Thinking about Evolution & Economics and Some Notes on the Evolution of Ideas

Part 8 - Self Consciousness - The strange tale of a bottomless wine glass and the arrogance of intelligent design

The plausible human design process is a mirage - we learn from outcomes but we can't design them - 'the evolutionary watchmaker is blind'

 

Complex Economic Systems - Statute 192384a - Public Health Act 2005 section 2(c) para 167 footnote 2 - Health & Safety at Play -

Avoidance of foul accumulation of toxic crud in Red Wine 1

commencing Tuesday 8th instant all licensees are instructed thus -

all wines and spirits and other liquors will be served in bottomless glasses 2

additional license fees of £1,000 per protected customer will be paid to cover additional essential inspection and control costs  3

Addendum this action does not affect the tax increase on red wine (and all other foul drugs) introduced last year to discourage the unsociable habit of immoral imbibing. This stays at 21.3% (the percentage will be increased each year over and above inflation in line with unavoidable bureaucracy costs and salary hikes) after the VAT charge at 19.25% paid in advance. 
Notwithstanding to protect the red wine industry and encourage investment in cutting edge technology, and the enterprise culture, it has been decided to delay the introduction of the profits tax outlined in the next budget for a full 8½ months.
Perchance this legislation does not apply to medicinal red wine nor wine consumed by different religious groups who are protected under anti-discrimination legislation. Such groups will be required to provide proof of authenticity by completing forms 3285 and 79a which will be available next year from some Post Offices. In the unlikely event of the privatisation of Post Offices alternative forms can be collected by bone fide applicants, calling in person, with proof of authenticity at 12a Westgotcha Street.
Aftermath - Pursuant, your sub committee is fully informed about cunning responses and ulterior consequences of this Statute, and in accordance, hereby and forthwith intend to ban all evasion and avoidance and the imbibing of liquors by swigging directly from the bottle. Further legislation will follow as soon as the necessary sub sub committees have been agreed by your sub committee, funded by a deficit from the contingency fund and suitable bureaucrats recruited for the complex drafting process which will then be scrutinised by the necessary Government advisers before submission to the under secretary so as to guarantee valuable Parliamentary time is used to best effect before the 3rd reading of the revised Deficit Finance Bill and the delayed appointment of a new malleable obsequious Central Bank Governor which has become necessary following the Bank's independence.

( 1 the scientific discovery of the therapeutic anti-coagulant blood thinning properties of red wine residues by Nobel laureate Joe Sixpack has been acknowledged elsewhere. However the Bureau of Bureaux set up last year under section 4a of the Public Health Act 1873 has noted the deleterious effects of injecting 3.85 Kg of this material into small mammals (delicate white mice and furry guinea pigs) - note that further work on these risks has been abandoned following the Green Act introduced last year to guarantee the enforcement of the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1215. This was in response to our manifesto commitment to listen to the public pressure for the common good and it follows directly from to the 'Voice of Society' initiative set up by our Scunthorpe Focus Group)

( 2 in an attempt to simplify overcomplicated statutes and avoid burdensome red tape in line with the recommendations of the anti bureaucracy sub committee 13a, these requirements apply to all liquors including white wines and spirits, accepting the toxic crude is present only in red wine of specific origin. To assist, the Technology Foresight Programme, chaired by Mr Horace Batchelor, has agreed in principle, a grant of £4 towards the costs of all research into bottomless receptacles. It is expected this will be paid within ten years following the recovery of the set up costs of the new committee and agreement on members expenses) 

( 3 because of the beneficial effects all new red wine receptacles (but not white wine and obnoxious spirits) will be subsidised by the taxpayer (0.03 p per unit) to alleviate regulatory cost burdens and the competitive threats from French imports) 

Intelligent Design? Bureaucratic kludge? What on earth is going on here? ... and what has it got to do with economics?

Let's take it very slowly …  the bottomless wineglass appears to be a result of intelligent design … 'as if' rationally purposefully intentionally planned … but what mental processes do these words describe?

Perhaps a more meaningful explanation of how the brain works is by a Darwinian process of adaptation, the natural selection of behaviour. In a strange inversion of reason, maybe some neural networks & circuits act 'as if' making economic decisions which create more survival value for the cost incurred than competing alternatives?

As Richard Dawkins has suggested in his 1976 book 'The Selfish Gene' - 'Genes do cost / benefit analysis'!

An evolutionary explanation of brain function over deep time can dramatically simplify the understanding of the process by which an intolerably complex electro chemical mass of proteins came into existence ... but beware, although the process is simply the outcome is all difficult and complicated ...

