Philosophy Discussion Forums

Mark1955 wrote:Proposition. Physics and chemistry lead to the existence of DNA/RNA which has a tendency to self replicate. Successful self replication propagates in a variety of ways because certain elements of the process introduce randomness. Does this satisfy 1, 2 and 3?

Greta wrote:It looks like #1 to me, Mark. It says that stuff happens with no reason nor rhyme, it's all just arbitrary processes abiding to arbitrary laws that just happen to work the way they do because if they didn't then we wouldn't exist.

Mark1955 wrote:But if bacteria [and their DNA/RNA] live on me along with my DNA aren't we an integrated [or integrating] system?

If the 'laws' of physics lead to this self replication isn't it 'expected to happen'?

The laws of physics have lead to many interesting systems. In the future the laws will probably lead to many other things, many of which we can't predict because we are within the system, as you noted.

The explanation you provide is still all "stuff happening" - mechanisms with no explanatory overarching factors. Why are the laws of physics the way they are? Our best explanation so far is a lucky roll of existential dice, ie. the laws of this universe worked out to allow for development of systems, and if it didn't we wouldn't be here to ask about it. Then again, we are all also superficially a "roll of the dice" - many eggs and countless sperm produced by your parents didn't make it, but we did.

Nature does seem to be exploratory, rolling dice and accepting any result, randomly searching in all directions. In truth, nature explores limited paths dictated by the information left by a prior state of reality (in our case, DNA). So we draw a blank when trying to derive the origin of the physical laws - the universe's "DNA". Why did the universe change from being a hot ball of some kind of hyper-compressed superfluid/plasma/unknown state to form into space, stars, planets, moons and life? A similar question: why did we change from being a small blob of genetic material into what we are today"?

On a basic level, the answer would seem obvious: "the law of physics", as it may seem from our perspective. If the microbes living in us were sentient I wonder what laws of physics they might devise from the standpoint of the very small? Might those fictitious sentient microbes systematically trace back the steps and find a "big bang" at the time of conception? Might they have figured that there was an early exponential growth period as the cells of the zygote divided before settling down again? Might their laws of physics trace back to the processes of the body (which would include mental activity)?

I'm not claiming this to be the truth because I obviously don't know better than anyone else. However, if reality has imperfect fractal resonances in life as it does in other areas then that might help us understand the derivation of the laws of physics - to find the "universe's DNA" - but would still leave its own explanatory gaps. If we are in a living universe, what's the point of all this life - large, medium and small - and how did it all start? That's the $64,000 question.

Greta wrote:The explanation you provide is still all "stuff happening" - mechanisms with no explanatory overarching factors. Why are the laws of physics the way they are? Our best explanation so far is a lucky roll of existential dice, i.e. the laws of this universe worked out to allow for development of systems, and if it didn't we wouldn't be here to ask about it. Then again, we are all also superficially a "roll of the dice" - many eggs and countless sperm produced by your parents didn't make it, but we did.

To me that is the simplest explanation of "I don't know" and while it may be wholly wrong if you want to offer me a more complex explanation I'd like you to provide some evidence. [this is the generic you; sie in German not du].

Greta wrote:Nature does seem to be exploratory,

I have a thing about the use of the word nature when it has been given a purpose, would you say god in its place? I prefer 'Things seem to happen in an exploratory manner' [pedantic or what?].

Greta wrote: If we are in a living universe, what's the point of all this life - large, medium and small - and how did it all start? That's the $64,000 question.

I think that's the infinite question, to which we can never know the answer because for every answer we provide we'll only raise another question or probably two or three.

Greta wrote:The explanation you provide is still all "stuff happening" - mechanisms with no explanatory overarching factors. Why are the laws of physics the way they are? Our best explanation so far is a lucky roll of existential dice, i.e. the laws of this universe worked out to allow for development of systems, and if it didn't we wouldn't be here to ask about it. Then again, we are all also superficially a "roll of the dice" - many eggs and countless sperm produced by your parents didn't make it, but we did.

