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>” Meme” is referring to ideas, not jpegs. Would you be surprised to learn that jpegs represent ideas and I’ve read the selfish gene? > Rocks and weather don’

by RC_ITR 4y ago

>” Meme” is referring to ideas, not jpegs. Would you be surprised to learn that jpegs represent ideas and I’ve read the selfish gene? > Rocks and weather don’t reproduce with some random error. Any system that does will evolve. Rocks reproduce - it’s called sandstone (one rock decays into sand and another rock incorporates it into a new rock). Give me the way that’s different than biological reproduction.

ethanbond 4y ago
It would surprise me to learn that, yes! Sure: biological systems contain meaningful information from many many many prior generations. Rocks don’t. Rocks are “wiped clean” of information every time they dissolve. Same with weather systems. Of course there’s some highly chaotic cause-and-effect that impacts the processes, but the defining trait of a biological/replicating system is that they are resistant to this chaos. Not only does a dog from 5 generations ago still look like a dog (which requires way more internal order than looking like a rock), but you can see actual specific traits in common between a dog of 5 generations ago and all of its descendants. In one system (rocks and weather), the only source of consistency is the highly chaotic way materials actually get mixed together. In other systems (biological), that same thing is the only source of inconsistency.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  > Rocks are “wiped clean” of information every time they dissolve. Same with weather systems. I won't go into why this isn't true (things are made of atoms and unless there's nuclear processes going on, those atoms stay the same). But anyway, software evolves like rocks (even by your definition), not biological organisms - it can be changed each generation without defined constraints! It can revert changes that were made in previous generations! It can just sit around indefinitely and not change while still surviving! (IDK how to make this point more clear).
  - ethanbond 4y ago
    Nobody claimed that all software evolves like a biological system? The claim is that they can be made to do that.

by RC_ITR 4y ago

ethanbond 4y ago

It would surprise me to learn that, yes! Sure: biological systems contain meaningful information from many many many prior generations. Rocks don’t. Rocks are “wiped clean” of information every time they dissolve. Same with weather systems. Of course there’s some highly chaotic cause-and-effect that impacts the processes, but the defining trait of a biological/replicating system is that they are resistant to this chaos. Not only does a dog from 5 generations ago still look like a dog (which requires way more internal order than looking like a rock), but you can see actual specific traits in common between a dog of 5 generations ago and all of its descendants. In one system (rocks and weather), the only source of consistency is the highly chaotic way materials actually get mixed together. In other systems (biological), that same thing is the only source of inconsistency.

RC_ITR 4y ago
> Rocks are “wiped clean” of information every time they dissolve. Same with weather systems. I won't go into why this isn't true (things are made of atoms and unless there's nuclear processes going on, those atoms stay the same). But anyway, software evolves like rocks (even by your definition), not biological organisms - it can be changed each generation without defined constraints! It can revert changes that were made in previous generations! It can just sit around indefinitely and not change while still surviving! (IDK how to make this point more clear).
- ethanbond 4y ago
  Nobody claimed that all software evolves like a biological system? The claim is that they can be made to do that.