johnhewitt22{at}yahoo.com  wrote:

> Tim Tyler  wrote:
> > Perplexed in Peoria  wrote or quoted:
> > > "Tim Tyler"  wrote in message
> > > > Perplexed in Peoria 
wrote or quoted:
> >  
> > > > > Maintaining analog information close to an
environmentally specified
> > > > > optimum can be done using selection, but it takes
a huge cut out
> > > > > of the reproductive excess.  It is far better to
have digital
> > > > > information that is "usually" reproduced
exactly, and then to only
> > > > > use selection to deal with the exceptions to that
"usually".  That
> > > > > seems to take a much smaller cut.
> > > >
> > > > Dawkins once wrote a pop-sci piece (in River Out Of
Eden, Ch.1, The
> > > > Digital River) about the wonders of digital inheritance
(vs analog
> > > > inhertance).
> > > >
> > > > His thesis at the time - IIRC - digital was better than
analog - and
> > > > that was why we had digital genes, and that was why we
have digital
> > > > TV, music and movies - and that was why all organisms
everywhere in
> > > > the universe will use digital information storage media for their
> > > > genes.

It is a mixed and very misleading metaphor. Which is perhaps why it has
largely been ignored since...
> > > >
> > > > This is all very well - but analog media are not as bad
as all that -
> > > > since you can fairly easily use them to simulate digital media.
> > > >
> > > > It *certainly* doesn't need selection to compensate for the
> > > > deficiencies of storing information in analog media - since
> > > > you can effectively change an analog medium into a digital one
> > > > by simple tricks such as forcing all low values to zero - and
> > > > all high values to one.
> > > >
> > > > There *is* a cost in doing this - but it doesn't have
to be paid in
> > > > terms of selection and dead offspring - it can be paid by
> > > > sacrificing some of the information storage capacity in
the device
> > > > in question.
> > > 
> > > The point that you are missing is that this is not a one-time cost
> > > in decreased storage capacity.  It is a continuing cost that must
> > > be paid by the organism both in greater energy usage during
> > > its lifetime, and in decreased viability (selection).  There are costs
> > > to be paid over time whether you choose analog or digital, but
> > > if you choose analog, you don't really have the option of paying
> > > in energy - you are pretty much stuck with selection as the
> > > currency in which you will have to pay the price.
> > 
> > If you have an analog medium with some degree of noise present, you can
> > use it as a arbitrarily high-fidelity information-transmission device -
> > provided you have enough of it.
> > 
> > It's no different from a digital medium in this respect.
> > 
> > The reason it has all the same theoretical properties is that
> > it can be used to exactly simulate a digital medium.
> > 
> > That's basically what computers and DNA do.  They construct a
> > digital medium out of what are basically analog components -
> > using techniques such as thresholding.
> > 
> > There is absolutely no need for an organism with an analogue
> > storage medium to pay any reproductive cost in terms of dead
> > babies who have been selected out.
> > 
> > They can pay their costs in error correction machinery instead.
> 
> Just a commment upon this thread. Would it not be true that social
> knowledge is analog data - since it is stored in the brain, which
> seems to be an analog device. Hence, the evolution of social knowledge
> would be an example of evolution using analog data storage.
> 
All data storage in the real world is analogue. The only difference
between analogue and digital is the fidelty of replication. I think that
any evolutionary process is going to maximise the fidelity to the point
where further improvements would be too costly, no matter whether it is
cultural, biological or technological. I completely agree with Tim, and
would say that "digital" is, in the real (as opposed to abstract) world,
a name for "very-high-fidelity reproduction" over analogue substrates.

That digital media use thresholds to ensure that fidelity is secondary.
And neither genes nor electrical currents routed via transistors are
digital in the strict sense of abstract bits. We are confusing our
abstract representations of things with the things themselves if we
think genes are digital. Digital objects do not mismatch. Digital
objects do not denature. This is true also in culture.

Scott Atran and others have argued that because culture is analogue, it
must be non-particulate (error 1) and therefore the only way to explain
the persistance of cultural forms is that they are attractor basins
(error 2). Social knowledge can be high fidelity without being
particulate, and there are other explanations than some vague appeal to
attractors in a space that is not defined.
-- 
John S Wilkins PhD - www.wilkins.id.au
  a little emptier, a little spent
  as always by that quiver in the self,
  subjugated, yes, and obedient.  -- Seamus Heaney
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