Evolution as mental concept

[paigetheoracle]

Most people only think of evolution as a physical process involving bodies but to me there is much more to it.

 

Evolution is the mind solving the problems of the body or physical world. Somebody posted a thread about Cichlids evolving in lake Victoria and wondering why. Well look at memes (new ideas) and the way an introduced species can spread like wildfire. How does this apply to evolution and diversification? The exploitation of terrain and the niches that it opens up (Darwin and the finches in the Galapagos Islands). Specialization occurs in human society too, through the same mechanisms* of 'mental evolution' as witness the conquest of the air, space, the water, undersea vehicles, cars, burrowing devices etc. as the human equivalents of moles, birds, fishes and other creatures. The longer you are anywhere as a life form/ species, the more resistant you are to what dangers lurk in your new environment, and the more answers you will find to overcome disease (Sickle Cell Anaemia), hunger, thirst, travel (links in the brain/ internet) etc. That is, the more you can adapt to changed circumstances and can adapt things in that environment, to suit your lifestyle.

 

Evolution is insight leading to invention or mind over matter i.e. better tools for working on problems (hands) and improved vehicle design, to get those tools to where they can be best utilized (feet). Evolution is not primarily physical change but mentally driven change, that abandons the past for the future, in order to stay alive as an individual or species: Remember, the only constant in the universe is change, so life that doesn't change is changed by this knowledge (made extinct) as that which willingly changes itself (adapts) survives.

 

* Technology is physical change from the outside (exoskeleton) as life is physical change from the inside (software).

[Eclogite]

Perhaps I am missing your central thesis. If I am I would welcome your clarification. However, all you seem to have done is to repeat the false conflation of evolution as simple change with evolution as a biological process, governed by natural selection, acting on the phenotype and so promoting changes of genotype. As such this is a negative suggestion since it confuses rather than clarifies.

[Pyrotex]

I also am confused, Oracle.

There are several "usages" of the word "evolution" -- with meanings from the very general (like, "any slow change"), to the very specific ("Darwin's theory of biological evolution").

You seem to have tried to combine ALL those meanings together, and that is just not going to work.

Switching from one meaning to another distinct meaning in mid-thought isn't going to clarify "evolution".

It is only going to generate confusion.

Please try again.

[Turtle]

...Switching from one meaning to another distinct meaning in mid-thought isn't going to clarify "evolution".

It is only going to generate confusion.

Please try again.

 

seems to me that's the point paige et all have in mind as they continually start new threads at Hypog knocking evolution using one or another religious/spiritual bias just as quick as we show the last as un-scientific. sick & tired of it am i. wtf?! here's a mental concept for ya; knock it the hell off. ;) all this pretention to politeness is sorely misplaced imho. :phones: it aint about free speech either as this is not a democracy for one, and even if it were, free speech has it limits. no calling fire in a crowded theatre and all that. this ongoing crapulence is tantamount to just that. good grief. :doh:

[paigetheoracle]

I also am confused, Oracle.

There are several "usages" of the word "evolution" -- with meanings from the very general (like, "any slow change"), to the very specific ("Darwin's theory of biological evolution").

You seem to have tried to combine ALL those meanings together, and that is just not going to work.

Switching from one meaning to another distinct meaning in mid-thought isn't going to clarify "evolution".

It is only going to generate confusion.

Please try again.

 

Right. I am coming in from a layman's perspective. This insight is new to me but may well be old hat to some of the rest of you. As for it confusing you - this is because you are looking at it from Darwin's theory with all its subsections. Yes I am using evolution in a general way, trying to show a relationship that I can see between human society's evolution as well as individual evolution and trying to show that all evolution is inside-out but that feedback is outside-in:

 

To clarify, life is an experiment of posited theories, based on experiment and this is the same, whether it's human civilization or animal life - this to me is the central core. Life invades niches because possibilities open up to it and those forms that are too specialized die out, when those limits are threatened by changes in the environment that close those niches down. Natural selection works on technology too - look at cars and how nobody drives Model T's anymore: The environment and life are inextricably mixed, with man better designed physically and mentally, to deal with changes and to create changes. Life is improved design, through experience, which is just another way of putting it (If t doesn't work as an idea, it is scrapped and superseded by new ideas).

