Kevin Aylward wrote:
> Anon. wrote:
> 
>>I've changed the subject line, in a rare attempt to maintain relevance
>>to the subject (by re-defining the subject!).
>>
>>Kevin Aylward wrote:
>>
>>>Tim Tyler wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>>Kevin Aylward  wrote or
>>>>quoted:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>>In my view, too much weight is being given to physical
gene methods
>>>>>of trait propagation. It is  well known that many animals have to
>>>>>teach their young to hunt. If the parents die too
early, the young
>>>>>never learn and die. This tells us immediately that memes (copied
>>>>>virtual traits), are *immensely* significant to the survival of
>>>>>animals.
>>>>
>>>>Maybe - of the tiny proportion of animals that have parental care in
>>>>the first place.
>>>
>>>
>>>That was only one particular illustration.
>>
>>But a more general point is still valid - only a small proportion of
>>species are able to learn, and as importantly, pass that learning on
>>to others.
> 
> 
> What specific *animals* don't learn? How successful can such animals
> deal with being chased by a man with a gun?
> 
> All the ones I can think of learn, e.g. cats, dogs, parrots, dolphins,
> lions, chimps etc...
> 
Try thinking of things like insects.  They certainly don't pass on their 
leraning.  I'm not sure that birds do, either, but i don't work on bird 
behaviour, so this might just be ignorance on my part.

> 
>>
>>
>>>If your trying to suggest that animals learn nothing from their
>>>environment, you must have failed 101 zoology. There is no way gene
>>>hardware can directly cope with the large variations that exist in
>>>the environment,
>>
>>You've obviously never worked on plants, fungi, bacteria, etc. etc.
>>
> 
> 
> You miss the fundamental point. Sure, a carrot has *some* ability to
> cope with a changing environment, but it can't run away from a man with
> a knife, so it most certainly can't deal with such a large variation in
> the environment, as I indeed correctly stated.
> 
It doesn't need to.  It only needs to survive in the environment that it 
finds itself in.  Indeed, I would suggest that the carrot is very 
successful, because of the man with the knife - he keeps on planting and 
growing them.

> I am speciffically addressing the wide and *large* variation of all
> environments, and as I stated, it is essentially, *impossible* to make a
> *practical* physical hardware machine, that can deal with such general
> environments. It matters not that slightest that less adaptable entities
> can exist without software programmability. These are not really
> relevant to discussions of how mutual-cooperation can be accounted for.
> The fundamental point, being that memes, by their very nature, act to
> maximise total numbers of Replicators, and so are inherently altruistic
> from the point of view of the entity carrying such a meme and therefore
> *automatically* account for altruistic behaviour.
> http://www.anasoft.co.uk/replicators/memes.html
> 
> For example, the well known vampire bats example. These bats have to
> recognise specific bats that don't reciprocate blood feeding so that
> they can punish them. This absolutely can *not* be accounted for by
> genes. The genes can not code remembrance for specific bats, as those
> bats have not even been born when the gene was constructed. Its the
> ability to copy and store *variable* information, i.e. *memes*, that
> make the vampire bat mutual co-operation system work.
> 
> The principle here is that, sure, one can have a certain amount of
> environmental adaptability with fixed hardware, but it is still very,
> very limited. Evolution solved this problem by evolving software
> controlled machines. That's why your typing on a piece of hardware
> running a program.
> 
So why are bacteria so successful, then?

Bob

-- 
Bob O'Hara

Rolf Nevanlinna Institute
P.O. Box 4 (Yliopistonkatu 5)
FIN-00014 University of Helsinki
Finland
Telephone: +358-9-191 23743
Mobile: +358 50 599 0540
Fax:  +358-9-191 22 779
WWW:  http://www.RNI.Helsinki.FI/~boh/
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