The YouTube Self Generating Clock

[MolaKule]

The Clock program mentioned in another thread

YouTube Self Generating Clock - Post #3200737

purports to generate (or evolve) a fully functional clock after so many iterations (or generations) after converging on a supposed solution. No reference was given as to the author or its source. This C++ code closely resembles an Optimization algorithm developed a number of years ago (originally written in Pascal) by Thomas Schneider (a computational biologist).

It is also claimed that no intelligence or investigator interference was involved, which is definitely not the case.

In Aerospace Engineering graduate school I wrote a thesis and a program that used Optimization and AI to develop target aircraft designs, which was later adopted by a major aerospace firm. All kinds of inputs were used, such as number of passengers, desired cargo load, range, speed, max altitude, etc. The target of this optimization was an optimum aircraft configuration using a database of engine designs, structural design rules, FAA rules and other constraints, etc.

In Optimization parlance, we search the “phase space” for the best possible solution defined by the fitness function. To converge on a solution, it has to do more than simply do blind searches, and therefore requires an “informational” context.

In Optimization, there is something called a fitness measure, or a “fitness function.” A set of possible solutions is generated within the program in which one of those solutions best converges on the target. In the aircraft design, a number of iterations are done with many possible configurations proposed, but only one is best suited for the target design. In other words, a set of possible suggestions are generated but only one best fits the target design. In my case, the fitness function is defined or created by the inputs and constraints.

And this point is crucial, the “fitness function” guides the search. In my case, the fitness function is defined or created by the inputs and constraints, all generated by intelligent beings.

So supposedly, as shown on the YouTube video, one simply starts the execution of the program without interrupting the program and wolla!, a Clock majically appears after so many generations, or “iterations” of the codes subroutines.

This YouTube program attains its goal by the choice of its fitness function. I.E., the fitness function implicitly inserts information and guides the program to its intended target.

The fitness function of course, and the program’s optimization code was designed by unintelligent beings or aliens.

This Clock example on YouTube is a futile exercise in an attempt to impress those less versed in the mathematics of Optimization.

It does not explain to the viewer how you can sneak information into an Optimization algorithm to attain your desired outcome.

 

[Bobbb]

 

[PandaBear]

Without trying to hit the rule of the forum (religion) nor over complicating the clock / C++ / algorithm / aircraft design / etc discussion. I'd like to point out a few things:

1) The original argument, that smashing the watch and putting it inside a box to shake it and get back a watch, is a flawed comparison to how you can evolve something to better adapt the environment, because mechanical parts don't reproduce, mechanical part don't work with non optimal result (airplane falls down if designed wrong, microbes survive but got out competed by other lifeforms and reproduce with fewer percentages).

2) The optimization test (shaking the clock, or the original argument of evolution) proving ground is the real world, with lives in survival for the fittest as the wager. Designing airplane is not the same as you cannot afford building 100 of each design on each iteration, fly them, and see which one crash. You can, however, do that in microbes or more complex lifeforms by throwing them into the world and see which one starve to death, develop early cancers, miscarriages, or becomes the feed of other lifeforms.

3) The correct term used for the discussion, without getting everyone religious or anti religion all hung up, is "mutation to adapt". This happens all the time in labs dishes and real world when people misuse antibiotic, anti-fungal, and anti-viral drugs. Bacterias, fungus, and virus mutate after a weak dose of medicines was continuously applied to them, and they become resistance strains. You cannot argue that it doesn't exist, because it happens all the time in the labs.

4) Using shake the clock to conclude that mutations don't happen, or using lab based mutation to conclude that human's existence must be evolution based, or how the first life form started from nothing, are all pseudo sciences that incorrectly apply logical arguments.

 

[Shannow]

Molakule,
you are either being intentionally obtuse disingenuous...

The fitness function was to assemble a number of items that make up a clock (a premise suggested by others), and measure it's fitness to tell the time...take those fittest to tell the time, combine and mutate, then measure again the fitness to tell the time.

