4 ms·

While your objection is technically correct it can still be useful (ie simple, straightforward, etc) to phrase things in terms of a goal. Since a goal (pursued

While your objection is technically correct it can still be useful (ie simple, straightforward, etc) to phrase things in terms of a goal. Since a goal (pursued by an intelligent being) and optimization pressure (a property of a blind process) are approximately the same thing in the end. In other words, Anthropomorphization can be useful despite not being true in a literal sense. Certainly this can be misleading to the layman. The term "observer" in quantum mechanics suffers similarly.

IanCal 11mo ago
It’s a useful start to move away from “it’s just random” but it’s just so different it doesn’t help in many cases. It’s not approximately the same.
PaulDavisThe1st 11mo ago
No. "Optimization pressure" makes it sound as if there is a single metric for optimization, whereas there are a constantly shifting set of different metrics. Worse (or more precisely, more complex) there are frequently multiple different "solutions" for a given metric, and evolution doesn't care. Put a little differently, there is no "optimization" pressure at all: evolution is not attempting to optimize anything (*). Trying to fit anthropomorphized design onto a process that is absolutely the opposite of that in every way (no intent, multiple outcomes, no optimization) just leads people to not think clearly about this sort of thing. (*) no, not even "reproductive fitness" - rates of reproduction are subject to massive amounts of environmental "noise", to the degree that minor improvements in offspring survivability will often be invisible over anything other than the very long term. Further, the most desirable rates of reproduction will also vary over time, leading to what once may have appeared to be an improvement into a liability (and vice versa, of course).
- tialaramex 11mo ago
  Right. It's extremely unlikely that "unable to synthesize Vitamin C" would ever have actively been selected for. But it was also unlikely to be strongly selected against in any version of humans or their near ancestors which have access to basically any common food. So, randomly this pathway is deleted in our species, but there won't be a satisfying "just so" explanation, it's just blind luck. I happen to think we should fix it, most people either don't care or believe we shouldn't.
  - fc417fc802 11mo ago
    Framed in anthropomorphized terms this would look something like the goal of humans as a species is not the synthesis of vitamin C but rather mere survival. Walking a path where we come to depend on external sources is not necessarily at odds with that. Or more generally: Why did I do that specific thing? No particular reason, it just happened to work. After all, I managed not to fall off the platform for another few seconds. No telling what the future will bring. As long as we're thinking about anthropomorphization it's amusing to note that vitamin C synthesis can be framed as a species level tragedy of the commons. In that case you are simply advocating that we as a species make the responsible choice not to participate in a race to the bottom!
- fc417fc802 11mo ago
  You're being overly literal. It's not "trying to fit anthropomorphized design onto a process" but rather "using anthropomorphization as a descriptive tool". This situation is not unlike when someone takes issue with an analogy due to erroneously interpreting it as a direct comparison. > here are frequently multiple different "solutions" for a given metric So too are there multiple different options when working towards any nontrivial goal in the real world. In the context of stochastic optimization the multi-armed bandit problem is a rather well known concept. > evolution is not attempting to optimize anything For the purpose of communication (of some other idea) it could be reasonable to say that the human race merely wants survival first and foremost. That is what evolution is after, at least in a sense. Of course that is not technically correct. Pointing out technical inconsistencies isn't going to convince me that I'm in the wrong here because I've already explicitly acknowledged their presence and explained why as far as I'm concerned objecting to them is simply missing the point. Switching to a technical angle, to claim that evolution is not optimizing is to claim that water doesn't flow downhill but rather molecules just happen to vibrate and move around at random. It's completely ignoring the broader context. Evolution happens at a species level. It's an abstract concept inherently tied to other abstract concepts such as optimization and survival.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 11mo ago
