The seed of reason

Vegetarianism and behaviorism

This is the first of a pair of posts.  In these posts I will consider major problems with the study of animal minds (and their implications for animal ethics) which are related to  Behaviorism.  To be clear, I shall be criticizing accounts of animal minds that are over reliant on direct observations of animal behavior.  I will not deal much with functionalism but the reader can assume I think the functionalist position to be much more robust to attack.

The Turing test appears to be a behavioral test.  The Turing test states that, if a computer can convince a judge (over a text only chat link) that it is a human, then that computer is intelligent.  This may seem to give me problems, as I agree that a computer passing the Turing test, would be intelligent.  However, I have no such problem, as I do not hold that a computer's failure to pass the test, shows it to be unintelligent.  Note that there are many other reasons a computer may fail.  It might be too poor an actor, not care about the test, or not understand the language used to perform the test, for examples.  Simply put, behavior can prove the presence of a mind but is not sufficient to prove its absence (and similarly for many functions of the mind as I discuss below).

So let us look at some problems with an over reliance on behavioral studies:

The motivations of animals may be anthropomorphized.  Historically, in testing chickens for their ability to solve mazes, food was used as a reward, and animals were partially starved, to ensure sufficient incentive for solving the maze.  However, later research showed, that far greater motivation could be achieved, by offering expectant hens a suitable nesting site as a reward.  It has also historically been hard, to ensure that the intended route to satisfying the motivation, is the only one available.  Animals have a tendency to think outside of our cultural boxes in their choice of behaviors.  Consider another experiment in which the experimenters attempted to teach a primate how to make stone tools (with which they could cut a string that would allow them access to a food reward).  The primate was shown how to knock rocks together to make a sophisticated stone tool.  The primate was shown how the tool could be used to cut the rope to access the treat.  Then the primate was given two stones, and the treat, string were reset.  The primate dropped the stone on the floor, retrieved a sharp shard and used it to get the treat.  The experimenters carpeted the floor to prevent this unintended solution to the problem.  The primate then located the edge of the carpet, lifted it up and dropped the stone onto the floor again.  The experimenters subsequently glued the carpet to the floor.  The primate just dropped one stone onto the other and the experimenters had to admit defeat.  The point here is that the primate was behaving intelligently but did not see the task in the same way as the experimenters.

It is common to say an animal is silly if it does something we imagine we wouldn't do n the situation.  But consider for a moment how silly some human behaviors would appear.  For example people cover themselves in mud at a holiday resorts; Climb up mountains; Drink so much alcohol that they are sick.  Of course I am not saying that all these behaviors are stupid, just that they can appear so to outsiders.  Some motivations are massively counter intuitive or irrational.  For instance consider the middle aged man who puts off having that lump checked due his fear of cancer.  A purely behavioral approach would lead us to believe this man did not fear cancer!  Many people  engage in short term thinking at the expense of their future selves.  But this alone does not imply they do not understand the consequences of their actions.  An experiment was performed on young children.  Under the gaze of a hidden camera, the children were offered a single marshmallow on a plate, and they were told that they could eat it but that they would be given the rest of the packet, if they did not eat the marshmallow until the experimenter came back.  Most children ate the marshmallow.  You might conclude, that these children did not have a concept, of future benefit.  However, the videos of the children undermine this claim.  The children exhibited stressed behavior, and many did not eat the marshmallow immediately, but held out for some time.  So the behavior here must be interpreted very carefully.  The children had no lack of understanding of the situation.  They just had little will power.

Education makes the human mind seem more capable.  Education, formal or informal, produces massive changes in behavior.  Almost all the skills of an adult human, are taught to them by other humans.  But we don't consider less educated people to be worth less morally, because they lack behavioral traits or skills.  We understand that a less educated person has the same inherent worth as a more educated person.  It is important to realize, that conceptual leaps have given the modern human, skills that our remote ancestors could not have dreamed of.  In mathematics, algebra and cartesian coordinates are crucial to presenting problems in a clear and unambiguous manner.  In our social lives, the stories that we read (and the soap operas that we watch) provide much virtual experience, of social situations.  The invention of the clock and the calendar, and their widespread adoption changed the concept of time with which we live our lives.  We must take into account the advantages that culture gives us, when judging the capacities of animals.  It is often claimed, that certain animal do not have a concept of the future.  This claim is generally based on studies where an animal fails to make decisions conducive to its future welfare.  Similar claims were until recently even made of small children on similar evidence!  I claim that animals and small children understand the concept of the future but do not necessarily act on this knowledge.  As an example consider the marshmallow experiment considered above.  This fact that children do not plan for the future does not mean that children should not be considered in our ethical discourse!  There is a danger, that we are failing to make the distinction, between an animals experience of the world, and that animals observed behavior.