Here are some empirically substantiated statements about human behaviour - 

1. Evolutionary Design - the one and only design process going on throughout the universe is evolution, a blind copy / vary / select process of descent with modification, as replication processes generate vast diversities of variants but only a diminutive few differentially survive -

the laws of physics, particularly the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, determine that the process of evolution 'just happens' ...  

evolution is powerful enough to explain everything we see including all human behaviour, economics, Dixieland Jazz, grandchildren and the price of beer ...

the selection process is not supernatural - undoubtedly the laws of physics are the ultimate cause of evolution but the meaningful explanation of the process is that long necked giraffes were not rationally purposefully intentionally planned or designed but rather that short necked giraffes died out!

This encapsulates Darwin's 'strange inversion of reason'. It is 'strange' and an 'inversion' because the human brain imagines a process of intelligent design 'as if' folk 'rationally purposefully intentionally plan' top down improvements to their circumstances.

But there is no evidence for this anthropomorphic myth ... there is no 'homunculus' in the brain ... there is no 'Cartesian theatre' ...

Darwin suggested that complex evolutionary history was different ... a bottom up emergence ... and the intentional assumption, the 'as if' a top down design, is itself a remarkable adaptation ... a survival aid ... the brain desperately struggles to make sense of human behaviour 'as if' intentional ... maybe our survival chances are increased if we imagine conspiracies? ... a strange paradox? ...  

So maybe we should expect the understanding of evolutionary design to be counterintuitive and mere mortal understanding to be sorely tested -

self-consciousness and human purpose feels 'as if' it is an imperative top down design process ...

endless increasing complexity, change, conflict and scarcity is associated with all useful behaviours ...

self-conscious human behaviours are themselves an integral, coevolving, but small part of a whole evolving shebang ...

new behaviours constantly emerge which are completely unexpected & unintentional bifurcations & discontinuities ... 

bottom up evolutionary processes select by killing off failures and folk find it difficult cope with failures just as folk find it difficult to imagine non-existence ...

the pre Darwin interpretation of history was invariably 'as if' top down intelligent design ...

As Richard Dawkins has suggested in his 1987 book 'The Blind Watchmaker' - 'It is almost as if the human brain were specifically designed to misunderstand Darwinism'!

A moral dilemma also emerges as there are many more ways of being dead than alive and there must be many many more failures than successes. It is real real hard hard to 'rejoice' when a business fails and liquidates or a hospital fails and is closed ... but slowly some folk are learning and understanding that as hopeless failures die, resources are released and niches vacated only to be occupied by expanding successes ... synergy is not a zero sum game ...

As Joseph Schumpeter suggested - 'Capitalism is a perennial gale of Creative Destruction'.

I told you it was all difficult and complicated! 

Charles Darwin - 'It's an awful stretcher to believe that a peacock's tail was thus formed, most people just don't get it, I must be a very bad explainer'.

Arthur Peacocke - 'Life is continuously created but progress is a package dependent on death and failure'. 

Gerald Edelman - 'Evolution works by selection, not by instruction. There is no final cause, no teleology, no purpose guiding the overall process'.

2. Universal Darwinism - Evolution is relentless over deep time constructing a hierarchical shebang of survival tricks, as local interactions lead to novel emergent structures. The same simple process of copy / vary / select results in the emergence of a more and more complex, unbroken, self consistent continuity of interconnecting systems, a nested set of sets, layer upon layer - 

physical energy & matter, elements & molecules, cosmic & solar order (physical tricks) 

chemistry, DNA, genetic inheritance, prokaryotes & eukaryotes (chemical tricks) 

biology, metabolism, morphology, plants & animals (biological tricks) 

subconscious brain activity, control of body functions & emotions (instinctive tricks)

conscious behaviour & generating & testing in the imagination (imaginative tricks) 

self-conscious behaviour & accumulation of 'know how' over generations (cultural tricks)

At each stage the process logic is the same, the variants that do not display survival traits tend to die out leaving an increasing frequency of survivors which do display such traits in the population. 

It is in the brain where things get really really difficult, the ongoing discovery & accumulation of survival 'know how' results from adaptation of neural networks & circuits.

In this way human behaviour has emerged hierarchically over aeons and is conveniently described as -

subconscious behaviour is instinctive, emotional & reflexive and learning is hardwired

conscious behaviour is learned by the experience of sense perceptions & motor responses to a scene

self conscious behaviour is cultural and is learned imaginatively from others. 