Mark1955 wrote:To me that is the simplest explanation of "I don't know" and while it may be wholly wrong if you want to offer me a more complex explanation I'd like you to provide some evidence. [this is the generic you; sie in German not du].

Yes, Newton's clockwork universe that you're tentatively supporting is just a placeholder for "I don't know". However, the notion (not you) is superficial because there are specific orders of events in growth. A zygote isn't immediately succeeded by a adult but goes through fairly predictable growth stages to a mature form. For 13.8 billion years everything in the universe has been metamorphosing/evolving and everything appears to be heading towards more life and sentience. For a long time the universe and its galaxies were too hot and/or active to be conducive to life.

By contrast, an example of "stuff happens" would be a fatal genetic mutation, or perhaps a universe with unbalanced laws that prevent it from inflating or forming matter. Evolution, by contrast, has a direction, or directions towards greater complexity and sentience. The "devolution" of mitochondria from free swimming microbes to the power source of eukaryote cells tends to be cited as proof that evolution isn't directional. It's an interesting example because the microbe's loss of independence and complexity resulted in eukaryotic cells, followed in an explosion of "forward moving" evolution leading to today's terraforming hominids. One small step for a microbe ...

However, this was an extremely rare event (bugs.bio.usyd.edu.au/learning/resources ... ation.html):

Eukaryotic cells originated more than 0.6 billion years ago. The mitochondria (and plastids) of extant eukaryotic cells are remarkably similar suggesting aerobic bacteria (or cyanobacteria) were incorporated on only one occasion each. We might assume that the evolution of the Eukaryotic cell was a most unusual event because an amazing array of other cellular characteristics has evolved over the same period.

Scientists taking the Gouldian view avidly argue that evolution has no direction, only adaptation, despite the evidence of the bleeding obvious. Call me crazy, but my guess is that the bacteria of four billions years ago are not as complex and sentient as mammals. To suggest that evolution isn't directional is akin to saying that climate change isn't directional because your local area had a cold snap, again, despite a mountain of evidence making the situation clear.

If I'm wrong then early bacteria and archaea must have enjoyed a surprisingly rich and intelligent lives. If I'm wrong then the ball of ultra-compressed superheated plasma at the start of the universe was actually more complex, sophisticated and sentient than our current life-bearing universe. Both notions are obviously absurd.

All you need is relative stability in the environment and complexity follows. In very dynamic and changeable environments there may be loss of functions as the most specialised and highly adapted animals are vulnerable during upheavals, just as mild office clerks, highly adapted to urban life would struggle to survive in the case of infrastructure breakdown as compared with outlaw gangs.

Nature does seem to be exploratory,

Mark1955 wrote:I have a thing about the use of the word nature when it has been given a purpose, would you say god in its place? I prefer 'Things seem to happen in an exploratory manner' [pedantic or what?].

I don't think you're pedantic but I stand by the statement, and don't consider it any kind of anthropomorphism, although I can see how it could be interpreted as such. You don't need to be human, or even an animal, to possess an overarching purpose - survival. Every single living thing ultimately wants to lead the good life - safety, food, pleasure and peace. So life naturally "explores" to that end.

Greta wrote: If we are in a living universe, what's the point of all this life - large, medium and small - and how did it all start? That's the $64,000 question.

Mark1955 wrote:I think that's the infinite question, to which we can never know the answer because for every answer we provide we'll only raise another question or probably two or three.

While we can't know, it would seem overly coy to avoid speculating about something so fundamental and important. My gut feeling is that the whole kit and kaboodle is alive and that what we think of as "life" is part of a spectrum or spectra of life all around us.

