Daniel Dennett - Is Evolution an Algorithmic Process? Part 2

Produced by:
University of Washington
November 19, 1998
From the Series:
Danz Lecture Series

Description:
Daniel Dennett discusses his research into Darwin's evolutionary theory of natural selection and describes its suggestion of evolution as an algorithmic process.

Speaker(s):
Daniel C. Dennett, Austin B. Fletcher Professor of Philosophy; director, Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Daniel
• Dennett
• Atheism
• Philosophy
• Algorithm
• Evolution

[RLore18]

There is no such thing as infinity. Evolution can't produce infinite results. Nor could an existing God.

[82abhilash]

Here they are not referring to infinity in its literal mathematical definition. But its cruder counter parts that exist in the real world. Set of objects we treat as infinite even though they are not literally so - grains of sand on the beach, molecules of gas on planet earth, number of stars in the sky and so on.

[PUArtista]

Another brilliant brain that breathes as hard as James Gandolfini

[qaplatlhinganmaH]

EMBLEMATIC: of, relating to, or constituting an emblem : symbolic, representative

[qaplatlhinganmaH]

PARADIGM

1 : example, pattern; especially : an outstandingly clear or typical example or archetype

2 : an example of a conjugation or declension showing a word in all its inflectional forms

3 : a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated; broadly : a philosophical or theoretical framework of any kind

[acr08807]

@qaplatlhinganmaH What's the difference between "emblematic" and "paradigmatic?"

[2eelShmeal]

@RLore18 There is no largest or smallest number. Numbers go on infinitely in both directions. In fact, there are infinities everywhere. IE There is an infinity of numbers between 7.9 and 8. There is an infinity of numbers between 7.98 and 7.99.

Research Georg Cantor. He went insane trying to cope with these infinities.

[marvincontendo]

LOL

[qaplatlhinganmaH]

Evolution is an emblematic and paradigmatic process for process philosophy. For not only is evolution a process that makes philosophers and philosophy possible, but it provides a clear model for how processual novelty and innovation comes into operation in nature's self-engendering and self-perpetuating scheme of things.

[qaplatlhinganmaH]

Evolution, be it of organism or of mind, of subatomic matter or of the cosmos as a whole, reflects the pervasive role of process which philosophers of this school see as central both to the nature of our world and to the terms in which it must be understood. Change pervades nature. The passage of time leaves neither individuals nor types (species) of things statically invariant. Process at once destabilizes the world and is the cutting-edge of advance to novelty

[heloizyjhenifer]

Paul Valéry essentially captured the whole of Darwin's theory of variation and selection in a few simple statements. Of which the first one is sufficient, I think.

[EveryHumanBeing]

Infinity is an artifact of the human mind. It is just a word that describes an abstract idea, just like perfection. Perfection does not exist anywhere in the natural world and neither does infinity.

Nothing is perfect and nothing is infinite.