All three states are an evolved continuity involving - 

direct imitation - experience from interacting with others and copying their success - inherited DNA and an instinctive 'imitate Mum' - what better place to start?!

direct experience - sense & motor response experiments - how did you learn to catch a cricket ball?!

cultural imitation - once symbolic representations of reality are in place folk can copy the experiences of others (often long dead) which are preserved and accumulated in tales, writings, rituals and institutions - how did you learn calculus?!

And although there seems to be a learning hierarchy the same ubiquitous Darwinian process is involved, survival  'know how' must be learned in individual brains by -

inheritence and modification by trial & error - neural networks & circuits develop by real or imagined sense & motor response experiments, the learning process involves the rejection of networks and circuits that don't work, and the reinforcement of a few that help, these are remembered and differentially survive to be used again ...  

the process does not involve a physical transfer of knowledge - we learn as surviving networks & circuits accumulate individually, every individual is different, different genes, different experience, the 'teacher' can only demonstrate and communicate through the senses, it is individual neural networks & circuits that must physically change?!

NB  There is no physical mechanism whereby a teacher can implant neural networks in pupils heads, the pupil must 'work it out' for himself. There is no 'homunculus' supernaturally designing our neural networks &circuits ... this is a quaint and erroneous idea that has been with us for a long time?!

NB Self-consciousness is a formidable survival aid, the imagination speeds up evolution and eventually leads to the emergence of cultural institutions but it is - 

just the tip of the iceberg - appearing late in the evolutionary day, an add-on not a control centre ...

a collection of emergent discriminations about the environment ...

a very limited bit of marginal information which we have access to, that we can think about and symbolically communicate to others ...

real, subjective, unitary, qualitative and intentioned - but chemistry is the cause of all behaviour and self-consciousness is an emergent feature of the same chemistry - self-consciousness may cause your finger to point but there is no 3rd party controller .. it's all your own complex chemistry ...

Chemistry? Give me a break! ... I told you it was all difficult and complicated! 

Daniel Dennett - 'Darwin's ideas are powerful enough to have done all the design work that is manifest in the world'.

Susan Greenfield - 'There is no qualitative transformation in the anatomy nor physiology of the brain of human and non-human animals, no phylogenetic Rubicon in the animal kingdom. Similarly there is no ontogenetic line that is crossed as the brain grows in the womb. A scientific view of consciousness might be that it is not a different property of the brain but a consequence of a quantitative increase in complexity'.

Richard Dawkins - 'The Evolution of Evolvability'.

3. Science -  The process of evolution requires no knowledge of the unknowable future. 'Intelligent design' may exist but it is not what folk tend to think it is ... 

Science is a spectacular method for better understanding the evidence we observe. Not because it uncovers the truth but because it speeds up the discovery & accumulation of survival 'know how'. Successful practical brain science and economic policy is underpinned by 'normal' science - 

observation

mathematical theory

with testable hypotheses

validated by repeatable experiments

and reviewed by peers  

Science with its robust empirical investigations and built in checks and balances contains elements that are absent in alternative a priori reasoning. Diverse experimental evidence is immediately available for validation and analysis whereas individual a priori beliefs are more difficult to discredit and change ... scientific method speeds things up ... 

The brain, intelligence and consciousness are now legitimate subjects for scientific investigation. The science of neural networks & circuits is difficult but new tools are available - 

molecular chemistry of DNA - the mapping of the human genome and stem cell chemistry is sharpening understanding of iterative reactions of chemicals from different parts of the body, brain and immune system

brain scanning and imaging - 

PET - positron emission tomography is used but it needs tracers and anaesthetic

 MRI - magnetic resonance imaging monitors oxygen release in areas of brain activity

 ETI - electrical impedance tomography senses changes in conductivity between electrodes on skull with sub second resolution

cheap powerful computer simulations enable the study of emergence in complex systems from iterated non-linear equations.

The research work of Nobel Laureate Gerald Edelman and others is uncovering evidence of -

adaptation of neural networks & circuits

emergence in complex systems

and nothing supernatural!

NB the squeamish should skip this difficult and tentative summary of neuroscience, or alternatively read al the books!! - 

Genes & neurons - the human genome provides a recipe for the construction of the brain but not a predetermined blue print design as genetic chemistry constructs general, but not exact, networks & circuits of neural cells. Stem cells in their local environment develop into special neuron cells which group together in the brain. Genes are not acting in isolation, they are reacting in the cell environment, with placental influence, then breast milk influence and later umpteen chemical, physical and sense influences from the environment. There is no nature v. nurture, no either or, but rather continuous complex chemistry of genes interacting with other genes and whatever other reactants are in the local environment.

