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To: Doctor Stochastic
"Selection is Causation" is rather equivalent to "Winners Write History."

:^)

Not exactly, or at least not in the same sense. Selection does not attempt to falsify or deny what came before. What I am getting at is there is an aspect of the future that is unknowable. When humans design something, they are projecting something into the future, asserting that this object will behave thusly. This seems pretty successful when implemented in glass and steel, but we do not have the resources to predict the viability of a living system, particularly in competition with other systems, and particularly in the whole unpredictable ecosystem.

Life works around this dilemma by introducing "random" variation. The success of any given variation is determined by the future, by selection, not by design.

219 posted on 06/17/2003 1:51:18 PM PDT by js1138
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To: js1138
No denial implied. The losers just don't get as good a hearing, usually.
220 posted on 06/17/2003 1:52:15 PM PDT by Doctor Stochastic (Vegetabilisch = chaotisch is der Charakter der Modernen. - Friedrich Schlegel)
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