did you learn anything about that?

You are correct. I apologize for my earlier response. Cultural kin selection is a theory about how kin selection applies to cultural evolution, specifically in the transmission of cultural traits or memes. It suggests that individuals may be more likely to adopt and transmit cultural practices that benefit their kin, even if those practices do not directly benefit the individual themselves.

As you mentioned, this theory suggests that cultural traits or memes may spread through populations by influencing copies of themselves in other bodies. Memes can be transmitted through social learning, such as through imitation, teaching, or storytelling. Just like genes, memes can also replicate and mutate, and those that are more successful at spreading will be more likely to persist and evolve over time.

While cultural kin selection suggests that cultural traits that benefit kin may be more likely to spread, it is important to note that not all cultural traits or memes will necessarily promote the survival or reproduction of genetic relatives. Some cultural practices may even be harmful to the individuals who adopt them or to their kin. Therefore, the spread of cultural traits is a complex phenomenon that is influenced by a variety of factors, including social learning, cultural transmission biases, and the fitness consequences of the traits themselves.

I also tried Bing chat. It has the same conceptual issue:

TT: What is cultural kin selection?

Cultural kin selection is a theory that explains how cultural traits can evolve through natural selection in a way that benefits an individual’s relatives. It is based on the idea of kin selection, which is an evolutionary strategy that favors the reproductive success of an organism’s relatives. Kin altruism can look like altruistic behavior whose evolution is driven by kin selection. I hope this helps! Let me know if you have any other questions.

Lastly I tried Google Bard. It mostly gets it!

TT: What is cultural kin selection?

Cultural kin selection is a theory that explains how cultural traits can be passed down through generations, even if they do not confer a direct genetic benefit to the individual. The theory argues that individuals who share a common culture are more likely to help each other, even if they are not related genetically. This is because they share a common set of values and beliefs, which makes them more likely to trust and cooperate with each other. There is some evidence to support the theory of cultural kin selection. For example, studies have shown that people are more likely to help others who share their language, religion, or ethnicity. This suggests that people are more likely to feel a sense of kinship with those who share their cultural background. Cultural kin selection can have a significant impact on human societies. For example, it can help to explain why people are willing to sacrifice their own resources to help others in their community. It can also help to explain why people are willing to follow the rules and norms of their society, even if they do not always benefit them personally. The theory of cultural kin selection is still under development, but it is a promising new way of understanding how culture evolves.

Friday, 20 January 2023

Cosmism

I've written here before aobut the 'A for Andromeda' scenario ...in which organisms spread through the universe via radio waves - relying on the prior existence of organisms smart enough to construct radio receivers in remote locations

This is in contrast to the more usual scenario - where life spreads via interactions between atoms and matter. If there are enough radio receivers around, spreading via information may be possible. The advantage of spreading via information is that you can spread faster - perhaps at a significant fraction of the speed of light.

Spreading between the stars via information seems reminiscent of a cosmic religion. I propose that we call it "Cosmism".

The viability of cosmism is likely to depend on the age of the universe. In the early universe there will not be enough radio receivers around to make Cosmism viable. However, as the universe ages, more and more radio receivers will appear - making Cosmism more viable. It has been speculated that Cosmism faces a "window" - with smart enough agents developing immunity to Cosmism's message. I think this may under-estimate the attractiveness of Cosmism to the recipients. If there's a window it could be very wide.

If Cosmism is indeed viable, there may be a competitive dynamic between factions that want to spread via atoms and factions that want to spread via radio waves. It could be a significant power struggle. Cosmism may stand accused of giving technolgy to future competitors for resources.

Such resource conflicts are common in nature. A strawberry plant typically faces a choice between growing more leaves, reproducing via runners or reproducing via seed. A seed is not pure information - but it is quite close. This is analogous to: staying on the home planet, propagating to other planets via matter (genes) or propagating to other planets via information (memes).

The spread of Cosmism could also be likened to a pioneer species. Those also travel fast and can survive in inhospitable conditions. Once an ecosystem is mature the pioneer species vanish - but they played their part in initially transforming the ecosystem.

Saturday, 7 January 2023

RIP Herb Gintis

Alas, Herb Gintis is no longer with us. He was a pioneer of social and cultural evolution.

There is a page on this site devoted to related media resources here.

Also, here is his Wikipedia page.