 The evolutionary function of neurons is inter cell communication over distance and time and the cells specialise for this role by -

long physical shape (axons and dendrites)

 accumulation in close proximity (encephalation)

fast electro chemical signals instead of slow chemical diffusion (sodium / potassium ion potential difference)

 and massive interconnectivity (synapses).

Only 30,000 genes are in the recipe which produces 100 billion neurons but 500 trillion synapses or interconnections! 

Neural networks & circuits - 3lbs of ugly gray matter in the brain is a vast diversity of degenerate neuron cells which grow, interconnect, migrate and die in great numbers. A diminutive few of these vast possibilities of networks & circuits differentially and unpredictably survive. The fine details of the circuitry in each individual brain will be quite different. Such variability would be catastrophic in any mechanical computational system, where exactness and reproducibility are of the essence. But in an evolving system variation and diversity is not unexplained noise, degeneracy is not a waste of time and energy, it is essential for adaptation. 

Motor activity, body function control & reflexes - input/output neural networks & circuits 'control' by sensing and motor response. Rules of thumb emerge of the type - 'if' (sense) 'then' (wiggle). The earliest brain networks & circuits to evolve were control systems for body movement and function. Muscles respond to input signals from -

internal body signals developing into a direct control systems for temperature, blood pressure, digestion, breathing, running  ...

and from the external environment developing into reflexes itching, blinking, sneezing, kicking ...

These systems are relatively simple sense / motor response and they are inaccessible to conscious thought.

We are not passive in a static environment!

Memory & Pattern recognition - at birth a new form of selection based on new experiences starts. The real environment is sensed, we see, hear, taste, smell and feel. Self-organisation is a property of some complex systems and neurones that wire together fire together and interconnected interactions self-organise sense inputs into patterns. Perceptual categorisation of the environment occurs as the patterns of neural networks & circuits ‘match’ sensed reality. But the matches are 'associations' not 'representations' of the environment. A unique pattern of connections is created for each sense input and experience continuously acts upon this pattern, modifying it by selectively strengthening or weakening connections between neuronal groups, or creating entirely new connections. Survival of the patterns is not random, meaningful networks & circuits are guaranteed, as a self consistent 'world' is constructed. The brain constantly ‘categorizes its own categorizations’ indefinitely to yield generalisations. The capacity for generalization results from a hierarchy of re-entrant signalling, trials & errors until a pattern survives and thus becomes useful and meaningful. This trial & error perceptual categorization is the first step for learning which occurs when repetition overwhelms old memories, when the continual inflow of experience provides evidence of a better way to model reality. It is the continual re-categorization which strengthens the connections and result in memory.

In this way the real environment is recognised and useful patterns are remembered. Some associations are useful survival tricks and will tend to be used again, 'if you don't use it you lose it'.

The beginning of neural development and far precedes consciousness!

Instincts & emotions - sequences of patterns become important as survival tricks become more complex. Inevitably evolution has produced a hierarchy of emergent networks, the earliest of which act as 'constraints' for subsequent development. Thus the survival of new networks is 'mediated' by older 'value' networks & circuits which themselves survived because they helped survival, it is survival that guarantees self consistency. The earlier networks are hardwired 'value' networks, proven survival aids, which are basic to the emerging hierarchy.

The brain is not a 'blank slate', deep down in the skull there are these inherited 'pre-programmed' instinctive and emotional networks & circuits which mediate behaviour. These systems are human universals which are recognisable but not consciously controlled and involve sense / memory / motor response.  

Some patterns of neural cells survive if they help survival that's why they survive!

Pattern generation - motor responses in muscles result in real changes in real patterns in the body and the environment. As we wiggle and disturb the environment new patterns are created which can be sensed anew and on and on and on and on … by remembering what was useful and worked in the past and trying similar behaviours in the future, more and more and more complex recognisable patterns and motor responses are built up. A hierarchy of rules of thumb emerges with 'credit assignments' from reinforcement but always with 'probabilities' not certainties, as flexibility from constant innovative testing avoids blind alleys from accidents or coincidences. Eventually learning copes with the separation in time of the wiggle and the new knock on pattern. The hierarchy with basic default options enables generalisations when confronted with novelty. Slowly step by step we build a repertoire of useful self consistent survival tricks, new possibilities are continually generated & tested in new environments making every individual different as possibilities compete for reinforcement. Novelty and creativity become a hum drum routine. At these higher levels flexibility and individuality are important and new powers and new functions emerge that can construct cratively, not just control and correct. 