It's quite clear that fitness is being measured, it's stated in the video...clock parts assembled, and abi9lity to keep time.I

It's quite clear why clock parts are being used...he didn't create the broken clock strawman, which some people believe is a valid argument, just demonstrated that random mutation inside an environment can produce superior outcomes...and sometimes include additional complexity and "information" that is superfluous to necessity (polydactyly pops up, doesn't provide a significant advantage, nor a fatal disadvantage, and just keeps on popping up).

He never attempts to explain how "voila", a programmer versed in C++ or Pascal majically came into being

 

[MolaKule]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Molakule,
you are either being intentionally obtuse disingenuous...

The fitness function was to assemble a number of items that make up a clock (a premise suggested by others), and measure it's fitness to tell the time...take those fittest to tell the time, combine and mutate, then measure again the fitness to tell the time.

It's quite clear that fitness is being measured, it's stated in the video...clock parts assembled, and abi9lity to keep time.I

It's quite clear why clock parts are being used...he didn't create the broken clock strawman, which some people believe is a valid argument, just demonstrated that random mutation inside an environment can produce superior outcomes...and sometimes include additional complexity and "information" that is superfluous to necessity (polydactyly pops up, doesn't provide a significant advantage, nor a fatal disadvantage, and just keeps on popping up).

He never attempts to explain how "voila", a programmer versed in C++ or Pascal majically came into being


The argument you present misses the point. Intelligence was inserted (stealthily as I explained above) and the fitness function guided the whole search space to its intended target.

What good is additional information and or complexity if it doesn't offer an advantage or benefit to the organism?

It is immaterial whether a clock is used or an automobile is used in the example, the simulation is simply a contrived program designed explicitly to achieve its desired end.

Disingenuous is when you attempt to show something that has no analogue in the real world.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
The argument you present misses the point. Intelligence was inserted (stealthily as I explained above) and the fitness function guided the whole search space to its intended target.


Molakule, at around 0.33, he states that he is intelligent and wrote the programme and boundaries...at 3.23, he explains his "fitness function"..."remove three clocks at random and arrange them in order to accurately tell the time...the better two clocks kill the worst clock...Mate the surviving two and produce the offspring"

The "fitness function" was not inserted stealthily, it was there in plain sight, and described in detail.

You cannot claim "stealth", when the environment in which the demonstrated process is clearly defined


Originally Posted By: MolaKule
What good is additional information and or complexity if it doesn't offer an advantage or benefit to the organism?


Like I said with polydactyly...every now and then, additional stuff emerges...if it was useful, we'd all have six fingers.

Either someone intentionally thros in a six fingered design (why would they do that), or mutation occurs, and if it's not useful, doesn't stick around.

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
It is immaterial whether a clock is used or an automobile is used in the example, the simulation is simply a contrived program designed explicitly to achieve its desired end.


The simulation is used, as that is the argument that people have been using...smash an already extant watch and see it self assemble...he's using an existing example, as an example

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Disingenuous is when you attempt to show something that has no analogue in the real world.


Said simulation created an environment, in which mutation was introduced, and fitness for that environment determined whether the resultant "procreated", passing on genes, and mutations.

You appear to be focusing on the clock hands, and not the process.

It truly is analogous to the fungi that have adapted to Chernobyl, an environment that 30 years ago, we would have certainly attributed the absolute inability to support life.

Successive generations of fungi have evolved and adapted to an "impossible" environment, and fairly quickly.

No one is explaining where the clock hands of the fungi came from, the clock analogy is how evolution helps fit function to the environment.

Parallel marsupial and mammal populations remotely separated indicate that the "solution" to an environment can come about from a different starting point.

 

[MolaKule]

Quote:
Shannow: at around 0.33, he states that he is intelligent and wrote the programme and boundaries...at 3.23, he explains his "fitness function"..."remove three clocks at random and arrange them in order to accurately tell the time...the better two clocks kill the worst clock...Mate the surviving two and produce the offspring"

The "fitness function" was not inserted stealthily, it was there in plain sight, and described in detail.

