tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-49952020186838901812024-03-08T08:04:30.148-08:00The Ontological BlogA blog whose concept requires it to exist.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4995202018683890181.post-81982373274808572662012-03-17T14:54:00.000-07:002012-03-17T15:30:00.102-07:00Gödel and the Constitution V: My Conjecture<p>I have long promised a final post in this series,
containing my conjecture as to what
Gödel's
constitutional contradiction was.
It is quite different from the other speculation I have seen.
My delay has had several reasons:
<ol>
<li>I have been immersed in doing
<a href="http://www.jeffreykegler.com/marpa">my
own mathematics</a>.
<li>Really doing the homework on this requires
a reasonable reading knowledge of German,
something I do not have.
<li>Even given that I had done the homework,
it was hard for me to imagine that others are impatient
to hear my conjectures.
<li>Frankly,
while I find the following convincing and interesting,
my guess is most readers of the following will share
the opinions of Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern
and will be disappointed.
</ol>
<p>
Without further ado, then, here is my conjecture:
<ol>
<li>When the Nazis took over Austria,
I conjecture that there was some after-the-fact justification in terms of Austrian constitutional law.
I want to emphasize here that
Gödel's concern would have been Austrian law --
*NOT* German law.
I do not read German well and cannot follow up on this.
It may be hard to find because even the lawyers who drafted it probably did not take it seriously.
<li>Gödel did take
this after-the-fact justification seriously, and at face value.
From Gödel's point of view, it would have explained why the Anschluss could and did happen.
<li>When Gödel studied the US Constitution, he found that a similar thing was possible under its terms.
</ol>
<p>
I had already formed this conjecture before finding the Lost
Morgenstern document, which contains the closest we will ever
get to the exact wording of the conversation:<br>
Gödel: "[Austria] was a republic, but the constitution was such
that it was changed into a dictatorship."<br>
Judge: "Oh! This is very bad. This could not happen in this country."<br>
Gödel: "Oh, yes, I can prove it."<br>
<p>
I cannot claim that the Morgenstern document proves my conjecture,
but its language does track the conjecture exactly.
And, if this conjecture seems unconvincing and uninteresting to you,
note that that counts as evidence in its favor -- recall that,
even though the story centers around it,
Morgenstern and Einstein found
Gödel's line of reasoning
not worth repeating.
Had it been something clearly convincing or interesting,
presumably they would have passed at least a fragment
of Gödel's argument on to posterity.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4995202018683890181.post-68956428328366416272009-01-20T21:40:00.000-08:002009-01-20T22:31:19.654-08:00Gödel and the Constitution IV: RedisoveryIn this post I tell how the Lost Morgenstern Document became lost, and finish the story of its rediscovery. The Lost Morgenstern Document is the sole first-hand account of Kurt Gödel's citizenship hearing on 5 Dec 1947, at which Gödel, Albert Einstein, and Oskar Morgenstern went before Judge Phillip Forman. On that occasion Gödel felt compelled to share with the judge his account of a proof he'd discovered -- that the U.S. could, quite legally, be converted into a dictatorship because of a logical contradiction in our Constitution. Fortunately, Judge Forman was a friend of Einstein's. Forman stopped Gödel short and forced the hearing to a successful conclusion.<br /><br />After 1947, this story became a favorite. It has been told and retold in many variations. It's one of the better known Einstein stories, and probably the best-known story about Kurt Gödel. In a draft dated 1971, Morgenstern wrote an authentic account up for publication. This eventually became the Lost Morgenstern Document.<br /><br />Judge Forman died in August 1978. Judge Forman had bent some rules at the hearing, which may have made the others reticent. But Forman outlived the other three. Einstein had died back in 1955, Morgenstern the previous year, and Gödel a few months earlier, in January.<br /><br />At some point, Dorothy Morgenstern, Oskar's widow, sent a copy of the Morgenstern Document to the Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS), where Morgenstern, Einstein and Gödel had all worked. Presumably this was after Oskar's death, but even that is not totally certain. Dorothy's cover note is dated "August 30". She gives no year.<br /><br />Dorothy Morgenstern probably sent the Morgenstern Document to the IAS before 1983, because on 17 October of that year, John Dawson interviewed her as part of his research for his biography of Gödel. At that point, Dorothy no longer remembered where the Morgenstern Document was. The very thorough Dawson tried to locate it in Morgenstern's papers at Duke University and among Gödel's papers in Princeton's Firestone Library, but without success. Dawson came to doubt that the Lost Morgenstern Document had ever actually existed.<br /><br />Second-hand accounts of Gödel's hearing started to appear as early as 1978. A 1986 account is especially striking, because it appears in Gödel's <em>Collected Works</em>. <em>Collected Works</em> is for almost all purposes a source so reliable that it can used with confidence to check the others. It is quite willing to be dryasdust if that's what it takes to be absolutely meticulous.<br /><br />All the more surprising, then, to find in <em>Collected Works</em> a version of the hearing with lively dialogue. Only if the reader delves into the footnotes does he learn that this dialogue comes from a source which mislocated the hearing from Trenton to Washington. The footnote goes on to admit that, since the source was in German, the dialogue must have been through a double translation, from English to German and back again.<br /><br />In fact there was probably only one translation. Because thanks to the Lost Morgenstern Document, we now know that the dialogue that appears in <em>Collected Works</em> was invented.<br /><br />In 1997 Dawson published <em>Logical Dilemmas</em>. Confronted with the problem of trafficking in hearsay, <em>Collected Works</em> had chosen to dive in face first. Dawson was more prudent. He restricted himself to what Dorothy Morgenstern had told him. Her knowledge was second-hand, and we now know that on this matter her memory was not good, but of all the possible second-hand sources she could be thought to be the least bad -- she certainly must have heard Oskar tell the story many times. Until 2008 Dawson remained the only careful source for Gödel's citizenship hearing, and <em>Logical Dilemmas</em> remains the most reliable source for Gödel biography.<br /><br />In Spring 2006, the IAS <em>Letter</em> published an account of Gödel's citizenship hearing with this unpromising beginning: "On September 13, 1971, Oskar Morgenstern recorded the following memory of Kurt Gödel’s 1948 Trenton interview with an official of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)." Whoever wrote that sentence knew little about the hearing. While Gödel took the oath of citizenship in 1948, his hearing was in 1947. And the hearing took place before a District Court Judge, not an INS official. But we now know that the first part of this sentence was correct, and that the sentence indeed introduced an edited version of the Lost Morgenstern Document.