Consciousness & the imagination - this iterative blind generate & test process builds layer upon layer of increasingly sophisticated survival tricks as re-entrant circuits in the dynamic core of the brain exhibit the non-linearity of complex systems and the associated property of emergence. Some emerging outputs are coherent, useful, survival enhancing, discriminations or 'qualia' associated with the real world and eventually ... using the same neural networks & circuits a 'scene' emerges, a remembered present. 

Read that again! The same neural networks & circuits that control behaviour fire when we imagine. The imagination is an 'late in the day' emergent property of brain circuitry! Consciousness emerges after behaviour controlling activity has been established. Oh my ... and I thought I was in control!

Consciousness brings together the many categorizations involved in sense perception into a scene. From scraps of data, events that may have had value or meaning in the past, a continuous gap free scene emerges with no discontinuities, a remarkable generation of cohesion and relevance from snippets. The ‘scene’ is not an image, not a picture, but is a correlation, an association, between different kinds of categorization. It is not accompanied by any sense of being a person with a past and a future. The meaning established will not be causal, not necessarily related to anything in the outside world, it will be an individual subjective meaning. The linking of memorised primary emotional values with current sense perceptions creates consciousness (perceptual bootstrapping).

Once we are able to 'see' in the 'mind's eye' we can imagine motor responses before risky commitment. Behaviours can be tested in the imagination and generalisations enable thinking in terms of analogy and metaphor and thus pruning and sifting of possibleactions, a potentially faster process than experimenting in reality ... a very useful survival trick! These systems involve sense / memory / imagination / motor response.

Self-consciousness & belief systems - the constant interplay between what is actually sensed, what is remembered and what is imagined results in a conscious 'model' of reality in the brain. Constant iteration enables improvements to the model whenever there is a mismatch between the model and reality, and eventually we become aware of the personal, a past as well as a remembered present and we can imagine the future - we become conscious of being conscious. A self consciousness 'self' emerges and the model of reality becomes more sophisticated. 

Complex systems evolve and self conscious folk can use symbols and representations of reality, leading to a 'semantic capacity' and an ability to link discriminations usefully, leading to a 'syntactic capacity' - language, culture, law, science and economics emerge - an unprecedented power of detachment, reflection and introspection ... and crucially ... it becomes possible to communicate beliefs across the generations. The linking of memorised symbols with conceptual centres creates self consciousness (semantic & syntactic bootstrapping).

Simple diverse and competing rules of thumb emerge from sensing and wiggling. With feedback from the environment and reinforcement a pattern recognition and generation system can emerge which remembers and learns over generations and becomes a creative belief system which copes with novelty. These systems involve sense / memory / imagination / symbolic learning / motor response.

Needless to say belief systems about reality are very useful survival tricks … and evolving belief systems about evolving reality as better still!!

Phew! ... I told you it was all difficult and complicated! 

Daniel Dennett - 'Brains had to evolve like every other marvel of nature, and our minds are just what our brains non-miraculously do'.

Prof. Bruce Hood, Developmental Psychology, Bristol University - 'Our brains have evolved wiring which organises sensory information and motor responses and establishes cause and effect'.

4. Evolutionary Outcomes - 'as if' intelligently design?

 We can conveniently subdivide human behaviour into subconscious, conscious and self-conscious but the same relentless process of copy / vary / select produces the whole evolving shebang!

Subconscious Reflexive Instinctive Behaviour - biological chemistry works 'as if' rationally purposefully intentionally planning behavioural 'rules of thumb'. Genes act 'as if' calculating an economic cost / benefit by generating & testing principles for ever more complex discriminations in the environment. Plants and animals behave that way because those that don't die out.

Now I'm repeating myself ... let's look at some behaviours ...

Chemical reactions control simple and complex behaviour -  

plant roots behave 'as if' moving towards water and plant leaves behave 'as if' turning towards sunlight 

e-coli bacteria behaves 'as if' moving in a straight line towards food, and when there is no food present the bacterium tumbles randomly 'as if' searching 

immune systems behave 'as if' seeking out novel foreign pathogens and killing them and then retaining immunity 'as if' remembering 

eyes sense movement 'as if' part of a planned rule - 'if it moves run - if not eat it'

birds build nests 'as if' protecting their eggs and their young 

babies cry 'as if' asking for food, Mum responds 'as if' thoughtfully providing food when hearing the cry.

Biological chemistry in Mums and babies, sparrows and bugs, triggered this behaviour not intelligent design!

And the process continues ... we ourselves are part of the environment and we adapt to that same environment. 

