claim

active

claim:for-a-new-level-of-individuality-to-have-causal-role-as-evolutionary-unit-heritable-fitness-differences-must-be-non-aggregative-not-decomposable-into-lower-level-differences

For a new level of individuality to have causal role as evolutionary unit, heritable fitness differences must be non-aggregative (not decomposable into lower-level differences).

Core claim: monotonic non-linearities are insufficient; evolutionary outcomes must change depending on context.

Source paper

extracted_from

Design for an Individual: Connectionist Approaches to the Evolutionary Transitions in Individuality

(2022) · Watson, Richard A. · Levin, Michael · Buckley, Christopher L.

Neighborhood — ranked by edge-count

Communities (3)

community

Causal emergence in biological systems
members_of
Examines how macro-scale causal power exceeds micro-scale in living and learning systems.
Agential evolution & biological individuality
members_of
Frames evolution as producing goal-directed, problem-solving agents across nested scales of individuality.
Evolutionary individuality and hierarchical agency
members_of
Multi-level selection theory examining how non-aggregative fitness interactions enable higher-order units as genuine evolutionary agents, emphasizing problem-solving over predetermined mechanisms.

Frameworks (1)

framework

Social Evolution Theory and Kin Selection
contradicts
Existing approach that uses genetic relatedness to explain cooperation; criticized as insufficient for explaining all ETIs.

Concepts (1)

concept

Evolutionary Individuality
supports
Property where evolution of the whole is non-decomposable function of evolution of parts; central to understanding ETIs.

Related by similarity (8)

cosine ≥ 0.65 · no typed edge

Entities in the same semantic neighborhood but without a typed relation to this one — candidates for new edges or unrecognized duplicates.

For collectives to be meaningful evolutionary units, fitness interactions must be non-linearly separable, not merely non-aggregative.claim0.879
Strengthens distinction between monotonic non-linear interactions (explanatorily redundant) and non-decomposable interactions (causally significant).
The kind of relationships necessary to produce evolutionary individuality – the generation and heritability of fitness differences at the collective level – are the same as those required to produce organismic individuality – the information integration and collective action characteristic of a self.claim0.863
Core conjecture linking evolutionary and organismic individuality.
To be a bona fide evolutionary unit, a collective must exhibit heritable variation in reproductive success that belongs properly to the collective level – over and above the sum of that exhibited by its component parts.claim0.845
Formal requirement for evolutionary individuality.
Conditions necessary to evolve new individuality level are described by conditions for learning non-decomposable functions (deep model induction)hypothesis0.831
The conditions necessary to evolve a new level of individuality are described by the conditions necessary to learn non-decomposable functions (deep model induction)claim0.829
Core interpretive claim of the paper connecting ETIs to connectionist learning
Multi-scale competency likely explains the remarkable evolvability of living forms because it flattens the fitness landscape, allowing mutations' negative effects to be buffered while positive effects accumulate.claim0.820
Mechanistic claim connecting multi-scale competency architecture to evolutionary robustness
Genetic homogeneity is neither necessary nor sufficient for organismic individuality; functional integration is more importantclaim0.818
Interpretive claim supported by experimental findings on planaria, chimeras, and cancer
Developmental interactions required for evolutionary individuality must be able to coordinate solutions to non-decomposable functions (division of labour games)claim0.813
Developmental process is identified as computing non-linearly separable collective phenotypes

Cross-corpus bridges (11)

same_concept_as · Nomic cosine

External markdown files that talk about the same concept as this entity.

aboutblank_kb
How can traits that increase non-aggregative components of collective heritability evolve through bottom-up selection when they may ultimately oppose particle-level fitness?questions/how-can-traits-that-increase-nonaggregative-components-of.md0.869
aboutblank_kb
What makes an entity a unit of selection beyond merely exhibiting heritable variation in fitness?questions/what-makes-an-entity-a-unit-of-selection.md0.861
aboutblank_kb
Can natural selection evolve characteristics that decrease immediate fitness benefit and differentially benefit others?questions/can-natural-selection-evolve-characteristics-that-decrease-immediate.md0.821
aboutblank_kb
How can non-decomposable collective characters produce particle fitness differences?questions/how-can-nondecomposable-collective-characters-produce-particle-fitness.md0.809
aboutblank_kb
How can natural selection favor characters that serve collective interest at the expense of short-term self-interest of particles?questions/how-can-natural-selection-favor-characters-that-serve.md0.806
aboutblank_kb
Individuation Mechanismsframeworks/individuation-mechanisms.md0.804
aboutblank_kb
How can lower-level selection favor traits that serve collective interest at expense of particle self-interest?questions/how-can-lowerlevel-selection-favor-traits-that-serve.md0.802
aboutblank_kb
Evolutionary Individualityconcepts/philosophy/evolutionary-individuality.md0.801
aboutblank_kb
Evolutionary Individualityconcepts/biology/evolutionary-individuality.md0.794
aboutblank_kb
Inclusive Fitnessframeworks/inclusive-fitness.md0.788
aboutblank_kb
Steve Frankthinkers/steve-frank.md0.785