The uncertainty of evolution
Michael Ragland
http://www.ryerson.ca/~woc/2002_ Conference/papers/newcombe.html
SELF-ORGANIZATION OF HUMAN SOCIETY Hanna Newcombe
Peace Research Institute, Dundas Ontario
The whole Universe evolves, so does life on Earth, and so does human
society. What is the aim of evolution, if there is one? It could be only
aimless change, chance fluc-tuations like Brownian motion, but it does
not seem to be. It has been evolution toward complexity.
Evolution toward complexity is impossible in a closed system, because of
the law of entropy. Change should be toward disorder, down the slope of
free energy hills. But the Universe is an open system, because of its
continuing expansion since the Big Bang - even an accelerated
expan-sion, as discovered recently.
Expansion continues to create free energy differences, which can be
exploited by self-organizing anti-entropic systems, tending toward
greater and greater complexity. Even a car without power can move
uphill, if it contains a rat-chet that cancels out downwards movement,
and a randomly fluctuating regime is applied. The fluctuations alone can
slowly propel it upwards. This can serve as a model of evolution, with
natural selection acting as the ratchet that tends to prevent downward
movement.
Life, of course, is an anti-entropic system, increasing order inside
organisms while exporting entropy to the en-vironment, thus preserving
the validity of the entropy law. Most of the Universe is hostile to
life. Only a narrow sphe-rical shell around the centre of our Galaxy
(and probably other galaxies as well) can sustain life. Too close to the
centre there is too much radiation from the massive black hole and too
many collisions of particles, asteroids and comets. Too far from the
centre there are not enough ele-ments beyond hydrogen and helium, such
heavier elements being necessary for life. Our Sun is within this
life-friendly belt.
Similarly, there is only a narrow shell around the Sun in our solar
system that can keep water in the liquid state, and thus support life.
Too close to the Sun a planet is too hot, like Mercury and Venus. Too
far away from the Sun, a planet is too cold, like the outer gaseous
planets; Mars may be in an ambiguous position. The Earth is situated in
this life-friendly shell. According to the Goldilocks principle, we are
not too hot nor too cold, but "just right". We are not in a region too
frenzied or too impoverished in the Galaxy. We occupy prime real estate,
rare in the Universe. Is it Providence or the anthropic principle? If we
tried to be anywhere else, we could not succeed, and could not
there-fore think about it.
We also occupy a privileged position in time, the fourth dimension. The
very early Universe contained no galaxies, stars or planets, and no
elements beyond the original hydrogen, helium, and a little lithium. The
late Universe, to come after us, may contain only black holes, neutron
stars, white dwafs and other star remnants and debris, quickly moving
away from each other in a vast dark void of degraded energy. Life will
not be there, or any scientists to observe and discuss it.
Evolution of life on Earth did occur, but this is nevertheless a
contingency, not a necessity; though not quite chance either. There is a
chemical tendency to form simple molecules like sugars and amino acids,
and plenty of free energy to polymerize them to macromolecules like
pro-teins and nucleic acids, especially because some of the latter can
act as enzymes to greatly accelerate the reac-tions, while others act as
templates to preseve information (which is the opposite of entropy) and
to facilitate accu-rate reproduction. However, actual events might have
gone otherwise. As Stephen Gould asserted, rewinding the tape of
evolution (both pre-biotic and subsequent) and starting again, would
most probably produce different results: either no stable life at all,
or vastly different species.
Socia-cultural evolution in human societies (taking a huge leap forward)
is about a million times faster than biological evolution, because we
can deliberately direct it to suit our purposes and intentions, and
because we can transmit innovations across generations to our
descendents. In other words, social evolution is Lamarkian, no longer
Darwinian.
Perhaps it is too fast; there is not enough time for consolidation, for
"sober second thought". We are becoming capable of controlling genetic
evolution itself, perhaps to our detriment; we need to slow down and
think. Even through-out human history and pre-history, there has been a
marked acceleration of change (to agricultural to industrial to
technological evolution), not all of it always beneficial, sometimes
harmful to the environment, our "prime real es-tate". (Even agriculture
has drawbacks compared to hunting and gathering culture, although it
allowed a great expansion of human population, again possibly too
great.)
We now question the fragility of some of our new tech-nology, for
example interconnected computer systems. What would happen if the
Internet should crash? This could happen through hostile or terrorist
action (maybe through an elec-tromagnetic pulse from a nuclear
explosion), or through the playful activity of hackers, or simply
through information overload. Too much of our economy now depends on the
Inter-net - quite suddenly, in evolutionary terms. Could we start again
from scratch? Probably (we have not yet lost all our "primitive" skills,
like manual calculation and record-keeping) but it would be a huge
setback. In the future, when we may be "dumbed down" enough to have lost
the original skills, it could be much worse. We should always keep up
those skills as a fall-back position.
Also, social-cultural evolution lags behind techno-logical evolution,
and our moral-ethical evolution is even more retarded. If human society
is to spontaneously self-organize as life on earth once did, and as
general chemical systems can sometimes do, these lags must be repaired.
This may involve slowing down the technology so that we can catch up. A
sober thought: perhaps any advanced technological civilizations that may
have once existed elsewhere in the Universe have already
self-destructed, which is why we have not been able to contact any.
If we should be able to avoid self-destruction and achieve
self-organization of human society on Earth, what would the ideal new
world order look like? Ahead of that achievement, we can only speculate.
We need human unity, which does not yet exist in our fractured world. We
need unity with nature, to safeguard our environment. But along with
unity, we need diversity, not homogenization; diversity of species, of
cultures, of languages, of genetic make-up.
As the human embryo grows, its cells differentiate to perform many local
functions; but the whole developing or-ganism remains integrated through
constant exchange of in-formation and mutual cooperation. This is a good
model for a future peaceful, just and cooperative worldwide human
socie-ty. We are at the embryo stage; may we bring it to full term, and
not abort it.
The classical political model which preserves both unity and diversity
is a federation, or more specifically subsidiarity. (A federation
usually has two levels of go-vernment; subsidiarity can have more than
two.) We need to pay attention to both local and global levels of
organi-zation and problem-solving, and several levels in between. The
optimum number of levels from person to planet would be about 8:
individual, neighbourhood, town, local region, pro-vince, nation,
continent, world. Problems should be solved at the lowest level
possible, to be more democratic, but such that there are few outside
effects. (Since in a system everything is connected to everything, the
determination of "few external effects" will always be difficult, but
compro-mises can be made, as our experience in Canada has shown.) Each
unit in a subsidiarity order can self-organize accor-ding to its own
culture, but the levels must also create and maintain overall
integration and cooperation.
Evolution proceeds through crisis stages, when fluctu-ations accumulate
and make the structure unstable; it can then flip either to a more
stable (usually more complex) configuration or collapse - go to
breakthrough or breakdown. We do live in a crisis, in "interesting
times", according to an old Chinese curse. But the Chinese symbol for
crisis also reminds us that a crisis is both a danger and an
opportunity.
May we find the ratchet that will prevent us from sli-ding down into
breakdown. We may yet succeed in climbing the peak of fitness in our
rugged and changing landscape.
"It's uncertain whether intelligence has any long term survival value.
Bacteria do quite well without it."
Stephen Hawking
Reason
"Michael Ragland" <ragl...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:cj4nbk$1t6k$1...@darwin.ediacara.org...
