The ability to create everything we create was given to us by evolution, so anything we do to affect our evolution is natural. Why does everybody see man and nature as two disparate things? We are part of nature.
You could argue that evolution has also given us morals, but it has also given us the ability to ignore them. It all boils down to the fact that if you can breed BY ANY MEANS you are successful from an evolutionary standpoint. Evolution couldn't give a damn whether you consider those means moral. Of course, if you employ some of the less tasteful means, then society (another product of evolution) will probably take steps to prevent your evolutionary success, whether by murdering you in the name of justice, or by locking you up.
EVOLUTION HAS NO MORALS therefore trying to make a moralistic argument based on the principles of evolution is a non sequitur. It has one goal - pass on your genes. If you can do that despite what your genes are, then you've still succeeded. An evolutionary pressure circumvented is no pressure at all. If man tried to live in polar regions without clothes, then either evolution of fur/blubber would have to happen, or he could just make some clothes and make that evolution unnecessary. Morally, this might be quite different from the topic at hand, but to evolution its all the same.
Then surely vegetarianism is the answer - feed the grain to the people, not the cows. Cut out the middle man.
If and when we reach a crisis (which we may already have done) then birth rates will drop due to starvation. And the population will either fall or reach an equilibrium with what is sustainable. Eventually it will happen, and it might take a long time, but it will happen. As has been pointed out, resources are finite, and therefore there is a maximum sustainable population. Like all other species, we have overshot our maximum sustainable population, but that can't go on forever, and population will fall or a way will have to be found to increase the maximum sustainable population. The problem is not only soluble, but it is inevitable that it will be solved. We might not like the solution, but thats a different kettle of fish.
Has it not occured to you that there are more than just genetic reasons for sterility?
Women who have damaged wombs due to disease or injury will also benefit from this technology.
Women who are genetically sterile, ie cannot produce viable ova would be unable to directly take advantage of this technology anyway - it takes more than a womb to make a baby. Screening of the genetic material to be used would no doubt take place to reduce cost - and this already happens in treatments such as IVF.
As for beating evolution, put simply, you can't. If you remove a selective pressure, then you're not beating evolution, you're just moving the goalposts. If you remove the effect of the "bad gene" then it ceases to be a "bad gene". If we somehow then lose the ability to control the effects of these genes, then yes, it becomes a bad gene again, but altering the environment alters the evolutionary pressure.
The ability to farm crops gives us an evolutionary advantage. Is this "beating evolution"?
The ability to produce medicines gives us an evolutionary advantage. Is this "beating evolution"?
IVF gives an evolutionary advantage. Is this "beating evolution"?
Like all technology/knowledge, this is neither inherently good or inherently bad - its what you do with it that counts.
Using it to allow otherwise childless couples to reproduce is no more or less morally reprehensible than other fertility treatments. Using it to mass produce humans in a fashion similar to Huxley's Brave New World, The Matrix, Star Wars or whatever cultural reference you wish to use, would be morally reprehensible.
If you deny God's existence, then you might have less qualms about reproducing the work that, to you, he didn't do. Plus, if you deny it happened, then you would hardly see it as duplication of His work.
Geographical isolation is one of the most powerful driving forces in speciation and evolution, so even if you make the environments exactly the same, you can't expect the same behaviour to arise. It might turn out that it does always turn out the same, but the point is that evolution is an emergent phenomenon - you can't say whats going to happen without running an exact simulation, in which case you haven't made a prediction. I am also very interested in computer simulations of this sort - I've already exhausted (my tolerance) of variations of Conway's life, and am now looking into the same sort of thing you are talking about. Good luck.
You're still right - how are the audience participating by observing and screaming at robots which have no way of knowing they are there? The only way to interact would be to stand t the sidelines with an IR to confuse their recognition systems, or with an ordinary light to feed the the prey with "mana from heaven". Maybe we can set up a belief system....