You cannot claim "stealth", when the environment in which the demonstrated process is clearly defined


I disagree. That is his target, not his defined fitness function which is coded in the program. The fitness function “front loads” the right information to guide the algorithm. In Optimization theory, we say that the phase space is being searched with an implicit reference to the target.


Quote:
Shannow: Like I said with polydactyly...every now and then, additional stuff emerges...if it was useful, we'd all have six fingers.

Either someone intentionally thros in a six fingered design (why would they do that), or mutation occurs, and if it's not useful, doesn't stick around.


I am not sure that answers the question.


Quote:
Shannow: The simulation is used, as that is the argument that people have been using...smash an already extant watch and see it self assemble...he's using an existing example, as an example


So the author is using a strawman argument to argue against another supposed strawman argument. Who specifically is using this smashed-watch example?


Quote:
Shannow: Said simulation created an environment, in which mutation was introduced, and fitness for that environment determined whether the resultant "procreated", passing on genes, and mutations.


From the video: “The clock Genome is a matrix containing the information of who binds to who and what their properties are.”

Is this derived from speculative possibilities or from experimental observations? Why even use a matrix if blind, random processes are making decisions?

“4:05 They spontaneously form a pendulum.”

And how or what directs this spontaneous appearance of a pendulum?


Quote:
Shannow: You appear to be focusing on the clock hands, and not the process…. No one is explaining where the clock hands of the fungi came from, the clock analogy is how evolution helps fit function to the environment.


Neither am I. I am not focusing on the origin of the components at all. If I had been focusing on just the origins of the components, I would not have gone to the trouble of explaining the Optimization process upon which genetic algorithms are based. I started a different thread to discuss abiogenesis so as not to distract from other discussions.

Quote:
Shannow: Successive generations of fungi have evolved and adapted to an "impossible" environment, and fairly quickly.


I don’t know what you mean by "impossible" environment. Did you mean that someone predicted no fungi could exist in a high-flux radiation environment?

Are you saying the fungi evolved into a new species or did it simply adapt to its environment and remain a fungi? Did the fungi increase in complexity? The genetic structure of an organism has many switches that can respond to its environment, but the information that was already there is what drives this adaptation.

A beneficial mutation usually results from a transfer of information via a loop of the DNA’s plasmid. This is not new information nor is it considered a new species.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Are you saying the fungi evolved into a new species or did it simply adapt to its environment and remain a fungi?


Given that this is a discussion on the clock video, and given that it's only a couple of posts deep, you can confirm that I have not stated that the fungi are a different species...yes, they have adapted to their new environment.

You stated that there was no comparison found in nature to the clock...I believe that fungi adapting to a new set of boundary conditions is representative of that in nature...the clocks adapt to their environment improving to better timepieces.

If you want to talk about new species, then that's another thread, and not relevant at all to the clock video that you chose to discuss.

 

[MolaKule]

Originally Posted By: Shannow

Are you saying the fungi evolved into a new species or did it simply adapt to its environment and remain a fungi?


Quote:
Given that this is a discussion on the clock video, and given that it's only a couple of posts deep, you can confirm that I have not stated that the fungi are a different species...yes, they have adapted to their new environment.


You said they "evolved." This is not the same as saying that they adapted. I just wanted to clarify whether or not you were bringing speciation into the discussion.

Quote:
If you want to talk about new species, then that's another thread, and not relevant at all to the clock video that you chose to discuss.


You chose to submit the clock video in another thread as some kind of proof. Any submittal is subject to comment or discussion.

Quote:
You stated that there was no comparison found in nature to the clock...I believe that fungi adapting to a new set of boundary conditions is representative of that in nature...the clocks adapt to their environment improving to better timepieces.


The whole premise of the clock simulation and code assumes there is some kind of selection force (sometimes called 'selection pressure' or 'selection coefficient') which acts upon organisms to cause variation.

I say this is not found in nature because nature by itself cannot 'select.' Nature cannot select because nature is not "volitional." Nature is not a person, it does not have a mind.

