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are we going to stop evolving?
    #3204435 -

evolution is driven by the need for us to adapt and advance, right? We evolve to better fit our environment, and to take better advantage of it. Opposable thumbs, two eyes, toes, everything.... created so we can better handle our environment. But now that we're at our current level of evolution, we've begun to shape our environment to fit us, rather than us changing to fit the environment. Will this stop evolution, or slow it down to the point that it barely happens for the rest of our existence?

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3204468 -

One might say that learning to alter the environment is a form of evolution in itself. I think man's physical evolution will progress more slowly as a result, however we can never stop evolving. The world is ever changing.

Edited by Pathos (10/01/04 04:22 PM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3204495 -

Turd said:
evolution is driven by the need for us to adapt and advance, right?


NO, NO, no, evolution is how we describe and understand the history of life forms up to now, it is not driven by anything except time and non-annihilation.
the important thing about it is that life forms are subject to change in very many ways and mutation sometimes has a survivable effect.

Quote:
We evolve to better fit our environment, and to take better advantage of it. Opposable thumbs, two eyes, toes, everything.... created so we can better handle our environment.



well you use the word created and that is not an evolution friendly concept
also :"since we better fit our environment than our progenitors you can say we evolved as they no longer exist".
evolution is more like a cross between lovemaking ageing and erosion with various calamities and lots of weather thrown in. Creation includes a lot more than that, the mutations and slow changes of life forms are the tiniest part of creation.

Quote:
But now that we're at our current level of evolution, we've begun to shape our environment to fit us, rather than us changing to fit the environment. Will this stop evolution, or slow it down to the point that it barely happens for the rest of our existence?


well put.
as long as we exist as a species indistinct from our progeny, technically speaking no evolution will have taken place.
when our progeny are biogically different from us then a step that would be marked as evolution could be said to have taken place.

I am being careful with the language and particularly the tense of the language since evolution is not so much a process but an explanation of the history of succesful mutations and the populations that survived those mutations and everything else.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3204771 -

a life without ego = evolution.


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Wheels of cheese wheeels of cheeeeese!!!

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3204850 -

But now that we're at our current level of evolution, we've begun to shape our environment to fit us, rather than us changing to fit the environment. Will this stop evolution

Even though we've partially removed ourselves from natural selective pressures (like being eaten by a bear), by constructing societies, industry, cities, and the like, we're still being strongly selected for by environmental pressures.

For example, we still have illness due to congenital diseases, terminal cancers due to pollution or UV exposure, death by bus due to poor eyesight, and poverty due to lack of intelligence, morbid obesity due to McDonalds and TV remotes, and in our more and more materialistic societies, lack of children due to lack of good looks to attract a mate, something technology can't fix.

We may not often starve to death any more, but there is still plenty of selective pressure on all of us and I don't see that ending any time soon.

Edited by Diploid (10/01/04 06:50 PM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3204929 -

We already did. This happened when we developed the ability to control our environment. Technology is now our on ly route to evolution.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #3205052 -

We already did. [stop evolving]

Are you being serious? We've nowhere near stopped evolving. We haven't even slowed down!  :confused:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #3205054 -

i have a question for you redgreenvines. Many people say evolution is simply random mutation, and that maybe one in a thousand times that random mutation results in a more survivable trait, thus the new mutation becomes dominant.

Now, if this was true, wouldnt the world be chock full of uselessly mutated failed fossils? you know what im saying? like every species alive or known of in history (dinosaurs, woolly mamoths etc) have been superbly suited to their respective enviroments. But if those adabtive traits are simply the result of RANDOM mutation, where are the thousands of hopelesssly fucked up mutant fossils?

Where is the t-rex who was born a leg on his head? where is the wooly mammoth with no legs beneath the kneees?

am i making sense? shouldnt there be like numerous failed organisms fossilized?


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Everything I post is fiction.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #3205159 -

No, you're not making sense... First of all evolution is slower than arms and legs appearing on things.

"Many people say evolution is simply random mutation, and that maybe one in a thousand times that random mutation results in a more survivable trait"

Second, i'm not sure that a leg on a t-rex's head is a more survivable trait...

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3205213 -

I am totally serious. Evolution is change that occurs in response to environmental conditions in order to insure our needs can be met. When you gain complete control of your environment natural evolution ceases. We will use technology (gene therapy, gene splicing, robotics, computer science, etc...) to evolve further.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #3205480 -

I am totally serious. Evolution is change that occurs in response to environmental conditions in order to insure our needs can be met. When you gain complete control of your environment natural evolution ceases.

You believe humans have achieved 'complete control' of our environment?

You believe we're not affected by solar radiation increases due to depletion of our ozone layer, or by trace carcinogenic pesticides in our food, or by lead or asbestos poisoning, or by elevated mercury concentrations in edible fish populations, or for that matter Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow and other prion dieseases), or Necrotizing Fasciitis (Flesh Eating Bacteria and other antibiotic-resistant critters), or HIV/AIDS?

All these things and an encyclopedic list of other diseases and conditions are all constantly applying evolutionary selective pressures on our entire population. Technology can hardly even make headway against, let alone totally remove, these pressures. One day, maybe, but that day is generations in the future if it ever comes at all.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3205528 -

Never underestimate the power of nature. We may think we're altering our environment, but nature will have its way, one way or another. Look at the recent hurricanes which struck Florida. There will ALWAYS be new conditions to which we must adapt, even if they are caused by man(global warming, for example).


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"It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong."--Voltaire

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3205529 -

"You believe humans have achieved 'complete control' of our environment?"

Well, yes, to the level that we, for the most part, live in climate controlled housing, and many of the dieases which once controlled our population have been wiped out. We also have cars and planes so we don't need to walk long distances. We can live in space or on the bottom of the ocean. While we cannot yet control the weather or the Sun we can create our own living environments that insulate us from these things. So, without getting seriously picky, it can be said that we have mastered our environment. Within 10 years we will be able to accurately predict weather patterns over a year in advance using computer models, and within another 50 we will quite possibly gain control over the aging process. Our evolution from here on out is up to the choices we make about our technology.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3205540 -

Quote:
We evolve to better fit our environment, and to take better advantage of it.


No, evolution is not something that the organism undergoing it has a choice or an active part in. An organism evolves because the surviving incarnation of it is a better fit wih its environment not in order to be a better fit with its environment. The way you are stating this makes evolution sound like a pre-emptive process, which is is not.

Quote:
Opposable thumbs, two eyes, toes, everything.... created so we can better handle our environment.


Huh? Organisms that are lucky enough to develop these traits along their genome are more likely to survive. There's no 'driver in the evolution seat' as it happens in nature. Evolution is a post de facto condition. Again, the way you are describing this makes it seem as if an organism somehow chooses to evolve in certain ways. Natural selection doesn't mean an organism gets to choose its phenotype.

Quote:
But now that we're at our current level of evolution, we've begun to shape our environment to fit us, rather than us changing to fit the environment.


If an organism actively changed in order to better fit its environment, that would be a process completely unrelated to evolution. Evolution is a process that must occur over many generations. If a rabbit could shave off all its hair to make it a faster runner and capable of evading coyotes, that doesn't mean its offspring would be born hairless.

Quote:
Will this stop evolution, or slow it down to the point that it barely happens for the rest of our existence?


As has been stated, there are still many selecting factors at work. Evolution will continue to occur as long as an abundance of unique genetic material remains and recombinant mutations occur. In fact, human evolution could get even weirder precisely because as a society we uphold the importance of "diversity" of individuals who posses traits that, in a less civilized world, would have selected them for non-survival. Today, two hemophiliac retards can thrive and produce offspring. They wouldn't have survived long ago, but today they can and can make children that may or may not carry on the legacy of their damned genes.

The day we adopt cloning as a legitimate reproductive process is the day we will render evolution obsolete.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #3205544 -

and many of the dieases which once controlled our population have been wiped out.

But not all diseases have been eradicated, and this would seem a necessary requirement (one of many, actually) for human evolution to stop.

You said that we've achieved "COMPLETE CONTROL" of our environment.  We haven't even come close.

Within 10 years we will be able to accurately predict weather patterns over a year in advance using computer models,

Where in the world did you hear that? Your statement is way off the mark. The more we refine our mathematical models of the weather, the more we realize that accurate long term prediction is asymptotic!!! You're making stuff up. :tongue:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (10/02/04 01:57 AM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3205583 -

I think we can see from civilization how we can still rapidly change.

are you strickly talking about physical evolution or are you also including mental evolution?

I think later on we will create environments for ourselves (for better or worse) and as that changes, so will we. I don't think it matters where the source of the change comes from.


