The use of "darwinism" seems like another way of just saying "thermodynamics". I assume though that physicists are smarter than I, at least when it comes to physics, so can someone explain what else there might be to this than "local minima"?
What even is 'Darwinism'? Are diamonds reproducing and competing amongst themselves for scarce resources in a tragic Malthusian drama, leaving only the fit diamonds to survive? Is this how we account for the wide variety of diamond species that we see in the wild? Is this how the favored diamond races are preserved in their struggle for life?
A general notion of "universal Darwinism" exists, whereby any system that implements variation, selection, and retention is said to exhibit "Darwinism".
Ah I see. I now propose the theories of typing Darwinism, shopping Darwinism, snacking Darwinism, 'making up my mind' Darwinism, Darwinism Darwinism, 'picking my boogers' Darwinism, 'doing my homework' Darwinism, 'programming' Darwinism. We should come up with a Darwin award for all the different sorts of Darwin theories and the most Darwinian of them all.
Actually many of those "darwinisms" can be classified under "cultural darwinism", so you are quite right :) I wrote my master thesis on "Stanislaw Lem's evolutionary view of development of technology" - just another darwinian view. The definition is so universal, that universal darwinism [1] is natural consequence (althought I'd prefer term "evolutionary", too).
If everything is 'Darwinism,' what's the point of the theory? What does it tell us? What explanatory power does it have? What possibilities does it exclude?
Darwin's original theory was groundbreaking because it could explain how you can get a large variety of species from one or a few simple organisms. But, if all one has to do to have a brilliant insight is to prefix 'Darwinian' to any process of change, then it all seems exceedingly pointless. I can write an app where you give it a name, and it prefixes 'Darwinian' and now you have a brilliant insight. I can replace a whole host of researchers with a Python script. It just seems ridiculous.
The previous comment was fairly clear: it's not any process of change, it is evolution within a system that has mechanisms of variation, selection and heredity.
My point is that there are so many processes that fit under that characterization that it seems fairly meaningless to prefix "Darwinism". Plus, that something follows a process of variation, selection and heredity seems fairly uninformative. I still fail to see why it is considered such a breakthrough, as per all my tongue in cheek examples.
I don't think it's meaningless; it's a tool or perspective that can be used to explain and predict observations in systems that possess certain characteristics.
A loose analogy could be made with e.g. systems that have an observed variable which responds linearly to an input. This applies to a very wide array of systems. The theory of linear dynamics was nevertheless an insightful breakthrough at the time, and it's still interesting to explore whether particular systems can be modeled effectively with it.
That's a well-posed question, and after some thought I think the answer is simply: those units of replication which are better adapted to surviving and replicating in their environment, will spread and thrive.
I understand that this seems like a tautology, but I think that is actually the first part of Darwin's genius. Once the model is understood, then the outcomes appear obvious, at least at small scales. The second part of the genius is to grasp how small changes can build up over immense time scales to produce a plethora of species large and small.
When it comes to "universal darwinism", the idea that first springs to mind is the theory of memetics, somewhat like cultural evolution via natural selection. A quick google suggests some movement is being made towards formalising this into a predictive science [0].
Also, I think that the explanatory power of a model can be just as helpful to us as the predictive power. For example the interplay of memetic and genetic selection gives satisfying explanations for behavioural phenomena that can be tough to accept on purely genetic grounds [1]. The existence of purely celibate positions of authority in many societies (shaman, priest, monk...) can be explained on the grounds that the "meme" defined by such a position frees up a lot of the host's energy. They no longer have to spend time and effort on maintaining a family or gathering food, and this energy can then be poured into spreading the meme to the next generation. I think you could even make a concrete prediction on similar grounds: there will continue to be strong groups forming around an idea of celibacy well into the future, such as is happening now with "incel" and "journey to purity" groups.
Evolution is learning, so this implies that learning in some form is intrinsic to matter and that the quantum->classical transition represents some kind of learning process, which is absolutely fascinating. I also think it has implications for the question of life's origins and perhaps supports a super-gradualist hypothesis in which life as we call it is merely an extreme expression of certain universal characteristics of matter. This doesn't necessarily imply really extreme ideas like panpsychism (the idea that consciousness in some sense is ubiquitous), but it doesn't rule them out either.
This is why they really shouldn't call it "Darwinism". I won't say it's completely certain you're wrong, but I think you're extracting way more meaning from the fuzzy term "Darwinism" than the mathematics of this concept justifies... like, waaaay more meaning. It's possible this might end up there, but only via a lot more steps. On its own terms this is like talking about how important wave function collapse is because it shows how the universe is biased towards consciousness or how it must have wanted life... it isn't necessarily possible to completely eliminate the possibility in the most rigorous sense, but there's just a hair's breadth separating those phrases from outright word salad.
Any Darwinian theory should clearly explain the mechanism for selection.
The selection mechanism for quantum darwinism is usually said to be "those states that agree with classical mechanics". This seems like extreme circular reasoning when the goal of the theory is to explain why/how QM experiments result in classical observations.
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[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 62.9 ms ] threadQuantum mechanics doesn't care about the mechanism
t. "observer"
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Darwinism
Darwin's original theory was groundbreaking because it could explain how you can get a large variety of species from one or a few simple organisms. But, if all one has to do to have a brilliant insight is to prefix 'Darwinian' to any process of change, then it all seems exceedingly pointless. I can write an app where you give it a name, and it prefixes 'Darwinian' and now you have a brilliant insight. I can replace a whole host of researchers with a Python script. It just seems ridiculous.
Not everything is Darwinism. Darwinism trajectories in the parameter space are driven by local optimization.
>What does it tell us? What explanatory power does it have? What possibilities does it exclude?
well, as usual. You define your topological space and find a solution for your local optimization problem. Bingo :)
The previous comment was fairly clear: it's not any process of change, it is evolution within a system that has mechanisms of variation, selection and heredity.
A loose analogy could be made with e.g. systems that have an observed variable which responds linearly to an input. This applies to a very wide array of systems. The theory of linear dynamics was nevertheless an insightful breakthrough at the time, and it's still interesting to explore whether particular systems can be modeled effectively with it.
I understand that this seems like a tautology, but I think that is actually the first part of Darwin's genius. Once the model is understood, then the outcomes appear obvious, at least at small scales. The second part of the genius is to grasp how small changes can build up over immense time scales to produce a plethora of species large and small.
When it comes to "universal darwinism", the idea that first springs to mind is the theory of memetics, somewhat like cultural evolution via natural selection. A quick google suggests some movement is being made towards formalising this into a predictive science [0].
Also, I think that the explanatory power of a model can be just as helpful to us as the predictive power. For example the interplay of memetic and genetic selection gives satisfying explanations for behavioural phenomena that can be tough to accept on purely genetic grounds [1]. The existence of purely celibate positions of authority in many societies (shaman, priest, monk...) can be explained on the grounds that the "meme" defined by such a position frees up a lot of the host's energy. They no longer have to spend time and effort on maintaining a family or gathering food, and this energy can then be poured into spreading the meme to the next generation. I think you could even make a concrete prediction on similar grounds: there will continue to be strong groups forming around an idea of celibacy well into the future, such as is happening now with "incel" and "journey to purity" groups.
[0] https://www.ies.be/files/metaspaper.pdf
[1] http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MEMGEN.html
The selection mechanism for quantum darwinism is usually said to be "those states that agree with classical mechanics". This seems like extreme circular reasoning when the goal of the theory is to explain why/how QM experiments result in classical observations.