<br /><br />John Dawson saw this account in the IAS <em>Letter</em> and passed it over as yet another second-hand account of the hearing masquerading as the real thing. The <em>Letter</em> appeared on the Web, and a version of its account of the hearing made its way onto another IAS web page.<br /><br />In November 2008, I edited the account of the hearing on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Gödel">Wikipedia's Gödel page</a>. I changed it to follow what was then by far the most reliable version of the story -- the one in Dawson's biography. Following up, I used Google to search for Web links on the hearing, and found an IAS Web page with the Morgenstern account. For my Wikipedia edit, I'd reread Dawson. I had seen his mention of a supposed Lost Morgenstern Document, a document which Dawson was not convinced had ever existed. On careful reading, I realized that, despite its erroneous first sentence, the account on the IAS web page was probably what it claimed to be. Morgenstern's Lost Document not only existed, I was reading it.<br /><br />To confirm my idea, on November 23, 2008, I emailed John Dawson, who I'd never previously contacted. I drew his attention back to the IAS account, pointing out that if it was not authentic, then it was an improbably expert and painstaking forgery. The next day, Dawson replied. He'd contacted the IAS, and confirmed that the account on the IAS website was in fact based on the Lost Morgenstern Document, which they still had in their possession. Dawson sent me <a href="http://morgenstern.jeffreykegler.com/">the PDF that I have put on the Web</a>.<br /><br />Alas, the no longer Lost Morgenstern Document gives no definite answer as to what Gödel's proof was. In my concluding post, I'll discuss what it does say.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4995202018683890181.post-60591872100362566502009-01-06T11:39:00.000-08:002009-01-20T22:31:19.654-08:00Gödel and the Constitution III: Psych-outOn 5 December 1947, Albert Einstein set himself the task of psyching out the world's greatest mathematician. His partner and wheel-man in this venture was Oskar Morgenstern, the co-inventor of game theory.<br /><br />Their motive was not frivolous. The target was Kurt Godel, whose citizenship hearing was scheduled in Trenton, New Jersey for that day. In studying for the questions he would be asked at the hearing, Gödel decided that he had discovered a contradiction in the U.S. Constitution. Gödel believed this contradiction would allow the U.S. to be turned, quite legally, into a dictatorship. Gödel was sure that this discovery needed to be shared.<br /><br />Einstein and Morgenstern were sure that Gödel's citizenship hearing would turn into a world-class fiasco if he were to start proving logico-philosopical contradictions in Constitutional Law before the wrong judge. And more was at stake than bureaucratic delay. Gödel was an Austrian citizen, the Cold War was starting up, and there were Russian occupation troops in Austria. Gödel might talk his way into a real bind.<br /><br />On the newsreels, Einstein looks like a genial, harmless eccentric. That's one side of him, and it's the side he liked the public to see. But Einstein was shrewd about people and politics, and he could be ruthless if he thought the situation justified it.<br /><br />"Are you really well prepared for this examination?" Einstein said to Gödel once they were on the way to Trenton. Gödel has sat in the back, and Einstein turned around as he said it. From behind the steering wheel, Morgenstern noticed the effect. Gödel was very worried, which was just what Einstein intended. Einstein's next task was to keep Gödel just as upset all the way to Trenton.<br /><br />Einstein abruptly changed the subject away from the upcoming hearing, to a book he had just read -- a very detailed study on the history of the Russian Church. Gödel wanted to talk about his upcoming hearing, but a sardonic Einstein always turned the conversation back to the religious history of the Russias. As they neared Trenton, Morgenstern threaded them through the increasingly dense traffic, while Einstein wove more detail into his tapestry of theology and statecraft.<br /><br />Listening to Einstein's tale of a Russian Church steering its way between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, Gödel grew more and more worried about whether he'd pass the examination. He became less and less interested in proving theorems about the U.S. Constitution. By the time the three came before the judge, Einstein and Morgenstern had Gödel where they wanted him.<br /><br />But things unraveled with Judge Philip Forman's very first question. "What kind of government did you have in Austria?", he asked.<br /><br />Gödel told Forman that it had been a republic but had been turned into a dictatorship. Einstein and Morgenstern squirmed.<br /><br />"Oh! This is very bad," said Judge Forman. "This could not happen in this country."<br /><br />"Oh, yes," Gödel answered, "I can prove it."<br /><br />That they had come before Judge Forman was a stroke of luck. Forman was a friend of Einstein's. After a brief discussion, Forman told Gödel that he need not go into more detail on the dictatorship issue and force-marched the hearing to a successful end.<br /><br />This account of the hearing comes from <a href="http://morgenstern.jeffreykegler.com/">a first hand account by Oskar Morgenstern</a>. This account was lost for many decades, but in November 2008 I rediscovered it. In my next post, I'll finish the story of how the Lost Morgenstern Document came back to light.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4995202018683890181.post-28778352741729004772008-12-10T10:20:00.000-08:002009-01-05T18:27:58.066-08:00Gödel and the Constitution II: The Lost Morgenstern DocumentThe great mathematician Kurt Gödel thought he found a contradiction in the U.S. Constitution. He came upon it in 1947, while preparing for the questions he would be asked at his citizenship hearing, and became obsessed with it to the point where it seemed likely to torpedo his chances at citizenship. Gödel's friends, Albert Einstein and Oskar Morgenstern joined forces to prevent this from happening.<br /><br />Until November 2008, there was a major obstacle to taking this story seriously as history. We know that Gödel had a citizenship hearing in 1947. Judge Philip Forman presided and Einstein and Morgenstern were there as witnesses. But the rest of the story depended completely on hearsay.<br /><br />All participants at the hearing have been dead for 30 years. We had no first-hand account of the hearing from any of them. According to John Dawson, Gödel's very capable and thorough biographer, Morgenstern claimed to have written up an account for publication. But Dawson couldn't find it. To me that meant fuhgeddaboudit. But on Nov 23, 2008, much to my own surprise, I found the <a href="http://morgenstern.jeffreykegler.com/">Lost Morgenstern Document</a>.