Search, or at least its results, is what selection works on. You could even think of evolution as a dual process with mutations as searches of possible genetic combinations followed by selection for survival and reproduction.
I strongly recommend Jonathan Baron’s “Thinking and Deciding”; he conceptualizes all thinking, decision making, creativity as the dual process of searching and selection. It’s a very interesting book. (I’m reading an older edition and am not yet finished, so I don’t know how well he makes the case in total, or how he may have modified his ideas for later editions. But what I have read so far is fascinating.)
Is exhaustive search a “selection process”? What about random search?
If yes, is there any search strategy that is not a “selection process”? (If no, then what is it?) Otherwise, “selection process” is just a rather useless synonym for “search”, and the cited thesis just says you can’t find an optimum unless you actually look for it.
If no, that defeats the cited thesis—that optimisation only results from selection processes—since exhaustive search optimises functions fine.
Search, or at least its results, is what selection works on. You could even think of evolution as a dual process with mutations as searches of possible genetic combinations followed by selection for survival and reproduction.
I strongly recommend Jonathan Baron’s “Thinking and Deciding”; he conceptualizes all thinking, decision making, creativity as the dual process of searching and selection. It’s a very interesting book. (I’m reading an older edition and am not yet finished, so I don’t know how well he makes the case in total, or how he may have modified his ideas for later editions. But what I have read so far is fascinating.)
So… to return to my unanswered questions:
Is exhaustive search a “selection process”? What about random search?
If yes, is there any search strategy that is not a “selection process”? (If no, then what is it?) Otherwise, “selection process” is just a rather useless synonym for “search”, and the cited thesis just says you can’t find an optimum unless you actually look for it.
If no, that defeats the cited thesis—that optimisation only results from selection processes—since exhaustive search optimises functions fine.