In science we try to measure pressures and forces to get an idea of what the system really does in order to quantify it, but here there are no forces or pressures to measure.

So natural selection cannot give a valid casual explanation for variation.

So what is really happening? An insight here is the field of epigenetics, the science of differential gene expression. Some genes are present in an organism but not ‘expressed.’ When a change in environment presents itself, these formerly un-expressed genes are now ‘expressed’ in order to successfully adapt.

In two fish studies, one of the threespine stickleback, and another of the rainbow trout in Alaska, they found that the steelhead population after 70 years or twenty generations still had the ability to produce migratory forms even though there should have been a high coefficient of selection against the migratory form, as predicted by E theory. So if natural selection was operating why did it fail to remove the migratory genes? So the concept of natural selection in which adaption is a process by which nature selects small, favorable variations and slowly accumulates them to arrive at new functions and forms – fails.

These studies are strong evidence that pre-existing programming, via an already existing set of genes, allows organisms to select their own trait variations in response to their environment, and not so-called natural selection.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
You said they "evolved." This is not the same as saying that they adapted.

Why not? From a biological perspective, there is a genetic change in the population. Evolution doesn't have to result in speciation at all. If the adaptation comes about by genetics, then it is evolution.

 

[MolaKule]

Quote:
Garak: Why not? From a biological perspective, there is a genetic change in the population. Evolution doesn't have to result in speciation at all. If the adaptation comes about by genetics, then it is evolution.


Why is it that when we see a change in an organism it is automatically E that does it via natural selection?

Quote:
The whole premise of the clock simulation and code assumes there is some kind of selection force (sometimes called 'selection pressure' or 'selection coefficient') which acts upon organisms to cause variation.

I say this is not found in nature because nature by itself cannot 'select.' Nature cannot select because nature is not "volitional." Nature is not a person, it does not have a mind.

In science we try to measure pressures and forces to get an idea of what the system really does in order to quantify it, but here there are no forces or pressures to measure.

So natural selection cannot give a valid casual explanation for variation.


The phrase ‘natural selection’ infers an inanimate, presumptive intelligence that somehow operates external to the organism. That is, the resulting traits of an organism are somehow driven by external, inanimate forces.

The question advocates of E have to answer is: What is this “selector?” How do you quantify this selector or measure this selector to make it scientific? Is it a construct based on reality or wishful thinking?

I think the science of epigenetics shows that organisms don’t need natural selection in order to respond to their environment. Rather, the organism responds to the environment due to the internal programming already built in.

 

[Shannow]

I mentioned previously the parallel paths that marsupials and mammals have that give largely the same resultant functional animals, with what is fairly wildly disparate programming from the start.

Unless someone was bored, and had too much time on their hands during the period of "C", or was just trying to trick us later down the track...

Surely the parallel paths of fitness for purpose for environmental niches in separated populations is demonstrative that in reality, and over eons, life adapts to the environment, it's opportunities and challenges, regardless of the base programme.

 

[jrustles]

Love threads like this, a fascinating discussion between two people that I've a great deal of respect for

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Why is it that when we see a change in an organism it is automatically E that does it via natural selection?

It's unfortunate that these words have become so loaded. In the Chernobyl example, it's a relatively clear cut case study in population genetics. Something changed in the environment and was lethal to most of the organisms in question, while others survived to pass on what let them survive this change.

 

[MolaKule]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
I mentioned previously the parallel paths that marsupials and mammals have that give largely the same resultant functional animals, with what is fairly wildly disparate programming from the start.


That start would be better discussed in the Miller-Urey thread.

E theory leaves unexplained the origin of the information that natural selection requires to execute evolutionary searches.

Quote:
Unless someone was bored, and had too much time on their hands during the period of "C", or was just trying to trick us later down the track...


No, not necessarily bored and I must say, very well programmed and illustrated.

The front-loading I was referring to earlier, wrt to the fitness function or fitness measure, is found in the form of a precisely specified error-counting function as found in most E algorithms.