<br /><br />By coincidence, I've written a novel that revolves around the serendipitous finding of lost Gödel documents. In <a href="http://www.amazon.com/God-Proof-Jeffrey-Kegler/dp/1434807355"><span style="font-style: italic;">The God Proof</span></a>, the main character is sitting in his office when a woman shows up carrying a briefcase with $20,000 in cash and two long missing Gödel notebooks. The woman is famous, rich, mysterious, beautiful and in trouble. Unfortunately, that's not how I found the Lost Morgenstern Document. A shame, too, since I could use the cash.<br /><br />My real-life discovery of the Lost Morgenstern Document started with Wikipedia's article on Kurt Gödel. I'd revised its account of the citizenship hearing to stick to the facts as related in Dawson's biography. While Googling around, I hit upon a page that struck me as odd.<br /><br />At first glance, it was Yet Another Retelling of the citizenship hearing, a bit more shaky than most. It described itself as an account of "Gödel's 1948 Trenton interview with an official of the Immigration Service." The hearing did take place in Trenton, but it was in front of a U.S. District Court Judge. And while Gödel took his citizenship oath in 1948, the hearing took place on 5 December 1947.<br /><br />I'm not sure why I kept on reading. Possibly I wanted to check out how another writer handled the "lost document" trope. The "false document" method is a very powerful way to tell a story, but hard to do right. On one hand, it takes work to make the fictional document seem authentic. On the other hand, for the story to read well, the fictional document has to avoid the gaps, detours and general clumsiness of real-life documentation.<br /><br />This writer was very convincing, but his story-telling was awkward. Which struck me as strange. Good yarnsmanship is not rare. Less common is the ability to catch the voice of someone like Morgenstern. This writer had Morgenstern nailed. What if the writer was Morgenstern?<br /><br />Going back to the account, I looked for three signs of genuineness. First, if this was the Lost Morgenstern Document, I'd expect the writer to be perfect on any facts that Morgenstern would know. And, except for that screwy first sentence, the writer knew what Morgenstern knew. But the opening sentence used the third person and was outside of the quote marks. It could have been an introduction, added by another writer.<br /><br />The second sign was detail not in previous accounts. This writer had lots of it. The writer said that he drove and that he picked up Gödel first. Gödel sat in back. He then drove to Mercer Street to pick up Einstein. The hearing was in a "big room". Gödel sat between Einstein and Morgenstern. And so on.<br /><br />The third sign was the clincher. I looked for something which was unexpected but which seemed "right" in hindsight. And I found something new in the story which, once I thought about it, fit perfectly.<br /><br />None of the retellings of the citizenship hearing story make the contest of intellects between Einstein and Gödel sound right. The Einstein in the hearsay versions was wishy-washy, the affable Einstein of the newsreels. The Einstein in the Lost Morgenstern Document was the real Einstein, brilliant and quite capable of ruthlessness when he thought it was important and in a good cause.<br /><br />In my next post, I'll tell the story of Einstein and the Gödel psych-out.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4995202018683890181.post-29152306380381654462008-11-30T17:57:00.000-08:002009-01-20T22:33:18.574-08:00Gödel and the Constitution I: The Fatal ContradictionOn 5 December 1947, Kurt Gödel, the man <span style="font-style: italic;">Time</span> magazine called the last century's greatest mathematician, had his citizenship hearing. One of Gödel's witnesses was the man the same issue of <span style="font-style: italic;">Time</span> called the century's greatest person, Albert Einstein. The other witness was Oskar Morgenstern, co-inventor of game theory.<br /><br />At the hearing, the prospective citizen has to answer a few basic questions. Not a big deal, you'd think, for the second greatest mind in the world, especially when he's got number one there to vouch for him. But Gödel, for better and for worse, was not like other people. In mathematics, Gödel could do the impossible. In the rest of life, Gödel had a way of making the easy difficult. Sixty years later, Gödel's citizenship hearing is legendary. Now, in 2008, decades after all the participants in that meeting have died, there's an important discovery about it.<br /><br />Uniquely among mathematicians, Gödel was known for surprises. Most mathematicians prove things already believed to be true. Occasionally mathematicians prove things that other mathematicians weren't one hundred percent sure about. Rarely does a mathematician prove something most of the others thought must be false. And no mathematician had made a career of that kind of proof until Kurt Gödel came along.<br /><br />When it came to this citizenship hearing, Einstein and Morgenstern were in no mood for surprises. So when Gödel told them he'd found a contradiction in the U.S. Constitution, one that would allow the U.S. to be turned into a dictatorship, they told him to forget it. But Gödel seemed to feel the need to share his discovery. If Gödel started expounding on defects in the U.S. Constitution to the wrong kind of judge, Einstein and Morgenstern knew there could be trouble.<br /><br />In the decades since 1947, the tale of what happened at the hearing was told and retold, each time with differing incident and dialog. Certainly, there was a citizenship hearing. Probably Gödel had some kind of proof about the US constitution, one which had Morgenstern and Einstein worried. More than that I didn't think we'd ever know.<br /><br />Not that there weren’t lots of stories. When I was a grad student, Gödel was still alive. In the halls and offices, I heard many a tale of Gödel's eccentric behavior. Over the years, I’ve learned that every one of those stories was unfounded and probably false.<br /><br />I expected that none of the various recountings of the citizenship hearing was to be trusted. Faculty room yarnsmanship had "improved" them to the point where they were useless. I also expected that the hearsay versions omitted a lot of important details.<br /><br />Now, to my surprise, we can know. I have discovered <a href="http://morgenstern.jeffreykegler.com/">Morgenstern's original account of Gödel's citizenship hearing</a>, lost to scholarship for decades. How I found it, I'll describe in my next post.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4995202018683890181.post-61252224183261356902008-08-21T18:13:00.000-07:002008-08-21T18:48:16.149-07:00Dawkins Revisit: A Compromise between Survival and Increase?This blog post is a long delayed reply to a question Harshad asked in a comment to <a href="http://jeffreykegler.blogspot.com/2007/07/dawkins-5-as-much-as-possible-is.html">"Dawkins #5: 'As Much As Possible' is Vacuous"</a>. We're talking about Richard Dawkins's theories, set out in the popular <span style="font-style: italic;">The Selfish Gene</span> and the scholarly <span style="font-style: italic;">The Extended Phenotype</span>. Dawkins refutes the idea that natural selection can be competition of species or even individuals. He makes the case that natural selection is driven by competition between genes. In my series of posts, I take Dawkins arguments as a starting point but find that Dawkins is ambiguous about the goal of the "selfish genes".