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Annnnnnd I had a light saber and my friend was there and I said "you look like an indian" and he said "you look like satan" and he found a stick and a rock and he named the rock ooga booga and he named the stick Stick and we both thought that was pretty funny. We got eaten alive by mosquitos but didn't notice til the next day. I stepped on some glass while wading in the swamp and cut my foot open, didn't bother me til the next day either....yeah it was a good time, ended the night by buying some liquor for minors and drinking nips and going to he diner and eating chicken fingers, and then I went home and went to bed.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: kaiowas]
    #3205695 -

"First of all evolution is slower than arms and legs appearing on things. " yes i realize that it was just an example


"Second, i'm not sure that a leg on a t-rex's head is a survivable trait" i didnt say it was thats my point. If only one in a thousand mutations turns out to be survivable, where is the fossil record of all the mutants that werent survivable and died off?


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Everything I post is fiction.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3205703 -

Quote:
You believe we're not affected by solar radiation increases due to depletion of our ozone layer, or by trace carcinogenic pesticides in our food, or by lead or asbestos poisoning, or by elevated mercury concentrations in edible fish populations, or for that matter Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (Mad Cow and other prion dieseases), or Necrotizing Fasciitis (Flesh Eating Bacteria and other antibiotic-resistant critters), or HIV/AIDS? 



How many of those strike people before they are having children?
That's the key.

It's not about whether YOU live a long life or not.
Did you squirt out a baby first?  You're gold.

The Plague wiped out -- what was it, 1/3 to 1/2 of Europe?  Are Europeans today immune to the Plague?  No.  Some are -- yes.  Random mutation.  Small example there, and that was something that killed many BEFORE they had a chance to have offspring.


Evolution in humanity as a species has largely slowed to a crawl.  It still occurs in that any time an organism propagates itself it can be said to be evolving, but a very important part to speciation -- that is, changing into something new -- is environmental pressures and hardships.  That's something we have lost, at least on a biological level.  We don't have to be strong, or fast, or hardy against disease to survive anymore.  We just need to have children.
Another factor limiting our overall biological evolution is the amount we travel nowadays.  It's hard to become different when there's tremendous interbreeding between different people.  Isolated societies are where changes are made, not when generation after generation is just mix after mix of different sorts of the same people.


There's really no factors left that select for any traits over any other traits.  Therefor, we're really not moving anywhere, just reproducing and, well, sure, evolving all the while.. we just won't be able to really see the effects of that evolution till there's something to select for a certain trait.  Even then it'll take a while.

Now, I have read that amongst the.. either Tibetian or Nepalese?  There's acutally been documented microevolution.  Selecting for those with higher, more efficent hemoglobin.. due to the altitude and thinner atmosphere.  Those with that trait are able to have more children, those without are not able -- their offspring do not survive nearly as often.  Now if we start giving them drugs to compensate, that progress will be lost, and it's back down to just who can reproduce faster.
It's happening, but it's not worldwide, and the more we interfere with our minds and by intermingling the less it will happen.
Whether this is a good or bad thing?  You decide.  I really don't care :blush:

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Mushmonkey]
    #3205800 -

It's not about whether YOU live a long life or not.
Did you squirt out a baby first? You're gold.

is environmental pressures and hardships. That's something we have lost, at least on a biological level.

How do you come to this conclusion in the face of rampant pandemics like AIDS, SARS, Mad Cow, Flu, West Nile Virus, and dozens of other diseases that would wipe out large fractions of the Earth's population if we slipped up even slightly and let them get the upper hand? That they don't wipe us out is a miracle of modern medicine, but that they actively participate in the course of modern human evolution is virtually an epidemiological fact.

All these conditions and many more strike people of all ages, many before they have children and some like HIV strike children before they're even born.

While I agree that geriatric diseases are not a significant contributor to modern human evolution, geriatric diseases are only a fraction of the diseases and organisms that attack us every day and against which we are still evolving!

It's hard to become different when there's tremendous interbreeding between different people.

This has nothing to do with evolution.?

Edit:

Now, I have read that amongst the.. either Tibetian or Nepalese? There's acutally been documented microevolution. Selecting for those with higher, more efficent hemoglobin.. due to the altitude and thinner atmosphere. Those with that trait are able to have more children, those without are not able

Why doesn't this same principle apply to pollution like this EPA list

http://www.epa.gov/ttn/atw/188polls.html

of 180 common pollutants in the air, each of which is clearly a selective pressure given that they can kill or sexually incapacitate people before they have children.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (10/02/04 03:07 AM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3205817 -

"How do you come to this conclusion in the face of rampant pandemics like AIDS, SARS, Mad Cow, and dozens of other diseases that would wipe out large fractions of the Earth's population if we slipped up even slightly and let them get the upper hand?

All these conditions and many more strike people of all ages, many before they have children and some like HIV strike children before they're even born. "

True.. to an extent.
For the MOST part, these things strike people well into life already. AIDS -- excepting parts of Africa where it's pandemic, it really only strikes those who are past the point where they already might have had children. SARS.. not very dangerous honestly, not currently. Maybe if it mutates some. Mad Cow.. is again, something that can lie dormant for years and years.
And simply the fact that they HAVEN'T wiped out a large fraction of our population makes them almost ignorable as evolutionary selection factors.

"It's hard to become different when there's tremendous interbreeding between different people.

This has nothing to do with evolution.? "

Actually it does. Speciation occurs in isolated societies -- widespread and varied exchange of genes negates small mutations.

Go back to Darwin. The Galapagos. The reason there were so many different varieties of birds was because they were isolated -- had they been able to travel and intermingle, the slight variations of type would have been overwritten by slight variations of other types.
Creatures rarely make any substantial or noticable changes when they're in a large, freely-roaming and successfully breeding environment.

Or.. dogs for instance. Different breeds of dogs are really mostly the result of inbreeding them for specific traits. If you let a bunch of dogs breed with eachtoher, eventually you get mutts, and mutts are mutts who give birth to mutts. dachshunds were bred by selecting the shortest, longest dogs and breeding them, over and over.
If you get a small society of critters, on an island let's say, and the shoter, longer ones are more able to find food to the point they are more easily able to breed in greater numbers.. you might just wind up with dachshunds at the end.
If they're free to breed with dogs on the next island over, however -- or on the other side -- the factors selecting for dachshunds get mixed up with the factors selecting for beagles, and you either get something different altogether.. or a slow change that's almost unnoticable, or you may be continually negate anything that either island had been selecting for and wind up at the end of things, with the same dog you put on the island before the middle was cut out.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Mushmonkey]
    #3205822 -

For the MOST part, these things strike people well into life already. AIDS -- excepting parts of Africa where it's pandemic,

So you're saying, definitively, that humans no longer evolve, except when we do?  :tongue2:

Speciation occurs in isolated societies -- widespread and varied exchange of genes negates small mutations.

I think you need to catch up on current thinking; read up on Punctuated Equilibrium first proposted by Gould and Eldredge to start.

SARS.. not very dangerous honestly, not currently

ARE YOU KIDDING??? :whoa:

SARS has a 10% mortality rate and is highly contagious!

Alright...

Edited by Diploid (10/02/04 03:12 AM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Viveka]
    #3205849 -

I didn't mean to make it sound like I thought organisms could control their evolution somehow, just that most evolution is driven by a need in the environment.

For example, there are trees in africa that have evolved thorns all over the trunk to keep animals from climbing up and eating their berries.  The giraffe, however, evolved its long neck so it would be able to easily eat the foliage on the tall trees in its environment.  I didn't do the research myself, you can thank the discovery channel for that fact....

regardless, I like the discussion this has generated :smile:

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3206066 -

Good question!

I think evolution itself evolved another step when it produced an organism (humans) which could controll its environment instead of be controlled by the environment. Humans will probably stop evolving biologically (if we haven't already), but it is not our body which makes us distinct from the other life on this planet! Our consciousness began to evlolve from the moment it came into being.

Think about this: humans today are really no more "intelligent" today than we were 10,000 years ago (much longer, maybe). Our brains have not increased in size during such a "short" timespan (on an evolutionary scale). Yet today we certainly "know" more than we did 10,000 years ago, which in many ways makes us appear more "intelligent". This is a direct sign of the evolution of human consciousness.

What's next?

That, I think, is the big question (as always). Because of the switch from biologic to consciousness evolution, we are at a MUCH higher risk of causing our own extinction than we are of going extinct due to external pressures. This will probably become a major issue over the next 100 years, and I think humanity as a whole has a choice they must make to SEE the damage and UNDERSTAND where it leads. If we fail in this task, our extinction as a species is a HIGH possibility. Our consciousness will go on evolving in either case, though. The possibilities are nearly endless at this point!