...
> Life, of course, is an anti-entropic system, increasing order inside
> organisms while exporting entropy to the en-vironment, thus preserving
Other natural processes create order from entropy. A river will sort sand,
silt and gravel into neat, uniform layers from a chaotic mixture of
weathered rock. A bottle of salad dressing settles out into uniform layers
of oil and water after it has been shaken. Where is the entropy being
exported in these processes?
Michael Ragland
"Michael Ragland" <ragl...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:cj4nbk$1t6k$1...@darwin.ediacara.org...
..
Life, of course, is an anti-entropic system, increasing order inside
organisms while exporting entropy to the en-vironment, thus preserving
the validity of the entropy law...
Reason:
Other natural processes create order from entropy. A river will sort
sand, silt and gravel into neat, uniform layers from a chaotic mixture
of weathered rock. A bottle of salad dressing settles out into uniform
layers of oil and water after it has been shaken. Where is the entropy
being exported in these processes?
Response:
Entropy is not my forte. Based on what I found on the net [below] the
case of the salad dressing settling out into uniform layers of oil and
water after having been shook would be a case of an isolated system of
entropy. In the case of a river sorting sand, silt and gravel into neat,
uniform layers from a chaotic mixture of weathered rock I would say that
was an open system of entropy.
If anything can pass into, or out of, a system, we say it is an open
system. If only matter can pass into, or out of, a system, but not
energy, then we call it a closed system. If neither matter nor energy
can pass into, or out of, a system, then we call it an isolated system.
We have a definition of the 2nd law from our previous chapter, a
standard definition from standard thermodynamics.
Processes in which the entropy of an isolated system would decrease do
not occur, or, in every process taking place in an isolated system, the
entropy of the system either increases or remains constant
The definition explicitly requires the system in question to be
isolated. This is a non trivial observation. If the system were not
isolated, then entropy could pour out over the boundary, and the entropy
decrease instead of increase.
Tim Tyler
> "Michael Ragland" <ragl...@webtv.net> wrote in message
> > Life, of course, is an anti-entropic system, increasing order inside
> > organisms while exporting entropy to the en-vironment, thus preserving
> > the validity of the entropy law...
>
> Other natural processes create order from entropy. A river will sort sand,
> silt and gravel into neat, uniform layers from a chaotic mixture of
> weathered rock. A bottle of salad dressing settles out into uniform layers
> of oil and water after it has been shaken. Where is the entropy being
> exported in these processes?
Gravity is a *great* creator of apparent order. It concentrates raindrops
into rivers. It concentrates dust balls into planets.
How can this /obvious/ creation of order from disorder *possibly* result
in entropy increasing?
The main key is friction. When particles come together under the
influence of gravity, the main thing that stops them from flying
apart again is friction. Friction generates heat - and the heat
is then radiated off.
Of course this heat is often near-invisible - and all that is seen
on a macroscopic scale is an apparently mystical generation of order
from disorder.
So: examine that shaken bottle of salad dressing /carefully/ - and
you will observe it is radiating more heat than the unshaken bottle
next to it.
--
__________
|im |yler http://timtyler.org/ t...@tt1lock.org Remove lock to reply.
tinyurl.com/uh3t
> The whole Universe evolves, so does life on Earth, and so does human
> society.
No, that sentence is a lie. The Universe as a whole evolves in one
sense of the word, and life on Earth doesn't do the same thing at all
but it evolves in a completely different sense of the word, and human
society doesn't do the same thing either but it evolves in yet a third
definition of the word slightly related to life evolution. By
pretending like the three different meanings of the same word are the
same, you are playing a stupid children's game of punning and actually
believing the pun represents reality.
The most fundamental property of living matter is chemical fecundity.
The chemicals in living matter take in chemicals unlike themselves and
convert those chemicals into more of the living matter's own kind of
chemicals. For example, plants take in CO2, H2O, and various inorganic
minerals dissolved in the H2O, and convert them into cellulose and DNA
etc. Different kinds of plants compete with each other for these
inorganic resources, and for sunlight to energize the work of all this
conversion. Some plants do better than others in certain environments.
But mutations change plants in random ways, causing some to
occasionally do better than their ancestors did, causing them to
multiply in quantity at the expense of other kinds of plants that
formerly were doing better. These mutations, and the subsequent
increase in numbers of plants with those very rare good mutations, is
what we call "evolution" of livings. But the word as applied to the
Universe as a whole has a totally different meaning, merely random
change, without any fecundity of any kind, some things last longer than
others before they decay, but matter that performs chemical fecundity,
what we would call "living", seems to be rather rare in the Universe.
"Oranges have navels. So do human beings." No, oranges have embryonic
growths which we **call** navels because they resemble human navels in
a superficial way and we needed a name for them, but oranges and humans
don't have the same thing when we're speaking of navels, they have
totally different things that happen to have the same name.
Do you begin to see how stupid your opening sentence really is when you
consider the true meanings of the word rather than being blinded by the
pun?
> What is the aim of evolution, if there is one?
There isn't one. Evolution is just the name we used to refer to change
in allele frequencies over time, which we understand are caused mostly
by mutation and natural selection in the situation of fecundity greater
than one except for competition. Evolution isn't a purposeful being.
(Neither is the inappropriately-named "Mother Nature".)
> It could be only aimless change, chance fluc-tuations like Brownian
> motion, but it does not seem to be.
To make that stupid statement, you must be considering only mutation,
not natural selection. Natural selection is most definitely not random!
That which works to enhance survival wins out over that which doesn't.
If you think that's random, think again.
> It has been evolution toward complexity.
Nope, not at all in any uniform sense. It has been evolution to
survive, to solve whatever the most life-threatening problems in any
given niche. By chance some critters solve those problems and have many
descendents while the rest don't solve the problems and go extinct
during the same time period. Sometimes (much of the time), in fact
increased complexity was what happened to solve the problem, but the
rest of the time improved efficiency via decreased complexity has
solved the problem. At the very beginning of life, life was very
simple, perhaps just a single catalytic cycle, and just about anything
else that can survive would be more complicated, so of course for a
while there was a trend toward increased complexity, and all the
super-simple lifeforms died out in favor of the more complex lifeforms
that are more able to survive. Also perhaps the very most complex keeps
stretching toward more complexity just by random drift. (If you have a
box that is closed at the left end, closed along far and near sides,
open at right end, and has a numeric scale that runs from zero at the
closed end, and you drop a bunch of ants right at the closed end,
they'll diffuse randomly as they explore the box, and the rightmost one
at any time will tend to be further to the right as time goes on. This
isn't because the ants are biased toward the right, merely because they
started out in a non-uniform situation all at the left end and are
merely diffusing to more uniformly fill the available space, and their
standard deviation increases with time, but they are constrained to
have left-most position fixed, so the mean and the right-extreme both
drift toward the right.)
> Only a narrow sphe-rical shell around the centre of our Galaxy (and
> probably other galaxies as well) can sustain life.
I disagree. Once life has evolved to be technological, and has in fact
developed technology to travel between the stars and build habitats out
of materials they find along the way, that technological life can build
shelters to survive near the center of our Galaxy, and can build
efficient mapping tools and material&energy collectors to travel far
from the galaxy, even to other galaxies, and survive alive all the way
from here to there. It's only *without* such technology that primitive
life can't form and live naturally too close to the galactic center or
too far away.