    and you are missing my point that trying to help people understand a process that has no design element as if it was one that did actually does them (and the process) a disservice, possibly a great disservice.
    - card_zero 11mo ago
      I've told people off for using the pathetic fallacy too, in the past, I guess I just said "what do mushrooms want" for the sake of rhetoric. Well, because it would be funny. Fine then, I was trolling. Thanks to your discussion though, I'm now wondering how to square the idea that evolution produces knowledge with the idea that it doesn't optimize even for reproductive fitness. I think you're technically incorrect there: it's that it doesn't optimize exclusively in the short term or by any one obvious strategy. The bottom line is that what survives survives, though, you can't argue with a tautology. Even if what survives is a sloth or a sleeper shark or a bristlecone or (imagine) a single infertile but incredibly tough organism, it still had to find a way (alright, stumble into a way). Maybe your objection is just that "optimize for" implies intent, but intentless-purism in language for biologists is as hard as pastless-purism in language for time travellers.
gary_0 11mo ago
A more intuitive and natural phrasing, even though it's invalid in a technical sense. I've noticed this happens when people talk about computers/software as well ("it thinks the variable is set", "it freaks out if it doesn't get a response", etc). Outside of formal writing/presentations, using only technical terminology seems to take a suboptimal amount of effort for both speaker and listener compared to anthropomorphizing (unless, as you mention, the listener is a layman who gets the wrong idea).
jacquesm 11mo ago
It definitely is not useful. Your model should at least attempt to approximate reality, not to depart from it by putting effect before the cause. That way lies madness.
- fc417fc802 11mo ago
  It is not a model. It is a description. I'm torn on whether it would be correct to refer to the approach as constituting a sort of analogy. No idea why you think the effect is being put before the cause. I'm hungry so I head to the kitchen. An observer says "he wants to eat". Antibiotics are administered. Only the bacterial cells expressing a certain set of proteins survive. An observer says "the infection wants to be resistant".
  - uplifter 11mo ago
    > An observer says "the infection wants to be resistant" I can confidently claim that literally nobody says this because a google search for this exact phrase has only one result, and its this thread.[0] Really though, I have never met a biologist who thought this way. All of the ones I've met and worked with knew that development of antibiotic resistance is not in any way like a decision process, and they usually understood on an intuitive level that bacterial cultures don't have a goal of developing the capability. Its just something that evolves, which is a distinct category of process. Talking about it the other anthropomorphic way, like you claim is normal and acceptable, just confuses things; it is the opposite of helpful analogy. Infections don't "want" anything, they are better understood using the details of their actual biomolecular mechanics, which are about as far different from how brains work as could be imagined. [0]https://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+infection+wants+to+be+resistant%22& https://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+infection+wants+to+be...
  - jacquesm 11mo ago
    > An observer says "the infection wants to be resistant". That's complete bs. Infections don't want anything. You're stuck in a loop of your own making, the only way out is to backtrack, not to keep on digging. These lines of thinking were discredited many years ago and since then the field has seen enormous progress, anthropomorphize all you want but reality does not care.