Here's a link to a thread I made a few weeks ago:
http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat...sb=5&o=&fpart=1

Posthumanism is one idea of "what's next" and it involves a transfer of our human consciousness into a machine :wink:


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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3206112 -

Evolution is a theory for our observed trait of change within organisms over many generations. Similar minor mutations would occur in the same species, which if more favourable for survival, based purely on probability, will out survive and out populate the non-mutated members. Plus a dramatic mutation could be neutralized by that species breeding with others without the mutation. Nothing dramatic, like extra limbs, especially over a single generation, but very slowly over time everything changes.

We can never be sure of current evolution, as it's always an after-the-fact observation of change. I feel we still have quite a lot of change to undergo in the future, but that will remain unknown until then (assuming the more evolved humans have a link back to us, the less evolved humans).

So until we become one being, with the genetic mutations and alterations completely unchangable, minor "evolution" will always occur after each generation, due completely to probability of survival. It isn't an action though, nor is it some external process, it's just a label on the changes occuring due to almost infinitie variables and over many many many years. Our observed human evolution, while not entirely physical now, appears (key word here) to be accelerating. Will it reach a climax - that would depend on the subjective observer :smile:

As for extinction - it's not as real of a possibilty as it may seem. Just worry about your own genetic survival and our race will continue, that is, if we want it to.


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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: deff]
    #3206202 -

just gotta popp in and say again, changing never change :wink:
so, no? evolution is evolving? :wink:
word :P


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Disclaimer!?

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Gomp]
    #3206371 -

Yes, infinite accelerating factors layered on top of one another to create a perceptual change in perceptually linear time transition.

Or something like that...

It's all relative afterall :smile:


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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: deff]
    #3207085 -

seriously im curious, if evolution relies on constant randomized mutation, and only a small percentage of those random mutations are beneficial, then why arent there lots of fossilized 'failed mutants', ones whose mutations were not beneficial to survival?


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Everything I post is fiction.

Edited by Moonshoe (10/02/04 03:12 PM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #3207142 -

Because the mutations would be extremely minor mostly. If it somehow is beneficial, then it would only pose a minor advantage to survival usually, and thus the probability of survival only increases very slightly over many many generations. It's such a sloooow process, or rather, an observation of change over such a long time.

This is why we have evolved to have different eye colours, hair colours, ect...


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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: trendal]
    #3207145 -

Our consciousness began to evlolve from the moment it came into being.

It's been suggested that the rise of consciousness in animals may have been initially sparked by psychedelics, including mushrooms. Some animals appear to have innate instincts to seek out psychedelics. This suggests all kinds of ideas about coevolution.

Also, consider the evolution of ants.  Some species have as few as only 10,000 neurons in their brain; even the more complex species have only 100,000.  Each individual seems to act like an automaton with no apparent intent or consciousness, but a hive of several hundred thousand to millions of ants somehow plan and coordinate well enough to build large underground nests, respond efficiently to attacks, actively hunt, and when the hive grows beyond some critical mass, half the colony splits off and goes out to found a new hive. 

How they manage to do this is still a mystery, but it's been suggested the gestalt of all the ants together somehow gives rise to a rudimentary consciousness.

Interesting stuff, eh?  :thumbup:

Read:
Animals and Psychedelics: The Natural World and the Instinct to Alter Consciousness
Giorgio Samorini
Park Street Press, 2002
ISBN 0 892819863

Great book.  There's a review at:

http://www.forteantimes.com/review/animalpsych.shtml


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Moonshoe]
    #3207336 -

then why arent there lots of fossilized 'failed mutants',

Moonshoe,

You ask a very good question.  After all, if evolutionary theory is correct, there should be a continuum of species rather than discrete species in the fossil record. So you're asking where all the transitional fossils that demonstrate a smooth, continuous transition from prior species to current ones are.

That fossils form at all is a minor miracle. Think about what happens to the typical dead animal. First it's torn apart by scavengers, then decomposition sets in which if left unchecked will consume even the bones after a while, next UV exposure bleaches what's left, then rain erodes it further, and the constant churn of soil by plant roots finally removes all traces of the animal's existence. People take advantage of this when they murder someone and dump the body in a forest. Most of the time, the body is never found, even when the police know where to look.

In the ocean, conditions are even more unfavorable for fossil formation.

My point is that for an animal to be preserved in the fossil record it must die in a place where it will be undisturbed for a very long time; couple that with the requirement for very specific and unique conditions and the likelihood that any given animal will fossilize is tiny.  That we have fossils at all is testament to the enormous quantity and diversity of species in the history of our planet. Given how unlikely it is for any given fossil to form, it's not surprising that we haven't yet found a continuum of species.

But we're making progress. Every year more and more transitional fossils are found to fill in the gaps. One of the most famous, Archaeopteryx, is very strong evidence supporting the idea that birds evolved directly from dinosaurs. Comparative anatomy shows it has many of the skeletal features of extinct terrasaurs, but the Swiss cheese internal bone structure which makes modern bird skeletons so strong and lightweight. More amazing is that Archaeopteryx had both teeth AND feathers.

Even with the discovery of Archaeopteryx there are still gaps in the fossil record, but then more recently a team of scientists working in the Spanish Pyrenees uncovered the fossilized remains of a bird hatchling dating to the Lower Cretaceous, approximately 130 million years ago. The researchers believe the bird hatchling falls between the very early Archaeopteryx (approximately 150 million years old) and the more modern fossil birds Hersperonis and Ichthyornis, both of which are ~85 million years old.

Here's another example. One of the things I do for fun when I'm not reading the Shroomery is scuba diving in caves. This is a great place to see evolution at work. Inside these caves are such critters as catfish and crayfish (like little lobsters). These animals are albino (they have no pigmentation), and they're blind (they have eyes, but they're covered over by skin and scales). This is because they were once species living outside, but over time found a niche inside the perpetual darkness of the caves where neither eyes nor pigmentation were of any benefit. The fossil record suggests that they slowly evolved away eyes and pigments and gained other traits more useful for living in the dark.

Here's a picture of one I found while diving in a cave in north central Florida recently:



Amazing, eh? Notice the lack of eyes and the total lack of pigmentation. Non-cave dwelling crayfish are typically brownish like lobsters... and they have eyes. :thumbup:

Edited by Diploid (10/04/04 07:18 AM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3207477 -

...a hive of several hundred thousand to millions of ants somehow plan and coordinate well enough to build large underground nests...

This is a little off topic...but your statement is a good point as to why I disagree with the notion of man-made things not being "natural". We are certainly NOT the only species on this planet which alters its environment to suit its needs. Beavers build dams in rivers. Termites build structures many millions of times their own size. Many animals build nests.


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Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3207497 -

This is the calm before the evolutionary storm. We're gonna start evolving all over the damn place once we really commit ourselves to genetic engineering.


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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: chunder]
    #3207891 -

We're gonna start evolving all over the damn place once we really commit ourselves to genetic engineering.

Except it wouldn't appear that way to us because evolution happens over generations. It's not like we can stick engineered zygotes into growth accelerators and pop out grown, fully expressed orgasisms.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3207943 -

"Within 10 years we will be able to accurately predict weather patterns over a year in advance using computer models,

Where in the world did you hear that? Your statement is way off the mark. The more we refine our mathematical models of the weather, the more we realize that accurate long term prediction is asymptotic!!! You're making stuff up"

Computer models are already quite good and have great success with forcast predictions. I say this as an IT professional not as a liar who makes shit up. I would like to see Swami comment on this as his experience in computing outstrips mine.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #3207995 -

This isn't about computing, it's about physics.

Edit:

Stop getting all defensive and listen to what I'm saying.

You're suggesting that "we will be able to accurately predict weather patterns over a year in advance using computer models". While I agree with you that our current models are improving, there's an asymptotic limit beyond which no currently-available understanding of fluid dynamics can predict regardless of how much computing power you throw at the problem.

This is analogous to saying that given the starting position of a molecule of water in a turbulent river, you can predict its position indefinitely into the future.

In reality, you can predict very, very accurately its position one second from now, but 10 seconds from now, significant errors creep into your prediction, and 10 minutes from now, when the molecule has traveled miles down rapids, you won't have the slightest idea where the molecule will be other than inside the banks of the river somewhere.

No amount of computing or refinement of prediction models can change this.

Sorry for the off-topic post.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (10/02/04 08:39 PM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3208942 -

"That fossils form at all is a minor miracle. Think about what happens to the typical dead animal. First it's torn apart by scavengers, then decomposition sets in which if left unchecked will consume even the bones after a while, next UV exposure bleaches what's left, then rain erodes it further, and the constant churn of soil by plant roots finally removes all traces of the animal's existence"

ok i think i know what your saying. If a mutation was not conducive to survival, chances are that mutation would only be present in a very few specimens (as only a few would live to reproduce) therefore the chances of finding fossilized remains of that unique failure would be very very small.

