@Jan. Thanks for your patience. I'm getting it, the result is the same, that is the info is preprogrammed, but I was getting the mechanism wrong.
Applying the same evolutionary effects to ourselves it appears to raise a number of questions about individuality and free will, I have watched my eldest brother turn into my dad, it's scary!
Applying the same evolutionary effects to ourselves it appears to raise a number of questions about individuality and free will, I have watched my eldest brother turn into my dad, it's scary!
The accretion of complex preprogrammed behavior is hard to fathom because it is hard to grasp what can accumulate over periods of millions or billions of years. Our innate sense of time really doesn't scale to those numbers.
Last edited:
That is indeed the $64k question! And it opens a huge box of Pandora. Our whole criminal justice system is based on the premise of free will, that is, you have a free choice to commit a crime or not. If you do, you get punished.
But when a 'criminal' says, "I couldn't help it, it's my genes" then what??
Jan
Indeed. A nice example is the evolution of the human (or mammal in general) eye. How can errors and chance changes in DNA lead to such a complex, beautiful organ? It is often used as a case to argue for Intelligent Design.
Richard Dawkins wrote a whole book about this, and about probablility in the context of evolution: Climbing Mount Improbable. I find it very convincing.
Jan
The vale of Ffestiniog is where I am, at the end is the estuary of the Afon Dwyryd, I have watched the ospreys fishing here. It is a risky business, they catch the fish near the surface with their talons because if they get too wet getting airborne again can be a challenge. They are not a threat to the Magpies but they probably don't know that. Yes, Trawsfynydd nuclear power station is castle-like, it's decommissioning has provided many well paid jobs for locals for years now.
In Jostein Gaarder's book Maya, one of the characters suggests that the purpose of the universe is to create an eye and brain that is capable of looking at itself in order to understand itself
You know, I agree with you. The whole system is unfair and tainted by greed and corruption. It is grossly imperfect, I must agree.
But my point is being missed. Without technology, which to be implemented requires a degree of cooperation, I still contend that the population would crash. Best case scenario I think would be that we would become more insular and self sufficient communities.
I look at things from a sociological perspective. How much have we changed in 2500 years? Not very much; human evolution is pretty rapid but nowhere near as rapid as the changes in society. We evolved to live in small groups and deal with maybe a few hundred people over the course of a lifetime. How many people can you know that well? You can "know" thousands or even millions of people on your Fakebook account, but can you know them all well enough to live with them, trade with them, cooperate with them, actually rub elbows with them in a real (read facetime) community? Of course not. Society is light years ahead of our actual, innate social abilities. We as a species have a lot of catching up to do. It is my contention that this poses some real social problems, as well as open the door for all kinds of abuses by people that actually understand this dynamic- the very same "leaders" that we all (well not all of us😉) look up to, worship, depend on. Just look at the news.
Quite interesting thread.
Too bad, I can't express my thoughts because of my crappy english.
There are interesting things:
DNA, Fitness, Evolution: Perry Marshall flexes mental muscles on muscle head podcast
Or I surely can say, it is better if I don't say nothing, because I will found myself in sin-bin for years.
Too bad, I can't express my thoughts because of my crappy english.
There are interesting things:
DNA, Fitness, Evolution: Perry Marshall flexes mental muscles on muscle head podcast
Or I surely can say, it is better if I don't say nothing, because I will found myself in sin-bin for years.
No worries, we are building our own evolution - into cyborgs, then pure machine intelligence. Evolution isn't linear.
F. Hegel has said a lot on this. He was not a biologist or engineer but his Dialectic may be a very good model to explain human evolution. Even if we don't move linear for sure we don't go round in circles! Eventually it all comes down to politics... This is our nature according Aristotle.
For "politics" I read diplomacy, cooperation for the benefit of the group but more importantly for the survival of the individual
And the African Swallow? Monty Python is always a good reference.
No expert (but my wife is a microbiologist) And from hearing her and her friends talk, it seems there are shortcut characteristics that can change really fast, like in a couple of generations.
And evolution doesn't care 2 cents for the individual!
No expert (but my wife is a microbiologist) And from hearing her and her friends talk, it seems there are shortcut characteristics that can change really fast, like in a couple of generations.
And evolution doesn't care 2 cents for the individual!
Last edited:
"It is better if I don't say nothing, because I will found myself in sin-bin for years."
-Gyuri
Absolutely! Say the wrong thing on this thread and you're in the bin!
-Gyuri
Absolutely! Say the wrong thing on this thread and you're in the bin!
Absolutely. It's only the genes that matter.
Humanity took a bad turn when we changed from hunting-gathering to agriculture some 30k years ago. Agriculture supports many more mouths in a given area and system than hunting-gathering would. Many, many more genes.
But the individual suffered badly. It is estimated that the averge hunter-gatherer spend 3 to 4 hrs a day , ehh, hunting and gathering, and spend the rest leisurely entertaining his wife(s) and having a ball with his children.
Farmers were working around the clock, breaking their backs (sometimes literally) for a meager subsistence. Or spend bad harvest years going hungry for months. But, and this is the important thing, there soon were many more farmer families than there had ever been hunter-gatherer families!
And it went downhill from there. Modern families have both parents working long hours and one or two kids max because that is all that they can afford. The only thing a 3rd car and a 2nd home gives you is lust for a bigger car and a smarter home. But again, there have never been so many human genes around before, and that is the inexorible direction of evolution, and the hell with the individual.
Jan
Last edited:
Probably not entertaining the wife and kids, more likely sitting around the campfire with the guys :
"Oog, remember that mastodon we killed 4 winters ago! And it came right after you and you soiled yourself and I hit it in the leg with my spear? Then everyone else speared it and we ran for a whole day until it died and it took 2 days to butcher it even with Booogs new sharp rocks? ?"
"Pass me that palm beer"
"Oog, remember that mastodon we killed 4 winters ago! And it came right after you and you soiled yourself and I hit it in the leg with my spear? Then everyone else speared it and we ran for a whole day until it died and it took 2 days to butcher it even with Booogs new sharp rocks? ?"
"Pass me that palm beer"
Last edited:
Well done Pano.
One thing I find difficult. People say elvolution explains everything. Earth, air , fire and water? That concept was better than nothing and had a resonance with the truth. I suspect in time the DNA thing will be one part of a complex picture. I always think that Voyager if captured by others would be the ideal thing as it uses very easy to read imformation. If a now cute set up it might be impossible for them to decode. The gold plated LP so easy to read. The reactor also says plenty.
The Magnox tour I never took was £8.50 in Wales. I really must. The Magnox is the Leak TL12 of power stations.
One thing I find difficult. People say elvolution explains everything. Earth, air , fire and water? That concept was better than nothing and had a resonance with the truth. I suspect in time the DNA thing will be one part of a complex picture. I always think that Voyager if captured by others would be the ideal thing as it uses very easy to read imformation. If a now cute set up it might be impossible for them to decode. The gold plated LP so easy to read. The reactor also says plenty.
The Magnox tour I never took was £8.50 in Wales. I really must. The Magnox is the Leak TL12 of power stations.
- Status
- Not open for further replies.