Animal senses sometimes differ substantially from ours.  When evaluating an animal's behavior, it is easy to ignore the differences in the ways, that these animals sense the world.  Many animals have very poor vision, and many do not use their vision as a primary sense in the same way that humans do.  This may result in, an apparent stupidity, in the behavior of animals.  For instance cats have very poor color vision.  This means objects that are obvious to human eyes may not be to cat eyes.

Animals may not have the same motor functions under voluntary control. At least some primates have little voluntary control over their vocal utterances.  This does not preclude communication using these utterances (think of body language).  However, it does act as a strong barrier to the development of spoken language.  Successful attempts to teach primates a language normally involve a form of sign language (and these attempts have been remarkably successful).

Animals may not have the same mental setup as humans.  The variation of human mental setups include:

*People who hate being told what to do.

Animals may appear stupid if they are hard to train.  Some people regard cats as less intelligent than dogs, because cats are hard to train.  But when cats are placed in problem boxes, they solve them better than dogs.  We should also consider the possibility, that animals have mental attitudes/abilities, that would be considered mental illnesses in humans.  So non-social animals may well be autistic, from a human perspective.  This is actually highly plausible as autism is mainly problematic from a social perspective.

*People who couldn't care less about what they do.

Animals that do not recognize themselves in the mirror might just not care enough about their own appearance to react in the way we expect them to.  Animals that engage in posturing behavior in front of a mirror may be doing this because they enjoy practicing behaviors (people do similar things).

The point is, that we really don't know, why animals engage in the behaviors they do.  The lack of a common language, and the gaping gap between our sensory experiences of the world, should make us treat behavioral studies with great caution (I'll address alternatives in my next post).  Much thought on this matter (at least from the lay public and amongst ethicists) suffers from an anthropomorphic bias.  We also should not forget that most scientists and many ethicists are meat eaters and benefit in multiple ways from the exploitation of animals.  Sadly in the absence of good quality evidence people have a habit of favoring interpretations beneficial to their own interests.  Good science should take such biases into account.

That is the end of the first post.  In my next post I will address alternative ways to study animal minds and give my reasons for considering animals to be much closer in terms of the richness of their internal experience to humans than is often assumed.

Problems with WHO's Swine flu numbers

Anyone who has talked to me recently will know that I'm going on a lot about swine flu right now.  That is because I think its important in a way that most of what hits the headlines is not.  I'll be addressing issues with infection and death figures in this post.  I will probably come back to the topic in subsequent posts.

How many people are/were infected?

The WHO collates figures on numbers infected right? No! The WHO collates the number of tests for swine flu that have come back positive.  Wikipedia also collates these figures (and does so faster than the WHO).  At the time I'm writing this the figure stands at 80,633.

I don't know of any credible estimate of world wide infections at all.  However, the CDC recently estimated that 1,000,000 people have been made ill in the USA.  The difference between these two figures is large but it can be explained as follows:  Once the number of cases rises beyond about 1,000 countries stop testing people they believe have the disease because the testing facilities are insufficient.  The more people get infected the worse a guide these numbers will become (and they're probably poor to start with).  The USA stopped testing most people for swine flu after a few thousand cases.  But they can still estimate how many people have become ill by how many people turn up with flu like symptoms adjusted for how many of them on average test positive (or other similar statistical techniques).

The WHO numbers (and those reported by national governments) have been endlessly reported, picked over and analyzed.  However, these figures are a poor way to track the disease (except for most other ways that are currently available).  I will explain two of the problems with the figures so you get the idea:

1) The reporting procedures of countries may differ.  Some countries will test almost no one (such as many African countries) and some may test everyone they can in the first few weeks and then start monitoring the disease in other ways (like the USA and Australia).

