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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

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Do you think evolution is blind?
    #9340617 -

Or do you think it overcomes chance?

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: Epigallo]
    #9340625 -

I dont understand the question, but would love to throw my opinion in the ring.  (like always)

What do you mean?

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: DieCommie]
    #9340658 -

Is it possible for complex structures to evolve without any sort of guiding intelligence, or did we and everything else come into being in the way an image of Jesus appears on the wall after using an uncovered blender?

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: Epigallo]
    #9340681 -

Quote:
Is it possible for complex structures to evolve without any sort of guiding intelligence


Absolutely.  This has been witnessed by man made computer programs (artificial life).  They replicate themselves, random mutations are introduced (in the form of bit flips), they compete for resources (CPU time) and viola! you get complexity right before your eyes.

Im actually preparing a little presentation on artificial life right now, so its fresh in my mind :lol:

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: Epigallo]
    #9340692 -

"Do you think evolution is blind?"

Without question.  Evolution has no foresight, nor does there seem to be any particular goals or eventual outcome that it is striving towards.

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: Epigallo]
    #9340731 -

Aren't we part of the process? We certainly are not blind.  We can change the course of evolution.

I'd say evolution isn't necessarily blind, but it needs no guidance to work.

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: DieCommie]
    #9340740 -

Isn't the computer program, in some sense, guiding the formations though?

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: Sleepwalker]
    #9340778 -

Cool thread!

Is the theory of evolution strictly causal? If so, this would suggest either:

A. Some divide between existence and evolution as we know it, such that there are aspects of my being that are not defined by this theory of evolution. In this sense "I" am not evolution, because I have free will. This might be contrary to evolution, if evolution is supposed to define me.

B. Our being is reduced to blind cause and effect, in the typical reductionist argument of "no free will".

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: Epigallo]
    #9340914 -

bradley said:
Isn't the computer program, in some sense, guiding the formations though?


No, the analog of the computer program is an organism.  It competes with other programs/organisms for CPU time, and mutates when it self-replicates.  No guiding at all, only random mutations and a selection process.

I made a thread on it a while back, but it wasnt to interesting to people.... Ill dig it up, maybe you will find it interesting.

edit - http://www.shroomery.org/forums/showflat.php/Number/9145544#Post9145544

Edited by Qubit (11/30/08 10:47 PM)

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: daytripper23]
    #9340931 -

Evolution and free will are not mutually exclusive.  If we have free will, we evolved that ability by gaining added complexity over the generations.

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: Epigallo]
    #9340970 -

bradley said:
Or do you think it overcomes chance?


          I often wonder myself…thinking of the sperm ¿Do they know where they going? So fast…so fast. In a matter of time all dead but one. ¿Do they know about life? A lifeline they are; alive they are; hundreds of thousands years old they are; they came out of me and I hardly know them… except I see myself in the creature/the one that could be and the one it was. They existed before I could think and now I think about them/me/... us.  All dead but one. The One that Creation has chosen. I… and you got no chance for I think.


--------------------
Wave.
'And for this reason repentance (metanoia) is an elevating means. For he who feels impatience with the circunstances in which he finds himself, devises means of escape.
  Now the chief thing in purification is the will. For then both deeds and words lend a helping hand. But, when the will is absent, the whole purificatory discipline of initiation is...'

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: DieCommie]
    #9340994 -

Quote:
If we have free will, we evolved that ability by gaining added complexity over the generations.


With this statement though, you artificially impose a line between conscious evolution and unconscious evolution. If our free will is part of the evolutionary process, then evolution is at least partially conscious.

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: DieCommie]
    #9341007 -

DieCommie said:
Evolution and free will are not mutually exclusive.  If we have free will, we evolved that ability by gaining added complexity over the generations.


And if we have free will, it will continue to exert pressure on the evolutionary process towards certain outcomes.  We are the newly-born eyes and ears of life itself, hoorah!

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: Epigallo]
    #9341028 -

bradley said:
With this statement though, you artificially impose a line between conscious evolution and unconscious evolution. If our free will is part of the evolutionary process, then evolution is at least partially conscious.


Sure, if we have fee will it plays a role in what species get selected and which do not.  But from your original question, it is not a prerequisite to evolution.  That is, complex structure can evolve without a guiding intelligence (in fact, intelligence itself is one such complex structure)

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: Epigallo]
    #9341043 -

"Blindness" and "chance" are exclusively human ideas. Evolution has no purpose, other than as a theory to clarify how we came to be what we are.


--------------------
Enlil said:
You really are the worst kind of person.


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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: DieCommie]
    #9341134 -

DieCommie said:
bradley said:
With this statement though, you artificially impose a line between conscious evolution and unconscious evolution. If our free will is part of the evolutionary process, then evolution is at least partially conscious.


Sure, if we have fee will it plays a role in what species get selected and which do not.  But from your original question, it is not a prerequisite to evolution.  That is, complex structure can evolve without a guiding intelligence (in fact, intelligence itself is one such complex structure)


I read your post on the program, pretty fascinating. It makes me think there must be some problem solving applications to it.

Still, since a programmer has to write some code to start it out, can you reasonably say consciousness is not a prerequisite?

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: Epigallo]
    #9341271 -

Also, the program emulates evolution in behaviors and creation of "organisms", but can you say that the random chance that simulates biological system interactions, can also simulate system content? We are talking span versus depth. Can a computer program evolve molecules into a cell, by chance? That would entail enormous organization and structure arising from chance, whilst the organisms in the program, if comparing to real biological structures, are black boxes.

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: Epigallo]
    #9341420 -

Quote:
Still, since a programmer has to write some code to start it out, can you reasonably say consciousness is not a prerequisite?


Yea, I suppose you could (in this case).

Quote:
It makes me think there must be some problem solving applications to it.


I was thinking the same thing, but its not anything I mentioned in the assignment.  Algorithms like this that use random mutation and a selection mechanism, as opposed to current ones which are deterministic, could offer novel solutions to R&D problems that would otherwise not be had.

I see no reason to think that a system like this, with enough time and computational power, couldnt evolve an intelligence.  Maybe like ours in some small way, with fears, hopes, irrationality, the whole shebang.  If we dont kill ourselves first...

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: DieCommie]
    #9341502 -

Evolution does not act upon individuals; it acts upon populations.

It is the product of a universal force called Natural Selection. Natural Selection is not random; It is also not 'guided' and does not have an agenda. Rather, it selects for the alleles (genes) in a population (group of a certain species living together) that allow that population to pass on their DNA the most successfully.

For instance, if an individual in a certain species of fish that lives around a green environment acquired a mutation in its DNA that made its scales develop a green color, it would be better camouflaged and would probably have a better chance of passing on those more successful alleles. Thus, Natural selection decided, simply by all the forces of nature coming together and acting upon the fish, that this mutation in the DNA should be passed on, and so it will probably be. The children of that fish will now have green scales and be better suited for their environment and to escape from predators.

Coming from a long background in Biology, ecology, and evolution, I am saying this as fact and not really something that can be debated. Though if there are any Creationists on this board, I apologize for undermining your belief system.


--------------------
EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING

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Re: Do you think evolution is blind? [Re: Patisotagami]
    #9341582 -

No one is debating whether natural selection occurs, its a question of whether random chance can produce the level of complexity we have. Either way, a mal-adapted species isn't going to thrive.

DieCommie - do you think there is a fundamental subatomic particle from which all things emerge?

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Unfolding Nature Shop: Unfolding Nature: Being in the Implicate Order

General Interest > Philosophy, Sociology & Psychology
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