Whereas a succesfull mutation (eventually forming an effective species) would be present in thousands of specimens, meaning the chances of finding a fossilized specimen would be far higher.

Good answer thanks


--------------------


Everything I post is fiction.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3209132 -

Deff and diploid did a good job of summing up the scientific communities feelings about evolution.

We may not be evolving at such as fast physically than we have at some times, but we could have periods of time during with evolution occurs fairly quickly, I believe it?s called the theory of punctuated equilibrium but can?t be positive. We are fairly well suited for our environment as it is, we do tend to be messy and cruel to the environment but we are at the top of the food chain and have a decent civilization. Most of the evolution that?s taken place in the last few thousand years is social evolution, we?ve gone from pharaohs and kings to authoritarian rulers, to communists, to democracy, republics, etc. We are moving at a very fast pace in that respect, we have a type of communal knowledge, every generation is standing on the shoulders of every generation behind it, building upon their advances, think of how much new technology has been introduced in the last 100 years, even the stuff produced in the last 10 years has dramatically altered our society, so unless we are presented with a stimulus for pronounced genetic change, is it logical to say that we will continue to evolve far more quickly socially than any other way? I?d guess so.


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No .sig for me, I'm trying to quit.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3212373 -

"No amount of computing or refinement of prediction models can change this."

The Earth Simulator has already made very accurate predictions of atmospheric conditions and the mechanisms that drive these changes. To think that this precision will not improve exponentially with the increase of computing power is very naive. Once again I maintain that all evolutionary progress will only be made by our level of technology.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #3212495 -

Quote:
To think that this precision will not improve exponentially with the increase of computing power is very naive.



While computing power will certainly continue to increase along an exponential curve, such things as predicting the weather far into the future will always proceed along a superior curve. We cannot reasonably expect to catch up using any current or even any distantly-imagined technologies. A fundamental technological revolution in the disciplines of Fluid Dynamics, Computing, and Chaos Theory would be required. Even then, I'd be pessimistic.

Mathematics, physics, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, and even the Butterfly Effect aside, would you say, using just your intuition, that we stand the slightest chance of ever being able to precisely predict the position of a molecule of water a mile downstream a turbulent river??

The river problem and the weather are examples of diverging systems, also known as Chaotic Systems. It was study of the weather that first lead to what today is called Chaos Theory. There is no known way to make predictions far into the future of such systems. By their very nature, the farther into the future you attempt to compute a prediction, the larger the errors that creep into the solutions. These errors accumulate and amplify with each subsequent iteration of the algorithm rendering the data fuzzier and fuzzier each time. Eventually, as the signal to noise ratio approaches zero, the information from the model approaches useless. In other words, as the model's predictions depart from the present toward the future, the size of the data set and the amount of computing power required to crunch the data approach infinity very quickly. No known or foreseeable computational strategy can avoid this combinatorial explosion!

-No amount of computing power can make an out-of-focus image sharp and true to the original.
-No known method can violate the rules of information entropy.
-No amount of computing power can accurately predict the behavior of a Chaotic System like the weather far into the future.
-All of these for much the same reason.

If we somehow, by what today seems like magic, eventually learn to make accurate weather predictions years into the future, it will be with concepts that humans have not yet even imagined, let alone implemented in a computer.

I always stand ready to be corrected when I'm wrong, but I usually know what I'm talking about.

Google Edward Lorenz, a brilliant research meteorologist from MIT, if you want to know more.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (10/04/04 06:30 AM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Huehuecoyotl]
    #3212709 -

Alright, you seem to be a computer geek - a kindred spirit. So I'm going out of my way here. I wrote this program just for you. It will build and run as-is on the MS development tools. Cook as needed if you're on some other platform. It demonstrates divergence and why no amount of computing power will ever make much headway against the problem the program is trying to solve.

Study it.

Notice how the first few itterations whiz by super fast, but as the hard rules of divergence set in, the itterations slow. Each itteration takes twice as long as the previous one. That means that (2^itteration) passes through the for loop are required.

By the 10th itteration, the for loop cycles 1,024 times.

By the 100th itteration, the for loop cycles 1,267,650,600,228,229,401,496,703,205,376 times.

By the 1000th itteration, the for loop cycles so many times that the number to express it is outside the range of my calculator's scientific notation mode. The combined power of all the computers on Earth would take longer than the age of the universe to reach just 1000 itterations.

The problem presented here demonstrates divergence, a property of most (all?) Chaotic Systems including the weather.

Here you go:

Code:
// Diploid



#include <stdio.h>



#define STARTING_VALUE 1



void main(void);

void diverge(void);



void main(void){

    unsigned int Count = 1;



    while(1){

         diverge();

         printf("\n%d: Diverging...", Count++);

    }

}





void diverge(void){

    // FYI: __int 64 is an eight byte unsinged integer.

    static __int64 ReallyBigNumber = STARTING_VALUE;

    __int64        Index = 0;



    for( ; Index < ReallyBigNumber; Index ++);

    ReallyBigNumber *= (__int64)2;

}


Edit: the indents don't come out right in the thread, but it's a simple enough program to figure out without them.

Edit: nevermind, I found the code tag.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (10/04/04 08:02 AM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3212906 -

From a mind-expanded point of view i believe our body's have stopped evolving and now our minds are evolving. Animals, reptiles, insects etc all evolve physically, but they're stuck with basic animal instincts - they can't learn anymore than they're parents. We on the other hand are learning. In the past 2000 years we've gone from living in houses made from mud to interplanetary travel. Yet our bodies are relativly the same. Just my opinion.


--------------------
"[More than] half the people in federal prison are there for drug offences. We're arresting half a million people a year for possessing marijuana. We're locking up kids sometimes for life for their first drug offence. We have no room in our prisons for rapists and child molesters and murderers cause we're filling them up with these non violent drug offenders." - Steven Duke, Yale Law School on 'Hooked: Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way'
-

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3212922 -

Sigh. This thread is depressing. Don't they teach you the theory of evolution is US schools? Oh, right.


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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3212960 -

in Aust they taught us natural selection. that is normal animals over time don't adapt to their surroundings but rather the animals or mutant) born to suit their surroundings better survived over the weaker ones.


--------------------
"[More than] half the people in federal prison are there for drug offences. We're arresting half a million people a year for possessing marijuana. We're locking up kids sometimes for life for their first drug offence. We have no room in our prisons for rapists and child molesters and murderers cause we're filling them up with these non violent drug offenders." - Steven Duke, Yale Law School on 'Hooked: Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way'
-

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3213765 -

"Sigh. This thread is depressing. Don't they teach you the theory of evolution is US schools? Oh, right. "

AHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

well, actually they tried in my one bio class, very rudimentarily..
but one kid felt it his job to counter everything the teacher stated with some bullshit out of the bible, so we never got anywhere.


--------------------
i finally got around to making a sig
revel in its glory and quake in fear at its might
grar.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: AntiMeme]
    #3214013 -

ok, evolution is random and only the strong or useful mutations survive. My point remains the same.

They dont really teach you much of anything in US schools. Except that drugs are bad. And sex is evil.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3214189 -

I appreciate the fact that you have chosen to back up what you say with evidence. Being a computer nerd as you noted (I program in Java, Mono, and Python) I will concede much of my point about weather prediction in the face of your example (a very fine example). I must note that I was able to get the code to compile with gcc with a little effort.


--------------------
"A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3215108 -

This is analogous to saying that given the starting position of a molecule of water in a turbulent river, you can predict its position indefinitely into the future.

If I was a bettin man I'd wager all the money I make in the next 20 years of my life that we'll be able track that fuckin molecule all the way across the universe within two decades. Exponential problems require exponential power of solution. That kind of processing power is on its way; computers are evolving at an insane rate and there seems to be no end in sight.

There's always something incredible waiting to be unlocked by the human mind, and I have faith that we'll tackle and solve just about any problem we can come up with, given enough time and technological augmentation.

To my mind, technology is where the real human "evolution" is happening. Ever since we discovered the first technologies, symbol making with drawings and sounds, we've been on a rampage of invention and expansion of our technological boundaries. Now we're using our symbols to wrangle the forces of nature into letting us escape from the grip of the planet and other feats of mastery over the underlying principles of the dimension we reside in. Genetic engineering possesses such incredible potential that its almost impossible to comprehend what the implications of it will be.

I guess the point of this stoned ramble is, don't doubt that humanity is tenaciously on the way to possessing even more incredible computing and problem solving powers.


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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: chunder]
    #3215162 -

Within two decades? ... Yeah I could see that happening. We are making leaps and bounds these days in the realm of non-linear systems.