Greta wrote:Scientists taking the Gouldian view avidly argue that evolution has no direction, only adaptation, despite the evidence of the bleeding obvious. Call me crazy, but my guess is that the bacteria of four billions years ago are not as complex and sentient as mammals. To suggest that evolution isn't directional is akin to saying that climate change isn't directional because your local area had a cold snap, again, despite a mountain of evidence making the situation clear.

I'd suggest that some of evolution leads to the appearance of being directional while most of it is irrationally non directional and a little is actively regressive, but the bits we see most easily in our 'middle world' are the directional bits.

Greta wrote: If we are in a living universe, what's the point of all this life - large, medium and small - and how did it all start? That's the $64,000 question.

Mark1955 wrote:I think that's the infinite question, to which we can never know the answer because for every answer we provide we'll only raise another question or probably two or three.

Greta wrote:While we can't know, it would seem overly coy to avoid speculating about something so fundamental and important. My gut feeling is that the whole kit and kaboodle is alive and that what we think of as "life" is part of a spectrum or spectra of life all around us.

I'm happy just to say I don't know, if I had to speculate I'd start being silly, great green arkleseizures, you're all a figment of my imagination etc. By saying I don't know I'm also in effect saying I don't care, expend your energy on what you can effect, don't waste it on things you can't do anything about and learn to tell the difference.

Greta wrote:Scientists taking the Gouldian view avidly argue that evolution has no direction, only adaptation, despite the evidence of the bleeding obvious. Call me crazy, but my guess is that the bacteria of four billions years ago are not as complex and sentient as mammals. To suggest that evolution isn't directional is akin to saying that climate change isn't directional because your local area had a cold snap, again, despite a mountain of evidence making the situation clear.

Mark1955 wrote:I'd suggest that some of evolution leads to the appearance of being directional while most of it is irrationally non directional and a little is actively regressive, but the bits we see most easily in our 'middle world' are the directional bits.

If you do not consider the progression from archaea and bacteria to protists, small invertebrates, chordates, mammals, human civilisation to only be the "appearance of a direction", what do you think that directional evolution would look like?

Is this directionality really "middle world" specific? In less than 14 billion years the universe has changed from superhot plasma to what we have today. Would you agree that the universe has displayed a direction to date? If so, then why would the biosphere's development be directionless?

If a species reproduces for long enough then mutated characteristics will occasionally appear that are so advantageous that they will take over the gene pool. Natural selection is a chaotic process with no direction, the adaptation being simply efficacious to survival and replication in a particular environment, but not necessarily any other environments. However, some adaptations such as human mental flexibility and cooperation have proved to promote survival in a wide range of circumstances. While the vast majority of mutations are problematic, a tiny percentage are helpful. That, I agree, is a roll of the dice. Yet this process of chaotic reiteration of forms and functions has indisputably followed a direction when considered over time spans of billions of years.

My gut feeling is that the whole kit and kaboodle is alive and that what we think of as "life" is part of a spectrum or spectra of life all around us.

Mark1955 wrote:I'm happy just to say I don't know, if I had to speculate I'd start being silly, great green arkleseizures, you're all a figment of my imagination etc. By saying I don't know I'm also in effect saying I don't care, expend your energy on what you can effect, don't waste it on things you can't do anything about and learn to tell the difference.

That's a similar rationale to those who claim that esoteric research is a waste. I would argue that undirected exploration is not a waste but a joy and a learning experience. Whatever, it seems to me that many people are completely confident that we live in a "dead clockwork universe" from which life magically appeared. The notion has more holes than Robocop's plot, and only looks good when compared with literalist theism, so the idea is ripe for questioning IMO.

Greta wrote:If you do not consider the progression from archaea and bacteria to protists, small invertebrates, chordates, mammals, human civilisation to only be the "appearance of a direction", what do you think that directional evolution would look like?

I think the term directional evolution to be an oxymoron, but I suppose the simple answer would be intelligent design. You are partly right in that the progression you describe is a form of direction but in amongst this progression I'm sure I could find all sorts of instances of failure to progress, human/squid eyes for example and fortunately evolution is randomly generating all sorts of marginal systems which may become progression if the goal posts move. Maybe in 50 million years being eukaryotic won't be that clever and only the prokaryotes will survive. The only way I can see we are progressing is if we say progression = change regardless of direction.

