SY said:
Didn’t realize I was talking about Columbus, anyway I am actually aware of this, but it's my misinformed understanding that the idea of the earth being round and not at the center of the universe was not well received by the popular scientist for some time, guess I was wrong yet again. However, it was just a (bad) example to make a point that many popular theories have change drastically in the short period of known science, but I guess I’m probably wrong about that as well.
This is starting to look like a ****ing contest about semantics and seems that no one is really interested in useful content, or actually discussing a view point, naa, probably wrong about that too.
kingdaddy said:
The original thingy does not have the genetic information needed to turn into a very complex thingy but it gets them. You need to understand concepts such a survival, adaptation and mutation in order to get a handle on the subject. And to further complicate matters, there has been some new thinking in this area; see:
http://www.news.uiuc.edu/scitips/02/0617evoltion.html
kingdaddy said:
You use the term "purpose" rather loosly here. The most standard definition of purpose implies intent. Intent cannot exist without intellignce. It follows then that simple organisms cannot have purpose.
Chaos can result in ORDER though.
High school biology, as it must, offers a very simplistic explanation of the processes. If you really want to know, try a more advanced text - one that has a focus on early evolution. The answers are by and large available. All that is needed is your pursuit of them. This thread can't provide the answers for you because the subject is too complicated but perhaps it can motivate you to investigate. Once you understand it will be simple and logical.
You seem sceptical of science. Perhaps you don't realize that the goal of scientific research IS understanding. That's mostly why people become scientists although I will admit that some few are in it for the money that can be available.
kingdaddy said:
Actually it turns out that chaos/complexity can easily lead to intelligence. The level of complexity in even simple DNA is staggering, and with over 3 billion years to develop in a hospitable environment it is almost a given that intelligence would rise out of the soup....
dave
Most DNA sequence is junk and never expressed by the cell. The actual genes that become active are only a fraction of the total content. Nonetheless, through processes one sees in chaos/complexity theory, what is there is sufficient to result in the complexity of organisms like us.
The evolutionary relationships between species that DNA studies have produced do offer some surprises, and the old tree has had to be revised (for example, chimpanzees and humans separated only recently, whereas gorillas and the other apes did a good deal further back, meaning that humans are by far the closest animals to chimps). Nonetheless, the genetic evidence has only served to increase the support not only for evolution, but the specific method of evolution known as natural selection (or Darwinism).
As a computer scientist, I find it interesting that simulating evolution has turned out a very useful approach to solving problems: populations of candidate solutions and algorithms (as well as artificial life simulations) can be bred, mutated, and selection applied, over many generations, leading to populations more adapted to whatever the evaluation function is. I have simulated evolution of spiking/pulsing neural networks behaving according to the well known neurological observation of spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP), starting with randomly generated networks, and ending up with ones which are well suited to perform the behavior according to which they are evaluated for fitness -- there is no a priori learning algorithm here. Specifically regarding biological evolution, simulations of eye formation have completely rebutted the often used creationist argument that the eye is an example of a feature that could not evolve as there are no useful intermediate stages. More and more of unclear areas of how evolution of various things has progressed are being clarified, and indeed, we have observed evolution in realtime. Evolution is a fact, and moreover, that natural selection is the central mechanism of evolution is pretty much a fact in the eyes of most scientists (except those with a degree from creationist university).
Wishful thinking is guaranteed to lead you in the wrong path, for reality is far from what we want it to be.
Disclaimer: I'm sorry if this post lacks coherence, for I've had too much to drink, and had the misfortune that the one night I was the one being approached by a hottie, I was too slow and surprised to react in time and lost my chance...
The evolutionary relationships between species that DNA studies have produced do offer some surprises, and the old tree has had to be revised (for example, chimpanzees and humans separated only recently, whereas gorillas and the other apes did a good deal further back, meaning that humans are by far the closest animals to chimps). Nonetheless, the genetic evidence has only served to increase the support not only for evolution, but the specific method of evolution known as natural selection (or Darwinism).