Just because we don't have the mathematics to describe a single water molecule's journey down the river now certainly doesn't mean we will NEVER have such a math :wink:


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: trendal]
    #3216184 -

Just because we don't have the mathematics to describe a single water molecule's journey down the river now certainly doesn't mean we will NEVER have such a math

Maybe... who's to say for sure.  But the technology required would, by today's standards, be utter magic. The very concepts required to tackle the problem aren't even on the horizon and may not be (probably are not) possible due to limitations inherent in the math. If by some totally unfathomable new mathematics we're some day able to make these predictions, which I think very unlikely, it certainly will not be in the next 20 years.

Listen, don't take my word for it.  I'm just some guy; what do I know.  Use what I wrote as a guide and follow up for yourself; once you understand the principles involved, I think you'll come to the same conclusion.

Read Edward Lorenz's groundbreaking 1963 paper about the topic.  Yes, that's the same guy who developed the Lorenz Equations of Chaos Theory.  He's an MIT research meteorologist; he knows mathematics, computing, and meteorology better than all of us combined; and he says the same thing I'm saying.

In Lorenz's meteorological computer modeling, he discovered the underlying mechanism of deterministic chaos: simply-formulated systems with only a few variables that display highly complicated behavior that is unpredictable. Unpredictable!

You guys are using intuition about the rate of computing power increases to judge something totally unrelated and which you know little about, specifically meteorology and fluid dynamics, and you're coming to the wrong conclusion.

Read Edward Lorenz.  :thumbup:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (10/05/04 03:45 AM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: trendal]
    #3216374 -

Alright, I just can't seem to let this go.

Let me present the problem of weather forecasting another way that may finally convince you that accurate long-term prediction is almost certainly impossible.

Computer models of the weather start by taking a 'snapshot' of the Earth, a data set comprised of weather observations from weather stations distributed around the planet.  This data includes such things as sea surface temperature, air temperature, humidity, pressure, all that stuff.

The data is parsed into a data structure in the program, then the program logic goes to town on the data, so to speak. As the crunching proceeds, the system makes predictions of what the weather will do based on what the number crunching does to the data.

The problem with this is that the starting data can *** NEVER *** be 100% accurate or 100% complete because that would require the model to know the position and momentum of every molecule of air and water on the planet.  The more weather stations you use to feed the model, the further into the future it will be accurate before it begins to diverge, but we can't cover the Earth in weather stations so there will always be gaps and estimates in the data.

Arguments about the availability of magically enormous amounts of computing power aside, do you see that since the starting data set of the model can never be a perfect representation of the atmosphere, the prediction can never be perfect either; it ends up quickly diverging from reality. Lorenz found that even a super-tiny change in a single starting parameter causes a mega-gross difference in the eventual prediction.

Now, here's the beef of my argument. If a super-tiny error in a single input parameter to a weather modeling algorithm causes such a mega-gross difference in the output, then how much more gross a change in the output would the inherent errors in weather station measurements cause?  How about the huge gaps in the starting data caused by fact that the Earth isn't carpeted by weather stations?

These mega-gross changes do not show up in short-term predictions because the system hasn't had a chance to diverge in the short-term. That's why the models are so good at predicting three or four days ahead, and why they start to get flaky about a week ahead, and are totally useless a month ahead.

Make sense?

I've pretty much said all I can on the topic. I encourage you to not take my word for any of this and follow up for yourself.  Read Lorenz's work and check out the Butterfly Effect.

Edit: took out the bit about dropping out since I can't seem to stay away from this thread.  :grin:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (10/05/04 10:34 AM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3216801 -

Quote:
Maybe... who's to say for sure. But the technology required would, by today's standards, be utter magic.



I think the quote is something along the lines of..

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic..
forget who at the moment though.


--------------------
i finally got around to making a sig
revel in its glory and quake in fear at its might
grar.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Mushmonkey]
    #3217180 -

Well known quote by one of my favorite sci-fi authors, Arthur C. Clarke. He wrote 2001, A Space Odyssey and the subsequent editions.  :thumbup:

I chose the word 'magic' above in deference to this very quote.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (10/05/04 10:00 AM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3217323 -

Diploid I first learned about chaos theory and related ideas quite some time ago, more reading only seems to confirm my suspicions :wink:

But the technology required would, by today's standards, be utter magic.

Don't fall into the trap of saying "well if it's this hard now...it will be this hard forever"! Human knowledge does not increase in a linear fashion, it increases in a logarithmic scale. Approximately every 10 years our knowledge as a species doubles. In 2014 we will know twice what we know now! This is possible because we do not just "find" our knowledge randomly...we build on what we already know. The more we know, the more we CAN know...so our knowledge as a species advances faster and faster as time goes on. Let me say it again, a different way: nearly half of all the knowledge we have as a species was discovered in the last 10 years or so. This will still be true 10 years from now...we will know twice as much as we do now, so half of all our knowledge 10 years from now will be discovered over the next 10 years. That's a lot of information :wink:

That being said: I think trying to predict what WON'T happen in the future is futile...because many of the inventions and advancements to come are beyond our current level of comprehension. This can be true even for discoveries that are only a few years away! Bill Gates once said no one would EVER need more than 640 kB of RAM in a computer. His own company surpassed that limit only a few years later. When computers were in their infancy, most people could not conceive of a computer small enough to fit in a single room...let alone the palm of your hand. At that point it was not simply a technological problem (ie: miniaturization) because there was no way to make the damned things much smaller (they used vacuume tubes). Then came along the transistor: overnight the possibilities changed drastically. No one not actively working on the transistor development team could have known that we were only weeks away from a major development. The same can be said for the integrated circuit...which again completely changed the playing field for "what is possible".

As I said in my last post, we are making some progress in the area of non-linear mathematics (chaotic systems, like the weather). It is slow progress right now, and the pace reminds me of the pace leading up to most major discoveries. I think within the next 50 years we will have some fairly powerful non-linear mathematics which will revolutionize more than any of us can imagine right now.

The problem right now is that we can only view non-linear systems peice by peice. We do not possess the math required to look at the "big picture" with any real clarity. We look at indvidual storm systems and such, because we possess neither the math nor computing power to look at the entire Earth's weather system. Ten years from now we could have quantum computers capable of non-linear calculations that our fastest computers now struggle with. In ten years we could also have at least the beginnings of a true system of non-linear mathematics. Unfortunately for most of us, we will not know about these advancements until they have already been made...and I think that SEVERELY limits our ability to say "this will not happen for quite some time". You never know...it may happen tomorrow :wink:

If you are interested in chaos theory and related ideas, I'd recommend a book I just read called "Sync", by Steven Strogatz. It is not really about chaos thoery in specific, though the topic comes up often. It is more about spontaneous order in our Universe and how it arises out of disorder (which, in essense, is chaos theory). Excellent read!

(ps: have you ever read the Rama series (4 books) by A.C. Clark? it's one of my favorite sci-fi series of all time!)


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: trendal]
    #3217742 -

As I said in my last post, we are making some progress in the area of non-linear mathematics (chaotic systems, like the weather).

But unless we literally carpet the surface of the Earth with weather stations, even a perfect mathematical model will be starting with interpolations of the weather at all points where there is no weather station. Even a perfect model can't be psychic; if it has only an estimate to start with, it's forecasting weather for a non-existent planet, a hypothetical planet that exists only in the data and only approximates Earth. If a butterfly flaps its wings in the space between weather stations and goes undetected (divergence) the model will diverge from reality after a few days' forecast as well. That's close enough for jazz in the near term, but will rapidly diverge as the deviations and monitions from reality in the estimates assert themselves in the calculations.

Technology cannot fix this; technology cannot carpet the Earth with weather stations; technology cannot measure barometric pressure with absolute zero-error precision. Faster computers cannot compensate for missing data any more than faster computers can make post-process a blurry photograph and render the original without error. It cannot be done on any computer no matter how fast.

Don't fall into the trap of saying "well if it's this hard now...it will be this hard forever"! Human knowledge does not increase in a linear fashion, it increases in a logarithmic scale.

It's not me saying this, it's a really smart guy from MIT. I just have the benefit of his research and commentary to draw on for my posts above.

You're not arguing with me on this, you're arguing with Lorenz, and forgive me for saying this, he's probably smarter and more knowledgeable on the subject at hand than the two of us combined; and he's an expert on meteorology and computer modeling on top of that.

That doesn't make him infallible by any means; but when an accomplished scientist specializing in a certain field, meteorology in this case, says something, I take a very hard look at my argument before presuming to contradict him/her.

I'd like to try something. I'd like to take this discussion out of the realm of opinion and into the realm of logic and see where we end up.

I'd like to pose a few true/false questions to you. I'm going to word them very, very carefully so that the meaning of each is as clear as I can make it. If you find one of my questions unclear or you can't answer with a true/false, allow me to clarify it before you answer. I'm trying to write precisely so that there is no room for interpretation. I'll follow up when I have your answers.