2) The chance of a case being noticed will be higher in a person for whom the disease is worse so more infections may be detected amongst groups who are worse affected.

At the end of the day these figures are really lower bounds and probably only give a very rough guide to the early stages of the disease in a country.  Better estimates of the numbers infected should begin to become available but the best estimates may well emerge many months or years after the first wave of the pandemic is over.

Who is getting infected?

This is relatively easy to answer.  Most people for are infected are young, in the Southern hemisphere or in North America.  The geographic distribution will change and the age distribution could change too.  Unlike the seasonal flu few old people are getting infected (and very few are dying)

Who is dying?

The highest deaths are between the ages 15 and 50.  The USA has (as of now) a mean age of death of 37.  Mexico had a mean age of death in the 20s towards the end of April (I don't have more up to date figures).  I have found good information on who is at greater risk: Pregnant women, asthmatics, diabetics and those with heart disease.  All increase the risk significantly.  However, between 1/3 and 1/2 of all deaths are in fit healthy people.

How many people have died from swine flu?

The WHO is keeping a running tally of essentially all deaths from swine flu, right? No, wrong again!  The WHOs confirmed death figures cannot even be used as an estimate of this number.  This might seem absurd (surely its easy to notice that someone has died?) but I'll explain why this is:

People die all the time.  There are many many deaths every day and a significant number die in a way that looks superficially similar to a flu caused death.  Many people who have seasonal flu die from opportunistic secondary infections or complications that are essentially caused by the flu itself.  By the time these people die the flu symptoms and the virus may have gone.  Because we are in the early stages of this pandemic the deaths are swamped by deaths that look superficially similar.  This makes it hard to detect deaths in people not already known to have swine flu.

As an example of this difficulty consider the deaths from flu in the USA.  The number of death certificates issued each year which list flu as a contributing factor is about 1,800.  However, it is estimated that flu is a significant factor in the deaths of 36,000 people in the USA each year.  That is a difference of about 20 times.  The second figure can be calculated by varying methods (and the numbers change but not enough to invalidate my point) which rely on statistical sampling or modeling.

So the number of deaths from the swine flu could easily be 20 times as great as the WHO confirmed figure.  However, we shouldn't assume that the problems with estimation are the same for seasonal flu as for swine flu.  We may:

*Miss fewer deaths because more young people are dying from swine flu.  Younger people are less likely to randomly die so they are more likely to be detected above the background noise.  The strong media attention has surely increased the chance that people who are in a serious condition will be tested for swine flu.  On the other hand the availability of tests is much more limited for swine flu than for seasonal flu.

*Miss more deaths because at this early stage its easier for deaths to be drowned out by the noise and economic pressures may cause countries to mislead the international community about the deaths they've had.  Sadly this second point is probably significant.

Finally it should be noted that you cannot calculate a fatality rate by dividing the confirmed deaths by the estimated infections (as many news sites have).  That will just give you a hopelessly inaccurate figure.

Its not just me saying this either.  For instance the CDC is on record saying "Only counting deaths where influenza was included on a death certificate would be a gross underestimation of influenza’s true impact.".

Is an extra animal in the world necessarily a good thing?

In arguments concerning vegetarianism very often questions like the following are raised:

1) Isn't it better that an animal gets to live at all?

2) If we raise an animal and treat it better than it would be treated elsewhere (such as in the wild or in a factory farm) doesn't that make it ok?

The assumptions behind these questions seem to be (a) that an extra animal or human in the world is necessarily a good thing and (b) that one can establish the morality of ones own behavior by comparing it against a commonly occurring alternative.

I will discuss both of these assumptions and explain why I think they are false.  In addition I will give answers to these questions.

