Kevin's Watch

(Google for the definition)

Are we an abberation that has been thrown up by a flaw (as it were) in the mechanism of evolution. A destructive virus on the face of the planet, without which it would have cruised along perfectly well for a few more billion years, with no high level sentient being to marvel at the beauty of the creation - and then destroy it like a child who gets bored with a toy. Was the intelligence that facilitated this destructive capability inevitable, has it done so a million times before in a million different places. Does it always happen - or are we a one off. Or would there be something else equally destructive - just not sentient (eg an actual virus or something) that this random unthinking process (of 'progress' with no direction {oxymoron?}) would inevitably have thrown up.

That's the question, ain't it? If we had that answer, science and religion would be unified.

The thing about Evolution is that Evolution prunes away species ... and that's it. It only subtracts. Change forward is left solely to random mutation. Which seems to fall short in my estimation as an explanation for us. The temptation to find an organizing principle to explain us is present in science as well as in religion.

That is a short answer WF - but there is loads in it. You are absolutely right, and I have never thought of it before, natural selection does indeed only take things away. The apparent advance of evolution is a simple by product of that struggle and pruning process. I suspect that you are correct in thinking that the story of how it all works is by far from complete as yet. That the process (whatever it is) throws up mistakes is already well established (David Deutsch gives some exelent examples in The Beginning of Infinity) so it would come as no surprise if sooner or later one of them turned out to be fatal.

The answer is 42

By what standard? Aberration suggests that some sort of norm is the plan. In the absence of a plan, can such a thing (a norm) exist?

--A

[Google defn; a departure from what is normal, usual, or expected - typically an unwelcome one. ]

There is a growing notion that perhaps learned traits can become intrinsic traits over time, or through some specific means. (See the Epigenetics thread.)

Such a phenomenon would explain how a forward-directed impulse could be achieved on the evolutionary road.

(But -- as all such things do -- it seems to beg the question: if a capacity to learn is required to evolve, how does a species evolve a capacity to learn?)

Avatar wrote:Aberration suggests that some sort of norm is the plan. In the absence of a plan, can such a thing (a norm) exist?

I prefer to think of it as a principle rather than a plan. That there is some phenomenon that would cause evolution to tend towards the production of a sentient, technologically advanced species.

If there wasn't one, then our species was produced out of random chance, which is a very fear-inducing thought. For one: we may in fact be alone. For another: there will be nothing conscious in the universe should we suffer a demise.

Hence, I think, the desire to find such a forward-directed principle.

Click on this when you've got an ear for a long yarn, a chair by the fire, and a snifter of good brandy.

www.theyfly.com/articles/Contact_251.htm

wayfriend wrote:
If there wasn't one, then our species was produced out of random chance, which is a very fear-inducing thought. For one: we may in fact be alone. For another: there will be nothing conscious in the universe should we suffer a demise.

Personally, neither of those things bothers me particularly. But I think random chance does not oppose the existence of an evolutionary principle. Or at least, an evolutionary tendency. Evolution can tend toward certain principles, but chance is still the means by which they are realised.

--A

Yeah, I don't find any fear in those thoughts.

But the question is 'would the world/universe be better had we not been thrown up [by chance or inevitability]. As Solzhenitsyn said 'the line between good and evil runs through every human heart'. Without us - yes, there can be no good in the world [though now I think on it I'm not even so sure about that], but there certainly can be no evil. Our capacity for destruction seems to massively outweigh our capacity to create - and every natural wonder we see off, be it the smallest flower, the slightest bird, is a wonder a million times more substantial than our greatest creative achievement.

No, the world/universe would not be better without me.

Our capacity to create is staggering. IMO, Bach and Beethoven alone created enough to balance the bad. Add every other musician, author, sculptor, painter, computer programmer, architect, etc etc...

Our evil is pretty serious. But predators have some pretty gruesome, slow ways of killing and eating their prey. Don't know that we can call it "evil", but it's absolutely horrifying. Laying your eggs inside the victim's living body, so, when they hatch, the babies have a living host to eat their way out of??? Christ.

Nature red, in tooth and claw...

And no, it wouldn't be better off without me. Hell, it wouldn't exist without me.

--A

Your reality certainly wouldn't exist without you Av, and its starting to look like objective reality (for want of a better way of putting it) is so far removed from our subjective perceptions of the world that our petty imaginings of life, death and existence are of no real or lasting significance in the great scheme of things anyway. It's ironic, but at its far reaches, fundamental physics is starting to replace (confirm even?) the certainties of conventional religion with an equally comforting vision of (this time) mathematics backed immortality. It appears we are no more cognisant of the reality of existence than a night-time woodlouse wandering through the halls of Harrod's is of the wonders that surround it. Death be not proud - outside of the imagined life you don't even exist!

To me, mine is the only one there is.

--A

The thought of the universe existing with nothing in it to notice it exists just feels very sad to me. But it also feels a little bit wrong, like it's something that shouldn't be possible, or which is a waste. I guess, deep deep down inside, I believe the universe was created for life to be in it.

Indeed WF. You could argue that the universe must be observed in order to exist. What is the sound of one hand clapping, a tree falling in the forest ..... Nothing!

Not sure about the hand, but the tree goes CRASH!!!!

We've all heard the term - survival of the fittest.
Well, the Great White Shark will eat it's siblings ... in the womb!!! A true definition of a monster.
Who in their right mind would want to live in a world like that? EVILution.

In contrast, I've heard it said that the Irish are directly descended from the faerie. A pleasant idea if ever there was one.

Fist and Faith wrote:Not sure about the hand, but the tree goes CRASH!!!!

Only if there is an ear linked to a brain in the vicinity that can translate the waves into sound.

--A