{"id":1654,"date":"2012-02-29T12:41:48","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T16:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.synapse9.com\/signals\/?p=1654"},"modified":"2013-09-11T09:47:27","modified_gmt":"2013-09-11T14:47:27","slug":"kin-and-kind-some-learning-in-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/kin-and-kind-some-learning-in-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"Kin and Kind – Some learning in progress?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Kin and Kind”<\/a> is\u00a0an article in\u00a0the Mar 5 New Yorker<\/strong><\/em><\/em> by Jonah Lehrer, <\/em>on the remarkable career of E.O. Wilson and his quest to explain apparent “altruism” in animal behavior. \u00a0The\u00a0reigning\u00a0explanation for evolution is pure competition, and he’s beginning to think there must be more to it, asking “…is goodness an adaptive trait?<\/strong>” \u00a0 I note that the very first ecologist to study complex ecological behavior, S.A. Forbes, had much the same way of raising the question, in 1887.<\/em><\/p>\n

The question, possibly, is not how mutations affect behavior, but our having not looked squarely at what is common to the behaviors of life that are so successful. <\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

__________<\/em><\/p>\n

for The Mail,<\/p>\n

E.O. Wilson is remarkable among scientists for being willing to question his own dogma.\u00a0 Where the article ends is with his next seeming breach of scientific etiquette, his now beginning to ask if \u201cgoodness is an adaptive trait\u201d.<\/p>\n

Very surprisingly, that is where the very first scientist to study complex organization in ecologies, S.A. Forbes actually began.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0In 1887, in \u201cThe Lake as a Microcosm\u201d, Forbes observed that somehow networks of many species evolved to respect each other enough to not make food chains highly unstable, as they would be if their competition had winners.<\/p>\n

Maybe the question is better asked as, why doesn\u2019t evolution seem to follow the rules itself, as if somehow the wrong question has been being asked.\u00a0 It\u2019s always posed as asking how random mutations affect behavior instead.\u00a0 Maybe it should be asking what it is about behavior that works so well, and so often by not quite following the rules we see.<\/p>\n

Maybe it\u2019s a little like a management scientist asking how employees manage to succeed when, looked at closely, it\u2019s found that the instruction \u201cget to work\u201d contains no information on what to do\u2026 something about their behavior is doing much more than following the rules.<\/p>\n

When looked at closely, rules like \u201cget to work\u201d and all other behavioral rules too, have \u201cmismatched variety\u201d with the successful behaviors supposedly \u201cruled by them\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 Some other agency such as the employee\u2019s obvious need to \u201clearn on the job\u201d is required.\u00a0 Otherwise behavioral rules would have no way to apply.<\/p>\n

If you ask the question that way, and look around, the answer is among the most obvious things about animal behavior generally, every kind of living thing is actively learning on the job too! \u00a0\u00a0So that changes the question to asking what kind of \u201clearning on the job\u201d might result in species evolving a \u201clive and let live philosophy\u201d, or other kinds of \u201caltruism\u201d?<\/p>\n

Maybe what successful mutations do is not give us new rules to follow but new talents for learning about our complex situations.\u00a0 Maybe the \u201cinstincts\u201d we recognize in behavior are there to give animals curiosity<\/span> about particular situations, rather than to impose rules on their supposedly chaotic guesswork.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s sounds silly, but, could it be that maybe animals are animate?<\/h3>\n

To me it looks as if our scientists are often caught up in mistaking the rules they develop as patterns in their observations, and for predicting behaviors, with the behaviors causing them.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s basically very puzzling why we\u2019d be confused by that, but we seem to often be.<\/p>\n

For centuries it seems we\u2019ve been describing such a lively thing as the ecology of life, that we\u2019re also a lively part of, as following a handful of lifeless rules.\u00a0 \u00a0It\u2019s as if we\u2019ve only been interested in the rather small parts of nature our rules seemed to let us control.<\/p>\n

Jessie<\/p>\n

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Ascent(s) of man ?<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\n<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Kin and Kind” is\u00a0an article in\u00a0the Mar 5 New Yorker by Jonah Lehrer, on the remarkable career of E.O. Wilson and his quest to explain apparent “altruism” in animal behavior. \u00a0The\u00a0reigning\u00a0explanation for evolution is pure competition, and he’s beginning to think there must be more to it, asking “…is goodness an adaptive trait?” \u00a0 I … Continue reading Kin and Kind – Some learning in progress?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6,8,10,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-among-best-2","category-mail","category-theory","category-pop","category-scitheory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2464,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1654\/revisions\/2464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/synapse9.com\/signals\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}