There is survival value associated with living in social domesticated groups, and life in a group is enhanced by evolved instincts and emotions like empathy and cooperation which have been explored recently by Marc Hauser - 

cooperative synergies - deep down in the skull chemistry builds survival circuits 'empathising' with the suffering of others producing a painful response and a 'do unto others' behaviour emerges - to enhance survival, do we feel 'compelled' to switch the trolley to save lives?

forgiving accidents - genetic altruism, tribal trust and the same empathy leads us to avoid dliberately pushing the fat man to stop the trolley - but is a foreseeable accident forgivable?

punishing cheats - a sense of fairness produces an automatic proportionate retaliation - do folk instinctively put 'fairs shares' before individual gain in the ultimatum game?

risk aversion - losses loom larger than gains - framing and prospect theory suggest we are irrationally risk averse - do we refuse to bet on heads you lose £1,000 or tails you win £1,500?

Moral philosophers like Aquinas, Kant and Hume tried to 'rationalise' these instincts and emotions. Actions can produce a Double Effect, good and bad, and losses and harmful side effects can be tolerated from moral actions if -

positive benefits trump lesser harms

unavoidable accidents trump a foreseen harm

good intentions trump ulterior motives

But remember empathy and cooperation are human universals, they are instincts and emotions, they cannot be rationalised by analysing 'intentions'. The behavioural decision precedes the consciousness so the explanation of morality as a post rationalisation or as consciously driven must be a misunderstanding … some folk at the sharp end working in the trenches for their families see the Double Effect distinctions as meaningless. Post rationalisations cause no end of mental torture, as we see in the endless debates on euthanasia, abortion, just wars and war crimes … 

There are important implications - moral instincts are immune from manipulation by explicit instructions from Bishops, Princes, Generals or Bureaucratic majorities. No one can get at these moral circuits so we must understand the nature of these biases when we experiment to try and make a better world. And we do experiment to try and make a better world ... all the time ...

Instincts and emotions cannot be intelligently designed!

... I told you it was all difficult and complicated! 

Conscious Imaginative Behaviour - brain function is the result of adaptation of neural networks & circuits over deep time by the generation & testing of variants, some of which differentially survive and from which order and consciousness emerge in individuals. 

Instincts and emotions are hard wired universals but with an emerging imagination the past can be investigated and the future can be brought into play by testing out decisions in the imagination before real survival actions are taken.

The moral philosophers can't do anything about instincts but they can imagine innovative behaviours which might override hardwired instincts and make a better world in the future. So some individuals do try pushing the fat man, some do try taking the risky bets and those that do may secure the associated economic survival advantages and may tend to prosper? 

Here we get to the heart of economics. Economics is the science of choice so how do folk decide when they are an integral part of an evolving shebang and confronted by constraints?   

decisions have to be taken here and now - at the fork in the path do I go left or right?

history never repeats itself but it does rhyme, life is not random there are patterns, past decisions have been successful but future decisions will be involve random modifications - is extrapolation of the past a good strategy if we know it will always eventually fail?

outcomes involve unintended consequences, unknown responses of others and unexpected events - so is imagining possible futures and pruning out poor bets a good strategy?

The evidence suggests individuals have a 'bounded rationality', the future is unknowable. The decision making process in our brains is best described by Herbert Simon's evolutionary economic approach of 'satisficing' - a process of experimenting our way out of trouble by speeding up evolution by cashing in on inherited successes from the past and using our imagination to generate & test some future survival innovations -  

build on proven inherited success, remember what worked in the past and imitate, there is no better place to start, don't reinvent the wheel 

freely choose between motor response options available at the time and the place, unhindered by Bishops, Princes, Generals or Bureaucratic majorities! 

experiment by generating & testing a vast diversity of innovative random variants, a diminutive few of which, in the future, proved to be useful and survive, more diversity increases the chances of discovering new tricks!

cooperate with others through synergies deals, discovering better tricks which are not available to individuals!

retaliate against the inevitable parasites and predators to defend and accumulate benefits! 

learn from the successful outcomes of differential survival and start again! 

This is how folk's brains behave, they satisfice, there is no evidence of intelligently design!

NB. Testing in the imagination is risky, we simply don't know the unintended consequences, the unknown responses of others and the unexpected events. Eventually everything must be tested against the rigors of reality. Expect failures!

And furthermore, it is clear that we can imagine supernatural forces as the cause of effects … we have 'vivid imaginations' … I told you it was all difficult and complicated! 

Prof. Hood again, 'This same wiring system, however, leaves us liable to accept less than scientific explanations for the unexplainable, whether it is magic, the notion of a sixth sense or a belief in luck'!

