[MD] An attempt to reconcile the Metaphysics of Quality with the Cartesian dichotomy and ordinary epistemology

[118]

On Thu, Oct 21, 2010 at 8:16 PM, <craigerb at comcast.net> wrote:

> [Alexander]
> > Now first, what is natural selection? "The survival of the fittest" Now,
> > what is fitness? That's being adapted to the surroundings. But what does
> > that mean? Well, it means knowing a lot of things about the surroundings.
> In
> > usual neodarwinism, you say that natural selection means: the genetic
> > pattern being most adapted is the pattern managing to reproduce itself on
> a
> > larger scale than other patterns, and thus increasing its share of the
> > population total relative to those other patterns.
> > But this is, in fact, a tautology. Logically reduced, it becomes "those
> > becoming most are becoming more than those becoming less".
>
> Your entire post was excellent--I'm not sure the MoQ Discuss can improve
> upon it.
> Except, I do disagree with the part quoted above.  "The survival of the
> fittest" is not
> a tautology nor was it meant to be one.  First, consider the individual
> case:
> A mountain goat that is sure-footed is fitter to survive than one that is
> not.
> But that does not mean an unexpected avalanche cannot kill the former
> but not the latter.  So it is a contingent (not necessary) matter whether
> the
> former out-survives the latter.
> Instead of individuals, let's look at the trait of "sure-footedness":
> Having the trait of sure-footedness makes it more likely that the
> individual will
> have reproductive success (the ram has better mounting ability),
> so it is expected that the proportion of the population
> that are sure-footed goats will increase over time.  But again, this is a
> contingent
> matter, though the odds favor it.
> Craig
>

Hi Craig,
I agree with you about the post.  The idea is to discuss it, not to improve
on it.

In terms of the tautology, you seem not to recognize the circular
referencing.   The fittest survive.  Why do they survive?  Because they are
the fittest.  How do we know that they are the fittest?  Because they
survive.  Survival defines the fittest because the fittest survive.  The
fact that fittest can be further differentiated by sure-footedness makes no
difference.  Sounds like a poem by Ronnie D. Laing, give him a read on the
internet, google his last name and knots to see what I mean.

Best,
Mark

Moq_Discuss mailing list
> Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc.
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org
> Archives:
> http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/
> http://moq.org/md/archives.html
>