Harvard, Tufts, UVM Scientists Create Living Robots from Frogs

Arts & Sciences Science & Nature
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Evolution is a sophisticated algorithm that creates intelligent life.

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I would still call it an accretion of very simple and understood steps. But for arguments’ sake, if what you say is true, what is it supposed to imply?

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Algorithms have understood steps and can have simple steps.

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OK. So what does it all mean?

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Evolution is teleological.

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Why?

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When you’re working on a math problem, do you have a goal?

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It sounds like a version of the watchmaker argument. We assume math problems are designed because all of our examples of math problems were developed by people. Just because evolution shares some characteristics of math problems doesn’t mean it’s a designed process. It’s a process that is continually occurring, but what started the process rolling is currently unknown. The same is true if you use the goal language. We know that people use math problems to achieve goals, but we can’t assume that that is true of evolution because it shares similarity with certain math processes.

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I actually don’t believe people invented math, but anyway, do you believe the evolutionary process is geared toward producing intelligent life?

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No

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OK, but there’s a difference between “math” and “math problems”. If we’re comparing evolution to “math”, I think we’re really getting into the woods. Can you think of a mathematical problem or process that was not developed by people, at the earliest through observation of physical facts?

No. There’s a wording issue there, “geared”? That implies an agent who performed the gearing. Anyway I don’t think evolutionary processes have goals. They proceed as they will, but do tend to lead to increasing complexity in our one available example here on earth, with intelligence being one example of a complex facility.

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Problems that are solved using imaginary numbers.

So they just happen to create complexity?

To me it seems more like that was what it’s intended to do, especially since we can take all of the same exact principles of evolution (sexual selection, random mutation, selection for fitness) and make robots.

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Solved by people, no?

Sure, why not?

You might be susceptible to that being a product of that evolution with that level of complexity :slight_smile: I can understand how it seems that way, but I don’t see why it has to be that way. Evolution goes the way it will. We happen to have evolved intelligence. Other forms of life have evolved other impressive characteristics that enable them to live more effectively in their environment.

You do believe in evolution as a process, right? And that a designer set it up this way and started the ball rolling?

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Yeah but not from observing physical facts.

Mathematicians pulled them out of their butts and their application wasn’t discovered until much later.

Just so I understand your position correctly:

You don’t believe a process that produces random mutations and weeds out the less-complex mutations will produce more complexity? Is it at least likely to produce more complexity?

That depends whom you ask. Richard Dawkins believes human evolution was a near-inevitability. Simon Conway Morris at Cambridge believes even our approximate physical form was predestined.

If that weren’t enough, you’ve got engineers using the same process to design robots, NASA antennas, and all sorts of technology.

If you’re asking me if I believe in evolution, yes. I think I made that pretty obvious :slight_smile: I accept everything from mainstream science (in practice).

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OTOH, Stephen Jay Gould anb John Losos believed it was contingent.

“If any of a countless number of events had occurred differently in the past, Homo sapiens wouldn’t have evolved. We were far from inevitable and are lucky to be here, fortunate that events happened just as they did

Unicellular organisms have been around at least 3.5 billion years; multicellular life at least a billion and a half- both keep getting pushed back. Life on land emerged roughly a half a billion years ago. Intelligence emerged once, in one species, a couple of million years ago. It’s hard to see it’s as being more inevitable than an eel’s electricity, a blue-ring octopus’s venom, a woodpecker’s bone structure in the neck, or an elephant’s trunk.

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The precursor to intelligence, bipedalism, can also be found in new world spider monkeys.

Edit: You’re talking about human intelligence? Plants have intelligence. They bend toward light on their own.

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The one example we have has produced complexity through ever increasing numbers of adaptive variations. I think it’s likely other similar processes would do the same, yes.

I don’t think it’s the “same process” at all, we may just disagree there.

I thought it was obvious, yes, just making sure. It’s a very common view but not a universal one :slight_smile: To be clear on my end it looks like an impersonal process to me, based on repeated iterations of simple and understood steps, and I don’t believe in any designer or the necessity for one. But, I wouldn’t totally rule out either that there was a designer that started the whole thing rolling or was somehow imperceptibly guiding things. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it seems like you’re saying that you see the designer as a necessity?

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Why not? They literally mimic all the steps of biological evolution.

Kudos for being open to it.

I think the evidence is very strong.

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It’s called a ‘ribot’.

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I don’t have anything to add to the topic, so I’m just passing to say thanks to @OysterOmelet and @tempogain for this nice discussion to follow.
I wish we could see more of that here.
Carry on!

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