Mindscape 185 | Arvid Ågren on the Gene’s-Eye View of Evolution

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Blog post with audio player, show notes, and transcript: www.preposterousuniverse.com/...
One of the brilliant achievements of Darwin’s theory of natural selection was to help explain apparently “purposeful” or “designed” aspects of biology in a purely mechanistic theory of unguided evolution. Features are good if they help organisms survive. But should we put organisms at the center of our attention, or the genetic information that governs those features? Arvid Ågren helps us understand the attraction of the “selfish gene” view of evolution, as well as its shortcomings. This biological excursion has deep connections to philosophical issues of levels and emergence.
Arvid Ågren received his Ph.D. in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from the University of Toronto. He is currently a Wenner-Gren Fellow at the Evolutionary Biology Centre at Uppsala University. Previously he worked at Cornell and Harvard. His recent book is The Gene’s-Eye View of Evolution.
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[@Pawely]

Greate Episode, and I just love your approache for clarifying questioning! Regarding the peculiar structure of the "agents"/"loose entities" persisting in these complex systems, wasnt there already pretty insightfull modeling done by von Neumann's theory of universal constructors? or maybe tangential ideas, back from second order cybernetics guys to contemporary machine learning discourse about mesa optimizers... I somhow feel, the ecological view of diffrent (not just redundant) signal/information pathways, interacting on vastly different "scales" is hard to reconsile, with the seeming "simplicity" or reductivity of older mathematical models ala gamethoeretical equilibriums etc...

[@Corvaire]

I knew Gene was up to something! ;O)-

[@alexchopek1385]

Hey Sean do u think time has a opposite?

I don't even know how that question is supposed to make sense. Does space have an opposite? No, but there are opposite directions. For time you can talk about past and future, but those are both instances of directions of the time continuum.

[@bibliasagradaevangelhopala7320]

Confessai as vossas culpas uns aos outros e orai uns pelos outros, para que sareis; a oração feita por um justo pode muito em seus efeitos. Tiago 5:16

[@naturallaw1733]

Olá meu irmão brasileiro! 👋

[@bibliasagradaevangelhopala7320]

@@naturallaw1733 oi

[@Raydensheraj]

This is not the right place for your preferred version of invisible supernatural superbeeing and outrageous superstitious and unverifiable claims.

[@Flum666]

I don't really care what Gene Hackman's view is on evolution

[@allenmarkham]

Can I take away from all this that there is a single "life force" that has existed and is passed down from biogenesis to the present and carried by everything that is alive?

[@naturallaw1733]

kind of sounds like part of thee Natural Laws.. 🙌

[@origins7298]

The majority of evidence shows that there are impersonal forces that under the right circumstances lead to complex chemical systems There is no evidence that the idea of a light Force means anything or is a good explanation of anything. It's like saying maybe gravity is caused by Gremlins or the planets revolve around the sun because of angels Just a word that doesn't have any real meaning and is actually problematic for real understanding There are chemicals, there are molecules and certain relationships that govern how molecules interact, and given the right circumstances molecules will evolve in complexity. But I don't think the ideas you've presented further our understanding in anyway and actually work against it

[@naturallaw1733]

@@origins7298 there is Life (Force) because we see it and experience it. so, we know how it works and can understand some of its Laws. but the bigger question will always remain on WHY it exists or for What Purpose... and personally all I come back to is just that this Life Force will continue regardless of what that means to us and how we Feel about it. it's still just this Life (Force) itself where it all begins and 'ends' for us.

[@origins7298]

@@naturallaw1733 oh really is there also fire force or combustion force Is fire better unerstood as a vital energy or a chemical reaction Is life best understood as an evolved chemical system or a force How come no textbook or respected University teaches that life is a force? Where is your evidence that life is a force besides your own musings?

@Allen Markham: Not really. Life can easily have evolved other places as well, because the universe is *huge* . The main reason that it _probably_ didn't happen multiple times here on Earth is that once life did emerge then it started consuming the molecules that other lifeforms would need to emerge by chance, and it's much easier for something that is alive already to evolve to make use of other compounds than it is for new lifeforms to emerge. If life did emerge multiple times here on Earth then the other lifeforms simply got out-competed by the DNA-based life that we know of today, and the passage of time has deleted all traces of it.

[@czerskip]

Mirror universe references always appreciated 🪞