Social Fitness and Information

-----Urspr�ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Jerry LR Chandler <jlrchand@erols.com>

[Chandler wrote]
>This brief remark concerns only the nature of the notion of "fitness."
I would be reluctant to accept the notion of fitness at face value.
This reluctance stems from the long standing issues in population
genetics.
The fundamental issues are the sources of causality with respect to
"fitness". The logical entanglement of the external processes with the
internal processes and the capability of organisms to modify both the
external as well as the internal processes suggests that no simple
calculation of fitness is possible.<

[St]
I agree on these difficulties. There are constant changes going on by how
the selection of the "fittest" occurs. One (main?) reason (worked out on my
fis96 vienna paper), is the collective use of (casual) fluctuations
ocurring internally and externally (system and environment). Such
fluctuations which change the "traditional" (a priori) distribuition of
sequenced symbols appear as "errors" in the transription of the information
code and may lead to changes in the behaviour of a system.
This is valid for biological genes as for social habits and values. Both,
genoma and cultural knowledge allow the reproduction of information
structures.
But not every "error" leads to a transformation. The modified element may
be uncapable to replicate in a certain environment or its devellopment may
be repressed by control functions.
Even so the system is constantly put in question by the possibility of
emergence of "fitter" elements. This is particularly true for systems whose
(self-)organisation occurs far from social equilibrium, where information
is unsufficient to cover uncertainty.
Therefore, selection and evolution are influenced by the collective
utilisation of casual fluctuations in the information code.
Now: even in a rapidly changing (social) system, casual fluctuations which
establish a notable difference in the course (trajectory) of a single
system are extremely rare. To be noticed at all and make an effect, there
has to be a huge "information-space" controlled through a long time by a
collectivity of observers, cooperating somehow in networks. The use of
fluctuations to influence the course of a transformation process is a
social or collective fenomena, to which great quantities, masses, with a
variety of different qualities have to give their contribute.
Collective entities are able to amplify the use of information throug
farther formation of even more collectivities. Only for the big numbers
there exist stable states that allow an if-then-behaviour to "select the
fittest" to "survive".
Survival means a fact which is measurable in relative population numbers.
Its not just the quantity (the more, the better). There is a certain
(upper and lower) limit of how many individuals and what kind of
information-tecniques does a culture need to be able to produce its own
self-comprehension and be "fit" for evolution.
So, "fittest" is determined by a value function, which is based on dynamic
parameters, (relatively) independent from the population number.
This value has to do with "functionality", with the information tecniques
mentioned. The element is evaluated by its working-capacity: is it able to
use the existing information to reproduce itself and the collectivity it
belongs? And how good does it work in comparision with the others?
This optimation (fit, fitter, fittest) occurs by selection of certain
functions within a network of cooperation and reaction, whose work and
division of labour is maintained and mediated by information processes.

>While the concept of fitness served some useful purposes several decades
ago, I believe that the term has been made obsolete by recent advances
in biological dynamics.<

Do you think ists completely obsolete, even when interpreted
"qualitatively", as I tried above?

Best regards

Gottfried Stockinger

Vienna, Austria
Tel *43-1- 983 39 79
or
Belem, Brazil
Tel:*55 -91- 225 2140
Received on Wed Oct 21 19:31:07 1998