Point (a): Why might we prefer a world with more animals or more humans in it?  Firstly animals or people might have more companions.  However, once there are significantly more animals than that animal's typical herd size size none of those animals need want for companionship.  Secondly cultural artifacts (such as music, ideas and novels) are more valuable the more people there are (everybody in a bigger society has access to more ideas).  However, as animals do not have the sort of culture for which this benefit exists a cow will be no happier because there are 1,000,000 cows rather than 10,000.  Thirdly we might prefer a world with 1,000,000 buffalo to one with 999,999 buffalo on strict utility grounds (one extra cow to enjoy the savanna).  Fourthly we may prefer a world with an extra animal because of the ecosystem services it provides.  Fifthly an extra animal might be helpful towards preventing the extinction of its species.

The first two reasons are no use.  The third reason is problematic because more cows mean fewer people (because, for calorie production, almost all land is better used for some crop than for grazing).  See also the comments to my last post particularly with regard to dairy production as an alternative.  The fourth reason doesn't justify an extra farm animal but possibly an extra wild animal.  For this reason to make sense, we need to consider a national park in which the land is being used for eco-tourism or for eco-services.

However, in a world in which the slaughterhouse is banned and in which the only killing of animals is for population control in national parks (which have no natural predators left) it would be necessary to ban the selling of meat from these animals because (i) there would be not nearly enough to go around and (ii) it would introduce the profit motive which could interfere with the ecological utility of the population control and might result in greater suffering to the animals than would otherwise be the case.  Furthermore by the time we are in this situation (where slaughterhouses have been banned) we may be able to control wild animal populations using advanced biotech solutions which are less problematic ethically (and potentially very cheap given the rapid decline in genome sequencing costs etc.).

The fifth reason would require the maintenance of only a few groups of the animal in question.  These populations could be held in check relatively cheaply by confining them to small national parks and sterilizing a large percentage of the animals.

Point (b): The correct comparison is not between an animal raised in captivity and an extra animal in the wild but between an animal raised in captivity and an extra person (not 1 animal per 1 person though).  If we had fewer animals in the food industry we would have more people not more wild animals.

So now my answers to questions 1 and 2.  (1) An extra animal generally means fewer people and so we should prefer raising fewer animals (this may sound strange from a vegetarian but as I've pointed out animals aren't any happier by virtue of there being many of them).  We should maintain each species (which can be performed fairly cheaply) and we may need to maintain  animal populations in national parks but we should put research into finding ways of doing this that do not boil down to killing animals.  (2) This is offering a false comparison.  One should try to provide the best life for people and for animals and saying that their life is better than it might be under some other circumstance should be no excuse.

Vegetarian priorites

I am a vegetarian but I am often intensely frustrated by the arguments and tactics of other vegetarians.  They often seem to betray a twisted idea of vegetarian ethics.  I want to put down my opinion on what vegetarian's priorities should be and how best those priorities can be achieved (without recourse to intimidation or criminal damage).

In the past decade there was a significant animal welfare movement arguing for (and eventually succeeding in) a ban of hunting foxes for pleasure.  As the house of lords argued vociferously against this the legislation it took an age to pass and received a large proportion of parliamentary time.  I argue that, although fox hunting does indeed deserve to be banned, that it was not the right fight to pick and probably set back the animal welfare agenda by squandering valuable political capital.

Lets look at the figures.  Fox hunting in its hey day resulted in fewer than 30,000 fox deaths a year.  This is less than a thousandth of the number of animals killed for food every year in the UK.  Foxes have a frightening time in the chase but the animals raised for slaughter in the UK live in terrible conditions their whole lives.  Given all these facts fox hunting should never have been a priority.

Many other animals are hunted for food or pleasure.  I think that killing an animal for pleasure or food (a type of pleasure really) is wrong.  However, we should note that most such animals are free range and have a longer life than captive bred animals.  All else being equal then hunting animals is better than conventional factory farming (and many free range farms for the matter).  Overall then whilst I agree that hunting for pleasure and food should be banned they are not priorities for the welfare agenda.

