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yeah, but it does tend to make people think "stronger," "longest living," etc. |
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actually - the unit of selection is another problem for evolutinary theory ... for example explaining altruism (controversial i guess): one can't explain this in light of an organism as the unit of selection, or genes - yet in light of a superorganism (like an ant colony) such phenomena seem explainable? |
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altruism was explained to me as the result of helping similar genes... say an animal sacrifices itself by giving a warning skwak of sorts so it's buds and family escape, all the while attracting a predator to itself. since it saved it's family members it has benefited it's genes that are common to those family memebers. though i'm not too informed, this is the extent of the explanation i was given. |
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Ants are a difficult example because of the way they reproduce. All the workers are unfertilized daughters or something, so they're all genetically identical to the queen. I think they're called hymoptera. I don't really know enough about them. i guess it's best to try to understand how it works by looking at how it came into being historically. something resembling dna existed before organisms and communities of organisms existed. It follows then that evolution was operating in order for the progression to even have happened (so it works on the small original units.) Also, we're talking about things being copied. it is necessary to have a lot of fidelity (even though there are some mutations) for something to be copied, and a small section of dna is "copied"... it is found in this organism, that organism etc... but a single individual is never copied.. in fact, it is the only one of itself that will exist, it is a temporary colony of genes. The genes will continue copying and finding themselves in next generations but an individual (or colony of individuals) wont. |
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That's interesting, hadn't crossed my mind to think of it evolutionarily. |
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yes yes .. its defined in terms of the family (to use your term) .. but it cannot (assuming altruism is acknowledged as a phenomenon) explain it in terms of the gene itself, ie. unique to the individual! family ~ super-organism |
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"but it cannot explain it in terms of the gene itself, ie. unique to the individual!" say that in more words? i'm lost. |
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interesting to note, for a long while there was a debate as to what came first, dna or protein. it is now believed that rna, both an enzyme (like many proteins) and a genetic structure (like dna) came first. it is the common ancestor of dna and protein. |
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jupitah .. there's no sense in which it is to a gene's interest to sacrifice itself. it only makes sense in light of a family type explanation, but then the unit of selection becomes the family (of genes), and no longer the individual (genes) .. hope that clarifies it somewhat. this critique is particularly aimed at Richard Dawkins austere/radical gene selectionism .. his book "selfish gene" should give an indication how "doing it for the family/group" doesn't sit well with such a selfish gene concept. |
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i'm reading through.... phew *wipes brow* by the way, did you korben dallas, jus icq me?..... |
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jupitah .. there's no sense in which it is to a gene's interest to sacrifice itself. You're anthropomorphising even more than Dawkins. :-) The gene has no interest. It either continues to survive or it doesn't. The individual gene may survive or not because of the existence of other genes in the genome, so it may make more sense to consider "the selfish genome". I haven't read The Extended Phenotype - does Dawkins think behaviour and kin selection are part of the extended phenotype? |
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Dubya - I think abiogenesis will be poorly understood for generations to come. Suggest we send Key_Secret back in a time machine to sneeze in a puddle of nutrient broth. It was meant to happen and we won't be here if he doesn't. |
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maybe so. but if a copy of the sacrifced gene exists in a relative, it could be looked at as the gene saving itself in another body. not a related gene, but the very same one. |
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fleetmouse, if you're using that line of reasoning, then you yourself have no interest either. your actions are a "mere product" of the laws of physical nature, just as the life of the gene is. it doesn't seem to me that you can rationally draw the line, unless you believe in a "vital force" that we are imbued with and that non-organisms are not imbued with... but even so, wouldn't that make dna the central to this force? the entire universe is a system of desire or nothing is, not you or i. i don't know about you, but i experience desire first hand... and i restate, i am of the same forces as are genes, minerals, stardust. the soulless nature of physical matter is an idea we came up with because we are so far removed from the plane of experience that simple molecules reside in. yet, there is no rationale to back it up. |
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as a matter of fact, this is the point that made me begin to question the materialistic close-minded scientific worldview. materialist scientists (i don't know if i'm using the right term for whom i describing) claim their goal as objectivism, yet they are as willfully ignorant as religious fundamentalists. |
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human evolution has now ceased. science has put a stop to that. anyone who is differnt is ridiculed. abortions due birth defects are increasing. it's a shame. |
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i think what you have touched is the problem of how the spirit is 'glued' to matter. it obviously is, i'm always in my head or something (though blind persons pretend NOT to be in their head, might have something to do with the huge amount of information that comes through the eyes) - anyways, that is a related problem i have no idea of |
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You are guilty of the fallacy of composition. You're saying that since I have intent (consciousness), the elements of which I am composed (genes, molecules, atoms, nucleons, quarks, etc.) also have that quality, or else if they do not then neither do I. It's like saying, my house is made of bricks. My house sleeps 6 comfortably. Therefore, a brick sleeps 6 comfortably. But it doesn't. Unless the guests are very very small. |
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it's no problem for me. i just recognize that all of existence is infused with this experience of existence... this thing we call "feeling." i cannot say exactly what it is like to experience life as a photon or a nucleic acid yet i know that the experience exists, all around us, in us. everything is experience at some level. |
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What I mean is, humans are not holographic. If you break a human into ten pieces, you get ten chunks of meat, not ten humans. |
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that is due to a misunderstanding of scientific worldview, a VERY common none. science is a certain level of intellectual honesty and not a view of the world. one has to have a certain standard of exactness not to fall into mindless babbling. You also need the lego-pieces shaped exactly the same way to be able to build something, in that sense exactness is life and not death as it might be commonly believed |