<br /><br />Specifically, most of the time Dawkins says that genes are trying to maximize their chances of "survival" (<span style="font-style: italic;">The Extended Phenotype</span>, p. 233) but sometimes he says they are trying to increase in number (<span style="font-style: italic;">Phenotype</span>, p. 84). When Dawkins gives examples, the genes are usually trying to increase the number of "germline" genes. (Germline genes are those actually in reproductive lineages.)<br /><br />This distinction (survival vs. increase) is <span style="font-weight: bold;">not</span> a verbal quibble. The two goals produce different mathematical models and these will usually make different predictions, probably including testably different predictions. I went on to try to settle the issue of survival vs. increase, looking at the internal coherence of the two ideas, and their consistency with Dawkins methodology. Here Harshad had questions. I had decided one of the two goals was probably right, and the other wrong. Harshad wondered whether some combination of the two might be at work.<br /><br />Dawkins' materialist method is the major reason for thinking survival vs. increase must be decided entirely for one goal or the other. Natural selection is driven by "selfish genes", but (from my <a href="http://jeffreykegler.blogspot.com/2007/07/dawkins-genes-are-they-selfish-enough.html">"Dawkins #1: Are His Genes Selfish Enough?"</a>):<blockquote>Closely related to the "increase" vs. "survival" question, is the question of the exact nature of "the unit of selfishness". It's the "gene", but "the gene" can either be the collection of all genes with the same phenotype at the same place in the chromosome (which I'll call the gene-type), or one individual member of that collection (which I'll call the gene-copy). While the English language is ambiguous, Dawkins is not. His examples and his more detailed explications clearly show that he thinks the gene-type is what is "selfish", and that gene-copies subordinate their individual interests to the gene-type.</blockquote>If the gene-copy is the "unit of selfishness", survival is the goal. If the gene-type is the "unit of selfishness", increase is the goal. A mechanism where the two cooperate on some sort of shared goal can't be excluded, but it is hard to see how they can share responsibility in materialist terms.<br /><br />The above brutally summarizes my previous Dawkins posts. I make these arguments much more carefully in them and I also examine the kind of combined goals Harshad suggests in detail.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4995202018683890181.post-70195674540316747232008-02-19T08:29:00.000-08:002008-02-19T08:31:43.614-08:00God Proof available as free download<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;">The God Proof</span> is now <a href="http://www.lulu.com/content/933192">available as a free download</a>.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4995202018683890181.post-59891814194125547942007-08-01T18:36:00.000-07:002007-08-15T17:48:58.203-07:00Dawkins #6: One Goal to Rule Them All[ <span style="font-style: italic;">This post is number 6 of a series. They will be of interest mainly</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> to those who've read Richard Dawkins' book, </span>The Selfish Gene<span style="font-style: italic;">. I</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> recommend they be read in order. </span>]<br /><br />Richard Dawkins ascribes two different goals to genes: "survival" and "increase". In previous posts, I pointed out that these produce different models, which in turn predict different results. I expanded the "goal" metaphor out into literal terms, and showed that if this "thought problem" is worked out with genes taken on a "snapshot" basis, their goal is clearly seen as survival.<br /><br />In the last two posts I showed that "increase goals" will not work without a well-defined condition or "target". Pure "increase goals" had several problems, the worst of which showed up when I expanded the "goal" metaphor into literal terms. Pure increase goals require us to believe genes have an intent, not just metaphorically, but in literal fact. Unlike limited increase goals, where we can justify our statements that genes have those goals by pointing to the actual effect of the genes in the material world, pure increase goals require us to make statements about what genes "would" do if they "could". That takes us from metaphor into fantasy.<br /><br />It remains to look at "increase goals" with well-defined conditions. Testable (if not necessarily realistic) examples might be "Increase the germline gene count if foraging produces more than the target level of N calories per average day, otherwise regulate the germline gene count to maintain or restore that level" or "Maintain a germline gene count which keeps the species at 9% of the epipelagic Antarctic biomass."<br /><br />In one sense, these are not goals of "increase" as stated by Dawkins, but "maintenance goals". But I will give any goal based on germline gene frequency, honorary status as an "increase goal". More important than whether they track Dawkins language (<span style="font-style: italic;">Extended Phenotype</span>, p. 84) closely is whether they make a satisfactory alternative to the survival goal. That's not a question that should be answered with a semantic quibble.<br /><br />The basic problem with the limited versions of "increase goals" is best shown by their confusion in the face of outlaw genes. Assume that genes do have gene-frequency goals which, at least at points, involve maintaining a certain population level. What's to stop a new mutation that cheats? At first glance, it would seem that if the genome of a species has settled on a rule that says "stop increasing gene count at level X", any gene that ignores it will have a selection advantage over its law-abiding fellow genes.<br /><br />I won't dwell on the practical side of this problem: how the law-abiding genes in a genome can "police" these outlaws. (Dawkins deals with "outlaws" in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Extended Phenotype</span>, ch. 8.) I'm more interested in the definitional problem which the practical issues highlight.<br /><br />"Population outlaws" are outlaws because they don't share the limited increase goal which is supposed to be the general goal of natural selection. But if a limited increase goal is going to be the general goal of natural selection, it needs to describe the behavior of law-abiding genes and outlaw genes alike.<br /><br />The general goal of natural selection has to be a law not in the sense of the law against train robbery, but in the sense of the laws of physics. Train robbers can decide to ignore the criminal code, but they've got to shoot straight or suffer the consequences, the same as any lawman. The general goal of natural selection must impose itself on outlaw genes the way the laws of physics impose themselves on gunmen.<br /><br />Ideally, in fact, the general goal of natural selection will tell us why outlaw genes do what they do. A survival goal would seem to describe "population outlaws" well: All genes try to increase their probability of survival. Population outlaws are genes that attempt to survive at the expense of the other genes in a genome by cheating on their population discipline.