There have been many violent campaigns in the UK against the use of animals in the laboratory.  Animal testing for cosmetics is now banned and there are tight rules in place regulating what experiments can and cannot be performed.  I argue that the use of animals in experiments may be justifiable and we should not be looking to ban it.  Lets look at the figures again (figures from the USA here).  Millions of animals are used in experiments every year.  This is a significantly higher figure than the number killed in hunts, however, billions are slaughtered for food every year.  Much more importantly animal experiments are responsible for saving many saved human lives and for the amelioration of much human suffering.  Seeing as the medical industry cannot yet function without animal testing one is not weighing a luxury item against an animals life but a human life against an animals life.  I do not think that a human life is worth infinitely more than an animal life but I do think human life is worth much more than most animal lives lost in experimentation.

That does not mean that we shouldn't try to reduce the number of animals used in experiments and reduce the deaths and suffering of those that are.  We can certainly fund the development of alternatives to animal testing.

I would argue that ridding this world of slaughterhouses should be the main priority of the vegetarian movement.  Eating meat is considered a luxury and marginally improves the quality of lives just as many other unnecessary items do.  Both the American medical association and the British medical council say that there is no significant overall risk to a vegetarian diet (although both vegetarian and meet including diets should be varied).  It had long been assumed that meat was necessary or beneficial to the health.  However, the risks of meat tend to cancel the benefits (which do exist).  Here one might argue that a vegetarian diet is easy enough to maintain in the UK but that the developing world needs to raise meat.  This is dangerously wrong as meat requires much more water per calorie produced (and also per gram of protein).  Almost all land in most developing nations would be best used for crop production and some would be best suited to bio-fuel production (the more marginal land).  In fact a very good ancillary argument for not raising animals for food is the dramatic ecological gains and increased food production that would result.  Factory farms are the worst form of animal farming around and working to close these should be the first step in our battle against the meat industry.

Despite the growth and power of the vegetarian movement our numbers are still relatively small and we have not succeeded in banning even the worst excesses of meat production.  We should concentrate our efforts on making more progress in this area.  However, past experience has shown that people are reluctant to give up luxuries even if they result from terrible abuses.  This is most true when there is no alternative source of those luxuries.  Part of this is no doubt a culture of denial and detachment where people deny the ethical status of animals or mentally detach the act of eating meat from the killing of an animal.  No doubt carefully designed advertising campaigns could help here.  However, I think a more radical solution is more likely to succeed and offers a greater hope of complete success.  This a topic I've mentioned before on this site... "In vitro meat".  In vitro meat is animal muscle tissue grown outside of any animal.  In vitro meats should eventually become very similar to today's meat products in their texture, flavour and nutrient value.  The main problem with this idea is that we lack the necessary technology.  However, with the coming biotechnology revolution there's never been a better time to take up the challenge.  I think when people have a cheap, tasty and ethical alternative to meat they will stop eating it in their millions and the stage will be set for banning the slaughterhouse and funding retraining for those that are currently involved in the meat industry.

So in conclusion I think that efforts to ban hunting for pleasure are currently a waste of time, that alternatives for animal testing should be researched but that our first priority should be ridding the world of the slaughterhouse.  Finally the best way to proceed towards that goal would be to fund and encourage the development of high quality in vitro meat.

The research problems we must solve are difficult but shouldn't be beyond the capacities of 21st century science.  It would probably be wise to keep an eye on how efficient any new technologies are in their use of raw materials particularly grain and water.  We don't want to be making our ecological problems worse.

See also my posts under the topic vegetarianism particularly "Rules of thumb for vegetarian ethics".

Causality, minds and society

Genetic determinism is the idea that genes determine behavior.  Sometimes genetic determinists are accused of positing that all behavioral trends can be understood by genetics alone.

The blank slate is the idea that for all people (regardless of sex, race, etc.) the mind begins its development at birth (or maybe some earlier stage) from the same (or almost the same) beginning state.  The metaphor is that the mind at birth is a blank slate waiting to be written on.  Sometimes this group is accused of ignoring real differences between groups.

As an example genetic determinists might argue that gender roles are largely coded within our genes and that differences between adult men and women can be accounted for mainly genetically.  On the other hand advocates of the blank slate might argue that men and women start out with the same minds but that the influence of peer pressure, advertising and social norms change their developmental paths so that men often end up with one set of psychological features and women another.

As another example one could argue that intelligence has a significant genetic component and that twin studies demonstrate this.  On the other it might be that intelligence is determined by how people with certain physical attributes are treated.