...which makes this pretty stupid. The whole idea of evolution is built upon "selection" i.e. the robot that does best has most offspring. Just looking at survival rate is a measure for measuring fitness, but it's too crude a method for improving ones genes. Besides that now every surviving bot has the same amount of fitness (offspring). That seems to be some binary kind of selection which I at least have never come across in real life. Randomly mixing genes is therefore 'not' a good method to mimick nature.
But there is selection - only the bots that survive a certain length of time get to reproduce by uploading their "genetic material" - I assume by wireless networking - with the dead bots being programmed and reborn with the resultant new behaviour patterns. That means that the ones surviving longest produce most offspring. That allows for both effective strategy and dumb luck, both of which exist in real evolutionary environments. The strategy of surviving by dumb luck isn't viable, but capitalising on incidental dumb luck is.
Randomly mixing genes is pretty much what will happen if physically indistinguishable mates exist. Merely surviving, in this instance, is enough evidence of suitability to reproduce.
I don't think that 30 minutes is the limit on every show. It seems a bit vague, but I think that on the first day, shows will be given to introduce the robots, but after this initial opening, the system will be left to run.
No, but if you placed lion and gazelle in something that was not their natural environment, then over time they would evolve new behaviour patterns to cope with their new environment. And that is (behavioural) evolution.
Your example that they would learn to prey off each other is flawed - they don't have the physical capability, just as gazelle would get nowhere trying to eat other gazelle.
No, they're not showing intelligence, you're right, but the field of AI, paradoxically, covers more than just intelligence. And to say that an adaptive, selective environment cannot show evolution? I'll let you think about that one.
The simulation might benefit from some variation in the frequency emitted by the prey - so that as divergent behaviour arises, they might not "recognise" each other quite so well, and would emulate camouflage quite effectively as well, and would allow for your wolf in sheeps clothing, in a roundabout manner.
Their intelligence doesn't increase. Their ability to perform tricks to survive does.
They don't "know" they're performing the trick to survive, they just do it because thats what programming/instinct tells them to do.
Crickets/grasshoppers have been performing acoustical analysis for millions of years that humans were unable to perform until very recently - does that make crickets more intelligent than humans?
Your example requires that the predator doesn't completely drain the prey (one of my alternatives for feeding), therefore leaving food for the other predators. I might not often sit down and eat a whole cow, but if for some reason I did, and there was only one cow, then everybody else would starve.
Not really - the tendency could arise from the random changes in behaviour generated at each breeding. The problem would be that it depends on pack behaviour arising first.
Have you actually read the articles?
Most of your objections are groundless, and your proposed programming of complex behaviour, while possible, would defeat the object of the study.
They do have learning ability. They do breed. They are different in design.
In which case the predator is not a predator, but a parasite. What will determine this is whether the predators drain the power from the prey
a) until their own battery is full
b)until the prey battery is empty
c)Until their own battery is full, and then discharge the rest to kill off the prey.
I don't know if varying feeding time is part of their program, but I hope it is, otherwise thew experiment means very little.
Also, what happens if a predator catches a meal while it is under one of the lights?
As far as I can tell, as I haven't seen the code, while my interest in AI and robotics really wants me to, there is nothing to stop them fighting back - thats a behoviour they can learn as well - if the prey learn to herd, then presumably, while the predator is chasing one prey, others could ram him in the side, and immobilise him.
The behaviour possible is almost limitless, assuming they haven't made any glaring errors in the code.
We're not teaching them it. They're learning it. And thats what animals in the wild do, and thats what our ancestors did. Its becoming increasingly evident in the field of AI that to achieve AI you have to start with something that isn't AI and let it learn.
Have you read both articles?
The robits breed by uploading their "genes" (control strategies) to a central computer. If they survive past a certain age, then all of the surviving robots get paired off randomly, and their control strategies are randomly mixed, with an added random mutation. The new generation of robots is then assigned new control regimes from those generated. Its a study in evolutionary behaviour, and not physical change.
Is anybody else a little bit wary of the third evolution thread in a few days?
