New conceptual frameworks often require the broadening of existing concepts. Throughout this book we have seen how the concepts of information and computation are being extended to encompass living systems and even complex social systems; how the notions of adaptation and evolution have been extended beyond the biological realm; and how the notions of life and intelligence are being expanded, perhaps even to include self-replicating machines and analogy-making computer programs.
This way of thinking is progressively moving into mainstream science.
One step has been the development of what some have called an “extended Synthesis,” in which natural selection still plays an important role, but other forces — historical accidents, developmental constraints, and self-organization — are joining natural selection as explanatory tools. Evolutionists, particularly in the United States, have been under attack from religious extremists and are often on the defensive, reluctant to admit that natural selection may not be the entire story.
One step has been the development of what some have called an “extended Synthesis,” in which natural selection still plays an important role, but other forces — historical accidents, developmental constraints, and self-organization — are joining natural selection as explanatory tools. Evolutionists, particularly in the United States, have been under attack from religious extremists and are often on the defensive, reluctant to admit that natural selection may not be the entire story.
Un réseau est simplement un ensemble d'éléments connectés de diverses manières. Nous connaissons tous les réseaux sociaux, dans lesquels les éléments sont des gens, et les réseaux informatiques, dans lesquels les éléments sont, bien entendu, des ordinateurs. Dans les réseaux neuronaux, les éléments sont des neurones simulés analogues aux perceptrons que j'ai décrits dans le précédent chapitre.
Once we leave the world of linear genes and encounter essential nonlinearity, the meaning of these patents [about genes] becomes very murky and may guarantee the employment of patent lawyers and judges for a long time to come.
We use words such as complexity, self-organization, and emergence to represent phenomena common to the systems in which we’re interested but we can’t yet characterize the commonalities in a more rigorous way.
Thus, according to Evo-Devo [evolutionary developmental biology], the diversity of organisms is largely due to evolutionary modifications of switches, rather than genes.
Or, as Albert Einstein supposedly quipped, “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.”
An in-joke in our field is that we’re “waiting for Carnot”.