<br /><br />The existence of "population outlaws" shows that a limited "increase goal" cannot stand in even as the law governing the genome of a single species. Limited increase goals are even worse when applied to the genes outside of a genome. Even if there were no such thing as "population outlaws", a limited increase goal would describe the behavior of, at most, a narrow range of species.<br /><br />A pure "increase goal" is general enough to cover all life, but we were forced to rule it out because it was incoherent. We have to rule out impure, or limited increase goals precisely because they are limited and specific.<br /><br />With the elimination of both limited and unlimited gene-frequency goals, my argument that survival is the general goal of natural selection is complete. "Increase" goals and gene-frequency targets are tactics employed by certain genes at certain times in the battle for survival. Gene-frequency targets themselves evolve and go extinct. The goal of survival will not go extinct before life itself does.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4995202018683890181.post-25461787011896062702007-07-28T15:04:00.000-07:002007-08-15T17:45:06.339-07:00Dawkins #5: "As Much As Possible" is Vacuous[ <span style="font-style: italic;">This post is number 5 of a series. They will be of interest mainly</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> to those who've read Richard Dawkins' book, </span>The Selfish Gene<span style="font-style: italic;">. I</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> recommend they be read in order.</span> ]<br /><br />Richard Dawkins ascribes two different goals to genes: "survival" and "increase". In previous posts, I pointed out that these produce different models, which in turn predict different results. I expanded the "goal" metaphor out into literal terms, and showed that if this "thought problem" is worked out with genes taken on a "snapshot" basis, their goal is clearly seen as survival.<br /><br />In the last post I showed that pure "increase goals" (goals of increase without condition or limit) have several serious problems. By far the worst is that when the pure "increase goal" metaphor is expanded into literal terms, it's seen to require genes to have states of mind not just metaphorically, but literally. This makes pure "increase goals" incoherent, and that's a show-stopper.<br /><br />So far I have not discussed "increase goals" with some kind of condition or limit. These can be coherent, and a number of them can be seriously meaningful. At first, a goal of "increase as much as possible" may seem to be an obvious choice among them.<br /><br />But "increase as much as possible" is deceptive. It probably works, but that's because it's not really an "increase goal". "Do X as much as possible" means "Do X subject to condition Y." "Increase as much as possible" means "Increase, subject to condition Y." The only other goal Dawkins mentions is survival and "as much as possible consistent with survival" is the natural reading of the meaning hidden inside "as much as possible."<br /><br />If we translate this goal into terms easier to model mathematically, we get "First maximize the probability of survival, and having done that, maximize the number of germline genes." Survival is a demanding goal. Since we are talking about our goal as the candidate for the general goal of natural selection, our gene will be battling for survival against genes selected over eons for their skill at surviving, including their skill in surviving at our gene's expense whenever it's in the slightest bit useful. Unlike increase, which must happen in units at minimum one amino acid in size, survival is a probability. Arbitrarily tiny advantages built up over time can make a difference.<br /><br />The issue may be clearest if we look at the goal of "first maximize survival, then <span style="font-weight: bold;">decrease</span> the count of germlines genes as much as possible". This goal is coherent, and we don't have to worry about a gene with this goal decreasing itself to extinction. The first priority for the gene's efforts is survival. No effort will be available for any second priority.<br /><br />If the gene's goal is "first maximize survival and then do Z as much as possible", Z can in fact be nonsensical. For example, Z might be "attend Rolling Stones concerts" and the fact that genes don't know how to buy tickets will make no difference -- they'll never have the chance to worry about it. The "do Z as much as possible" clause is completely vacuous.<br /><br />Perhaps the reader never had any taste for slippery language like "as much as possible", and has been wondering why I'm going on about it. If so, I apologize. Goals like "increase the germline gene count until you've used 9.7601% of the Antarctic biomass, then sustain that biomass level" are both coherent and substantive. Unlike the incoherent and vacuous versions of the "increase goal" that I've been discussing, which can be dismissed a priori, specific gene-frequency goals are likely to reward empirical investigation. Even so, I think they are inferior to survival as a choice for the general goal of natural selection, and in my next post, I'll show why.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4995202018683890181.post-43345304347740988222007-07-25T18:15:00.000-07:002007-07-28T16:18:31.043-07:00Dawkins #4: Pure Increase is Incoherent[ <span style="font-style: italic;">This post is number 4 of a series. </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> They will be of interest mainly to those who've read Richard Dawkins' book, </span><span>The Selfish Gene<span style="font-style: italic;">.</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;">I recommend they be read in order.</span> ]<br /><br />Richard Dawkins ascribes two different goals to genes: "survival" and "increase". In previous posts, I pointed out that these produce different models, which in turn predict different results. I expanded the "goal" metaphor out into literal terms, and showed that if this "thought problem" is worked out with genes taken on a "snapshot" basis, their goal is clearly seen as survival.<br /><br />But I have not shown what happens if we run through the "thought problem" using methods of sampling that take into account the frequency of genes. And while I showed that "survival" works as a goal, I did not show that "increase", that is, increasing the number of germline genes, does not work even better as a goal.<br /><br />If we look at multiple "snapshots" of genes from a frequency point of view, then the genes might be seen as having a goal of appearing in as many snapshots as possible. In this case we might be able to work through the "thought problem" in a way that justifies us in saying they have a goal of increasing their frequency in the sampling.<br /><br />Devising an sampling method that's right for calculating gene frequency in the "thought problem" is not easy. There are genes deep in the ocean and deep inside the earth of which we know very little. And what of genes that may be traveling on meteorites, or elsewhere in the solar system? The sampling method needs to make sense as something that genes would seek to optimize. The sampling won't make sense as a "goal" for genes if it is biased in favor of genetic material that's easy for humans to find, or even in favor of genetic material humans know about.