> Similarly, there is only a narrow shell around the Sun in our solar
> system that can keep water in the liquid state, and thus support life.
> Too close to the Sun a planet is too hot, like Mercury and Venus. Too
> far away from the Sun, a planet is too cold, like the outer gaseous
> planets; Mars may be in an ambiguous position.
This statement is even more obviously false. With appropriate
technology to supply energy far from the Sun or to shield from too much
radiation cose to the Sun, it'll be standard in a few centuries for
people and their accompanying pets and pests to reside and survive and
thrive in all such places. And as for natural life without technology:
Europa might very well have life already, in that salty ocean with lots
of geothermal energy under that thin ice shell.
> In the future, when we may be "dumbed down" enough to have lost
> the original skills, it could be much worse. We should always keep up
> those skills as a fall-back position.
In the book/movie "Fahrenheit 451", there was an "underground" culture
where people preserved their favorite books by memorizing them. With
the aid of computer-assisted-instruction, we could do even better,
deliberately maintaining *all* the "how to do it" knowledge, trained
into randomly selected individuals, with lots of redundancy (maybe 10%
of the population i.e. about a billion people would know each branch of
mathematics and science and any other essential craft, allowing such
skills to survive even a disaster that killed 99.99% of the population,
and 1% would know how to build other important but less essential
technologies, and a few hundred would be trained to know each little
tidbit of obscure but possibly useful or worth-keeping knowledge or
culture, allowing each tidbit to survive a loss of 99% of the
population and allowing a good fraction of them to survive a loss of
99.9% of the population.
When the Great Library of Alexandria was destroyed, many of the
important manuscripts there had no copies anywhere else, and were
permanently lost. With proper planning as I outlined above, we might
never have to suffer a similar fate again.
> We need to pay attention to both local and global levels of
> organi-zation and problem-solving, and several levels in between.
I agree, but:
> The optimum number of levels from person to planet would be about 8:
I disagree. The military has a rule of thumb that the chain of command
must have at each level at least three subordinates and at most appx. 9
(I forget the exact number) to avoid wasteful command and to avoid loss
of command due to overloading the superior officer. A similar rule of
thumb may apply to political organization. If so, what we optimize is
the number of sub-units under any next-larger unit, and whatever the
number of levels is depends on the total population at a given time.
Michael Ragland
From: ragl...@webtv.net (Michael Ragland)
HN: The whole Universe evolves, so does life on Earth, and so does human
society.
RM:
No, that sentence is a lie. The Universe as a whole evolves in one sense
of the word, and life on Earth doesn't do the same thing at all but it
evolves in a completely different sense of the word, and human society
doesn't do the same thing either but it evolves in yet a third
definition of the word slightly related to life evolution. By pretending
like the three different meanings of the same word are the same, you are
playing a stupid children's game of punning and actually believing the
pun represents reality.
MR:
Why is it a lie? Hanna Newcombe stated "the whole universe evolves, so
does life on earth, and so does human society. In reading the sentence I
didn't infer she was implying evolution is the same for the universe,
for life on earth and for human society. She may have been invoking a
universality to "evolution" but I don't see differences in different
types of evolution as necessarily opposing such universality. One
definition of universality is (a) of or pertaining to the universe,
cosmos; cosmic. We are a part of the universe even if the evolution on
earth is different from the evolution of human societies or evolution of
the universe.
RM:
The most fundamental property of living matter is chemical fecundity.
The chemicals in living matter take in chemicals unlike themselves and
convert those chemicals into more of the living matter's own kind of
chemicals. For example, plants take in CO2, H2O, and various inorganic
minerals dissolved in the H2O, and convert them into cellulose and DNA
etc. Different kinds of plants compete with each other for these
inorganic resources, and for sunlight to energize the work of all this
conversion. Some plants do better than others in certain environments.
But mutations change plants in random ways, causing some to occasionally
do better than their ancestors did, causing them to multiply in quantity
at the expense of other kinds of plants that formerly were doing better.
These mutations, and the subsequent increase in numbers of plants with
those very rare good mutations, is what we call "evolution" of livings.
But the word as applied to the Universe as a whole has a totally
different meaning, merely random change, without any fecundity of any
kind, some things last longer than others before they decay, but matter
that performs chemical fecundity, what we would call "living", seems to
be rather rare in the Universe.
MR:
I don't know. The "Big Bang" theory is most widely accepted but it can
be proved and when it comes to the origins of the universe we will
probably never be able to prove it. I think it is way too premature to
state "but matter that performs chemical fecundity, what we would call
"living", seems to be rather rare. When the Hubble telescope can make
out what it thinks are stars in galaxies whose light took 13 billion
light years to reach us I think it would be foolish to think there
aren't other chemical life forms and other types of life forms in the
universe. As a species we haven't even managed prolonged space flight.
And it may be a long time before we encountered any alien life form but
the universe is immense. It's so immense I think that is why we haven't
come into contact with alien life forms. In addition, there is the
factor to consider that apparently nothing can travel faster than the
speed of light and "warp" travel seems that of science fiction.
RM:
"Oranges have navels. So do human beings." No, oranges have embryonic
growths which we **call** navels because they resemble human navels in a
superficial way and we needed a name for them, but oranges and humans
don't have the same thing when we're speaking of navels, they have
totally different things that happen to have the same name.
Do you begin to see how stupid your opening sentence really is when you
consider the true meanings of the word rather than being blinded by the
pun?
MR:
I don't know where the statement, "Oranges have navels. So do human
beings". You wrote that. It's not my opening sentence, it is Hanna
Newcombe's. I think your needlessly nitpicking.
HN:
What is the aim of evolution, if there is one?
RM:
There isn't one. Evolution is just the name we used to refer to change
in allele frequencies over time, which we understand are caused mostly
by mutation and natural selection in the situation of fecundity greater
than one except for competition. Evolution isn't a purposeful being.
(Neither is the inappropriately-named "Mother Nature".)
HN: It could be only aimless change, chance fluc-tuations like Brownian
motion, but it does not seem to be.
RM: To make that stupid statement, you must be considering only
mutation, not natural selection. Natural selection is most definitely
not random! That which works to enhance survival wins out over that
which doesn't. If you think that's random, think again.
MR:
So Darwinian evolution does have partially an aim. To enhance survival
over that which doesn't. Natural selection acts on mutations e.g.
peppered moth. Hanna Newcombe was addressing whether evolution had an
aim so she mentioned aimless change, chance fluctuations like Brownian
motion but she did neglect natural selection. You mentioned it and
vindicated her statement evolution doesn't seem to be aimless in the
sense of enhancing survival over that which doesn't.
HN:
It has been evolution toward complexity.
RM:
Nope, not at all in any uniform sense. It has been evolution to survive,
to solve whatever the most life-threatening problems in any given niche.
