On Evolution
(Update: I noticed just after writing this, that the argument is quite flawed. But what can one do with a flawed thought, certainly not undo it. Even after you realize that its flawed or wrong, you cannot abandon it, you acquire an attachment towards it. That just might be the cause of all the trouble in the world, but I guess only when one try to impose it on others, I am just politely presenting it. And I urge you to read it till the end, obviously, not very strongly.)
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I want to say something about evolution, but before that I must talk about something else, agents and utilities. You may skip a few paragraphs below if you already know about these.
First, let us safely assume that every living being is a decision maker, something that chooses and prefers some actions over others. How it chooses is another matter. It could be as complex as you deciding on what dress to wear or as simple (I presume) as a bee selecting a flower for nectar. I call this decision maker, an "agent", and this term includes every living being, flora, fauna, microorganisms etc.
This agent with choices, associates each outcome(and hence, each corresponding choice) with a score. High score for a "good" outcome/choice, and higher score for a "better". This score, we call utility. And we say that "every agent acts to maximize its utility".
Its like saying you do what you think is best for you. In case of humans it gets a bit complicated, and it is quite debatable how we define our "utility function". Is it happiness, money or something else that varies with time, what do we act to maximize? But consider a rabbit, its utility function might be a score in regards to hunger, death, mating etc. So this rabbit might live on to maximize his utility function which "depends" on "hunger + death + mate +...". It will weigh the "death" factor the most. So it will not try to roam about in the forest, searching for food, if it sees a fox around. But if the hunger factor gets too large, it might choose to take the risk. So that is how various parts of the "utility", that is hunger, death etc. changes with situations (or states) and result in different actions.
So the key thing is that every agent is maximizing its utility. Ponder about that for some time before reading further. See things around you, ants, flys, people and observe how they behave and what their utility function might be.
Now let us think about a group of agents, like a colony of ants or a herd of deer. In this system of multiple, similar agents, each with their own individual utility functions, we can say that there is also a joint/combined utility function governing their behavior. Like, we observe they live in pack, taking care of each others safety. Depending on situations, either the individual or joint utility dominates.
This might be evident from the fact that some ants/bees sacrifices themselves for the colony (I don't remember exactly what or who does it, but I am sure you will find it if you Google).
But in case of dissimilar agents, it seems to be less obvious, lesser so, in case of adversarial agents, like a system of lions and herd of deer. It seems a rather absurd idea, that a lion and a deer share some common utility function that they maximize, as one has to die if the other has to live. They might minimize and maximize the same utility function. But both maximizing it, seems bizarre.
Now this is an important observation, that you do see dissimilar agents, and even adversarial agents, working together maximizing a joint utility. Where? Inside a living organism!
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With all this information, let us come back to Evolution, which I wanted to talk about in the first place. We can think of evolution as maximization of utility. Where each organism modifies itself, to survive. And choose the action (of corresponding modification) that makes it the fittest. Consider monkeys that developed a prehensile tail over time. But a question can arise in ones mind, what is our agent, a single monkey or the monkey-species? The fleeting confusion only occurs because the outcome of the action, is infinitely small to be seen over a single monkey. I believe we can still consider a single monkey to be the agent.
So what I am saying is, evolution of a species is also a maximization of utility. Can some different species have a joint utility function. Doesn't seem that absurd, though I am not sure. It is possible that zebra and a giraffe might share the utility function of evolution and maximize it, as they share the same habitat. I haven't thought about it that much. A zebra also shares it with a lion, but it seems absurd that they both would be maximizing the same utility. Again, as said before, one might maximize and the other minimize it, but it does seem bizarre that they both maximize it.
Now, when you observe nature, you see different organisms building up quite intelligent and innovative mechanisms to survive, to escape their predators. What I have trouble in understanding is that why hasn't any prey like a deer developed a 360-degree-eyesight, it would be quite helpful to escape predators. Now, I am not judging the path the evolution took, it should have its reasons (and is infinitely wiser than me), I am only questioning that why haven't a prey developed itself to something supreme and beat its predator. It does not seem to be the survival of the fittest, but survival of the moderately-fit. Its like if a deer had developed supersonic speed and the lion is like - what the hell, filed a complaint to someone (I won't say God, just to someone) and got the deer's speed decreased. There seems to be am implicit agreement between these adversarial agents too. So this "nature" or earth does seem to have a joint utility function shared among different species.
And these adversarial agents/species do seem to maximize this common joint utility. But as we have discussed before, it is hard to imagine a system in which adversarial agents maximizes some common joint utility. I have not proved it or anything, but it was a common observation.
But, we did see a system with adversarial agents maximizing a common utility, *drum rolls* and that was within a living organism! Therefore, we can say, that this Nature or Earth is one agent, one giant living organism, maximizing its utility function. The end.
