Ants swarm like brains think

Though I think people if you are not thinking of evolution as an abstract thing already, you will categorize genetic algorithms as something that mimics evolutions rather than expressing or embodying it.

Richard Dawkins made this click for me with his concept of memes.

There is also an idea for universes evolution. It builds on (and flavours) the ideas for an anthropic universe. A Universe spawns child universes (in a black hole?) and these inherit most but not all (mutation) of the fundamental aspects of the parent universe.

If you want to get very wacky and go into 'simulated universe' speculations (I do!), evolution can play a role here too. If we were to create our own simulated universe, it would probably be some variation of our own.

I didn't remember the Kant connection (I can't seem to get to the end of a paragraph without forgetting the beginning). My definition is a kind of blurry augmentation of Physics & Metaphysics. Scientific or Philosophical aren't perfect synonyms for these but I think they give us a little more of a hint as to what kind of process to employ when thinking about them.

I think modern usage of the term dates to Aristotle's books: Physics & Metaphysics. 'Physics' is about nature and feels like a direct ancestor to modern science. 'Metaphysics' is pretty close to what we still call metaphysics. Most people think of these things (logic, ethics, epistemology as science).

Physical and metaphysical are the better terms. More accurate. But, I just don't like the associations most people have with them. Physics is impenetrable domain of extreme experts. Metaphysical doesn't have any expectation of rigor and every answer is equally valid. There are other problems like thinking of Metaphysics as completely separate and not impacting on physics like the mind/brain issue you discuss. I think to a modern, rigorous thinker the idea that the mind being a metaphysical concept which is embodies in a brain makes sense. It doesn't imply the kind of dualistic worldview usually associated with spirit and matter.

More directly, the book also addresses examples of swarm dynamics and intelligence.

"Self Organization in Biological Systems"

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7104.html

Interestingly, the whole "intelligent design" debate is a good proxy for 'evolution as intelligence' arguments. One side offers example of how biology/nature is 'designed' and the other finds explanations for how it is evolved. Evolution does seem intelligently designed. It exhibits problem solving.

The similarity between the way an intelligent human thinks and the way nature "thinks" is striking. It's striking to the point that simply defining nature as an intelligence (or even going further as defining it as an intelligent creator) doesn't seem out of the question. We know a lot about the mechanics of evolution. Less about the mechanics of human intelligence. In the absence of a better understanding of the latter, it's more or less just a semantic choice.

But, there could very well be a stronger connection. Maybe something similar to evolutionary intelligence powers human intelligence. Maybe both are instances of a more fundamental thing. I'm using 'emergence' as the placeholder in my brain for that fundamental principle/algorithm or collection of these. 'Emergence' also covers concepts from economics, culture and ecologies and finds logical solutions for things without the intervention of an intelligent human.

But no, I don't have good reading recommendations. If anyone does, I would love to hear them. Fiction, non-fiction. I would love to hear about these ideas from different perspectives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin's_Dangerous_Idea

DNA does seem too complex to have sprung into being fully formed. Also, DNA & RNA probably share a lineage which suggests they the are evolved.

The basic rules of the evolution game in the plant and animal kingdoms seem to be genes encoded in DNA passed through sexual reproduction. These are the mechanisms we think of when we think of evolution. Darwin didn't know about genes or DNA so he used "organisms" as the basic unit and that seems to work just as well. This is a pretty stable long term system. It seems to be the main way organisms evolve.

But, these aren't the only rules/mechanisms of biological evolution. For a start, it doesn't explain how these rules got written. We know that there are other mechanisms for inheritance of genetic traits, "epigenetic" seems to be the general word for them. Richard Dawkins describes "memes" as units of culture which evolve in societies. Humans are organisms.

The rules and mechanisms that govern evolution are certainly subject to change and there are various mechanisms, perhaps competing. For example, right now there is a transmittable cancer tearing through the Tasmanian Devil population. The cancerous cells are transmitted when devils bite each other. The cancer itself can be considered an organism, like a virus or a bacteria. It has cells and reproduction and genes. It behaves similarly to a bacteria or virus but it's a descendant of a tasmanian devil (or a devil's cell).

So we have an example of an leap (or fall). The basic rules got broken in a way that. The evolutionary unit (tasmanian devil) was ignored in favor of a new unit (cell). Most the rules that apply to the previous unit (eg sexual reproduction) no longer apply. It's a reminder that the genes themselves that are "trying" to reproduce. The cell is a vehicle for the gene. The organism is a vehicle for the cell.

Did "Devil Facial Tumour Disease" evolve? I'm not sure we can call it evolution. But, it wasn't the first cancer that had a chance to become its own organism. Every cancerous mutation is an opportunity for a transmittable cancer to pop into existence. Given enough time, maybe it evolve into Maybe it will develop organs and limbs and fur and then maybe it will develop its own parasitic cancer: generation 2.

Sexual reproduction is itself a mutation that probably occurred several times and it changes the rules. Epigenetics seems to be in the zetgeist at the moment, I hear the term mentioned a lot.

I don't know how to tie these thoughts together.

Douglas Adams is my go to for these kinds of issues:

“Anything that happens, happens. Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen. Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again. It doesn’t necessarily do it in chronological order, though.”

Like I started earlier on, I my instinct is that evolution the principle is best explored outside of biology. Biology is a magnificent example of evolution, but it's an embodiment of evolution.

"Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again" seems like a good starting point.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25471-spark-of-life-me...

“At some point a particularly remarkable molecule was formed by accident. We will call it the Replicator. It may not necessarily have been the biggest or the most complex molecule around, but it had the extraordinary property of being able to create copies of itself. This may seem a very unlikely sort of accident to happen. So it was. It was exceedingly improbable. In the lifetime of a man, things that are that improbable can be treated for practical purposes as impossible. That is why you will never win a big prize on the football pools. But in our human estimates of what is probable and what is not, we are not used to dealing in hundreds of millions of years. If you filled in pools coupons every week for a hundred million years you would very likely win several jackpots.”

“Actually a molecule that makes copies of itself is not as difficult to imagine as it seems at first, and it only had to arise once. Think of the replicator as a mould or template. Imagine it as a large molecule consisting of a complex chain of various sorts of building block molecules. The small building blocks were abundantly available in the soup surrounding the replicator. Now suppose that each building block has an affinity for its own kind. Then whenever a building block from out in the soup lands up next to a part of the replicator for which it has an affinity, it will tend to stick there. The building blocks that attach themselves in this way will automatically be arranged in a sequence that mimics that of the replicator itself. It is easy then to think of them joining up to form a stable chain just as in the formation of the original replicator. This process could continue as a progressive stacking up, layer upon layer. This is how crystals are formed. On the other hand, the two chains might split apart, in which case we have two replicators, each of which can go on to make further copies.

A more complex possibility is that each building block has affinity not for its own kind, but reciprocally for one particular other kind. Then the replicator would act as a template not for an identical copy, but for a kind of ‘negative’, which would in its turn remake an exact copy of the original positive. For our purposes it does not matter whether the original replication process was positive-negative or positive-positive, though it is worth remarking that the modern equivalents of the first replicator, the DNA molecules, use positive-negative replication. What does matter is that suddenly a new kind of ‘stability’ came into the world.”

That's why it makes sense to think of the colony as a single organism. In the same way, your hands can only reproduce when the rest of you does, in an orderly manner, and we think of you as a unified organism. If hands could bud off independent mini-hands, you might see less cooperation from them over the course of your life.