Re: "The Evolution of Agency" by Michael Tomasello

Richmond wrote:

Arkalen <arkalen@proton.me> writes:
 

Maybe really short to start with:
>
Tomasello defines "agency" as a kind of goal-seeking system: a system
that has a goal, is capable of perceiving the environment, verifying
whether the goal is met, if not deploying a behavior that would move
the goal forward, and looping between verification/behavior until the
goal is met. Analogy is a robot lawnmower.

 If we substitute the ultimate goal, which is to survive, instead of
various means to an end type goals, then agency becomes life. But...

I believe most biologists would argue that the ultimate goal is not survival but reproduction. The two are not at all identical. Just look at the feeding behavior of male mayflies.
Chris

 

>
>
He argues that animal evolution has seen progressive complexification
of agency that basically involves adding layers, with higher ones
monitoring/controlling the lower ones. He focuses on the history of
human evolution specifically and takes some example organisms from
lineages that presumably match the level of agency a human ancestor
would have had (he acknowledges convergent evolution of various levels
of agency in other lineages but leaves it at that).
>
The levels he describes are:
>
* no agency - nematodes. There isn't goal-seeking, just
   stimulus-response. The animal eats food if it runs into it, escapes
   danger if it's present etc but doesn't really *plan* or anticipate
   beyond its immediate environment

 The robot lawnmower doesn't plan either. Although some planning went
into making it no doubt. I think the animal does have a goal here, which
is to survive, and behaviours like eating and avoiding are a means to
that goal.
 Some animals have not progressed to more complexity. In fact I don't
think it is necessarily progress, it depends on whether it achieves the
goal. There are still bacteria for example, doing quite well without the
complexity of the human brain.