By chance some critters solve those problems and have many descendents
while the rest don't solve the problems and go extinct during the same
time period. Sometimes (much of the time), in fact increased complexity
was what happened to solve the problem, but the rest of the time
improved efficiency via decreased complexity has solved the problem. At
the very beginning of life, life was very simple, perhaps just a single
catalytic cycle, and just about anything else that can survive would be
more complicated, so of course for a while there was a trend toward
increased complexity, and all the super-simple lifeforms died out in
favor of the more complex lifeforms that are more able to survive. Also
perhaps the very most complex keeps stretching toward more complexity
just by random drift. (If you have a box that is closed at the left end,
closed along far and near sides, open at right end, and has a numeric
scale that runs from zero at the closed end, and you drop a bunch of
ants right at the closed end, they'll diffuse randomly as they explore
the box, and the rightmost one at any time will tend to be further to
the right as time goes on. This isn't because the ants are biased toward
the right, merely because they started out in a non-uniform situation
all at the left end and are merely diffusing to more uniformly fill the
available space, and their standard deviation increases with time, but
they are constrained to have left-most position fixed, so the mean and
the right-extreme both drift toward the right.)
MR:
I agree her statement there has been an evolution towards complexity is
wrong. There are bacteria which are simple and haven't changed in
millions of years or longer. You write, "It has been evolution to
survive, to solve whatever the most life-threatening problems in any
given niche. By chance some critters solve those problems and have many
descendents while the rest don't solve the problems and go extinct
during the same time period. Sometimes (much of the time), in fact
increased complexity was what happened to solve the problem, but the
rest of the time improved efficiency via decreased complexity has solved
the problem." I agree according to Darwinian evolution. However, at this
juncture in our evolution I think Homo Sapiens are an exceptional
organism which has the potential to evolve towards greater complexity.
In other words not continuing to be constrained by Darwinian evolution.
In terms of scientific, medical and technological advances and
developments no other organism other than Homo Sapiens on earth have
achieved this cultural evolution of complexity. What is correspondingly
lacking is biological evolutionary complexity. Given the problems our
species faces I don't think improved efficiency via decreased complexity
is a viable option.
HN:
Only a narrow sphe-rical shell around the centre of our Galaxy (and
probably other galaxies as well) can sustain life.
RM:
I disagree. Once life has evolved to be technological, and has in fact
developed technology to travel between the stars and build habitats out
of materials they find along the way, that technological life can build
shelters to survive near the center of our Galaxy, and can build
efficient mapping tools and material&energy collectors to travel far
from the galaxy, even to other galaxies, and survive alive all the way
from here to there. It's only *without* such technology that primitive
life can't form and live naturally too close to the galactic center or
too far away.
MR:
Well Hanna Newcombe stated, "Too close to the centre there is too much
radiation from the massive black hole and too many collisions of
particles, asteroids and comets. Too far from the centre there are not
enough ele-ments beyond hydrogen and helium, such heavier elements being
necessary for life." I don't know if all this is true but I doubt it but
I'm open to the idea that even alien life forms may have problems
(assuming they are physical matter) with getting too close to blackholes
and navigating through a wide belt of comets and asteroids. And she did
state, "We occupy prime real estate, rare in the Universe. Is it
Providence or the anthropic principle? If we tried to be anywhere else,
we could not succeed, and could not there-fore think about it." I think
she is indeed using the anthropic principle and she makes that pretty
clear.
HN:
Similarly, there is only a narrow shell around the Sun in our solar
system that can keep water in the liquid state, and thus support life.
Too close to the Sun a planet is too hot, like Mercury and Venus. Too
far away from the Sun, a planet is too cold, like the outer gaseous
planets; Mars may be in an ambiguous position.
RM:
This statement is even more obviously false. With appropriate technology
to supply energy far from the Sun or to shield from too much radiation
cose to the Sun, it'll be standard in a few centuries for people and
their accompanying pets and pests to reside and survive and thrive in
all such places. And as for natural life without technology: Europa
might very well have life already, in that salty ocean with lots of
geothermal energy under that thin ice shell.
MR:
I think Hanna is referring to the origin and current status of human
evolution. I don't think she is looking into the future when science and
technology may make it possible for human beings to live on Mars. And
you're right there may be other life forms in our solar system besides
us.
HN:
In the future, when we may be "dumbed down" enough to have lost the
original skills, it could be much worse. We should always keep up those
skills as a fall-back position.
RM:
In the book/movie "Fahrenheit 451", there was an "underground" culture
where people preserved their favorite books by memorizing them. With the
aid of computer-assisted-instruction, we could do even better,
deliberately maintaining *all* the "how to do it" knowledge, trained
into randomly selected individuals, with lots of redundancy (maybe 10%
of the population i.e. about a billion people would know each branch of
mathematics and science and any other essential craft, allowing such
skills to survive even a disaster that killed 99.99% of the population,
and 1% would know how to build other important but less essential
technologies, and a few hundred would be trained to know each little
tidbit of obscure but possibly useful or worth-keeping knowledge or
culture, allowing each tidbit to survive a loss of 99% of the population
and allowing a good fraction of them to survive a loss of 99.9% of the
population.
When the Great Library of Alexandria was destroyed, many of the
important manuscripts there had no copies anywhere else, and were
permanently lost. With proper planning as I outlined above, we might
never have to suffer a similar fate again.
MR:
It's an ideal plan (although I wouldn't randomnly select individuals)
but it assumes the possibility of a worldwide catastrophe and
politicians would laugh if off as absurd especially in light of their
strained budgets and immediate concerns not to mention the fear in the
public it would create. Hopefully if there is such a disaster there will
be enough people with various kinds of knowledge to see the way through.
HN:
We need to pay attention to both local and global levels of
organi-zation and problem-solving, and several levels in between.
RM:
I agree, but:
The optimum number of levels from person to planet would be about 8:
I disagree. The military has a rule of thumb that the chain of command
must have at each level at least three subordinates and at most appx. 9
(I forget the exact number) to avoid wasteful command and to avoid loss
of command due to overloading the superior officer. A similar rule of
thumb may apply to political organization. If so, what we optimize is
the number of sub-units under any next-larger unit, and whatever the
number of levels is depends on the total population at a given time.
MR:
Hanna stated, "The optimum number of levels from person to planet would
be about 8: individual, neighbourhood, town, local region, pro-vince,
nation, continent, world. Problems should be solved at the lowest level
possible. I think as a "general rule" this is acceptable. You mention
military and political organizations and certainly they have their own
formulas from number of levels from person to planet. Considering the
state of the world, however, it is clear "we are not" paying enough
attention to both local and global levels of organi-zation and
problem-solving, and several levels in between. Part of the problem, at
least in the U.S., is the ignorance of many Americans about the rest of
the world. Many people today are alienated from themselves and others.
They are not politically active. Why should they be when their
"representatives" mainly represent developers and big business which
leads to overcrowding, traffic jams, higher taxes, more crime.
TomHendricks474
>The chemicals in living matter take in chemicals unlike themselves and
>convert those chemicals into more of the living matter's own kind of
>chemicals.
That's not quite right.
Your definition implies that
energy is available to do this.
Thus you have to have FIRST an energy source before anything changes
chemically.
That sets up all kinds of steps before 'life' can come into existence.
If interested see my post on '5 Steps' for more.
Peter F
There has, sure as anything, occurred a sequence of (from) fundamental physical and chemical and biological epoques of instances (in drastically decreasing order of ubiquitousness) of complexification.
Now we just have to unifyingly define complexity! :-)
Cheers,
P
tinyurl.com/uh3t
> >The chemicals in living matter take in chemicals unlike themselves and
> >convert those chemicals into more of the living matter's own kind of
> >chemicals.
Note of clarification: That's the most fundamental property of living
matter that distinguishes it from non-living matter. I thought that
would be obvious, but apparently not.