True or False:

1. There infinitely many primes.

2. The primes are randomly distributed.

3. The distribution of primes is such that they become scarcer as they get larger.

4. The rate at which the primes rarify (get scarcer) as they get larger itself increases (accelerates) as the primes get larger?

5. There is no known polynomial-time algorithm for computing prime numbers.

6. There is no known algorithm that will calculate primes faster and faster with each successive prime the algorithm finds, rather than slower and slower with each successive prime the algorithm finds.

7. There is nothing known anywhere in the net sum of all mathematics that suggests such an algorithm (question 6) exists.

8. If an algorithm if found to solve an NP-complete problem in polynomial time, then that algorithm also solves all NP problems in polynomial time (or faster) as well.

9. If such an algorithm (question 8) is found today, it will cause the complete collapse of all asymmetric-key cryptographic systems in use today regardless of key size.

10. It is likely that such an algorithm (question 9) will be found in your lifetime.

11. Given sufficiently fast computers and sufficiently advanced mathematics, an algorithm exists that can render an out of focus image sharp and exactly true to the original.

12. There are no intractable problems.

Rama series
I read Rendezvous when I was a little haploid and have been hooked on Clarke ever since.  :thumbup:

"Sync", by Steven Strogatz.
Yes. His treatise is on the rise of order in natural systems. It's wonderful reading, but it's irrelevant to the topic at hand which is the *fall* of order in diverging systems. That's Lorenz's area. You're reading the wrong book. :grin:

Edit: added a question, typo...

Edited by Diploid (10/06/04 03:30 AM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3217786 -

Well I'll do my best to answer true or false, but some of the questions may not be so easy :wink:

1. There infinitely many primes. True

2. The primes are randomly distributed. True

3. The distribution of primes is such that they become scarcer as they get larger. True

4. The rate at which the primes rarify (get scarcer) as they get larger itself increases (accelerates) as the primes get larger? True

5. There is no known polynomial-time algorithm for computing prime numbers. True

6. There is no known algorithm that will calculate primes faster and faster with each successive prime the algorithm finds, rather than slower and slower with each successive prime the algorithm finds. True, though that may change with the advent of quantum computing.

7. There is nothing known anywhere in the net sum of all mathematics that suggests such an algorithm (question 6) exists. False. There have been some quantum-algorithms proposed that, if run on a quantum-computer, significantly reduce the complexity of the process and the time required to run.

8. If an algorithm if sound to solve an NP-complete problem in polynomial time, then that algorithm also solves all NP problems in polynomial time (or faster) as well. True

9. If such an algorithm (question 8) is found today, it will cause the complete collapse of all asymmetric-key cryptographic systems in use today regardless of key size. True. See response to question 7.

10. It is likely that such an algorithm (question 9) will be found in your lifetime. Unknown. Any answer I could give would only be speculation, as I pointed out that human advancement (both technoligal and pure theory) does no follow a linear sequence. My personal speculation is that such an algoithm will be found in my lifetime...we may already be in the first stages of producing such an algorithm and I suspect this progress will quicken when quantum computing becomes practical.

11. There are no intractable problems. False.


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3217804 -

But unless we literally carpet the surface of the Earth with weather stations, even a perfect mathematical model will be starting with interpolations of the weather at all points where there is no weather station. Even a perfect model can't be psychic; if it has only an estimate to start with, it's forecasting weather for a non-existent planet, a hypothetical planet that exists only in the data and only approximates Earth. That's close enough for jazz in the near term, but will rapidly diverge as the deviations from reality in the estimates assert themselves in the calculations.

Technology cannot fix this; technology cannot carpet the Earth with weather stations; technology cannot measure barometric pressure with absolute zero-error precision. Faster computers cannot compensate for missing data any more than faster computers can make post-process a blurry photograph and render the original without error. It cannot be done on any computer no matter how fast.

I think you are still looking at this problem from a linear approach, which is obviously not the way to look at a non-linear system.

My main point in all this is that you should not fall into the trap of deciding that something is not possible when all you have to go on is our current level of understanding and technological development. I think that human advancement is itself a chaotic system (think of all the connections which must come together for a major discovery) and thus can not be predicted at present time. To say that something will never be possible is a great fallacy in science today, and I doubt that Lorenz is saying just that. He is probably talking about what is or is not possible right now :wink:


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: trendal]
    #3221667 -

trendal, thanks for indulging my questions...  :thumbup:

Quote:
6. There is no known algorithm that will calculate primes faster and faster with each successive prime the algorithm finds, rather than slower and slower with each successive prime the algorithm finds.

True, though that may change with the advent of quantum computing.


The superposition of entangled quantum states is not currently very useful in real world computing. It holds tremendous theoretical promise, but even after ~30 years of work since the ideas of QC were first proposed, the most advanced QC built to date is IBM's seven qubit machine. An amazing device, to be sure, but it's a very long way from IBM's machine to a practical QC.

There are significant engineering and theoretical obstacles on the path to a practical QC. I don't think such a device is anywhere in the near future, if it ever comes at all, and I think this is the main point of contention between us on this topic.

Quote:
9. If such an algorithm (question 8) is found today, it will cause the complete collapse of all asymmetric-key cryptographic systems in use today regardless of key size.

True. See response to question 7.


Most cryptanalysts think QC is not a credible threat to existing cryptosystems for the foreseeable future. I agree with them. Eventually, maybe, but I don't think it will happen in my lifetime if ever.

Quote:
technology cannot carpet the Earth with weather stations;

I think you are still looking at this problem from a linear approach,


Even conceding that a practical QC to forecast weather will soon be constructed, you're still left with the problem of feeding the model an accurate representation of the starting state of the atmosphere. If you omit the effect of a single butterfly, then according to the Butterfly Effect, your model will diverge from reality no matter how powerful a QC you use to run the model because the errors (noise) amplify as the calculations proceed.

To extend this further, since divergent systems such as the weather and models to predict it are hyper-sensitive to changes in the starting data set, and since Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle guarantees at least some error will always occur in the starting data set, we're back where we started. No computer, not even mega-powerful QC's can predict the weather far into the future because they can never have a complete and accurate snapshot of the atmosphere from which to begin forecasting. Any tiny error in the input results in a gross error in the output whenever a sufficiently long-term forecast is attempted.

I don't think a QC can solve this fundamental data-entry problem no matter how non-linearly powerful it is.  :confused:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3221725 -

Most cryptanalysts think QC is not a credible threat to existing cryptosystems for the foreseeable future. I agree with them. Eventually, maybe, but I don't think it will happen in my lifetime if ever.

You know that they've got Shor's algorithm up and running on a proof of concept quantum computer already? I think they factored 14 into 2 and 7.

So make sure your keys are longer than four bits.


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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3221815 -

No, the data-entry problem will remain even with highly advanced QC...but that was not what I intended to say (though I can see how what I wrote could be interpreted that way...I should have been much more explicit).

I doubt if we will ever be able to accurately predict long-term weather...however that isn't truely needed. All I'd like is an accurate 5-day forcast :smirk:

Here's what I'm getting at with the non-linearity: if we can really begin to understand weather systems and how they work, we should be able to VERY accurately predict short-term weather even without an entire data-set. Right now weather forcasting is almost a joke, they are dead wrong more often than right...kind of looks like luck most of the time! However if we understood how localized weather systems work, we could surely use the data-gathing tools we CURRENTLY have to make an accurate short-term prediction (which we lack now, whatever your weatherman tells you).


Oh, and you are 100% correct, the topic of QC and how long it will be until we have one is the main difference in our viewpoints here :wink:


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: AntiMeme]
    #3223765 -

You know that they've got Shor's algorithm up and running on a proof of concept quantum computer already? I think they factored 14 into 2 and 7

The number of qubits required to factor integers using Shor on a Quantum Computer is ~n^5 where n = the number of bits in the candidate integer. That's about one quadrillion qubits for a 1000 bit integer. The most advanced Quantum Computer yet built is IBM's seven qubit machine. Seven.

This is not a trivial problem. Just because something is possible does not necessarily mean it is feasible.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (10/06/04 07:48 PM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3223846 -

Just look at how traditional computing has taken off.
I'd wager the computer I'm using right now probably exceeds the total computing power found on the entire planet in 1960.
Just because it's an infant now doesn't mean 10 years from now it won't be a giant.

Besides I think a lot more interesting than quantum computing is using entangled pairs for instantanious communication irregardless of distance.. :blush:


--------------------
i finally got around to making a sig
revel in its glory and quake in fear at its might
grar.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3224056 -

nope, never.
evolution is perpetual..mankind and all of the universe will evolve *(expand) until it reaches critical mass, where it will reverse polarities as everything in existance becomes one for a millisecond that lasts for eternity.. then it will contract and expand for another 500 trillion years or however long each cycle takes. the universe is a conscious, breathing entity. humans are but one link in the cycle of evolution, we will evolve, so will everything else. then it will destroy itself, and start over again.
basically, creation evolves for eternity.