Mark1955 wrote:I'm happy just to say I don't know, if I had to speculate I'd start being silly, great green arkleseizures, you're all a figment of my imagination etc. By saying I don't know I'm also in effect saying I don't care, expend your energy on what you can effect, don't waste it on things you can't do anything about and learn to tell the difference.

Greta wrote:That's a similar rationale to those who claim that esoteric research is a waste. I would argue that undirected exploration is not a waste but a joy and a learning experience.

I don't mind exploring where I can see, hear etc. but I think in this case you're exploration is analogous to being put in a room wearing a blindfold, ear and nose plugs, a full body padded suit with your arms and legs trussed up and you mouth taped shut.

Greta wrote:Whatever, it seems to me that many people are completely confident that we live in a "dead clockwork universe" from which life magically appeared. The notion has more holes than Robocop's plot, and only looks good when compared with literalist theism, so the idea is ripe for questioning IMO.

I'm not completely confident of anything but I have yet to hear an alternative to evolution backed up by 'middle world' sensory derived evidence that sounds more convincing. If something is directing how? As far as I can see everything goes back to the laws of physics so how are the laws of physics directed?

I'm no real expert on this subject however I'm interested in it & I've attended a few of Professor Dawkins about this sort of thing & he is often asked the same old question: What will humans evolve into given enough time? I guess a similar question might be asked about these finches as you have here.

Dawkins always answers the same way: I have no idea. He says that because no one can know with any degree of certainty. Yes some creatures, crocodiles for instance have stayed pretty much the same as far as we can tell since the age of the dinosaurs. Other creatures e.g. Homo Sapiens have changed quite a lot in relatively little time.

I'd say if Dawkins can't hazard a guess nobody else here can either. I would say that it's implausible for something like a dog to ever evolve into anything particularly cat-like or visa verse. Each species exist on different branches of the tree of life & once they split off I can't see how they could ever end up turning into any other creature. You'd need a time machine to devolve back to a common ancestor & then change course towards the other species & speciation just doesn't work like that. Once a path is taken it can't exactly meander across & join on to another one. I'm pretty darn sure it's never been see to happen even once.

If you do not consider the progression from archaea and bacteria to protists, small invertebrates, chordates, mammals, human civilisation to only be the "appearance of a direction", what do you think that directional evolution would look like?

Mark1955 wrote:I think the term directional evolution to be an oxymoron, but I suppose the simple answer would be intelligent design. You are partly right in that the progression you describe is a form of direction but in amongst this progression I'm sure I could find all sorts of instances of failure to progress, human/squid eyes for example and fortunately evolution is randomly generating all sorts of marginal systems which may become progression if the goal posts move. Maybe in 50 million years being eukaryotic won't be that clever and only the prokaryotes will survive. The only way I can see we are progressing is if we say progression = change regardless of direction.

Mark1955 wrote:I'm not completely confident of anything but I have yet to hear an alternative to evolution backed up by 'middle world' sensory derived evidence that sounds more convincing. If something is directing how? As far as I can see everything goes back to the laws of physics so how are the laws of physics directed?

I can't tell you about mechanisms behind the directionality. I'm just looking at the facts of the matter:

• The universe as a whole has grown and developed over 13.8 billion years and it's expected to disintegrate over many billions or trillions of years.

• The biosphere - life on Earth as a whole - has been growing and developing over approximately 3.8 billion years and will eventually die out.

• Each individual cosmic body or life form grows, develops and dies.

