An investigation into the evolution of skills (& language) from an information-processing perspective
I see a skill as the capability to perform an action repeatedly, but not
quite identically, adapting the action to current circumstances. Skills,
therefore, control action and utilize perception. I see skills as evolving, just
like physical structures and traits. I would like to support and contribute
to the study of the evolution of
skills in biology. My hope is that such studies will eventually contribute
to the understanding of human skills, and, more specifically, to the
understanding of language as a communication skill. My specific goals include the following:
- finding a reasonable representation of skills as information structures
- executable into action, integrating perception
- suitable for DNA for innate skills - for combination from both parents, and for variation through mutation
- suitable for output from learning or discovery
- finding a reasonable (species-dependent) hierarchy and taxonomy of skills
- to account for skill interdependence
- to account for skill-set compression, especially for innate skills
- finding a reasonable model of information processing for skills
- input and output should be reasonably close to known physical realities, such as muscles and joints for limb-movement, and the retina for vision
- finding a reasonable sequence of skill representations and skill-processing models
- the sequence should be reasonable for evolution, i.e. each step should add fitness and be derivable from the previous step
- Note: Modelling evolution is somewhat like a time series - the sequence of
evolution has to be sampled at appropriate steps in the sequence. My concept
of layers is intended to represent sampling steps in the sequence.
- A cladogram for skill evolution
First, a bit about my personal background. I am a theoretician and an
old-timer computer user
(since about 1963), even though my formal training also ranges through
physics, sociology, psychology, linguistics (computational), philosophy (modal logic), etc.
My post-PhD experiences focused on introducing new technologies. I tend
to look at things from a computer software design and implementation
perspective. I see skills as software that is encoded
in DNA (innate skills) and in the brain. I see skill-processing as analogous to process control or
SCADA, where the senses are equivalent to sensors, and muscles and joints
are the actuators.
I see my approach as computational (or synthetic) biology, probably related
to bioinformatics.
- I see neuroscience as focusing more on the information processing hardware.
- I see behavioral biology as focusing more on the observable action
Methodology:
I see skills and skill-processing as part of a complex information-processing
system that can be approached with specifications and feasibility studies as
used for the design of complex systems.
An information-processing feasibility model is successful if it can simulate
the phenomena to be described
- Simplifying assumptions should be reasonable and made explicit
- Falsification:
- violating explicit and implicit constraints such as requiring a racial
consciousness, or requiring extra-sensory perception
- through counterexamples that would lead to absurd and impossible behaviour
- through examples that should be feasible but cannot be modeled or simulated