<br /><br />Since we are dealing with a "thought problem", the sampling method can be one difficult or even impossible to carry out in practice, but that still leaves issues of definition. And if we can't measure what we say genes are optimizing, we can't test our assertion that they are selfish.<br /><br />Picking a sampling method is not an issue for the "survival" goal. All the survival goal asserts, is that any gene having survived many generations of intense competition to end up in a snapshot can be said to have the "goal" of ending up in the snapshot. The logic of the survival goal is on a snapshot-by-snapshot, gene-by-gene basis, and sampling issues do not come up. Only if we are using frequency as determined by a sampling, which we have to if we want to define an "increase goal", does it matter whether the sampling is arbitrary, or biased.<br /><br />The sampling issue may be solvable, at least in principle, so I will assume that it has been solved and move on. Increase goals have other, more serious, problems.<br /><br />The pure form of the "increase goal" is incoherent. Nothing that comes in finite pieces can increase indefinitely. Every increase in the number of germline cells must be of a minimum size, certainly no smaller than the smallest possible amino acid. Long before the entire mass of the solar system is used up by germline genes in a single locus and for a single phenotype, increase must come to a halt.<br /><br />At first glance, this may look like an unfair quibble. Take the statement that "Charles Ponzi's goal was to increase the amount of money in his Security Exchange Company." Ponzi's scheme itself may not have been sound or coherent, but it is certainly coherent (and probably true) to say that unlimited increase was Ponzi's goal. It is not incoherent to state that someone has an incoherent goal.<br /><br />But there's a crucial difference between Charles Ponzi and a gene. A gene's goal must be coherent in terms of our "thought problem". That is, the "goal" ascribed to a gene must still make sense when the metaphor is translated into literal terms. Genes do not have minds in which to form schemes, and if translation of a goal into literal terms requires genes to have a mind of their own, then saying that genes have that goal is incoherent.<br /><br />We are entitled to decide that Charles Ponzi had certain plans even if he never fully carried them out, in fact even if it would have been impossible for him to carry them out. We can do this because we believe Charles Ponzi was, in literal fact, a conscious being with a mind in which such a plan could exist. Based on Ponzi's actions and statements we can ascribe unrealized and even impossible goals to him.<br /><br />We are not entitled to ascribe any "goal" to a gene if it means that we are stating that the goal was only in the gene's "mind". The gene has to actually carry out its goal, or we have no basis to say it was the gene's goal. We can't say that genes have the goal of unlimited increase, because we could never see them actually carry this goal out. Humans can be said to have impossible or unrealized goals, but genes cannot. Genes don't think and we can't go beyond metaphor and use the language of "goal" in a way that requires genes, literally and as a matter of actual fact, to have minds of their own.<br /><br />I did not originally intend to use Charles Ponzi for my example. I'd wanted to use the statement "Richard Dawkins' goal is to increase the number of atheists" instead. But I couldn't, and the reason I could not is relevant. It's very difficult to come up with an example of a "pure increase goal" that doesn't involve insanity or delusion, because in the real world most such goals hit limits.<br /><br />Dawkins, once he had converted every last man, woman, and child to atheism, would stop. (At least I think he would.) I assume, for example, that he would not go on to try to create a population explosion in order to further add to the count of atheists. Ponzi was the kind of wild optimist who does not think about potential obstacles. Deluded people like Ponzi can more easily be spoken of as having pure increase goals. A real gene with anything close to a pure increase strategy, in practice, would be likely to drive itself to extinction by overexploiting the resources it needs to survive, a fate not unlike that of Ponzi's scheme.<br /><br />To be coherent, an "increase goal" must be impure, that is to say, limited in some way. In the next post, I'll comment on some "increase goals" which are limited and coherent, and explain why they also don't work as alternatives to the survival goal in explaining natural selection in general.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4995202018683890181.post-55282421443703512752007-07-21T18:26:00.000-07:002007-08-15T17:43:52.672-07:00Dawkins #3: Do Genes really Care?[ <span style="font-style: italic;">This post is number 3 of a series</span><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><span style="font-style: italic;">. </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> They will be of interest mainly to those who've read Richard Dawkins' book, </span><span>The Selfish Gene<span style="font-style: italic;">.</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> I recommend they be read in order.</span> ]<br /><br />In previous posts I identified two distinct goals Dawkins ascribes to genes: "survival" and "increase". I pointed out that these produce different models, models that will often predict different results.<br /><br />I've been speaking of genes which "strive" to achieve "goals", and which "care" about outcomes. In this I've followed Dawkins, who finds it a helpful metaphor. We're dealing with foundations, however, so we need to be careful. Neither Dawkins or I imagine that genes are really conscious, much less that they actually have goals. It's time to slow the pace and speak more literally.<br /><br />Let's look at a snapshot with a single gene in it. In the rare case our snapshot is of a recent mutation, we toss it in the trash and select another. That guarantees that our gene is the result of a long process of natural selection. Our gene, typically as part of a complexly organized team of genes, has passed a long series of stringent tests.<br /><br />For example, if it's a gene in a cuckoo, a bird that lays its eggs in the nests of other birds and whose nestlings must trick the other birds into rearing them, it "is descended from a long line of ancestral cuckoo nestlings, every single one of who must have succeeded in manipulating its foster-parent. Any cuckoo nestling that lost its hold, even momentarily, over its host would have died as a result." (Dawkins, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Selfish Gene</span>, 30th Anniversary Edition, 2006, p. 250). None of the genes in those nestlings who failed momentarily and died would, of course, have survived to be in our snapshot.<br /><br />The gene's success is not because it, or anything or anyone else, planned for it. All the gene did was produce the amino acids which its chemistry forced it to produce. Fortunately for the gene, these were animo acids which helped produce successful cuckoos, generation after generation.