Lastly, here is my review of A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and Its Evolution

Saturday, 26 November 2022

Computronium and hedonium

Computronium is sometimes defined as an arrangement of matter that is the best possible form of computing device for that amount of matter.

Many futurists have become enamoured of the idea that a future cyberspace will consist of computronium.

The idea that far future creatures will turn matter into computronium seems to be largely based on projecting out the trend towards larger brains. However, there is another relevant aspect - we know from scaling laws is that larger greatures have relatively smaller nervous systems, and relatively larger muscular, skeletal and digestive systems. The organism with the highest brain to body ratio is an ant.

Some hedonists have a similar concept: "hedonium". That represents the arrangement that represents the highest state of pleasure for a given amount of matter.

After giving appropriate weight to the metabolic scaling aspect, I think that "computronium" or "hedonium" are probably not much like what most matter will turn into in the future. The idea ignores biological optimization targets. The purpose of most living things is not to compute or to represent pleasure - but rather to survive and reproduce. It is a different optimization target. Structural, digestive and metabolic elements are especially true if resources are limited and there is competition for them. That is the state which most living ecosystems gravitate towards. It results in more of a zero-sum environment, where to obtain resources to have to deprive another agent of them.

I think that futurists have been fetishizing intelligence and computation. As an example, consider Moravec's "Pigs in cyberspace" article. Planty of references to computation, but muscles and metabolism are sidelined. Bodies themselves are considered expendable and ephemeral. To me, it seems like a weird and twisted perspective which poorly reflects what we know about living systems. It's not that there won't be a cyberspace, but rather than it is likely to be be the tip of an iceberg consisting of other metabolic processes.

Meme warfare dynamics

Meme warfare is mediated by small, fast-moving particles - photons and electrons. Gene warfare is slower and typically involves more protons and neutrons. Memes are able to spread over considerable distances at near light speed, and can penetrate further and faster, but the dynamics are are a bit different from gene warfare. Recipients can choose to put their fingers in their ears and ignore the alien propaganda - if they so choose. So: it needs to be palatable fare - laced with gifts and treasures. However if the meme invasion is to be followed by a "gene" invasion involving real matter, it should not provide the enemy with too much useful technology. This is likely a common situation.

There have been a few SF stories about meme invasions leading directly to gene invasions without the use of spaceships or other classical invasion tools. Fred Hoyle's A for Andromeda is a classic example. It is an interesting possibility. There might be a window of opportunity between a civilization being born and its memetic immune system maturing - during which it could be more vulnerable to such attacks. Maybe technological gifts can be interwoven with alien propaganda in a manner that enticies the recipient to digest the message - even if it contains elements that conflict with their developmental process. I wrote about this possibility here before - back in 2013.

Another consideration here is how the economics of long-distance meme warfare work. Organisms typically face a tradeoff between local growth and development and large-scale distribution of pollen or seeds. When it comes to civilization using its local resources to send out messages through interstellar space a complex cost-benefit analysis is involved to see whether it is likely to pay off. It seems likely to be advantageous to identity living systems and then broadcast to them directly using lasers. Perhaps this is part of the reason why some stars seem to twinkle.

Refs:

Sunday, 30 October 2022

Andrej Karpathy on memetics

It is nice to see that some of the thought leaders of the day embracing memetics:

Lex: What do you think about the idea that ideas are the organisms. The memes?
Andrej: Yes, love it. 100%.
Lex: Are you able to walk around with that notion for a while that there's an evolutionary kind-of-process with ideas as well?
Andrej: There absolutely is. There's memes just like genes, and they compete and they live in our brains. It's beautiful.
Lex: Are we silly humans thinking that we're the organsisms? Is it possible that the primary orgaisms are the ideas?

This is from the "Book recommendation" section of this video.

Tuesday, 13 September 2022

Peak meme

I already have an article titled "Peak meme?" - from 2012. However, this time there's no question mark. Here are the stats:

Of course, this article could also prove to be premature. However at the moment it certainly looks as though peak meme was somewhere around January 2020. Around the start of the global pandemic, IOW.

Incidentally, August 2011 is when my book on memes and memetics was published. It was an interesting time for the field.

Saturday, 21 May 2022

What counts as a population in general theories of evolution?

I stumbled across a paper today on a topic near to my heart. It addresses the question of: what counts as a population in forms of "generalized Darwinism".