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You lego fascist. |
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no, fleetmouse is right! my spirit emerges on a very high scale of complexity trhough i have not a clue how - it's not on a atomic scale |
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i burnt all niggalego. |
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so do you think that there is a crucial number of brain cells that make us conscious? or is a specifc pattern? when did the crucial spark of consiousness come to be? can you imagine the possibility that our state of consiusness developed in a continous manner? |
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science is a worldview. it's not supposed to be, but it is. it has become a religion. |
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that are exactly the questions to be solved. it's not a fixed number but i think there is a crucial limit of complexity beyond which no self organizing system (as the brain for example is) is possible. there are no scientific answers yet |
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What do you mean by "developed in a continuous manner"? It reminds me of our friend Key_Secret's use of "complete species". |
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and i don't assert that a photon has self-awareness. maybe it does, but i don't think that it is necessary for "feeling." one could feel in a thoughtless, in the moment manner and not be aware that the individual is separate from the surroundings. |
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just for those who dont work with it but not really. i study theoretical physics and i hold high scientific standards but trying to figure out aspects of nature really shows you your place within nature itself and gives you a glimpse of what science will actually be able to do. 'when science is finished, our true problems haven't yet begun' - Ludwig Wittgenstein |
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i imagine the evolution of consiousness and i cannot imagine with any amount of rationality that it involves a point where an animal was the first born conscious animal. i can't even imagine a human embryo "recieving" consciousness. i can only imagine it developing from a very low, "primordial" level of experience into a self aware being. |
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do you believe in a final point of science? |
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yes, i too think it evolved. but to fill the gap between our very good understanding of the (sub)atomic level and the, compared to that, almost infinitly complex systems, we simply know too little |
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why should life develop in such a gradual manner, yet the act of becoming consious be so unnaturally sudden, as if divinely? i can't believe that there is a separation between consiousness and nature because i believe the nature of nature is that it is all encompassing. there is nothing outside nature. |
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we don't know too little, it's a simple concept, just hard to fathom for those who don't want to go there. just simply imagine following our evolution back to the theoretical big bang, or just the formation of our solar system... do you believe there was a single divine moment? i only believe in divinity in that all things are divine. to believe that only we experience existence seems to me to believe that we are supernatural. |
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yes. (but not of technology) i am not sure if we achieve it though. but only a few days ago i did a calculation in a very little aspect of 2d-quantum-gravity, a theory which is supposed to describe some (very few) aspects of 'true' nature. everything fell in its place so nicely, the whole mechnism worked together and i got an idea of how everything actually 'IS'. like an insect seeing mount everest it was, but realizing its a huge rock |
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I get what you are saying, and I think there are degrees of consciousness. Primates such as chimps are definitely conscious and self aware - in fact, research has showed that chimpos are aware of what opther chimps know and do not know. But I have only ever seen consciousness and self awareness manifested as an effect of brain function. I don't think bacteria have any consciousness or awareness whatsoever. They just don't have the hardware required to run that particular software. |
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well, i'm not so sure about the idea that science will be finished, but i am not opposed to the possibility. it seems to me that science will forever be involved with a core belief in the supernatural so long as it ignores the reality of the matter-spirit singularity. |
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there is nothing outside nature. that is a very wise statement. and to be able not to wish there was more is a source of joy |
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well, if there is nothing outside nature the spirit is part of the nature and hence a subject of science. we will understand someday |
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i'm not saying that i believe bacteria are self aware, but as i explained, there is a state of being able to feel and experience without thought and decision making... and it involves not recognizing the distinction between self and surroundings. i believe that non-self-aware entities are still invovled in the experience of "feeling" (for lack of a better word). |
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people are understanding it right now! they just aren't taken seriously. this is my life! |
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cheffe, as a student of quantum physics, you are at the most perfect place to take this seriously, just so you know. |
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haha, i don't buy this. explain the following: imagine i talked to you some place. then i put you in a box and take you to china. i unwrap you and if you havent died i will be able to talk to you there. problem: when i think of you consisting of 'matter' and 'spirit', why did i also take your spirit with me (i am talking to your 'spirit' you will agree) when i'm only taking the matter with me? |
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sorry, what exactly am i to take seriously? |
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Fritjof Capra, Gary Zukav, Shirley MacLaine, Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson, the word "quantum" repeated out of context until it becomes meaningless, and a whole lot of hand waving and drug taking. |
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I'm sorry, I've been a mean bunny. *cough*carloscastaneda*cough* |
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hey guys I read your posts, and I must say they're adding some quality to this topic!!! =) |
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i didn't read the whole thread so maybe someone already said this but. in all my biology/zoology/mollecular evolution studies at U.W. evolution is not considered a theory. since a theory is a hypothesis that can be tested by experimental method; and since evolution cannot be tested in this way, it technically is NOT a theory. Rather is was just an explaination of the facts observerd by Darwin primarily on the galapagos islands. then in the fossil record, etc... |
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