<br /><br />The gene in our snapshot originated long ago in a mutation, a random, purposeless accident. There were many other mutations, random like the one which created our gene, and almost all of them were disastrous. Those other mutated genes usually killed any cuckoo unlucky enough to inherit them, and disappeared along with the birds they killed. Because it is in our snapshot, our gene was one of the very rare ones which did not result in failure. It somehow survived alongside other, already successful germlines. Our gene may have added useful variation to the genes already in the cuckoo gene pool and found a comfortable niche among them. It may have survived by pushing other genes to extinction. Because it is in our snapshot, we know that whatever it took to survive, our gene did it.<br /><br />At no point did our gene, the cuckoo, any other gene or anything or anybody else think this out, form any plans or set any goals. The gene in our snapshot was the result of a long series of accidents, each one by itself completely without purpose or meaning.<br /><br />But over the millenia, this random series of separately meaningless events became something our brains see as having a purpose. This cuckoo gene produced amino acids which resulted in an intricate mix of behaviors and traits which resulted in the gene being in our snapshot. As for any of its comrade-genes that during that long period produced even slightly less successful amino acids, they are nowhere to be seen.<br /><br />So it feels natural to us to speak of the gene as having undertaken the project of surviving so that it could appear in our snapshot. The length of the process which brought it into our snapshot makes it natural for us to speak of the gene "striving", of it "caring" about whether it wound up in our snapshot or not, and of it having "survival" as its "goal". The complexity of that process makes it natural for us to speak of the gene "planning" that success. The idea of genes which "care", and are "selfish" or "altruistic" comes naturally to our minds and lets the non-linear parts of our brain assist in putting together a picture of natural selection. But we need to remember this anthropomorphic language is a metaphor, and we must always be prepared to translate the metaphor into the unconscious, random processes which are the actuality of natural selection.<br /><br />The reader who's been following me carefully will have noticed that "snapshot" was a crucial choice of words in the above. If we think of our selection of a gene for our thought problem as a "snapshot", the "goal" that falls out of following Dawkins logic through the "thought problem" is "survival", instead of an increase of the number of germ-line cells.<br /><br />"Snapshotting" is the simplest way to picture sampling genes for our thought problems, and the above description shows it's a natural way of looking at the problem. But while simplicity and naturalness can and should give the feeling that we are on the right track, they are not proofs. Might not other ways of sampling genes for our thought problem result in the "goal" appearing to be an increase in the germ-line population?<br /><br />If we view our sampling not as a "snapshot", but as some kind of "random sample", concepts of gene frequency enter into the picture. As natural and simple as the snapshot/survival viewpoint is, might not the viewpoint based on "random samples" be more revealing? And if so, wouldn't that support seeing the gene's goal as "increase"? In my next post, I'll examine that issue.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4995202018683890181.post-73244068241909333612007-07-18T17:42:00.000-07:002007-07-28T16:19:54.685-07:00Dawkins #2: Unfair to Elephants?[ <span style="font-style: italic;">This post is number 2 of a series</span><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> They will be of interest mainly to those who've read Richard Dawkins' book, </span><span>The Selfish Gene<span style="font-style: italic;">. </span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;"> I recommend they be read in order.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">]<br /><br /></span>From Richard Dawkins' <span style="font-style: italic;">Extended Phenotype</span>, pp. 254-255 [references removed]:<br /><blockquote>The many-celled body is a machine for the production of single-celled propagules. Large bodies, like elephants, are best seen as heavy plant and machinery, a temporary resource drain, invested in so as to improve later propagule production. In a sense the germ-line would 'like' to reduce capital investment in heavy machinery, reduce the number of cell divisions in the growth part of the cycle, so as to reduce the interval between recurrence of the reproduction part of the cycle. But this recurrence interval has an optimal length which is different for different ways of life. Genes that caused elephants to reproduce when too young and small would propagate themselves less efficiently than alleles tending to produce an optimal recurrence interval. The optimal recurrence interval for genes that happen to find themselves in elephant gene-pools is much longer than the optimal recurrence interval for genes in mouse gene-pools. In the elephant case, more capital investment is required to be laid down before returns on investment are sought. A protozoan largely dispenses with the growth phase of the cycle altogether, and its cell divisions are all 'reproductive' cell divisions.</blockquote><br />The delights of reading Dawkins include frequent passages where he submits his own views to unsparing examination. Certainly it seems here that the proboscis touches on a problem of pachydermic proportions, one that if allowed to get out of control could trample his theory into the dirt.<br /><br />In my previous post I noted that while Richard Dawkins usually states that genes seek to "survive", sometimes he describes their goal as being to "increase" their numbers. I also noted that in applying his theory he reverses this preference -- in his examples he usually has genes striving to increase the number of germline genes. I pointed out that "survival" and "increase" are not the same thing. They produce different mathematical models and, in real life, they will often predict different results. Where the models predict different results, it cannot be the case that genes are optimizing both for "increase" in numbers and "survival". Of the two models, at least one must be wrong.<br /><br />Now why, if the goal is to increase germline gene count, does the elephant propagule produce an animal weighing several tons and almost entirely made up of gene-copies which are reproductive dead ends? Why does it keep that animal alive for decades? Why do the few DNA copies that reproduce, do so at such a leisurely pace? The gestation period of an elephant is over a year.<br /><br />If we regard the "goal" of the gene as increasing its numbers, the elephant is a evolutionary failure of comic proportion, and it takes no very intelligent designer to see that a "fix" for the elephant just isn't in the cards. Yet elephants are clearly the product of a long process of natural selection. If it is the goal of germline genes to increase their population, nobody told the elephant or his ancestors.<br /><br />But what if Dawkins' elephant genes are in fact even more selfish than he claims? What if an elephant germline gene just doesn't give a hoot whether there are any other copies of itself, so long as it survives? From this point of view, elephants make sense. An elephant is the way for elephant germline DNA to maximize its chances of being around a hundred, a thousand or a million years from now. It doesn't care if it's present in one copy or a billion, so long as it survives.