These aren't random changes. Evolution is simply the growth and development of life on Earth in total. The biosphere can no more revert to a more juvenile state, eg. the dinosaur era, than you. A catastrophe like the Permian extinction could theoretically strip away all complex life, leaving only hardy microbes. However, if the environment subsequently improved then - as per all previous mass extinctions - there would remain some genetic code in the survivors and evolution would begin again, far faster than before. There is time for intelligent life to evolve again on Earth multiple times.

It's easy to look at shorter spans of time and assume chaos, because the shorter the time span, the more chaos applies. However, over longer time scales there is a clear direction of growth, development and demise.

-- Updated 06 Aug 2015, 17:44 to add the following --

LogicReasonEvidence wrote:I'm no real expert on this subject however I'm interested in it & I've attended a few of Professor Dawkins about this sort of thing & he is often asked the same old question: What will humans evolve into given enough time? I guess a similar question might be asked about these finches as you have here.

Dawkins always answers the same way: I have no idea. He says that because no one can know with any degree of certainty. Yes some creatures, crocodiles for instance have stayed pretty much the same as far as we can tell since the age of the dinosaurs. Other creatures e.g. Homo Sapiens have changed quite a lot in relatively little time.

I'd say if Dawkins can't hazard a guess nobody else here can either. I would say that it's implausible for something like a dog to ever evolve into anything particularly cat-like or visa verse. Each species exist on different branches of the tree of life & once they split off I can't see how they could ever end up turning into any other creature. You'd need a time machine to devolve back to a common ancestor & then change course towards the other species & speciation just doesn't work like that. Once a path is taken it can't exactly meander across & join on to another one. I'm pretty darn sure it's never been see to happen even once.

Richard Dawkins is a evolutionary biologist (or a journalist if you ask EO Wilson ). If pressed, RD would probably tell you to ask a futurist. He has always aimed for rigour and you can't expect him to stick his neck out on topics that involve sociology, technology and politics.

A 55 million year old fossil of the Dormaalocyon was found and the long-extinct animal is considered to be the most likely common ancestor of canines and felines.

Ruskin wrote:I They would say to conclude that given a million years you could change dogs to cats is an assumption without any evidental basis in anything that can be observed. So this may be interest it's even if it's coming from people who believe in a literal Adam and Eve and Noahs Ark.

I think it may be at least a little true that because the people who question Evolution don't care about Evolution, paleontology or the origin of species at all it holds scientists back from asking questions loudly enough about the processes of Evolution.

Billions of years: the first thing that we need to understand about Evolution is that it takes place over an incomprehensible amount of time.

Hybridization, crippling mutation, rafting, natural disasters - these all may play important roles in Evolution, but because they all include such seemingly rare events, scientists are loathe to talk about them with the public. Over billions of years they're not rare events. On a geological time scale they are predictable regular occurrences. But, it's easier to talk about genetic drift and separations into population islands because those are easier to demonstrate.

LogicReasonEvidence wrote:I would say that it's implausible for something like a dog to ever evolve into anything particularly cat-like or visa verse. Each species exist on different branches of the tree of life & once they split off I can't see how they could ever end up turning into any other creature. You'd need a time machine to devolve back to a common ancestor & then change course towards the other species & speciation just doesn't work like that. Once a path is taken it can't exactly meander across & join on to another one. I'm pretty darn sure it's never been see to happen even once.

Speciation is a fairly simple biochemical process, your centromeres need to be sufficiently different so that they cannot recombine in meiosis. Given the random nature of mutation this isn't too unlikely, for a dog centromere to then randomly mutate into a good enough copy of a cat centromere is a lot less likely so we're unlikely to see many examples. If environmental factors forced two species into adapting to a similar lifestyle to survive they might be come visually very similar without being capable of breeding, and thus remaining two distinct species. I suspect at lower orders of species this may happen but I'm not in possession of examples.

-- Updated 07 Aug 2015 08:42 to add the following --

Greta wrote:I can't tell you about mechanisms behind the directionality. I'm just looking at the facts of the matter:

• The universe as a whole has grown and developed over 13.8 billion years and it's expected to disintegrate over many billions or trillions of years.