> From: tomhend...@cs.com (TomHendricks474)
> That's not quite right.
> Your definition implies that
> energy is available to do this.
> Thus you have to have FIRST an energy source before anything changes
> chemically.
We agree that a source of energy is necessary for life, but both living
and nonliving systems have energy available, so the source of energy
isn't fundamental to living systems as compared to nonliving systems.
Likewise a supply of materials (chemicals) is necessary, but again
energy and chemicals are necessary but not sufficient for life. Lots of
non-living systems have lots of materials/chemicals and energy flow.
Now it may be true that eventual development of life via abiogenesis is
virtually a sure thing given sufficient supply of chemicals and energy,
but that's not the same thing as life already being present. Until some
chemicals (A) are actually usurping other chemicals (B,C,...) and
converting them into more of the same chemicals (A), there's no life
yet.
TomHendricks474
>> energy is available to do this.
>> Thus you have to have FIRST an energy source before anything changes
>> chemically.
>
>We agree that a source of energy is necessary for life, but both living
>and nonliving systems have energy available, so the source of energy
>isn't fundamental to living systems as compared to nonliving systems.
Well to be more exact, I'm thinking about a completely
different way to look at the origin. I don't see life
emerging out of nothing as an independent chemical system. I see it as that
which survives the sun/uv/heat cycle that it is in in novel ways. LIfe is
chemicals that don't burn up like everything else.
Thus life is not a voice, its the echo to a voice that went before. (This is
just the opposite of the anthropomorphic charge earlier on another thread - it
finally strips life of that and we see it as that which survives a heat cycle.
And the things
we praise as life: metabolism, replication, cells, chemical energy, are all
just novel ways of surviving the heat cycle and adapting to it, and then
utilizing the onslaught of heat to better adapt to it.
Life cannot anticipate the future, but it did have the
novel ability to survive the present - and that's what life is.
So it's not that life needs anything to emerge -
its that life is a reaction to heat/cycle conditions that must always precede
it. It is never step one in any origin scenario anymore than ash can come
before fire that made it.
Life didn't emerge so that it could lead to us - life
was that that in that environment during those days, wasn't burned up (and the
things that best survived not burning up or being destroyed - are novel
chemical actions that we've anthropomorphisised into life.)
Comment
tinyurl.com/uh3t
> Why is it a lie? Hanna Newcombe stated "the whole universe evolves,
> so does life on earth, and so does human society. In reading the
> sentence I didn't infer she was implying evolution is the same for
> the universe, for life on earth and for human society.
Her sentence confuses different usages of the same "word" in different
contexts. Natural language often adapts old words to new usages with
different meanings. Here the word "evolution" which merely meant slow
gradual change, as opposed to "revolution" which is sudden change, has
been adapted by biology to specifically mean change in heritable
characteristics or factors. Although such change is usually gradual
over time, thus fitting the original defintion, gradualness is not an
essential characteristic of biological evolution, and indeed sometimes
biological change occurs suddenly, when a mutation in a regulatory gene
causes drastic overall changes in the resultant organism. This
biological meaning is not the same as the original meaning, nor the
specialized but clost-to-original vague astronomical meaning. It's OK
that in different contexts, in different disciplines/sciences, the same
word has different meanings. We understand the context and understand
which meaning to apply. But to mix up such different meanings in a
single sentence, and then to use the phrase "so does" to imply the
different meanings are in fact all the same, is just plain incorrect.
Suppose instead of "evolution" we used the word "change". Suppose we
say "After exercising, I change (my clothes), and so does the
Universe", would that be enlightening or just confusing? I say it'd be
confusing, worthless, just like Newcombe's mixup.
> We are a part of the universe even if the evolution on earth is
> different from the evolution of human societies or evolution of the
> universe.
Life on Earth changes, human socieites change, and the Universe as a
whole changes in largescale ways. So what? They all change, but in very
different ways. Very little or nothing is to be gained by emphasizing
anything in common to their different ways of changing.
> when it comes to the origins of the universe we will probably never
> be able to prove it.
I agree. It's only the subsequent history of the Universe after the
first tiny fraction of a second after the origin that we understand
pretty well, although not yet completely, "dark energy" and "dark
matter" are still big questions to resolve, although at least we
already know how much of each there is.
> I think it is way too premature to state "but matter that performs
> chemical fecundity, what we would call "living", seems to be rather
> rare.
If more than 50% of our Galaxy were converted from natural stuff
(dust&gas clouds, stars, planets, etc.) to living matter, I think it'd
be pretty obvious from our casual observations. It's pretty clear any
life that is out there occupies a very tiny fraction of the total mass
of our own Galaxy, and likewise every other galaxy we've studied to
date. There might be tiny pockets of life on planets or in dust/gas
clouds all throughout our Galaxy and other galaxies, but still that's
rare quantatively. Our own biosphere on Earth is a tiny pocket within
our Solar System. That's what I meant by "rare". By and large, the
energy flow in the Universe, as we've so-far observed, just goes by
natural processes having nothing to do with any life. Even in our own
Solar System, only one part in a billion of the Sun's energy strikes
Earth where it interracts with life.
> I don't know where the statement, "Oranges have navels. So do human
> beings".
I concocted that as a metaphor to the mixup of different definitions of
the word "evolution", here a mixup of meanings of the word "navel". I
thought maybe you could see how absurd it'd be to present a thesis on
the commonality of having navels between humans and oranges, and then
maybe you'd understand why I object to similar misuse of the word
"evolution".
> So Darwinian evolution does have partially an aim. To enhance
> survival over that which doesn't.
Yes, although the word "aim" might be misleading. Normally "aim" refers
to pointing at some target that has been decided-upon beforehand. But
here all we're doing is filtering out the bad choices, and whatever
remains is what we have when we're done.
Also, because of various kinds of "wars", between species or between
sexes etc., there's the "red queen" race a lot of the time, where it's
necessary to evolve just to survive in an increasingly difficult
system, so the overall result isn't enhanced survival but any survival
at all. It's "enhanced" only relatively speaking, relative to falling
behind in the race and going extinct.
Regarding optimal part of our Galaxy for life, and optimal part of our
Solar system for life:
> I think Hanna is referring to the origin and current status of human
> evolution. I don't think she is looking into the future when science
> and technology may make it possible for human beings to live on Mars.
If she meant that, she should have stated it a bit differently, and
then we'd all be in agreement.
Michael Ragland
From: ragl...@webtv.net (Michael Ragland)
Why is it a lie? Hanna Newcombe stated "the whole universe evolves, so
does life on earth, and so does human society. In reading the sentence I
didn't infer she was implying evolution is the same for the universe,
for life on earth and for human society.
RM:
Her sentence confuses different usages of the same "word" in different
contexts. Natural language often adapts old words to new usages with
different meanings. Here the word "evolution" which merely meant slow
gradual change, as opposed to "revolution" which is sudden change, has
been adapted by biology to specifically mean change in heritable
characteristics or factors. Although such change is usually gradual over
time, thus fitting the original defintion, gradualness is not an
essential characteristic of biological evolution, and indeed sometimes
biological change occurs suddenly, when a mutation in a regulatory gene
causes drastic overall changes in the resultant organism. This
biological meaning is not the same as the original meaning, nor the
specialized but clost-to-original vague astronomical meaning. It's OK
that in different contexts, in different disciplines/sciences, the same
word has different meanings. We understand the context and understand
which meaning to apply. But to mix up such different meanings in a
single sentence, and then to use the phrase "so does" to imply the
different meanings are in fact all the same, is just plain incorrect.