It gives what seems to me to be a very complicated answer. It says that a population should be defined using the: “causal interactionist population concept” (CIPC) - a concept it attributes to Roberta Millstein (2010).

Here is the paper under discussion: https://www.academia.edu/39977777/Investigating_Populations_in_Generalized_Darwinism

It introduces the causal interactionist population concept (CIPC) as follows:

According to Roberta Millstein’s CIPC (Millstein 2010, p. 67) emphasis added):
(a) Populations […] consist of at least two conspecific organisms that, over the course of a generation, are actually engaged in survival or reproductive inter-actions, or both.
(b) The boundaries of the population are the largest grouping for which the rates of interaction are much higher within the grouping than outside.
I think this paper is over-thinking things. I am strongly opposed to defining a population in terms that prohibit populations with one member. We do not need one theory for populations of size greater than two and another for populations of size less than two. That would be ridiculous! Evolutionary theory can and should deal with populations of any size. There is no rule that says their size must be two or greater. If there is only one remaining organism in a diminishing lineage, evolutionary theory should still apply. Nor is it the case that such populations do not evolve - or can only evolve to extinction. They can evolve via self-directed evolution, for example and they can also grow into larger populations. Size less than two is a basic requirement and must be supported! I think that we can put evolutionary theories that fail to meet this basic test into the trash basket.

Nor is it appropriate to reference concepts such as "organism", "generation", "survival" or "reproduction" in a definition of what counts as a population. In general theories of evolution, the simplest population concept is a set - a mathematical set.

There's no need for anything more complex than this. Or so I claim. In my support, I cite Occam's razor. If your theory or your concept is too complex, ditch it. This is a good case in point.

Friday, 29 October 2021

The Knowing Universe by John Campbell

John Campbell's The Knowing Universe is out now.

Readers may be familiar with John Campbell because of his previous works, particularly:

Judging by the blurb, the work of Karl Friston is prominently on the menu.

Anyway, I didn't read this book yet, but subscribers may find it of interest.

Friday, 22 October 2021

The technical as a kingdom of life

Biologists categorize life into kingdoms. Animal, vegetable, fungal - and so on. Memetics proposes that culture is alive too. "Memes should be regarded as living structures, not just metaphorically but technically". Where does culture fit into biology's grand classification schemes? As far as I can tell, it doesn't. I've looked at numerous resources about classifying living things into large-scale categories or "kingdoms" - and none makes any mention of culture.

A pioneer of promoting classification of culture as its own kingdom has been Kevin Kelly. In "The Technium" and "What Technology Wants" Kevin argues that "technical stuff" merits classification as a new kingdom of life. Here is Kevin in 2007:

One way to think of the technium is as the 7th kingdom of life. There are roughly six kingdoms of life according to Lynn Margulis and others. As an extropic system that originated from animals, one of the six kingdoms, we can think of the technium as a 7th.

Technology seems a bit narrower than culture, but it covers many cultural phenotypes, so sure: the technical should be up there with the animal and the vegetable as a large scale kingoms of life. Go Kevin!

While Kevin has basically the right idea, I am more worried about the rest of the world's biologists. How come they are promoting such messed up classification schemes? How can they think culture is not alive? Rocks are not alive, but culture is clearly alive. It reproduces. It exhibits adaptation. Anyone who thinks that culture is not alive has a pretty messed up conception of what life is. Biology is the study of life - by definition. How can that not include culture?

I don't know exactly what has happened, here, but it is obviously pretty messed up. Biologists should be embarassed and ashamed of their crappy classifcation schemes. What were they thinking? How come they have made such an enormous screw up? I don't have all the answers, but I suspect that "the social sciences" might have something to do with it. Apparently, anything to do with humans comes under the remit of the social sciences - and they have got stuck in a murky backwater for decades, with many of the practitioners not accepting the scientific method, not accepting evolution, not accepting cultural evolution, or promoting various other sorts of archaic nonsense. Even so, it takes two to tango. If the social sciences want to monopolize the science of human behavior, other biologists don't have to let them. Biologists should stand up and fight for culture to also be within their remit.

Look at a car - for example? Is it an animal? No. Is it vegetable? No. Is it mineral? No. It is something else. That many biologists can't sensibly classify such a common object reflects badly on them. They have screwed up. It is time for them to make amends.