The flood is plausible, and corroborated by several accounts across the world. Don't gewt me wrong, I'm not saying God did it.
But, at the end of the last ice age, 10K years ago (shit, thats 4k before the earth existed) there would have been significant climate change, not to mention a lot of ice melting. There's also the theory (supported by Einstein) that uneven ice formation round the poles caused massive simultaneous tectonic plate movement, which would result in climate change (as much as 15 degrees C in a 50 year period) and cause tidal waves, tsunami, lots of rain, and mass extinction of certain species, like the woolly mammoth.
An animal that can survive in a marine environment just cannot migrate to land, no matter how many legs it has.
Other people have given (IMO) fallacious examples of disproof of this argument, but I will give you one to think about. Many insects have waterborne larvae, which, once developed take to the skies, and/or land.
Slashdot Mirror
You could argue that evolution has also given us morals, but it has also given us the ability to ignore them. It all boils down to the fact that if you can breed BY ANY MEANS you are successful from an evolutionary standpoint. Evolution couldn't give a damn whether you consider those means moral. Of course, if you employ some of the less tasteful means, then society (another product of evolution) will probably take steps to prevent your evolutionary success, whether by murdering you in the name of justice, or by locking you up.
EVOLUTION HAS NO MORALS therefore trying to make a moralistic argument based on the principles of evolution is a non sequitur. It has one goal - pass on your genes. If you can do that despite what your genes are, then you've still succeeded. An evolutionary pressure circumvented is no pressure at all. If man tried to live in polar regions without clothes, then either evolution of fur/blubber would have to happen, or he could just make some clothes and make that evolution unnecessary. Morally, this might be quite different from the topic at hand, but to evolution its all the same.
If and when we reach a crisis (which we may already have done) then birth rates will drop due to starvation. And the population will either fall or reach an equilibrium with what is sustainable. Eventually it will happen, and it might take a long time, but it will happen. As has been pointed out, resources are finite, and therefore there is a maximum sustainable population. Like all other species, we have overshot our maximum sustainable population, but that can't go on forever, and population will fall or a way will have to be found to increase the maximum sustainable population. The problem is not only soluble, but it is inevitable that it will be solved. We might not like the solution, but thats a different kettle of fish.
Women who are genetically sterile, ie cannot produce viable ova would be unable to directly take advantage of this technology anyway - it takes more than a womb to make a baby. Screening of the genetic material to be used would no doubt take place to reduce cost - and this already happens in treatments such as IVF.
As for beating evolution, put simply, you can't. If you remove a selective pressure, then you're not beating evolution, you're just moving the goalposts. If you remove the effect of the "bad gene" then it ceases to be a "bad gene". If we somehow then lose the ability to control the effects of these genes, then yes, it becomes a bad gene again, but altering the environment alters the evolutionary pressure.
The ability to farm crops gives us an evolutionary advantage. Is this "beating evolution"?
The ability to produce medicines gives us an evolutionary advantage. Is this "beating evolution"?
IVF gives an evolutionary advantage. Is this "beating evolution"?
Like all technology/knowledge, this is neither inherently good or inherently bad - its what you do with it that counts.
Using it to allow otherwise childless couples to reproduce is no more or less morally reprehensible than other fertility treatments. Using it to mass produce humans in a fashion similar to Huxley's Brave New World, The Matrix, Star Wars or whatever cultural reference you wish to use, would be morally reprehensible.
If you deny God's existence, then you might have less qualms about reproducing the work that, to you, he didn't do. Plus, if you deny it happened, then you would hardly see it as duplication of His work.
Senator Palpatine will be pleased.
D'oh!
Geographical isolation is one of the most powerful driving forces in speciation and evolution, so even if you make the environments exactly the same, you can't expect the same behaviour to arise. It might turn out that it does always turn out the same, but the point is that evolution is an emergent phenomenon - you can't say whats going to happen without running an exact simulation, in which case you haven't made a prediction.