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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Mushmonkey]
    #3224093 -

Besides I think a lot more interesting than quantum computing is using entangled pairs for instantanious communication irregardless of distance..

Superluminal effects due to Quantum Entanglement are widely misunderstood.

Although entanglement appears to transmit information faster than light, it does not violate causality and cannot be used to communicate. Entanglement only lets each of two observers in different locations know what the other must see. You cannot communicate this way; imparting information to one of the entangled photons destroys the entanglement.

Tachyons, particles that cannot travel slower than light, have been postulated, but tachyons have never been observed. If they exist and can interact with normal mater, they would violate causality and invalidate much of modern physics. If they exist and cannot interact with normal matter, then they might as well not exist.


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

Edited by Diploid (10/06/04 06:28 PM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #3224114 -

Diploid said:
Tachyons, particles that cannot travel slower than light, have been postulated, but tachyons have never been observed. If they exist and can interact with normal mater, they would violate causality and invalidate much of modern physics. If they exist and cannot interact with normal matter, then they might as well not exist.


now now.. don't go all mad scientist on us.. all of natural existance is sacred.. whether or not it meets the needs of the self


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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Shroomism]
    #3224127 -

now now.. don't go all mad scientist on us.. all of natural existance is sacred.. whether or not it meets the needs of the self

MUHAHAhahahaaa!  Oh, uhm.. <clears throat>.. maybe you're right. :tongue:


--------------------
Republican Values:

1) You can't get married to your spouse who is the same sex as you.
2) You can't have an abortion no matter how much you don't want a child.
3) You can't have a certain plant in your possession or you'll get locked up with a rapist and a murderer.

4) We need a smaller, less-intrusive government.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3224744 -

I was thinking about what Trendal said regarding how every ten years we double our tech kowledge. Just today, my husband was programming a new lap top to type by voice recognition for him. I know it's been out there for a time but it was neat to play with.

Anyway, how are we going to able to afford and keep up with this. Who bought a new VCR shortly before DVD players came out? How many times have you upgraded computers and entertainment toys in the last 5 years to keep up with the latest? This gets expensive. Our shit will become obselete before it gets to shelves soon.LOL

Thinking along these lines, I think a new neccessity to develop our own bio tech will come into play and I feel pretty confident the human biology hasn't seen nothing yet in it's capabilities.
Just some thoughts from left field on this. Time will tell, eh?


--------------------
Ahuwale ka nane huna.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: gettinjiggywithit]
    #3226076 -

"Anyway, how are we going to able to afford and keep up with this. Who bought a new VCR shortly before DVD players came out? How many times have you upgraded computers and entertainment toys in the last 5 years to keep up with the latest? This gets expensive. Our shit will become obselete before it gets to shelves soon.LOL "

I'm far less concerned with the cost, monetarily, of keeping up as I am with the mental costs of keeping up with everything.  Things keep advancing at the rate they are -- which is a constantly accelerating rate -- I don't know.  I just imagine there's a point it'll be too fast for any sane person to keep up :blush:


--------------------
i finally got around to making a sig
revel in its glory and quake in fear at its might
grar.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3226417 -

I'm not sure if we will physically evolve anymore, because I feel that with all the vaccinations, and drugs we make to cure things, our bodies are in an environment where we dont need to adapt to anything. I actually asked my biology teacher this a while ago, and he told me that humans had lost the gene for natural muscle strength, example: millions of years ago, we would climb say, a wooly mammoth and bonk his head with a club. Our bodies would naturally grow large muscles even and enable us to do those kinds of things even without too much exercise. These days if you want large muscles, you have to work and excercise pretty hard and make sure you keep your protein levels high to increase your muscle size. And even then it still takes a long time.

I'd like to think that nature and other animals would find a way to adapt to us(humans) and keep our population low, and put everything back in equilibrium.

Just my 2 cents.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: arbalest]
    #3226523 -

put everything back in equilibrium

Back in equilibrium? Wtf?


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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: AntiMeme]
    #3226572 -

The ecosystem naturally moves towards a state of equilibrium whenever it is knocked out of that state.

Humans have continually pushed the system out of equilibrium almost since the moment we became a distinct species (look up "holocene extinction event"). It is logical to assume that the system will move back into equilibrium at some point, thought obviously it cannot do so until we humans stop pusing it out of sync.


--------------------
Once, men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free.
But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: trendal]
    #3750877 -

for those of you who believe the lie of evolution... wake up and take a look around. do you think that if we were really evolving there would be so many retarted people walking around. the human race is doing anything but evolving, not to mention there isnt one shred of evedince for evolution. if some one in these posts thinks they have some evidence for evolution present it to me and i will prove you wrong.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #3750884 -

evolution is driven by the need for us to adapt and advance, right?

Not really. The need to change does not increase genetic change whatsoever. Look up "natural selection", read about it, understand it, then come back and look at the question again.


--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: emerican1984]
    #3750895 -

if some one in these posts thinks they have some evidence for evolution present it to me and i will prove you wrong.

Hah! This is gonna be good. Well, for starters we've got layers of rock where we can find the simplest organisms at the bottom, and as we go up we find more complex and newer organisms.

That's just the beginning. Also, when you prove me wrong, actually prove me wrong, don't use a creative alternate explanation, show me evidence that this is actually not the case.

If you honestly believe there's no evidence for evolution, you might want to check this out:
http://www.gate.net/~rwms/EvoEvidence.html


Also, look at this link, and explain to me where they go it wrong: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/


--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

Edited by Phluck (02/08/05 12:25 PM)

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: emerican1984]
    #3750920 -

Some other things:

do you think that if we were really evolving there would be so many retarted people walking around.

The fact that you would ask such a question demonstrates that you have no knowledge about the theory of evolution and natural selection. There is absolutely nothing about these theories that would indicate that there wouldn't be stupid people around. I have no idea where you would have gotten such a silly idea.

Here's a good quote by Richard Feynman from one of those pages:


"... there are many reasons why you might not understand [an explanation of a scientific theory] ... Finally, there is this possibility: after I tell you something, you just can't believe it. You can't accept it. You don't like it. A little screen comes down and you don't listen anymore. I'm going to describe to you how Nature is - and if you don't like it, that's going to get in the way of your understanding it. It's a problem that [scientists] have learned to deal with: They've learned to realize that whether they like a theory or they don't like a theory is not the essential question. Rather, it is whether or not the theory gives predictions that agree with experiment. It is not a question of whether a theory is philosophically delightful, or easy to understand, or perfectly reasonable from the point of view of common sense. [A scientific theory] describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you can accept Nature as She is - absurd.

I'm going to have fun telling you about this absurdity, because I find it delightful. Please don't turn yourself off because you can't believe Nature is so strange. Just hear me all out, and I hope you'll be as delighted as I am when we're through. "

- Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988),
from the introductory lecture on quantum mechanics reproduced in QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (Feynman 1985).


--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: emerican1984]
    #3751400 -

emerican1984 said:
for those of you who believe the lie of evolution... wake up and take a look around. do you think that if we were really evolving there would be so many retarted people walking around. the human race is doing anything but evolving, not to mention there isnt one shred of evedince for evolution. if some one in these posts thinks they have some evidence for evolution present it to me and i will prove you wrong.


Second post, eh? God's Hole, what a troll.


--------------------

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Clark]
    #3751612 -

Out of all the reasons to judge his thread, you chose the weakest one.
Number of posts has really nothing to do with anything.


--------------------
I descend upon your earth from the skies
I command your very souls you unbelievers
Bring before me what is mine

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: OldWoodSpecter]
    #3751635 -

I think he was implying that perhaps the username was created simply to be a troll, which would explain such a low post count.


--------------------
"I have no valid complaint against hustlers. No rational bitch. But the act of selling is repulsive to me. I harbor a secret urge to whack a salesman in the face, crack his teeth and put red bumps around his eyes." -Hunter S Thompson
http://phluck.is-after.us

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: emerican1984]
    #3751699 -

do you think that if we were really evolving there would be so many retarted people walking around.

Umm, is this a question? Where are all these "retarted" :rolleyes: people? Do they post here or just walk around?


