Re: Social Fitness and Information

werner@dong1.physik.hu-berlin.de

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> 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?
>
Just a little remark from the side of a physicist:
I cannot see that the concept of fitness is now "obsolete".
In the opposite, I believe it is still of great actuality
in spite of the fact that so far nobody is able to quantify it
in a way we know from theoretical physics i.e. as Hamilton-principle.
I think we have to continue to work on the concept of fitness and in this
sense I would support here the view of Stockinger about fitness.

Best regards
Werner Ebeling

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Prof. W. Ebeling ebeling@physik.hu-berlin.de
Humboldt-Universitaet Berlin phone: +49/(0)30-2093 7636
Institut fuer Physik fax: +49/(0)30-2093 7638
Invalidenstrasse 110
D-10115 Berlin
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Received on Fri Oct 23 10:03:05 1998