MR:
Okay, I see your point. But she is a peace activist giving a speech
about evolution and not a scientist.
RM:
Suppose instead of "evolution" we used the word "change". Suppose we say
"After exercising, I change (my clothes), and so does the Universe",
would that be enlightening or just confusing? I say it'd be confusing,
worthless, just like Newcombe's mixup.
We are a part of the universe even if the evolution on earth is
different from the evolution of human societies or evolution of the
universe.
Life on Earth changes, human socieites change, and the Universe as a
whole changes in largescale ways. So what? They all change, but in very
different ways. Very little or nothing is to be gained by emphasizing
anything in common to their different ways of changing.
when it comes to the origins of the universe we will probably never be
able to prove it.
I agree. It's only the subsequent history of the Universe after the
first tiny fraction of a second after the origin that we understand
pretty well, although not yet completely, "dark energy" and "dark
matter" are still big questions to resolve, although at least we already
know how much of each there is.
MR:
I think it is way too premature to state "but matter that performs
chemical fecundity, what we would call "living", seems to be rather
rare.
RM:
If more than 50% of our Galaxy were converted from natural stuff
(dust&gas clouds, stars, planets, etc.) to living matter, I think it'd
be pretty obvious from our casual observations. It's pretty clear any
life that is out there occupies a very tiny fraction of the total mass
of our own Galaxy, and likewise every other galaxy we've studied to
date. There might be tiny pockets of life on planets or in dust/gas
clouds all throughout our Galaxy and other galaxies, but still that's
rare quantatively. Our own biosphere on Earth is a tiny pocket within
our Solar System. That's what I meant by "rare". By and large, the
energy flow in the Universe, as we've so-far observed, just goes by
natural processes having nothing to do with any life. Even in our own
Solar System, only one part in a billion of the Sun's energy strikes
Earth where it interracts with life.
MR:
It might be rare. There is only so much our telescopes can tell us and
the length of time it takes radio signals to travel. The universe is
immense. I'm willing to concede thus far it appears life is rare in the
universe based on our current observations.
MR:
I don't know where the statement, "Oranges have navels. So do human
beings".
RM:
I concocted that as a metaphor to the mixup of different definitions of
the word "evolution", here a mixup of meanings of the word "navel". I
thought maybe you could see how absurd it'd be to present a thesis on
the commonality of having navels between humans and oranges, and then
maybe you'd understand why I object to similar misuse of the word
"evolution".
MR:
So Darwinian evolution does have partially an aim. To enhance survival
over that which doesn't.
RM:
Yes, although the word "aim" might be misleading. Normally "aim" refers
to pointing at some target that has been decided-upon beforehand. But
here all we're doing is filtering out the bad choices, and whatever
remains is what we have when we're done.
Also, because of various kinds of "wars", between species or between
sexes etc., there's the "red queen" race a lot of the time, where it's
necessary to evolve just to survive in an increasingly difficult system,
so the overall result isn't enhanced survival but any survival at all.
It's "enhanced" only relatively speaking, relative to falling behind in
the race and going extinct.
Regarding optimal part of our Galaxy for life, and optimal part of our
Solar system for life:
MR:
I think Hanna is referring to the origin and current status of human
evolution. I don't think she is looking into the future when science and
technology may make it possible for human beings to live on Mars.
RM:
tinyurl.com/uh3t
> But she is a peace activist giving a speech
> about evolution and not a scientist.
Human beings using the English language are supposed to use words in
meaningful consistent ways if they are to communicate honestly. Are you
saying a peace activist is not a human being, or is not using English,
or is not trying to communicate honestly?
She seems to be like Helen Caldicott who ambiguously used the word
"nuke" to mean either thermonuclear weapons or nuclear-fission power
plants, using the weapons definition to get her audience to agree
"nukes" are bad and should be abolished, but then switching definitions
to claim therefore nuclear power plants should be abolished.
With peace activists like these two women, who needs enemies?? I'd just
as soon the peace movement be rid of such people and have only clear
thinking honest talking people who don't switch definitions to lie to
their audience. We don't need lies to promote peace.
And what business does she have giving a speech on the topic of
"evolution" when she isn't clear what the topic of the speech is
supposed to be (biological definiton of the word, or other less
specific usages)? What exactly do you mean when you say "giving a
speech about evolution"? Do you mean she was giving a speech about some
topic related to one particular meaning of the word, and stupidly mixed
in the other meanings in the quoted statement? Or do you mean she was
discussing the various usages of the word to mean different things? Or
she was totally confused, giving a speech about some confused mixup of
the various meanings as if they all meant the same thing? Or was she
merely discussing various kinds of change in the Universe and it's
unfortunate that she used the word "evolution" at all? Saying the topic
was evolution doesn't make it clear what the topic was since the word
has different meanings which respectively would denote different topics
that each would fit the same word.
Michael Ragland
From: ragl...@webtv.net (Michael Ragland)
MR:
But she is a peace activist giving a speech about evolution and not a
scientist.
RM:
Human beings using the English language are supposed to use words in
meaningful consistent ways if they are to communicate honestly. Are you
saying a peace activist is not a human being, or is not using English,
or is not trying to communicate honestly?
She seems to be like Helen Caldicott who ambiguously used the word
"nuke" to mean either thermonuclear weapons or nuclear-fission power
plants, using the weapons definition to get her audience to agree
"nukes" are bad and should be abolished, but then switching definitions
to claim therefore nuclear power plants should be abolished.
With peace activists like these two women, who needs enemies?? I'd just
as soon the peace movement be rid of such people and have only clear
thinking honest talking people who don't switch definitions to lie to
their audience. We don't need lies to promote peace.
MR:
Mr. Mass I "honestly" believe you are being anally retentive on this
matter. I can see no compromise or concession in the form of an
explanation of Hanna Newcomb's opening line will satisy you. You have a
fire under your ass whose glowing red embers are never extinguished.
RM:
And what business does she have giving a speech on the topic of
"evolution" when she isn't clear what the topic of the speech is
supposed to be (biological definiton of the word, or other less specific
usages)? What exactly do you mean when you say "giving a speech about
evolution"? Do you mean she was giving a speech about some topic related
to one particular meaning of the word, and stupidly mixed in the other
meanings in the quoted statement? Or do you mean she was discussing the
various usages of the word to mean different things? Or she was totally
confused, giving a speech about some confused mixup of the various
meanings as if they all meant the same thing? Or was she merely
discussing various kinds of change in the Universe and it's unfortunate
that she used the word "evolution" at all? Saying the topic was
evolution doesn't make it clear what the topic was since the word has
different meanings which respectively would denote different topics that
each would fit the same word.
MR:
The title of Hanna Newcomb's article was "The Uncertainty of Evolution".
She discussed other topics such as entropy, other life in the universe,
etc. but it was clear to me her main thrust concerned the uncertainty of
evolution.
For Example, she states, "Social-cultural evolution in human societies
(taking a huge leap forward) is about a million times faster than
biological evolution, because we can deliberately direct it to suit our
purposes and intentions, and because we can transmit innovations across
generations to our descendents. In other words, social evolution is
Lamarkian, no longer Darwinian."