IanCal 11mo ago

It’s a useful start to move away from “it’s just random” but it’s just so different it doesn’t help in many cases. It’s not approximately the same.

PaulDavisThe1st 11mo ago

No. "Optimization pressure" makes it sound as if there is a single metric for optimization, whereas there are a constantly shifting set of different metrics. Worse (or more precisely, more complex) there are frequently multiple different "solutions" for a given metric, and evolution doesn't care. Put a little differently, there is no "optimization" pressure at all: evolution is not attempting to optimize anything (*). Trying to fit anthropomorphized design onto a process that is absolutely the opposite of that in every way (no intent, multiple outcomes, no optimization) just leads people to not think clearly about this sort of thing. (*) no, not even "reproductive fitness" - rates of reproduction are subject to massive amounts of environmental "noise", to the degree that minor improvements in offspring survivability will often be invisible over anything other than the very long term. Further, the most desirable rates of reproduction will also vary over time, leading to what once may have appeared to be an improvement into a liability (and vice versa, of course).

tialaramex 11mo ago
Right. It's extremely unlikely that "unable to synthesize Vitamin C" would ever have actively been selected for. But it was also unlikely to be strongly selected against in any version of humans or their near ancestors which have access to basically any common food. So, randomly this pathway is deleted in our species, but there won't be a satisfying "just so" explanation, it's just blind luck. I happen to think we should fix it, most people either don't care or believe we shouldn't.
- fc417fc802 11mo ago
  Framed in anthropomorphized terms this would look something like the goal of humans as a species is not the synthesis of vitamin C but rather mere survival. Walking a path where we come to depend on external sources is not necessarily at odds with that. Or more generally: Why did I do that specific thing? No particular reason, it just happened to work. After all, I managed not to fall off the platform for another few seconds. No telling what the future will bring. As long as we're thinking about anthropomorphization it's amusing to note that vitamin C synthesis can be framed as a species level tragedy of the commons. In that case you are simply advocating that we as a species make the responsible choice not to participate in a race to the bottom!
fc417fc802 11mo ago
You're being overly literal. It's not "trying to fit anthropomorphized design onto a process" but rather "using anthropomorphization as a descriptive tool". This situation is not unlike when someone takes issue with an analogy due to erroneously interpreting it as a direct comparison. > here are frequently multiple different "solutions" for a given metric So too are there multiple different options when working towards any nontrivial goal in the real world. In the context of stochastic optimization the multi-armed bandit problem is a rather well known concept. > evolution is not attempting to optimize anything For the purpose of communication (of some other idea) it could be reasonable to say that the human race merely wants survival first and foremost. That is what evolution is after, at least in a sense. Of course that is not technically correct. Pointing out technical inconsistencies isn't going to convince me that I'm in the wrong here because I've already explicitly acknowledged their presence and explained why as far as I'm concerned objecting to them is simply missing the point. Switching to a technical angle, to claim that evolution is not optimizing is to claim that water doesn't flow downhill but rather molecules just happen to vibrate and move around at random. It's completely ignoring the broader context. Evolution happens at a species level. It's an abstract concept inherently tied to other abstract concepts such as optimization and survival.
- PaulDavisThe1st 11mo ago
  and you are missing my point that trying to help people understand a process that has no design element as if it was one that did actually does them (and the process) a disservice, possibly a great disservice.
  - card_zero 11mo ago
    I've told people off for using the pathetic fallacy too, in the past, I guess I just said "what do mushrooms want" for the sake of rhetoric. Well, because it would be funny. Fine then, I was trolling. Thanks to your discussion though, I'm now wondering how to square the idea that evolution produces knowledge with the idea that it doesn't optimize even for reproductive fitness. I think you're technically incorrect there: it's that it doesn't optimize exclusively in the short term or by any one obvious strategy. The bottom line is that what survives survives, though, you can't argue with a tautology. Even if what survives is a sloth or a sleeper shark or a bristlecone or (imagine) a single infertile but incredibly tough organism, it still had to find a way (alright, stumble into a way). Maybe your objection is just that "optimize for" implies intent, but intentless-purism in language for biologists is as hard as pastless-purism in language for time travellers.

gary_0 11mo ago

A more intuitive and natural phrasing, even though it's invalid in a technical sense. I've noticed this happens when people talk about computers/software as well ("it thinks the variable is set", "it freaks out if it doesn't get a response", etc). Outside of formal writing/presentations, using only technical terminology seems to take a suboptimal amount of effort for both speaker and listener compared to anthropomorphizing (unless, as you mention, the listener is a layman who gets the wrong idea).

jacquesm 11mo ago

It definitely is not useful. Your model should at least attempt to approximate reality, not to depart from it by putting effect before the cause. That way lies madness.

fc417fc802 11mo ago
It is not a model. It is a description. I'm torn on whether it would be correct to refer to the approach as constituting a sort of analogy. No idea why you think the effect is being put before the cause. I'm hungry so I head to the kitchen. An observer says "he wants to eat". Antibiotics are administered. Only the bacterial cells expressing a certain set of proteins survive. An observer says "the infection wants to be resistant".
- uplifter 11mo ago
  > An observer says "the infection wants to be resistant" I can confidently claim that literally nobody says this because a google search for this exact phrase has only one result, and its this thread.[0] Really though, I have never met a biologist who thought this way. All of the ones I've met and worked with knew that development of antibiotic resistance is not in any way like a decision process, and they usually understood on an intuitive level that bacterial cultures don't have a goal of developing the capability. Its just something that evolves, which is a distinct category of process. Talking about it the other anthropomorphic way, like you claim is normal and acceptable, just confuses things; it is the opposite of helpful analogy. Infections don't "want" anything, they are better understood using the details of their actual biomolecular mechanics, which are about as far different from how brains work as could be imagined. [0]https://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+infection+wants+to+be+resistant%22& https://www.google.com/search?q=%22the+infection+wants+to+be...
- jacquesm 11mo ago
  > An observer says "the infection wants to be resistant". That's complete bs. Infections don't want anything. You're stuck in a loop of your own making, the only way out is to backtrack, not to keep on digging. These lines of thinking were discredited many years ago and since then the field has seen enormous progress, anthropomorphize all you want but reality does not care.