Herbert Simon - 'We encounter many branches in the maze of life’s path, we follow now the left fork, now the right. The metaphor of the garden of forking paths is irresistible to anyone who has devoted their scientific career to understanding human choice'!

Self-conscious Cultural Behaviour - the importance of economic interactions exploiting cooperation, and synergies from specialisation and scale is the key to another jump forward as individuals take advantage of interacting and learning from others in social groups.

Biology is slow, pruning in the imagination speeds up the discovery & accumulation of 'know how' but it is risky. Cultural learning from the experience of others ups the speed another notch ... it is by far the best bet ... so far!

There is an emerging hierarchy - instincts - imagination - culture - but remember the same process is at work - 'as if' generating & testing principles for cooperative survival behaviour as ever more complex discriminations are required to survive in an ever more complex environment - an arms race is played out - 

instincts compel, imaginations suggest, but what we actually do is often different because cultural behaviour is evolving fastest  

instincts can't be manipulated but biases can be culturally confronted -

monogamy confronts the male instinct for promiscuity

protection of long term investment gains counters short term loss aversion

the Usury Act 1624 overturned the 1571 Act outlawing usury

legal killing can be acceptable in self defence, in war, in capital punishment, in abortions, in euthanasia 

cooperative cultures can ameliorate selfishness

History reveals cultural experiments to discover & accumulate new survival tricks result in widespread cultural variation and environmental variation but right or wrong is not known in advance and there are always a variety of different positions being tested ... Michael Wood has written about the historical evidence for the evolution of cultures - 

Deep survival instincts for cooperation drives the evolution of civilisation as man becomes a social animal seeking continuous intensive economic interactions in cities involving risky specialisation and scale where diversity, competition, pluralism and tolerance lead to survival benefits which must be defended. 

How do you persuade your citizens to act as moral human beings, encouraging technological and organisational innovation and protecting the benefits from predators and parasites?

Around 500 BC Axis Age philosophers (Elijah, Socrates, Confucius, Buddha, Mahariva, Zoroaster) wrestled with their consciences and similar ideas emerged which attempted to secure the 2 + 2 = 5 synergies from cooperation -

Mesopotamia - cradle of civilisation - pessimism was widespread as cycles of diminishing returns and competitive violence from internal parasites and external predators eroded tolerance and trust

India - empire of the spirit - faith in the cleansing of the soul by metaphysical introspective meditation revealing the illusion of alleviating poverty by material acquisitions

China - mandate of heaven - faith in the perfect moral order from hierarchical domination by an educated meritocracy and the rejection of pluralism 

Egypt - habit of civilisation - optimism resulted from the easy riches of the predictable Nile as the ritual magic of the divine kings compounded ignorance  

Central America - burden of time - appeasing the Gods with human sacrifice, preoccupation with fear and the mathematics of eternity 

Barbaric West - late development enabled waves of learning from the past - Mesopotamia, Greece, Rome, Renaissance, Reformation, Enlightenment led to more intensive economic interactions in cities. More individual freedom to generate & test, discover & accumulate survival tricks. A continuously evolving reformed Christianity and the empirical reason of common law and science encouraged pluralism and tolerance, diversity and competition eventually leading to sophisticated cultural institutions which alleviated the ancient problems of pessimism, poverty, domination, ignorance and fear - The Constitution of the USA and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Here we have a history of survival tricks, all behaviours - subconscious, conscious and self-conscious - have meaning as evolutionary functions, 'as if' survival tricks. 

Survival is secured by discovering & accumulating 'know how' synergies from cooperation through a blind 'tit for tat' algorithm. Robert Axelrod's 'tit for tat’ is an evolutionarily stable strategy, 'as if' a moral intent grows the benefits of cooperation over time and protects such benefits from predators & parasites - 

cooperate - be nice, don’t try to win at the expense of others, avoid unnecessary conflict

defend - retaliate if attacked to protect the benefits and discourage parasites & predators

communicate - responses must be clear, simple and emphatic to avoid misunderstandings – cooperation is the rule but there will be a proportionate defensive response to all attacks

recruit - forgive to maximise the opportunity for cooperative benefits next time round

learn from outcomes - cooperate with co-operators

The key is that it is not a one off zero sum game. There are no expensive prerequisites, the strategy is applied blindly, everybody can participate, long term cooperation becomes understandable. Tit for tat is an iterative search for synergies, it is a post rationalisation that always works whatever the outcomes or the response of others - think about it!

The three problems of the future - unintended consequences, the unknown responses of others and unexpected events are solved - what a strategy ! 