She elaborates, "Perhaps it is too fast; there is not enough time for
consolidation, for "sober second thought". We are becoming capable of
controlling genetic evolution itself, perhaps to our detriment; we need
to slow down and think. Even through-out human history and pre-history,
there has been a marked acceleration of change (to agricultural to
industrial to technological evolution), not all of it always beneficial,
sometimes harmful to the environment, our "prime real estate". (Even
agriculture has drawbacks compared to hunting and gathering culture,
although it allowed a great expansion of human population, again
possibly too great.)" I think all of these examples are illustrative of
the uncertainty of evolution, its benefits and detriments.
Now obviously the human species isn't yet becoming capable of
controlling genetic evolution itself (not with people at least) but
given the continued advances in science and technology that possibility
may loom in the future. As Ms. Newcomb remarks, "Even thoughout human
history and prehistory, there has been a marked acceleration of change
to agricultural to industrial to technological evolution (post
industrial advances), not all of it always beneficial, sometimes harmful
to the environment. As she notes, "Even agriculture has drawbacks
compared to hunting and gathering culture, although it allowed a great
expansion of human population, again possibily too great."
Hanna Newcomb isn't referring strictly to Darwinian evolution but to
social- cultural evolution when she writes, "Social-cultural evolution
in human societies (taking a huge leap forward) is about a million times
faster than biological evolution, because we can deliberately direct it
to suit our purposes and intentions, and because we can transmit
innovations across generations to our descendents. In other words,
social evolution is Lamarkian, no longer Darwinian."
She elaborates, "Perhaps it is too fast; there is not enough time for
consolidation, for "sober second thought". This mirrors the statement by
Stephen Hawking, "It's uncertain whether intelligence has any long term
survival value. Bacteria do quite well without it."
She opines, "Also, social-cultural evolution lags behind techno-logical
evolution, and our moral-ethical evolution is even more retarded. If
human society is to spontaneously self-organize as life on earth once
did, and as general chemical systems can sometimes do, these lags must
be repaired. This may involve slowing down the technology so that we can
catch up."
I understand Hanna's perspective but I think the gap between our
social-cultural evolution and biological evolution e.g. to use her words
social cultural evolution is about a million times faster than
biological evolution (try to compute that numerically with a computer if
you can determine how molecularly fast human evolution is), because we
can deliberately direct it to suit our purposes and intentions, and
because we can transmit innovations across generations to our
descendents still means nevertheless social-cultural evolution lags
behind technological evolution (as witnessed by the Industrial
Revolution and the Biotechnology Revolution which really hasn't advanced
to the point where it will have major effects on human societies but
already the possibility of human cloning, human genetic engineering,
etc. shows how our social-cultural evolution lags behind our
technological evolution) and our moral ethical evolution is still even
more retarded.
Despite the fact social-cultural evolution has been and is much faster
than our biological evolution technological evolution nevertheless has
made signifigant technological strides e.g. agricultural advances,
Industrial advances, Biotechnology advances, Computer advances, etc.
However, in some quarters traditional moral ethics teach "Creationism"
in some U.S. schools and the Roman Catholic Church's (Vatican) position
on issues such as stem cell research, abortion, human cloning, genetic
engineering, birth control, etc. has been firmly and steadfastly
negative on all of these. In other words they should not be allowed on
humans. To take such a broad unequivocal simpleminded stance on all
these technologies does represent our traditional moral ethical
evolution is indeed more retarded than our social-cultural evolution and
technological evolution.
Now one can argue social-cultural evolution and technological evolution
are one and the same thing but they aren't. They are, however, related.
As Hanna Newcomb states, "Evolution proceeds through crisis stages, when
fluctuations accumulate and make the structure unstable; it can then
flip either to a more stable (usually more complex) configuration or
collapse - go to breakthrough or breakdown. We do live in a crisis, in
"interesting times", according to an old Chinese curse. But the Chinese
symbol for crisis also reminds us that a crisis is both a danger and an
opportunity. In this context, I don't think Newcomb is referring
specifically to just biological evolution but also to social-cultural
evolution, technological evolution and moral-ethical evolution (which
really is a part of social cultural evolution and for that matter
technological revolution is a part of social-cultural evolution although
the gulf between social-cultural evolution and technology is much wider
than the gulf between social-cultural evolution and our morals and
ethics or lack thereof.
Hanna Newcombe states, "If human society is to spontaneously
self-organize as life on earth once did, and as general chemical systems
can sometimes do, these lags must be repaired. This may involve slowing
down the technology so that we can catch up." I disagree. I tend to see
the human species as an emergency patient close to death who unless
receives DNA intervention is bound to succumb. IMHO the technology
isn't the root of the problem in these lags which need to be repaired.
The root of the problem is our biology.
Even if the Luddites managed in slowing down advances in biotechnology
it would be too late to repair the lags or possibly even the species as
the multiple genies have already been let out of their bottles. Many
governments probably will ban genetic engineering of humans but some
scientists will proceed anyway. The question is (assuming one
acknowledges the root of our problem is our biology or Darwinian
evolution) will advances in genetic engineering of humans occur fast
enough and will the widespread application of such genetic engineering
applications occur quickly enough (on par with historic efforts at small
pox vaccination as an analogy) to prevent the human species from
descending into another bleak centuries long Dark Ages as a result of
Nuclear Armageddon or a deadly extremely contagious virus which has no
known vaccine. Or worse, the theoretical possibilty the human species
may end up destroyed with no descendants. It has happenned to other
species in the evolutionary past and currently due to man there is a
sixth mass extinction of species.
So I disagree with Hanna Newcomb about slowing down technology. As
Hawking mentioned we are in an external transition phase in our
evolution and there are going to be upheavals and mini-cataclysms
whether technology is slowed down or not. You cannot have an external
transition phase without there being massive disruption. The way I look
at it the more technology is speeded up and applied to humans
(especially genetic engineering) the better our chances of coming out of
the external transition phase and surviving.
But back to the original point which was "The Uncertainty of Evolution".
I think Hanna Newcombe's article was germane to this. In other words,
that is what she was essentially writing about. It wasn't about a
biological definition of evolution. It wasn't about the universe. It
wasn't about entropy. She mentioned some of these things but the title
and thesis of her paper was about the uncertainty of evolution (not
mentioning the biological but
social-cultural/technological/moral-ethical aspects of "evolution" and
the "lags" between them and proposing her own ideas of how to repair
such lags so there is an efficient self-organizing human society. I
disagree with her idea of slowing down technology but IMHO she made her
case for the uncertainty of evolution.
Just out of curiousity are you a misogynist?
"It's uncertain whether intelligence has any long term survival value.
Bacteria do quite well with it."
Stephen Hawking
Michael Ragland
Included here is a definition of the "extrernal transition phase" by
Professor Stephen Hawking
http://www.hawking.org.uk/lectures/life.html
This has meant that we have entered a new phase of evolution. At first,
evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This
Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and
produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information. But
in the last ten thousand years or so, we have been in what might be
called, an external transmission phase. In this, the internal record of
information, handed down to succeeding generations in DNA, has not
changed significantly. But the external record, in books, and other long
lasting forms of storage, has grown enormously. Some people would use
the term, evolution, only for the internally transmitted genetic
material, and would object to it being applied to information handed
down externally. But I think that is too narrow a view.
