Re: "The Evolution of Agency" by Michael Tomasello

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...

>
>
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.