Convergent Evolution and Multiple Discovery

Convergent evolution is “the development of similar structures in distantly related organisms as a result of adapting to similar environments and/or strategies of life”. I’ve talked before about multiple independent simultaneous discovery and invention in science, technology, and art. I’ve mentioned that multiple discovery supports an evolutionary view of culture, but I haven’t really discussed [...]

Ockham versus Darwin

Contemplating the comments on my last post, I began thinking about Ockham’s Razor versus Darwinian Evolution. Both of them can be used as heuristics or algorithms for creation, invention, and discovery. In 1964, Ray Solomonoff proposed A Formal Theory of Inductive Inference (Parts I and II). His theory is an Ockhamian algorithm for searching through [...]

Everything Evolves

What is evolution? There are three main components to evolution: variation, heredity, and differential fitness. The best definition I have seen is in Robert Brandon’s Concepts and Methods in Evolutionary Biology:
The following three statements are crucial components of the Darwinian (or neo-Darwinian) theory of evolution:

Variation: There is (significant) variation in morphological, physiological and behavioral traits [...]

Incremental Doubt

Richard Feynman has said many wise things about the nature of scientific research. His emphasis on the importance of doubt is very insightful:
Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.
[...]
I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to [...]

The Evolution of Movies

In a previous post, I discussed multiple, independent, simultaneous discovery in science and technology, which supports the claim that science evolves. The authors of Multiple Discovery devote a chapter to arts and literature, but their main focus is science. I was thinking about multiple, independent, simultaneous creation in the arts, and I recalled several cases [...]

A Scientific Approach to Morals and Ethics

Ethical axioms are found and tested not very differently from the axioms of science. Truth is what stands the test of experience. — Albert Einstein
The traditional view is that science has nothing to say about ethics and morality. Science tells us what is and morality tells us what ought to be. You can’t get ought [...]

Analogy, Ethics, Cooperation, Evolution, and the Golden Ratio

Consider an analogy of the form A:B::C:D, “A is to B as C is to D”; for example, “mason is to stone as carpenter is to wood”. This kind of analogy is often called a proportional analogy. The Greeks believed that proportional analogy is like the numerical equation A/B = C/D; for example, 1/2 = [...]

Creating Friendly AI

Creating friendly AI is a popular topic among singularitarians. For example, Michael Anissimov writes:
As best as we can currently figure, the amount of effort needed to create a Friendly AI is small relative to the effort needed to create AI in the first place. But it’s a very important [...]

The Heroic Theory of Scientific Development

The history of science has been a series of blows to the ego of humanity. Copernicus showed us that our home, Earth, is not the centre of the universe; it’s just another planet. Darwin showed us that our species, Homo sapiens, is not special; it’s just another species of animal. But, although our planet is [...]