We are more than just our genes. We may be no stronger, or inherently
more intelligent, than our cave man ancestors. But what distinguishes us
from them, is the knowledge that we have accumulated over the last ten
thousand years, and particularly, over the last three hundred. I think
it is legitimate to take a broader view, and include externally
transmitted information, as well as DNA, in the evolution of the human
race.
The time scale for evolution, in the external transmission period, is
the time scale for accumulation of information. This used to be
hundreds, or even thousands, of years. But now this time scale has
shrunk to about 50 years, or less. On the other hand, the brains with
which we process this information have evolved only on the Darwinian
time scale, of hundreds of thousands of years. This is beginning to
cause problems. In the 18th century, there was said to be a man who had
read every book written. But nowadays, if you read one book a day, it
would take you about 15,000 years to read through the books in a
national Library. By which time, many more books would have been
written.
This has meant that no one person can be the master of more than a small
corner of human knowledge. People have to specialise, in narrower and
narrower fields. This is likely to be a major limitation in the future.
We certainly can not continue, for long, with the exponential rate of
growth of knowledge that we have had in the last three hundred years. An
even greater limitation and danger for future generations, is that we
still have the instincts, and in particular, the aggressive impulses,
that we had in cave man days. Aggression, in the form of subjugating or
killing other men, and taking their women and food, has had definite
survival advantage, up to the present time. But now it could destroy the
entire human race, and much of the rest of life on Earth. A nuclear war,
is still the most immediate danger, but there are others, such as the
release of a genetically engineered virus. Or the green house effect
becoming unstable.
There is no time, to wait for Darwinian evolution, to make us more
intelligent, and better natured. But we are now entering a new phase, of
what might be called, self designed evolution, in which we will be able
to change and improve our DNA. There is a project now on, to map the
entire sequence of human DNA. It will cost a few billion dollars, but
that is chicken feed, for a project of this importance.
Once we have read the book of life, we will start writing in
corrections. At first, these changes will be confined to the repair of
genetic defects, like cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy. These are
controlled by single genes, and so are fairly easy to identify, and
correct. Other qualities, such as intelligence, are probably controlled
by a large number of genes. It will be much more difficult to find them,
and work out the relations between them. Nevertheless, I am sure that
during the next century, people will discover how to modify both
intelligence, and instincts like aggression.
Laws will be passed, against genetic engineering with humans. But some
people won't be able to resist the temptation, to improve human
characteristics, such as size of memory, resistance to disease, and
length of life. Once such super humans appear, there are going to be
major political problems, with the unimproved humans, who won't be able
to compete. Presumably, they will die out, or become unimportant.
Instead, there will be a race of self-designing beings, who are
improving themselves at an ever-increasing rate.
If this race manages to redesign itself, to reduce or eliminate the risk
of self-destruction, it will probably spread out, and colonise other
planets and stars. However, long distance space travel, will be
difficult for chemically based life forms, like DNA. The natural
lifetime for such beings is short, compared to the travel time.
According to the theory of relativity, nothing can travel faster than
light. So the round trip to the nearest star would take at least 8
years, and to the centre of the galaxy, about a hundred thousand years.
In science fiction, they overcome this difficulty, by space warps, or
travel through extra dimensions. But I don't think these will ever be
possible, no matter how intelligent life becomes. In the theory of
relativity, if one can travel faster than light, one can also travel
back in time. This would lead to problems with people going back, and
changing the past. One would also expect to have seen large numbers of
tourists from the future, curious to look at our quaint, old-fashioned
ways.
It might be possible to use genetic engineering, to make DNA based life
survive indefinitely, or at least for a hundred thousand years. But an
easier way, which is almost within our capabilities already, would be to
send machines. These could be designed to last long enough for
interstellar travel. When they arrived at a new star, they could land on
a suitable planet, and mine material to produce more machines, which
could be sent on to yet more stars. These machines would be a new form
of life, based on mechanical and electronic components, rather than
macromolecules. They could eventually replace DNA based life, just as
DNA may have replaced an earlier form of life.
This mechanical life could also be self-designing. Thus it seems that
the external transmission period of evolution, will have been just a
very short interlude, between the Darwinian phase, and a biological, or
mechanical, self design phase. This is shown on this next diagram, which
is not to scale, because there's no way one can show a period of ten
thousand years, on the same scale as billions of years. How long the
self-design phase will last is open to question. It may be unstable, and
life may destroy itself, or get into a dead end. If it does not, it
should be able to survive the death of the Sun, in about 5 billion
years, by moving to planets around other stars. Most stars will have
burnt out in another 15 billion years or so, and the universe will be
approaching a state of complete disorder, according to the Second Law of
Thermodynamics. But Freeman Dyson has shown that, despite this, life
could adapt to the ever-decreasing supply of ordered energy, and
therefore could, in principle, continue forever.
tinyurl.com/uh3t
> Just out of curiousity are you a misogynist?
Of course not. Whatever would cause you to make such a ridiculous
speculation? I greatly admire women who use their brains to do
something useful, especially for science and technology. For example:
- Madam Curie - great early work on radioactivity and the element Radium
- Lynn Margulis - great research to establish the case that eukaryotes
are in fact descended from endosymbiosis of prokaryotes, and great
presentation of the variety of kinds of life in her book Five Kingdoms
- Linda Morabito - discovering that Jupiter's moon Io has active volcanos
All my life I've wished to meet a woman who was interested in science
but who also would like to join with me in an affectionate
relationship. It doesn't have to be one or the other, it could be both,
but there are too few women interested in science, the few there are
are all already taken by other men or not interested in men, sigh. I
even get crushes on actresses who SEEM intelligent on-screen, such as
Lalla Ward, who was with Tom Baker at the time and is now with Richard
Dawkins. I wish there were more like her so more than one man could be
with somebody like that.
Michael Ragland
From: ragl...@webtv.net (Michael Ragland)
Just out of curiousity are you a misogynist?
Robert Mass:
Of course not. Whatever would cause you to make such a ridiculous
speculation?
Ragland:
Your ripping and tearing into Hanna Newcombe. I can understand criticism
but your "focus" on her appeared irrational to me.
Robert Mass:
I greatly admire women who use their brains to do something useful,
especially for science and technology. For example:
- Madam Curie - great early work on radioactivity and the element Radium
- Lynn Margulis - great research to establish the case that eukaryotes
are in fact descended from endosymbiosis of prokaryotes, and great
presentation of the variety of kinds of life in her book Five Kingdoms
- Linda Morabito - discovering that Jupiter's moon Io has active
volcanos
All my life I've wished to meet a woman who was interested in science
but who also would like to join with me in an affectionate relationship.
It doesn't have to be one or the other, it could be both, but there are
too few women interested in science, the few there are are all already
taken by other men or not interested in men, sigh. I even get crushes on
actresses who SEEM intelligent on-screen, such as Lalla Ward, who was
with Tom Baker at the time and is now with Richard Dawkins. I wish there
were more like her so more than one man could be with somebody like
that.
Ragland:
It seems many of us don't have what we want and NEED. It has a tendency
to make many of us somewhat miserable human beings and for some it makes
them violent and crazy or despair driven. Much of my life some of my
needs haven't been met (lost out on Darwin's terms) but I've never
tripped over to the dark side. I know I would be much more miserable
there.