<br /><br />From a "survival" point of view, the elephant biomass expended in dead-end cells is no loss for the elephant's germline DNA. It costs an individual gene-copy in the elephant germline nothing to take over as much dead-end biomass as it finds useful for increasing its chances of survival. Neither does the germline gene-copy care how long reproduction takes. It seeks only to maximize the chances that it will still be around when they rake in all the chips.<br /><br />If we make Dawkins' genes more selfish, so that every individual gene-copy is out for itself and nobody else, not even it's exact "brother" copies, elephants are no longer a paradox. Elephants no longer look like losers in comparison with Antartic krill. The krill germline gene uses fast, easy, high-risk reproduction to increase its survival chances, and the germline cells don't pause to take on a lot of extra biomass. Elephant genes are risk-averse. They seek out a slower, surer path, and they find a lot of non-germline biomass can be useful in the process. If we take the goal as "survival" and not "increase", and the "unit of selfishness" as the individual germline gene-copy, elephants are no problem to explain.<br /><br />I've been following Dawkins in speaking of the "goals" of genes, what they "care" about, and what their "plans" are. This is a metaphor. Neither Dawkins or I imagine it as anything except a useful fiction to allow our intuitions to assist our brains in understanding natural selection. But metaphors and intuitions can mislead. We need to take this metaphor apart and look at the reality in more detailed and material terms. I'll do this in my next post.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4995202018683890181.post-28999209019581672462007-07-18T16:01:00.000-07:002007-08-15T17:39:06.082-07:00Dawkins #1: Are His Genes Selfish Enough?<span style="font-style: italic;">[ This post in number 1 of a series. They will be of interest mainly to those who've read Richard Dawkins' book, </span><span>The Selfish Gene<span style="font-style: italic;">.</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;"> I recommend they be read in order.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"> ]</span><br /><br />In <span style="font-style: italic;">The Selfish Gene, </span>his fascinating bestseller, Richard Dawkins advances the theory that natural selection is not the result of competition among species. Instead, he says, genes compete with each other, and the creation, extinction and evolution of species is an indirect result of the competition of these "selfish" genes.<br /><br />I am running an extreme risk of presumption (I'm not a biologist), but I'm going to propose a "friendly amendment" to Dawkins argument, one that more closely defines the "goal" of the "selfish" gene. It's my hope that it increases the explanatory power of Dawkins' brand of neo-Darwinism, solves a few mysteries and adds precision to his argument. First, I want to very briefly sketch that part of Dawkins' argument most relevant to mine.<br /><br />Again, Dawkins identifies the gene, not the species, as the "unit of selection". He's not splitting hairs, but distinguishing real differences. The "selfish gene" explains a lot of behavior that from the species-selection point of view is mysterious. For example, as I write this I am looking at two nests put up as part of an effort to restore bluebirds to their original habitat here in Berkshire County, Massachusetts. Bluebirds compete for these nests with tree swallows, who are small enough to fit nicely into the nest, and large enough to win most fights with bluebirds.<br /><br />So far, it sounds like the old "survival of the fittest species" story and bad news for bluebirds. That's why <span style="font-weight: bold;">two</span> bluebird nests were put close together. A tree swallow family may get the first nest, but let another tree swallow family show up and the first tree swallow family will chase off the newcomers. Tree swallows don't want competition for the airborne insects they feed on. Bluebirds feed on ground-dwelling insects, so tree swallows don't compete with them for food and don't mind if they nest nearby. It is easy to interpret the tree swallow's behavior as promoting the survival of its own genes, and very difficult to see in it any concern for the survival of the larger gene pool of its species.<br /><br />The difficulty that I found in Dawkins is this: he ascribes two different goals to his "selfish genes". Most of the time they are said to be maximizing "survival" (<span style="font-style: italic;">The Extended Phenotype</span>, p. 233) but sometimes they are described as striving to "increase" (<span style="font-style: italic;">Phenotype</span>, p. 84). When he turns from theoretical statements to examples, Dawkins seems to reverse this preference. The genes in his examples usually strive to increase the number of "germline" genes. (Germline genes are those actually in reproductive lineages.)<br /><br />Just as with species vs. gene, survival vs. increase is a distinction with a difference. To make an analogy with investment, some investments are best for capital preservation (survival), while others promise higher returns (increase) in exchange for higher risk. Under normal economic conditions, no investment is optimal for both goals. A mathematical model optimizing for the probability of survival of a gene will not be the same as one seeking to increase gene count. Which of the two models genes obey should be testable, but in advance of that I believe we can make a very strong guess.<br /><br />Closely related to the "increase" vs. "survival" question, is the question of the exact nature of "the unit of selfishness". It's the "gene", but "the gene" can either be the collection of all genes with the same phenotype at the same place in the chromosome (which I'll call the gene-type), or one individual member of that collection (which I'll call the gene-copy). While the English language is ambiguous, Dawkins is not. His examples and his more detailed explications clearly show that he thinks the gene-type is what is "selfish", and that gene-copies subordinate their individual interests to the gene-type.<br /><br />It's possible Dawkins sees the interests of the individual gene-copy and its gene-type as identical in practice. They are not. The individual germline gene-copy has no interest in increasing the germline population count of its gene-type -- it's only interested in its own survival. If survival is really the goal, Dawkins is not allowing individual gene-copies to be selfish enough. The gene-copy has no reason to "care" about identical copies of itself elsewhere, unless it can use them as a means to the end of its own survival.<br /><br />Of course, DNA and genes aren't conscious and don't "care", "plan" or have "goals", except within the framework of a metaphor I follow Dawkins in finding useful. (In a later post, I'll "lift the hood" on this metaphor.) In the next posts, I will show that in the struggle between these two goals, "survival" and "increase", to describe natural selection according to Dawkins, one emerges as clearly the fittest.Jeffrey Keglerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14810745984852816534noreply@blogger.com0