6 ms·
If you take the idea of genes as the target of evolution seriously, then every possible "bargain" between different genes that moves towards a pareto optimal fo
by alphazard 1y ago
If you take the idea of genes as the target of evolution seriously, then every possible "bargain" between different genes that moves towards a pareto optimal for those genes, will eventually be discovered through the brute force search.
- IAmBroom 1y agoAssuming no extinction, climate change, nor heat death of the universe. Evolution is not a particularly fast optimizer, on the scale of human perception.
- heavyset_go 1y agoEvolution as we know it works on Earth because it is a relatively protected and stable environment, giving genes the time they need to explore a space and adapt to the relatively slow and small changes on Earth.
- NonHyloMorph 1y agoImho genes are not what if at all should be attributed aggncy here (that might, if at all, be the decentralised sympoietic process of ecosystems) Just wanted to add this, i see where the formulation is useful as a figure of speech.
- graemep 1y agoClimate change? Climate change produces a changed environment. It actually drives more evolution to adapt to that changed environment. Even very sudden changes such as some that caused mass extinctions, it just changed the direction of evolution. The only species that stopped evolving were those that went extinct. No more dinosaurs (bar birds) but lots more mammals.
- ajkjk 1y agobrute force search can still be limited in the states it can reach. If there's some limitation on the types of moves you can make, which presumably there is, then you're limited to states that have paths between them.
- philipov 1y agoAnd in Pareto, there's a rule like that built in because you're only allowed to make moves that increase utility. You're not allowed to move backwards, which can lead to getting trapped in a local maximum.
- jiggawatts 1y agoThat’s not precisely correct, because there is some “noise” in the system. Also, multiple genes can have competing effects, so one gene’s individual fitness can be suppressed by another.
- teiferer 1y agoThat's the exact opposite of random mutation.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ajuc 1y agoThe mutations are like little nudges to throw you off the local maximum. And there's junk DNA where mutations can accumulate over time without being subject to selection before getting enabled at random to see if they give you an advantage. I think both the amount of junk DNA and the mutation rate are themselves subject to evolution for the best trade-off.
- immibis 1y agoNote that most "junk DNA" is just DNA with a purpose we don't understand (originally, all DNA that didn't code for proteins). Some of it is true junk, of course.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- jcims 1y agoI still struggle with the brute force search a bit. Just naively a very small gene has 4^500 possible combinations.
- Tagbert 1y agoIt is possible that not all combinations are equally likely.
- jcims 1y agoYeah it's working so something's going on .
- HarHarVeryFunny 1y agoGenetic variation from one generation to the next is incremental - not a matter of tearing it all up and try some something random, not brute force exploring our way through all combinations. Evolution seems more like building a tree where mostly all you can do is ascend the tree and add finer detail, leaving the trunk and branches (our evolutionary history) in place. It seems unlikely that, say, vertebrates are in the future going to "undo" the major evolutionary developments of the past and lose their skeleton, body symmetry, number of limbs, lungs, alimentary canal, nervous system, brain, etc. We see things like these developing in the evolutionary tree and mostly staying in place once created. Sure some fins turned to limbs, some gills to ears, but once things like that happened they seem to stay in place. I wonder what evolution would look like if we could see it sped up from the origin of life to billions of years into the future? A building up of complexity to begin with, but those major branches of the evolutionary tree remaining pretty stable it would seem. Continual ongoing change, but of smaller and smaller scope, perhaps - building on what came before.
- thaumasiotes 1y ago> It seems unlikely that, say, vertebrates are in the future going to "undo" the major evolutionary developments of the past and lose their skeleton, body symmetry, number of limbs, lungs, alimentary canal, nervous system, brain, etc. We see things like these developing in the evolutionary tree and mostly staying in place once created. Try looking at whale skeletons over time. What isn't beneficial gets undone.
- szundi 1y ago[dead]
- cgio 1y agoThat’s interesting! What other crazy types of bargains have we seen before or could someone imagine?
- tsunamifury 1y agoThis assumes multiple infinite axis which certainly don’t exist and is therefore false. Any early branch can infinitely on that confined branch. It means the billions of other possible branches may never be explored even given infinite time. Counter would be the evolutionary fill theory where any branch can become any other branch given an environment.