As one measure of intelligence (IQ) has shifted significantly with time the rival camps give differing explanations:  Evolution is increasing intelligence within humans in the 20th century; Schooling is of a higher quality (or more universal) than before.

As a final example consider personality disorders.  One might argue that criminal behavior is genetically determined.  If so tests for the relevant genes would open up significant social issues.  On the other hand it might be argued that personality disorders mainly arise from mistreatment in childhood and that if only we could prevent childhood abuse or improve support for children we could all but eliminate criminality.

The main problem with the above arguments is that they all make use of the either/or fallacy.  They assume that either there is a clear and simple causal link from genetics or there is a simple causal link from nurture.

Now of course there are also environmental causes (such as nutrition) for behaviors but the either/or fallacy is still a problem even if we incorporate all three types of causation.

There is an implicit assumption that the different causes do not interact or that even if they do that they can be teased apart easily.

This debate has significance in discussing free will and the 'soul' because causality is often called upon to argue that a causal physical universe cannot be all there is as then everything you do would be determined by environment, genetics and societal influences on your development.

If on the other hand there is no easy way to calculate your future behaviors from knowledge of these three categories of influence then this makes the argument dubious.  It essentially depends on ignoring the horrendous computational complexity involved in actually performing such a calculation.

Lets look at other possibilities!

The factors might interact in a fairly straight forward way.  E.g if you have a genetic predisposition to Alzheimers and contract the herpes simplex virus (cold sore) then you are very likely to develop Alzheimers.

The factors might interact as coupled differential equations.  E.g children may genetic dispositions and may simply copy the most successful adults.  Teenagers may copy each other.  Through such behavior complex results may emerge (the emergence of chaotic patterns from simple rules).

Finally there may be developmental accidents.  In a baby's developing brain there may be multiple ways to perform certain mental tasks.  Which one the brain picks may be a matter of chance but have significant repercussions later on in terms of their behavior.

Progress and physics

This post is part of my series on the belief in progress.  This blog post deals with the evidence for a positive trend in the existence of physical understanding.

This one is a fairly clear and unambiguous trend and as usual I will take the trend back as far as it can be discerned.  In doing this I shall be thinking in information theoretic terms.  I am looking therefore for systems in which useful information about physics can be found.  Some of this information is stored in strange ways.

Strictly speaking a cell cannot 'understand' the laws of thermodynamics in the sense most people mean by the word.  However, a cell may contain implicit information about the laws of physics.  Before humanity I shall look for information stored in this way.

10 Billion years ago:  There was no life so there could not be any understanding even of an evolutionary character.

3 Billion years ago:  Rudimentary organisms now exist.  Within these primitive cells enzymes exist which exploit various biochemical laws.  Those enzymes represent a store of useful information concerning biochemistry that will help in the development of new species of life.

0.5 Billion years ago:  Organisms now exist which possess skeletons.  The growth of skeletons in vertebrates is controlled by a class of homeobox genes.  Slight changes to these genes (and associated regulators) allow a space of skeletal forms to be accessed which will hold an animals form up against gravity.  The homeobox genes contain information concerning structural design which will encourage the development of new forms of life.  In addition genetic programs that produce various organs of the body encode information tacitally about the laws of fluid mechanics, diffusion, biochemical laws, optical laws and energy conservation.

1 Million years ago:   A species exists (quite possibly more than one) which has learnt to tame fire.  The knowledge of fire is a basic but never the less useful level.

5,000 years ago:  Boats are now common.  Their building requires a degree of cultural knowledge about gravity, buoyancy and the structure of wood.

100 years ago:  Mathematics has been extensively used to create highly accurate theories of the world.  The two most successful theories of modern times (relativity and quantum mechanics) are just about to burst forth into the world.

Now:  Our understanding of nanoscale properties of materials, of emergent physical systems and of chaotic systems is still in its infancy but growing fast.

We are finding out that our knowledge of cosmology and of the standard model of particle physics is less certain than we believed.  Further significant developments are surely inevitable.