A bit of self critique: I agree, this argument is not a very strong one, with multiple alternative explanations to some arguments, and some very loosely hanging. But still, I don't want this (relatively) elaborate thought to be lost in the great ocean, the abyss of oblivion and obscurity, that is my mind. Instead, I prefer internet.
--x--x--x--x--x--x--x---x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x-x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--
I want to say something about evolution, but before that I must talk about something else, agents and utilities. You may skip a few paragraphs below if you already know about these.
First, let us safely assume that every living being is a decision maker, something that chooses and prefers some actions over others. How it chooses is another matter. It could be as complex as you deciding on what dress to wear or as simple (I presume) as a bee selecting a flower for nectar. I call this decision maker, an "agent", and this term includes every living being, flora, fauna, microorganisms etc.
This agent with choices, associates each outcome(and hence, each corresponding choice) with a score. High score for a "good" outcome/choice, and higher score for a "better". This score, we call utility. And we say that "every agent acts to maximize its utility".
Its like saying you do what you think is best for you. In case of humans it gets a bit complicated, and it is quite debatable how we define our "utility function". Is it happiness, money or something else that varies with time, what do we act to maximize? But consider a rabbit, its utility function might be a score in regards to hunger, death, mating etc. So this rabbit might live on to maximize his utility function which "depends" on "hunger + death + mate +...". It will weigh the "death" factor the most. So it will not try to roam about in the forest, searching for food, if it sees a fox around. But if the hunger factor gets too large, it might choose to take the risk. So that is how various parts of the "utility", that is hunger, death etc. changes with situations (or states) and result in different actions.
So the key thing is that every agent is maximizing its utility. Ponder about that for some time before reading further. See things around you, ants, flys, people and observe how they behave and what their utility function might be.
Now let us think about a group of agents, like a colony of ants or a herd of deer. In this system of multiple, similar agents, each with their own individual utility functions, we can say that there is also a joint/combined utility function governing their behavior. Like, we observe they live in pack, taking care of each others safety. Depending on situations, either the individual or joint utility dominates.
This might be evident from the fact that some ants/bees sacrifices themselves for the colony (I don't remember exactly what or who does it, but I am sure you will find it if you Google).
But in case of dissimilar agents, it seems to be less obvious, lesser so, in case of adversarial agents, like a system of lions and herd of deer. It seems a rather absurd idea, that a lion and a deer share some common utility function that they maximize, as one has to die if the other has to live. They might minimize and maximize the same utility function. But both maximizing it, seems bizarre.
Now this is an important observation, that you do see dissimilar agents, and even adversarial agents, working together maximizing a joint utility. Where? Inside a living organism!
--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--
With all this information, let us come back to Evolution, which I wanted to talk about in the first place. We can think of evolution as maximization of utility. Where each organism modifies itself, to survive. And choose the action (of corresponding modification) that makes it the fittest. Consider monkeys that developed a prehensile tail over time. But a question can arise in ones mind, what is our agent, a single monkey or the monkey-species? The fleeting confusion only occurs because the outcome of the action, is infinitely small to be seen over a single monkey. I believe we can still consider a single monkey to be the agent.
So what I am saying is, evolution of a species is also a maximization of utility. Can some different species have a joint utility function. Doesn't seem that absurd, though I am not sure. It is possible that zebra and a giraffe might share the utility function of evolution and maximize it, as they share the same habitat. I haven't thought about it that much. A zebra also shares it with a lion, but it seems absurd that they both would be maximizing the same utility. Again, as said before, one might maximize and the other minimize it, but it does seem bizarre that they both maximize it.
Now, when you observe nature, you see different organisms building up quite intelligent and innovative mechanisms to survive, to escape their predators. What I have trouble in understanding is that why hasn't any prey like a deer developed a 360-degree-eyesight, it would be quite helpful to escape predators. Now, I am not judging the path the evolution took, it should have its reasons (and is infinitely wiser than me), I am only questioning that why haven't a prey developed itself to something supreme and beat its predator. It does not seem to be the survival of the fittest, but survival of the moderately-fit. Its like if a deer had developed supersonic speed and the lion is like - what the hell, filed a complaint to someone (I won't say God, just to someone) and got the deer's speed decreased. There seems to be am implicit agreement between these adversarial agents too. So this "nature" or earth does seem to have a joint utility function shared among different species.
And these adversarial agents/species do seem to maximize this common joint utility. But as we have discussed before, it is hard to imagine a system in which adversarial agents maximizes some common joint utility. I have not proved it or anything, but it was a common observation.
But, we did see a system with adversarial agents maximizing a common utility, *drum rolls* and that was within a living organism! Therefore, we can say, that this Nature or Earth is one agent, one giant living organism, maximizing its utility function. The end.
A bit of self critique: I agree, this argument is not a very strong one, with multiple alternative explanations to some arguments, and some very loosely hanging. But still, I don't want this (relatively) elaborate thought to be lost in the great ocean, the abyss of oblivion and obscurity, that is my mind. Instead, I prefer internet.
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