Thus cultures evolve and tit for tat is an evolved strategy it is not intelligent design!

I told you it was all difficult and complicated!

Robert Axelrod - ‘The key to doing well lies not in overcoming others but in eliciting their cooperation. Individuals don’t have to be rational; the evolutionary process alone allows successful strategy to thrive, even if the players do not know why or how. No central authority is needed, co-operation is self policing’.

Douglass North - 'Economics is a theory of choice - the way we perceive the world and construct our explanations about that world requires that we delve into how the mind and brain work'.

soooooo ... what is Intelligent Design?

Intelligent design - a consequence of self-consciousness, we behave 'as if' calculating and reasoning things out, 'as if' intelligently designing. Folk 'rationally purposefully intentionally plan' to imitate and 'rationally purposefully intentionally plan' to learn and 'rationally purposefully intentionally plan' to satisfice, and 'rationally purposefully intentionally plan' tit for tat, that is exactly what brain chemistry does but these behaviours are trial & error processes, generating neural variants and motor testing them in the imagination and in reality over generations. Remembering what works and forgetting what is useless ...

Neural adaptation - it is difficult to grasp the evolutionary process of design but it is not a 'computer like' logical design but a Darwinian process. An ability to discriminate sense perceptions and remember those input patterns and associated motor responses that survive. It is the only known scientific explanation of design, there is no evidence of any supernatural design nor designer - 

it is not cause and effect - the ultimate cause is the laws of physics and chemistry but the meaningful process is adaptation where effects are causes, non-linear and uncertain ...

it is not logical calculation - but rather a heuristic pattern recognition & generation process ... 

it is not planning success - but rather avoiding repetition of failed experiments by remembering

it is not supernatural intelligent design - it is responsiveness … adaptation.

John Searle - 'Many people mistakenly suppose that the essence of consciousness is that of a control mechanism' - 'I decide to raise my arm and up it goes ... that damn arm'!!

Soooo ... why the bottomless wineglass? 

Like all 'rationally purposefully intentionally planned' intelligent design the bottomless wineglass describes an experiment in the imagination, one of the vast number of innovation failures that somehow escaped immediate pruning. Successful science from the past did identify a toxic problem in the wine sediment that does accumulate at the bottom of glasses ... and doing nothing is always risky ... !

Silly ideas are usually rejected in the imagination long before testing in reality but rain dances are still acceptable in some cultures today ... and some like Copernicus and Galileo and Einstein did test silly ideas which proved successful ... and Mary Hicks the last witch to be executed in England was as recent as 1716 ... maybe silly ideas are a problem and an opportunity ... 

There are three possible routes to uneconomic wineglasses, take your pick - 

the 'adaptation' brain model must always involve a myriad of failed experiments, the pruning process can never be foolproof - is this just one of the failed experiments?

an 'intelligent design' brain model, with meticulous 'rational purposeful intentional planning' and thorough analysis, will always eventually fail as unintended consequences, unknown responses and unexpected events disrupt outputs - is this an arrogant attempt to intelligently design the drinking habits of other folk and protect them from poison?

the 'adaptation' model in the brain can choose to be parasitic and play a zero sum game - is this another cynical attempt to raise taxes for personal ego trips?

You've gotta work it out for yourself ... I tell folk not to listen to me but they won't listen ... I told you it was all difficult and complicated ... 

** Apologies to Charles Darwin - Gregor Mendel - Watson and Crick - John Maynard Smith - Richard Dawkins - Robert Axelrod - Daniel Dennett - Herbert Simon - Gary Cziko - Marc Hauser - Daniel Kahneman - Gerald M Edelman - John Searle - Benjamin Libet - Susan Greenfield - Arthur Peacocke - Douglass North - Michael Wood - Jorge Luis Borges - for this interpretation of their work.

'Models of My Life' - Herbert Simon.
'Wider than the Sky' - Gerald M Edelman.
'Mind Time: The Temporal Factor in Consciousness ' - Benjamin Libet.
'Freedom and Neurobiology' - John Searle.
'Freedom Evolves' - Daniel Dennett.
'Without Miracles' - Gary Cziko.
'Evolution: the Disguised Friend of Faith?' - Arthur Peacocke.
'Moral Minds: How Nature Designed a Universal Sense of Right and Wrong' - Marc Hauser.
'Understanding the Process of Economic Change' - Douglass North.
'The Evolution of Cooperation' - Robert Axelrod.
'In Search of the First Civilisations' - Michael Wood.
'The Garden of Forking Paths' - Jorge Luis Borges.

john p birchall

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