Progress in technology

This post is part of my series on the belief in progress.  This blog post deals with the evidence for a positive trend in technology.  As usual in order to extend my trends to geological time spans I need to regard technologies as mechanisms adapted to particular need which may have been designed or may have evolved.  This is an abuse of the word technology but I think it is justified in order to see the development of human technology in its proper historical context.

Technological terms

10 billions years ago:  There were no entities with any purpose (even the undirected mirage of purpose of a gene) and so no technology.

1 billion years ago:  The development of the ribosome is probably the single biggest biological breakthrough of all time.  A nanoscale machine capable of translating a message in RNA and manufacturing a protein using it.

Plants have developed photosynthesis and animals respiration.  These are key energy processing and gathering techniques.

Animals have developed primitive sensory organs.  At this stage all mechanisms are "in house" and biological.  Bones and teeth soon emerge to allow the consumption of plant and animal matter.

1 million years ago:  The first humans are around and they are using stone tools of various types.  This is the first true technology we have evidence for.  Although other animals were probably capable of some level of technology if modern studies of crows and primates are considered.

10,000 years ago:  Farming has been invented and the first states emerge around now.

5,000 years ago:  Writing has been invented.  The ability to carry complex and long messages over long distances in time and space is a massive breakthrough.

300 years ago:  The printing press has been invented allowing for higher specialization as each industry and scientific discipline creates its own journal.  Greater economic/technological development results.

100 years ago:  The industrial revolution has reduced the cost of travel, the production of food and the speed of communication amongst myriad others things.

50 years ago:  Plastics, supertankers, radio and the telephone have been invented.

Now: The pace of change is still accelerating with the mobile phone and the Internet both developments of the last 30 years.

In the near future we can expect a robotics revolution and a new energy revolution.

Progress in computational capacity

This post is part of my series on the belief in progress.  This blog post deals with the evidence for a positive trend in the amount of computational capacity existing in our world.  As with previous posts I am not restricting my discussion of computational capacity to entities that have been designed.  Various physical and biological processes can be understood as computational and I shall describe the development of these.

The world is improving in its computational capacity:

10 billion years ago: Galaxies had formed but almost all matter (even when compared with today) in the universe was still hydrogen.  This meant that the only structures in the universe were gas globes of various sizes.  Although simulating the evolution of these globes can be computationally intensive there is little potential for meaningful calculations that could be performed by arrays of galaxies and the stars within them.

1 billion: Rocky planets exist now.  The various chemical elements necessary for all known types of computation exist.  Planets begin recording information about their past in the form of different rock types, craters and geological features.  On Earth life exists.  In every individual cell computations of great complexity are occurring.  Evolution can be thought of one great big computer program trying out new ideas, rejecting those that fail and keeping and improving on those that succeed.

1 million: Humans are around.  Various pieces of cultural knowledge are passed down from generation to generation probably by imitation.  Societies can learn about their environment, develop simple physical technologies and avoid dangerous foods.

10,000: Human language has emerged.  Certain types of information can now flit around between brains ensuring their long term survival.  The human species becomes in effect one big processor calculating amongst other things new ways for human beings to use their environment.

300: The human population is increasing rapidly and the quantity of communication between parts of the human supercomputer are orders of magnitude greater than they have been (the printing press).

80: The telephone and radio have been invented allowing almost instantaneous movement of information around the globe.

40: The computer has been invented.  Although the computational capacity of the computer is insignificant compared to the human brain the computer is able to make complete copies of the information contained within it.  This difference alone makes the computer a massively useful device.

Now: Computers are still much less efficient than the human brain but it is now conceivable that they will soon pass the brain in computational capacity (per watt).  When that happens huge changes will occur in civilization.

Digital Evolution

In recent years there have been a number of discoveries in genetics and embryology.  In the light of these we can view these both as digital/computational processes (albeit highly parallel ones).  In the past evolution was often described in analog terms "gradual change, imperceptible differences...".  I think this is rather misleading.

Firstly I should present two key differences between analog and digital processes.

1) Analog copying inevitably leads to increasing degrees of error until the original signal is completely lost.  Try copying a cassette tape from a copy of a copy of a cassette tape and you'll see what I mean.  Digital copying supports error checking and copies of copies of copies etc. remain almost entirely identical to the original.