I am also very interested in computer simulations of this sort - I've already exhausted (my tolerance) of variations of Conway's life, and am now looking into the same sort of thing you are talking about. Good luck.
But the words are arbitrary.
You're still right - how are the audience participating by observing and screaming at robots which have no way of knowing they are there?
The only way to interact would be to stand t the sidelines with an IR to confuse their recognition systems, or with an ordinary light to feed the the prey with "mana from heaven". Maybe we can set up a belief system....
Randomly mixing genes is pretty much what will happen if physically indistinguishable mates exist. Merely surviving, in this instance, is enough evidence of suitability to reproduce.
I don't think that 30 minutes is the limit on every show. It seems a bit vague, but I think that on the first day, shows will be given to introduce the robots, but after this initial opening, the system will be left to run.
No, but if you placed lion and gazelle in something that was not their natural environment, then over time they would evolve new behaviour patterns to cope with their new environment. And that is (behavioural) evolution.
Your example that they would learn to prey off each other is flawed - they don't have the physical capability, just as gazelle would get nowhere trying to eat other gazelle.
No, they're not showing intelligence, you're right, but the field of AI, paradoxically, covers more than just intelligence. And to say that an adaptive, selective environment cannot show evolution? I'll let you think about that one.
The simulation might benefit from some variation in the frequency emitted by the prey - so that as divergent behaviour arises, they might not "recognise" each other quite so well, and would emulate camouflage quite effectively as well, and would allow for your wolf in sheeps clothing, in a roundabout manner.
Their intelligence doesn't increase. Their ability to perform tricks to survive does.
They don't "know" they're performing the trick to survive, they just do it because thats what programming/instinct tells them to do.
Crickets/grasshoppers have been performing acoustical analysis for millions of years that humans were unable to perform until very recently - does that make crickets more intelligent than humans?
Your example requires that the predator doesn't completely drain the prey (one of my alternatives for feeding), therefore leaving food for the other predators. I might not often sit down and eat a whole cow, but if for some reason I did, and there was only one cow, then everybody else would starve.
Not really - the tendency could arise from the random changes in behaviour generated at each breeding. The problem would be that it depends on pack behaviour arising first.
Most of your objections are groundless, and your proposed programming of complex behaviour, while possible, would defeat the object of the study.
They do have learning ability. They do breed. They are different in design.
Dr Strangelove isn't that obscure.....
Replication is going on - read both articles.
a) until their own battery is full
b)until the prey battery is empty
c)Until their own battery is full, and then discharge the rest to kill off the prey.
I don't know if varying feeding time is part of their program, but I hope it is, otherwise thew experiment means very little.
Also, what happens if a predator catches a meal while it is under one of the lights?
As far as I can tell, as I haven't seen the code, while my interest in AI and robotics really wants me to, there is nothing to stop them fighting back - thats a behoviour they can learn as well - if the prey learn to herd, then presumably, while the predator is chasing one prey, others could ram him in the side, and immobilise him.
The behaviour possible is almost limitless, assuming they haven't made any glaring errors in the code.
We're not teaching them it. They're learning it. And thats what animals in the wild do, and thats what our ancestors did. Its becoming increasingly evident in the field of AI that to achieve AI you have to start with something that isn't AI and let it learn.
Yes there are random mutations. Yes there is death. RTFArticles
Is anybody else a little bit wary of the third evolution thread in a few days?
And you're an Anonymous Coward.
Do you actually know what a moron is?
I await your cutnpaste reply.
The flood is plausible, and corroborated by several accounts across the world.
Don't gewt me wrong, I'm not saying God did it.
But, at the end of the last ice age, 10K years ago (shit, thats 4k before the earth existed) there would have been significant climate change, not to mention a lot of ice melting.
There's also the theory (supported by Einstein) that uneven ice formation round the poles caused massive simultaneous tectonic plate movement, which would result in climate change (as much as 15 degrees C in a 50 year period) and cause tidal waves, tsunami, lots of rain, and mass extinction of certain species, like the woolly mammoth.