> Replying to LO607 --
>> > > Are there reinforcing processes in human beings that are healthy?
>> >
>> > Evolution may be regarded as a reinforcing process which keeps
>> > improving and improving the various lifeforms.
>> >
>> Nope. Evolution is *not* teleological; it is not directed to any
>> particular end. It's simply a result of the fact that given any
>> particular environment, those organisms that are the best adapted to that
>> environment flourish. If the environment changes enough, what was
>> adaptive in the old environment may be maladaptive in the new environment,
>> and vice versa. Evolution is purely driven by environmental change.
>> There's no such thing as "fitness" in general, only "fitness for a
>> particular environment."
> [...]
>> In fact, there *is* a balancing process present in evolution: Fisher's
>> Fundamental Theorem of Natural Selection says that the better adapted an
>> organism is to its present environment, the less change in that
>> environment the organism can survive.
>>
> A related question is whether optimisation, in general, constitutes a
> reinforcing process. Its interesting that biological phenomena have
> spawned algorithms based on them for the optimization of (typically
> general nonlinear) functions. In particular, evolution has given rise to
> genetic algorithms which optimize general fitness functions and there is
> even an optimization algorithm developed by someone in Italy based on the
> ant example that someone else on this list gave. Is optimization to be
> regarded as reinforcing since the process moves closer and closer to an
> optimum or balanced since you get there or at least approach it at a
> slower and slower rate without ever reaching it? Is exponentiality a
> prerequisite for reinforcing in the sense that it is used in Senge or is
> progressive increase enough?
Robert Axelrod and Stephanie Forrest used genetic algorithms to study
the evolution of cooperative strategies in game=theoretic
environments, including the "Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma."
The references I have are:
Axelrod, Robert (1984) "The evolution of Cooperation." Basic Books,
New York, New York.
Axelrod, Robert (1986) " An evolutionary approach to norms. "The
American Political Science Review, 80", December, 1986.
Axelrod, Robert (1987) "The evolution of strategies in the iterated
prisoner's dilemma," In L. Daves (ed.) "Genetic Algorithms and
Simulated Annealing." London, Pitman Publishing.
Forrest, Stephanie, (1985) "Documentation for prisoner's dilemma and
norms programs, The University of Michigan.
John
--John Conover, 631 Lamont Ct., Campbell, CA., 95008, USA. VOX 408.370.2688, FAX 408.379.9602 john@johncon.com