Quote:
Surely the parallel paths of fitness for purpose for environmental niches in separated populations is demonstrative that in reality, and over eons, life adapts to the environment, it's opportunities and challenges, regardless of the base programme.


The base program in the case of the Evolving Clock, whether it was derived from EV, or EVOS, AVIDA, METHINKSITSAWEASEL, Tierra, or whatever, was programmed by intelligence. No question about that.

But can NATURE build a program by purely naturalistic means?

The problem is with the assumptions placed into the program. One of the many assumptions is that there are actions going on, such as “natural selections” or “environmental pressures” that are non-quantifiable in physics or chemistry.

I state again that in physics, chemistry, and engineering, we deal with forces, pressures, thermodynamics, light quanta, electromagnetic, etc. to further define and quantify a system. These things are real.

The Clock program, being based on E theory, is assuming such things as: weeding out, favoring, deeming beneficial, punishing, etc., things that are attributed to willful abilities only found in intelligence. I.E., this program falsely assigns choice making abilities to unthinking, non-volitional nature.

Surely...life adapts to the environment…{/quote]

No one that I know of disputes that life adapts to its environment.

The problem here is assuming that a program modeled on metaphors and mental constructs, rather than on empirical evidence, is valid.

 

[MolaKule]

Originally Posted By: jrustles
Love threads like this, a fascinating discussion between two people that I've a great deal of respect for

Hey, I respect and appreciate all you guys.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: MolaKule
Originally Posted By: Shannow
I mentioned previously the parallel paths that marsupials and mammals have that give largely the same resultant functional animals, with what is fairly wildly disparate programming from the start.


That start would be better discussed in the Miller-Urey thread.


No it wouldn't...two programmes, similar answers

The origin of the clock handles, as per the title of this thread is not the question, but the evolution there after.

If you want to go into you other thread and explain what happens after what you claim doesn't/can't happen, then that's your prerogative.

 

[MolaKule]

Originally Posted By: Shannow
Originally Posted By: MolaKule

I mentioned previously the parallel paths that marsupials and mammals have that give largely the same resultant functional animals, with what is fairly wildly disparate programming from the start.


That start would be better discussed in the Miller-Urey thread.


Quote:
No it wouldn't...two programmes, similar answers


I would add that these are two entirely different topcs.

Quote:
The origin of the clock handles, as per the title of this thread is not the question, but the evolution there after.


It is as relevant as the other topics. How did this clock handle or anything else “spontaneously appear” using purely naturalistic means?


Quote:
If you want to go into you other thread and explain what happens after what you claim doesn't/can't happen, then that's your prerogative.


.E theory assumes that all this handwaving wrt selection, mutations, etc. would act on some unspecified, original organism to develop other populations with increasing information content leading to speciation. If you and others would like to discuss abiogenesis I would be happy to.


One of the most illogical theories ever put forth in modern history is this:

Modern plant breeders or animal breeders “can adapt organic beings to his own uses through the accumulation of slight but useful variations, given to him by the hand of Naure. But Natural selection, as we shall hereafter see, is a power incessantly ready for action, and is as immeasurably superior to man’s feeble efforts...”

This statement contains three egregious errors of logic:

1. It constructs an Unwarranted extrapolation: if man can do selective breeding, nature by itself, through natural selection, can do it better.
2. It establishes a False premise: Nature handed man the original knowledge of plant and animal breeding. Nature by itself can do nothing without a program and proper energy input.
3. This begs the question, why didn’t Nature just go ahead and give man the knowledge he needed to improve the species? Why invoke a mysterious, almost miraculous theory if Nature had the power to do this already?

The guy who made this statement never knew of the complexity of the genome and certainly didn’t know about epigenetics and its implications.

The main reason for this critique is that we should really look into the foundations of current theories with the intent of using some intense critical thinking. For example, how can these purely naturalistic, unthinking, proposed causes really cause or create anything? Does the theory really explain what has been discovered recently?

If not, then new theories should be allowed to be put forth and examined without prejudging the best fitting paradigm.