• The biosphere - life on Earth as a whole - has been growing and developing over approximately 3.8 billion years and will eventually die out.

• Each individual cosmic body or life form grows, develops and dies.

These aren't random changes. Evolution is simply the growth and development of life on Earth in total. The biosphere can no more revert to a more juvenile state, e.g. the dinosaur era, than you. A catastrophe like the Permian extinction could theoretically strip away all complex life, leaving only hardy microbes. However, if the environment subsequently improved then - as per all previous mass extinctions - there would remain some genetic code in the survivors and evolution would begin again, far faster than before. There is time for intelligent life to evolve again on Earth multiple times.

It's easy to look at shorter spans of time and assume chaos, because the shorter the time span, the more chaos applies. However, over longer time scales there is a clear direction of growth, development and demise.

OK I'll accept that cycles happen and that this is a form of directionality.

I don't think you have any evidence that this isn't random though and even more I don't think you have any evidence that future evolution will be faster than it is now.

Something to think about, if life is replicating DNA/RNA then you and I are 99.9% bacteria. Is that development or are we some trivial bacterial helper system?

[quote="Mark1955]If environmental factors forced two species into adapting to a similar lifestyle to survive they might be come visually very similar without being capable of breeding, and thus remaining two distinct species. I suspect at lower orders of species this may happen but I'm not in possession of examples.[/quote]

Convergent evolution. Wings in birds and bats, for example. Or fins in sharks and dolphins.

-- Updated August 7th, 2015, 6:46 pm to add the following --

Mark1955 wrote:If environmental factors forced two species into adapting to a similar lifestyle to survive they might be come visually very similar without being capable of breeding, and thus remaining two distinct species. I suspect at lower orders of species this may happen but I'm not in possession of examples.

Convergent evolution. Wings in birds and bats, for example. Or fins in sharks and dolphins.

-- Updated August 7th, 2015, 6:47 pm to add the following --

Sorry about the double up above.

Greta wrote:• The universe as a whole has grown and developed over 13.8 billion years and it's expected to disintegrate over many billions or trillions of years.

• The biosphere - life on Earth as a whole - has been growing and developing over approximately 3.8 billion years and will eventually die out.

• Each individual cosmic body or life form grows, develops and dies.

Mark1955 wrote:OK I'll accept that cycles happen and that this is a form of directionality.

I don't think you have any evidence that this isn't random though and even more I don't think you have any evidence that future evolution will be faster than it is now.

Something to think about, if life is replicating DNA/RNA then you and I are 99.9% bacteria. Is that development or are we some trivial bacterial helper system?

The mutations are random, actually chaotic, yet from the chaos all of the above has emerged in these billions of years. Maybe it's a phase, maybe it's a fluke, maybe it's primate myopia but they are only speculation. The facts of the matter above so far suggest increasing development, but those other possibilities exist.

Mass extinctions are powerful shapers of evolution - akin to a mass organisational restructure. After each of the great extinctions there has been a significant variant in evolutionary development is different kinds of creatures are able to flourish, whose genetic information stored from prior generations has been stored and continues apace.

As for microbes, I see the relationship as more than exploitation or symbiosis, they are part of us and we are home to them.

Getting back to the OP, the only "mistake" I definitely see in Darwinian evolution is that its adherents act as if it's a fairly complete theory, when, IMO, it should be viewed as more of a "basic building block" which merely explains how species change at the physiological and cellular level.

Any good philosopher, IMO, will study the theory and think something like, "Surely, there must be more to it than just that "......

Atreyu wrote:Any good philosopher, IMO, will study the theory and think something like, "Surely, there must be more to it than just that "......

Why?

Indeed, why?

Most good thinkers now understand that there is not "a lot more to it than that". Evolution explains so much. As Dobzhansky said, "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution"

Some mystery mongers don't want evolution to be true but that's their bad luck.