As a computer scientist, I find it interesting that simulating evolution has turned out a very useful approach to solving problems: populations of candidate solutions and algorithms (as well as artificial life simulations) can be bred, mutated, and selection applied, over many generations, leading to populations more adapted to whatever the evaluation function is. I have simulated evolution of spiking/pulsing neural networks behaving according to the well known neurological observation of spike-timing dependent plasticity (STDP), starting with randomly generated networks, and ending up with ones which are well suited to perform the behavior according to which they are evaluated for fitness -- there is no a priori learning algorithm here. Specifically regarding biological evolution, simulations of eye formation have completely rebutted the often used creationist argument that the eye is an example of a feature that could not evolve as there are no useful intermediate stages. More and more of unclear areas of how evolution of various things has progressed are being clarified, and indeed, we have observed evolution in realtime. Evolution is a fact, and moreover, that natural selection is the central mechanism of evolution is pretty much a fact in the eyes of most scientists (except those with a degree from creationist university).
Wishful thinking is guaranteed to lead you in the wrong path, for reality is far from what we want it to be.
Disclaimer: I'm sorry if this post lacks coherence, for I've had too much to drink, and had the misfortune that the one night I was the one being approached by a hottie, I was too slow and surprised to react in time and lost my chance...
planet10, complexity and intelligence are completely different things. Chaotic systems can create complexity from simple systems, but for intelligence evolution is necessary. Kurzweil discusses this well when criticizing Wolfram's A New Kind of Science, where Wolfram essentially compares the universe to a giant cellular automata computer and argues that intelligence is the product of those processes. Complexity is insufficient to create intelligence. The neurological approaches, exemplified in Damasio's dead drop awesome work The Feeling of What Happens as well as Pinker's How the Mind Works, also show that it takes more.
Prune, don't forget Dennet's analogy of evolution-as-algorithm.
kd: For a readable popular account of how natural selection works, I'd recommend Dawkins's "Climbing Mount Improbable." Anything by Dawkins will be interesting and readable (especially "The Extended Phenotype"), but CMI is certainly his most accessible. Once you're past that, you can start digesting more primary sources like Mayr.
kd: For a readable popular account of how natural selection works, I'd recommend Dawkins's "Climbing Mount Improbable." Anything by Dawkins will be interesting and readable (especially "The Extended Phenotype"), but CMI is certainly his most accessible. Once you're past that, you can start digesting more primary sources like Mayr.
😎 Bluebirds friend here..........(F)
I think that I'm in love with a few of you guys, lol.
Would you few agree to at least one of A. Pope's lines from Essay On Man?
"Whatever is, is right."
Toni
I think that I'm in love with a few of you guys, lol.
Would you few agree to at least one of A. Pope's lines from Essay On Man?
"Whatever is, is right."
Toni
That's funny, I suppose. But what my point was that usually it's guys that are expected to approach the girls, and this is the first time I've been approached instead of the other way around -- and by a 9/10 at that (with the exception of a couple of cases where cougars and men have approached me, but neither does anything for me...)bluebeard[/I] Bluebirds friend here[/QUOTE] Who's Bluebird? [QUOTE][I]Originally posted by audio-kraut said:
SY, I plead ignorance about this Pope guy. Searching around the web didn't show me anything interesting about him. Why should I know about this man?
If you only suppose - maybe you cannot laugh at your own follies.
But part of our survival is an inbuilt flexibility to cope with new situations and respond in a way that maximizes survival (survival not of the individual, but that particular genotype expressed as the phaenotype in the individual) - and you let yourself down.😉
OK, but I fail to see what bearing this has upon my survival. My (conscious) goal was not producing offspring. Like the way Pinker describes it, while your instincts as dictated by your genes drive you towards certain behavioral patterns, the way this is done is not by conscioius realization of those processes, allowing your conscious mind to cheat the selfish genes by, for example, using birth control, while still getting the mental benefits, say fun/pleasure.
you definetely take some comments too seriously. Loosen up man, there's good homegrown in vancouver i heard.
No, just some depression, I think, and maybe a bit of ADD or ADHD. The shrink hasn't diagnosed me yet. His approach to medication is, "We'll see if this works, and if not, we'll try something else." I'm like, WTF. But the good thing about him being so loose with prescriptions is that I could probably get anything I ask for. Maybe he'll write me some for smart drugs like Modafinil and Piracetam. 😀
WTF - I thought that was a normal reaction to the state of affairs and the state of the states.
But - i am carefull with shrinks, the ones i used to be friends with became shrinks to work through their own problems first. My problem - that might give experience, but also tunnelvision.
But - i guess we are off topic in off topic.
But - i am carefull with shrinks, the ones i used to be friends with became shrinks to work through their own problems first. My problem - that might give experience, but also tunnelvision.
But - i guess we are off topic in off topic.
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