--------------------



The proof is in the pudding.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Swami]
    #3753245 -

the guy is his own proof, and all the proof he needs.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #9836284 -

well since we are shaping our environment to us, we wont really evolve much more...in 200 years humans wont have a third arm or something, but we will move toward a "mocha" skin colored race of super athletes in the next millenia

when looking for the ideal "mate" most people who are physically fit and attractive...these genes get passed on to children...so in the next couple thousand generations (about 3 generations per year) we will siphon off all the naturally fat/ugly people...i know that sounds harsh, but it will just naturally happen...it would happen a lot faster if all the 500 lb whales didnt have kids together, but it'll happen eventually

as for the skin color, we're starting to see interacial couples a LOT more so they wil produce blends of skin color...u get it

also i just noticed u said "evolution is drive by the need for us to adopt/advance"...actually it is driven by random gene mutation and survival of the fittest:

when a mutated animal is lucky enough to have a mutation that is helpful, it is more successful than others and has offspring that also have its helpful mutation...this mutation is generally just a minor thing, not like a third arm...its usually actually just a good combination of pre-existing genes that make the animal more "fit"

P.S. just remembered, we are also going to "evolve" to have larger brains, for the same reason will we be more attractive...nobody wants to fuck a retard...this will not be as pronounced as the attractiveness thing because u can tolerate a hot chick who is dumb better than u can tolerate a smart fat chick lol

so ya, we will evolve to be mocha colored, super hot geniuses...pray that reincarnation exists cuz i wana fucking live in that time lol


--------------------
"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern." - William Blake

"Psychedelics helped me to escape.. albeit momentarily.. from the prison of my mind. It over-rode the habit patterns of thought and I was able to taste innocence again. Looking at sensations freshly without the conceptual overlay was very profound." - Ram Das

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: teeter]
    #9839508 -

You think unhealthy people won't continue to reproduce?  Not likely.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Viveka]
    #9839645 -

If they don't exist, then they won't reproduce.


--------------------
Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. --  Bob Dylan
fireworks_god said:
It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: teeter]
    #9839728 -

I thought "evolution" was a neutral word.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Kukaracha]
    #9839743 -

What do you mean?


--------------------
Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. --  Bob Dylan
fireworks_god said:
It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Poid]
    #9839850 -

"Evolution" is "change"; but the debate doesn't seem to talk about change, but "progress".

Progress is really not an objective thing.
We might change, but if this evolution is progress or not is a very personal opinion.

Oh, and no, we are not going to stop evolving, I don't think so. We are less and less hairy, for example. : )

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Kukaracha]
    #9839868 -

Quote:
prog⋅ress
advancement in general.


Quote:
ad⋅vance⋅ment
an act of moving forward.



I think that progress is at least somewhat objective. :mushroom2:


--------------------
Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. --  Bob Dylan
fireworks_god said:
It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Poid]
    #9839889 -

So what is "forward"?

Is it allowing more people to live?
Or is it allowing only the best to live?

Is it to control nature?
Or to follow nature?

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Kukaracha]
    #9839904 -

Are you suggesting that the current goals of progression, in terms of humanity, anyways, are to have an elite class of people control nature? What does "controlling nature" mean, and how is it any different than "following nature"?


How can nature benefit from allowing an exponentially increasing population of humans to live?


--------------------
Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. --  Bob Dylan
fireworks_god said:
It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Poid]
    #9839982 -

Anwer my questions, I will anwser yours. : )

It depends of how you consider nature. We could say that we are nature, the most succesful nature, and that crushing every other form of life is progress.

To "follow nature" would be what people call today "ecology".
To "control nature", what we tried to do for many years before the ecologist fashion.

Quote:
Are you suggesting that the current goals of progression, in terms of humanity, anyways, are to have an elite class of people control nature?


Nope.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Kukaracha]
    #9840014 -

So following nature is a science?


Would you say that controlling nature is the opposite of progression?


--------------------
Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. --  Bob Dylan
fireworks_god said:
It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Poid]
    #9840094 -

Quote:
So following nature is a science?


No, I was refering to ecology as how most of the people understand it - "save the trees".

Quote:
Would you say that controlling nature is the opposite of progression?


I don't know. Haven't made my opinion yet, but I would be likely to say that it is.

But why won't you answer my questions?

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Kukaracha]
    #9840120 -

"So what is "forward"?"

I'd say that "forward" is gaining more awareness and understanding.


"Is it allowing more people to live?
Or is it allowing only the best to live?"

Since I am a human, I'd say that it's whatever is best for the human race.


"Is it to control nature?
Or to follow nature?"

Quite possibly a little of both.


--------------------
Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. --  Bob Dylan
fireworks_god said:
It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Poid]
    #9840133 -

Poid said:
"So what is "forward"?"

I'd say that "forward" is gaining more awareness and understanding.


Do you really consider this objective?
Why do you say that the concept of progress is "somewhat" objective?

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Kukaracha]
    #9840155 -

Sorry to have to answer your questions with questions of my own, but:


Are facts subjective or objjective? If I say that "forward" is gaining more awareness and understanding of facts, how is this in any way subjective?


--------------------
Well I try my best to be just like I am, but everybody wants you to be just like them. --  Bob Dylan
fireworks_god said:
It's one thing to simply enjoy a style of life that one enjoys, but it's another thing altogether to refer to another person's choice as "wrong" or to rationalize their behavior as being pathological or resulting from some sort of inadequacy or failing so as to create a sense of superiority or separation as yet another projection of a personal fear or control issue.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Turd]
    #9840725 -

Natural selection may not be affecting our species much right now but sexual selection still is.

There are fossil records that show species that go through long periods of stasis and then rapidly evolve, most likely due to drastic environmental changes, which the earth may soon face.
This is called punctuated equilibrium.

So no we will not stop evolving we are still evolving and in the near future may be pushed very rapidly into drastic changes and possibly cladogenesis.


--------------------
"Absolute certainty is a privilege of uneducated minds and fanatics." ~ C.J. Keyser



Mr. Cypher said: "I just tell the girls how sexy I am and their panties melt."

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: awesomebastard]
    #9842013 -

The latest Discover magazine had huge article on the current state of human evolution.


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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: learningtofly]
    #9842316 -

Short answer: no.

I'm surprised there's so much debate on this thread.  I guess most people truly don't grasp how slow and complex evolution is.  Homo sapiens have only been around for something like 10% of Earth's history...We have a real problem with understanding truly how insignificant we are in the universe.


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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Poid]
    #9842864 -

It depends of what you call "facts".
1+1=2 is objective.
"There are blue seas and green seas" is not.

About gaining more awarness and understanding, it's a personal opinion, therefore subjective.
Imagine someone who has an eudemonist position.
And who, like Kant, considers that devellopping reason leads to a certain misology, since more awarness and understanding does not necessarily bring positive thoughts.

From that point of view, progress is actually not in gaining more awarness and understanding.

What about an athlete who is not interested in philosophy, who wants to go always further and do better in his sport?
Progress is about training, getting better results and getting everytime closer to perfection.
No reasoning involved. In fact, sports are about concentration, reaction and spontaneity. Every time I would start thinking on the court, I would suck and end up in the bench.

This is why I think that progress is a completely subjective thing.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Diploid]
    #9855091 -

The only evolutionary steps left for human are disease control and more importantly an elevated level of consciousness. It is sad that those who use drugs are the only ones that can see the world from another set of eyes.


--------------------
With Allure I Look to the Sky With Awakened Eyes

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Rocker232]
    #9855143 -

You're being closed-minded there; many people, many visions.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Kukaracha]
    #9855192 -

Kukaracha said:
You're being closed-minded there; many people, many visions.


There is no need for a universal image, but there certainly is a need for a reduction of the ego. People would be better off if they could see outside of their own heads. Where is the empathy? Why are people out killing, raping and hurting others? Do they not feel the hurt of others or are they blind to it?


--------------------
With Allure I Look to the Sky With Awakened Eyes

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Rocker232]
    #9855375 -

Rocker232 said:
The only evolutionary steps left for human are disease control and more importantly an elevated level of consciousness. It is sad that those who use drugs are the only ones that can see the world from another set of eyes.


And you know all this how?


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Mushmonkey]
    #9855445 -

Like most have said already, it is just a matter of what environment you're evolving to.


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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Rocker232]
    #9856131 -

I saw many people use drugs and be complete assholes, while I saw straight edgers like priests sacrifice for the sake of the community.

In my opinion, drug use does not make any miracles.

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Kukaracha]
    #9856937 -

Kukaracha said:
I saw many people use drugs and be complete assholes, while I saw straight edgers like priests sacrifice for the sake of the community.

In my opinion, drug use does not make any miracles.


Many kids that I know have turned straight edge go to shows with intent of hurting others. There is no rule.


--------------------
With Allure I Look to the Sky With Awakened Eyes

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Rocker232]
    #9856950 -

Without rules there is chaos.:satansmoking:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: are we going to stop evolving? [Re: Icelander]
    #9857035 -

Icelander said:
Without rules there is chaos.:satansmoking:


Hail Eris!


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