2) When a digital signal is used as a program to direct some process (such as decoding a compressed film) errors in the signal can lead to much more complex distortions than errors in analog signals.  Analog errors we are familiar with include the fly specks on film reels (which are pretty boring as mistakes go).  In contrast an error in a mpg file can often result in trailing series of discoloured boxes or a distortion of the entire image.  If fractaline compression were used for images one might expect even more interesting errors to crop up.

Our genetic code is entirely digital.  Because of point (1) above it was recognised that this must be the case even before the role (and form) of DNA was discovered.  For an interesting book predicting this (in advance of the Watson and Crick) see "What is life?" by Schrodinger.

Now for the new discoveries:

A) Two species both belonging to the same genus (which would normally be incapable of interbreeding) were crossed successfully once a crucial gene had been removed from one of the two species (the offspring were fertile).

This demonstrated that not only can speciation events occur by chance polyploidy events but also by the creation or loss of a single gene.  This adds to a growing repertoire of sudden genetic events that can result in speciation.

B) Active DNA sequences have been found which occur not only in one gene but as part of many different genes.  These sequences act very much like subroutines providing the same functionality in many places of your genome.

This show that your genetic blueprint is structurally similar to a software program.  Such a structure makes clear evolutionary sense.  If you have evolved one active site on an enzyme why not use the same active site for other enzymes which need to do related things.

C) Not all genes are expressed all the time.  There are gene switches which can turn genes on/off (mainly during embryology).  Often genes can be switched on or off by other genes.  Because of this the gene switches form networks of interactive units.  The main differences between species may well not lie in their genes (which are remarkably similar) but in these networks of gene switches.

These networks are like large networks of logic gates regulating  gene expression.

D) Various evolutionary "throwbacks" have been observed including feat on whales, tails on humans, scar-less healing and antiviral cellular processes.  Such throwbacks are difficult to understand if you regard evolution as an analog process.

The one thing that all of these examples have in common is that they haven't been present in the adult form of the animal for millions of years (in a few cases much longer).  So the question has to be "How have the genes to create these processes or structures been maintained for this period of time?".

It appears that humans have the capacity to heal without scars but this capacity is rarely utilised because in most parts of the skin a scaring process gets there first.  Foetuses possess scar-less healing as does the mouth (in good conditions).  There is scientific speculation that if wounds are kept free of infection and the scaring process is switched off that wounds would then heal in a scar-less manner.

My hypothesis is that these throwbacks are all produced by gene programs that have been built on top of (and hence hidden from view) by a new tier of genetic programs.  When mutations occur which disrupt this higher tier the older programs get a chance to function in their original manner once again.  This is evolutionary feasible because changing the original genetic program may often be too dangerous as it would disrupt anything that had been built on top of it.  So tails don't grow on people because the program is terminated early or interrupted by another gene program.  However, as the original set of genes is still there it is quite possible for a mutation in the interrupting subroutine to allow the original tail building program to run.  The set of genes that produce the tail might be needed elsewhere (perhaps in the growth of the spine) so evolution has not removed them.

This concludes my collection of evidence towards a digital understanding of evolution.

I think the analog metaphor for evolution was chosen originally because serial digital processes are inherently brittle and do not respond well to error.  But analog processes are prone to build up of error and are incapable of computational behaviour in practise.  Thus analog processes cannot account for much of the most interesting qualities of evolution and embryology.  It seems that parallel digital processes are crucial to understanding biological processes and probably useful in genetic algorithms research too.

I will leave you with some possibilities highlighting the significance of computational evolution:

Z) Barriers between distantly related species may be breached by careful study of the interaction between the genomes of those species.  Where species have different numbers of chromosomes artificial intermediates may first need to be formed which share the same chromosomes (but different genes).

Y) It may be possible to trigger genetic processes which have not occurred for geological time spans at both the morphological level and the biochemical level.  This has great medical potential including (but not limited to) stimulating the regrowth of limbs.

X) Much information about the past form of an organism's biological ancestors may still be present in their genomes today.

W) Advances in embryology may follow from switching on and off various gene programs allowing us to observe echoes of how embryological development used to proceed.