 

What I'm trying to say is that there is a mind at work here, which extrudes into the environment and withdraws, depending upon the situation it finds itself in and this variety, which occurs in nature is the same we see in human society, even if it appears different. I'm trying to get at the nitty-gritty under the apparency. If you lot are lost in the details (The Devil is in the detail) that means you may are probably too close to the subject to take this overview because you are specialists in this field (see thread in Watercooler about asking Stupid Questions).

 

Yes evolution does have a more generalized meaning and that is because people in the past, who defined it this way, saw what I can see now - at least to a degree and applied it in a general, not specific way as you lot as scientists are doing (Can't see the wood for the trees/ lost in the brush strokes, the critics can't see the whole picture).

 

If you want to move this thread elsewhere - do so but I put it here because I couldn't personally think of anywhere else to put it. As for it being controversial - please provide facts in laymen's language that doesn't come across as confusing because of the specialist terms used, so that I can argue back, rather than have to grab a dictionary, do some research and come back with counter-arguments in five years time.:shrug:B):phones:

[sman]

Right. I am coming in from a layman's perspective. This insight is new to me but may well be old hat to some of the rest of you.

 

As a fellow layman, I am happy to report that the insights of Darwinism are available to everyone. I encourage you to make a personal study of it, as I have.

 

We must be careful not to confuse biological evolution with what some people term "cultural evolution": change in language, skirt length, automobile design...etc. These are different natural processes. Both may be amenable to the scientific approach, but we cannot immediately apply what we learn of one to the other. Start with the biological. Maybe you can't see the forest from the trees, but the forest is much more robust and beautiful to behold once you've gotten to know the trees.

 

As for it being controversial - please provide facts in laymen's language that doesn't come across as confusing because of the specialist terms used, so that I can argue back, rather than have to grab a dictionary, do some research and come back with counter-arguments in five years time.:shrug:B):phones:

 

It's not easy. It requires work. Dictionaries et al. Fortunately (for me, at least) it doesn't require Calculus, like some science does. But Biological evolution is counter-intuitive and very difficult to get the mind around. You must deal with time-spans that are beyond our ken and you must deal with 2nd & 3rd order abstractions: not organisms, but populations of organisms; not individuals, but gene frequencies...

[paigetheoracle]

seems to me that's the point paige et all have in mind as they continually start new threads at Hypog knocking evolution using one or another religious/spiritual bias just as quick as we show the last as un-scientific. sick & tired of it am i. wtf?! here's a mental concept for ya; knock it the hell off. :shrug: all this pretention to politeness is sorely misplaced imho. :phones: it aint about free speech either as this is not a democracy for one, and even if it were, free speech has it limits. no calling fire in a crowded theatre and all that. this ongoing crapulence is tantamount to just that. good grief.

 

Don't get defensive old buddy - not knocking Evolution, so get off your high horse and put down that bible you're thumping - whoops, I mean Origin of the Species you're thumping. This isn't attacking the theory just trying to add to it and put forward the point that there is intelligent design but it is within each of us as living organisms. Use your brain - that was what it was grown for.B)

[Eclogite]

This isn't attacking the theory just trying to add to it and put forward the point that there is intelligent design but it is within each of us as living organisms.

This seems to be a Lamarkian perspective. We can consciously (and hopefully intelligently) direct our cultural evolution. We cannot consciously direct our biological evolution.

 

Moreover the evolution of the individual is a wholly different thing from the evolution of a species. The evolution of an individual is better called the development of the individual. Using the same word two describe two totally different mechanisms without recognising those differences is simply wrong.

[Pyrotex]

Right. I am coming in from a layman's perspective. This insight is new to me but may well be old hat to some of the rest of you. As for it confusing you - this is because you are looking at it from Darwin's theory with all its subsections. Yes I am using evolution in a general way, trying to show a relationship that I can see between human society's evolution as well as individual evolution and trying to show that all evolution is inside-out but that feedback is outside-in: ...

Okay, you're a layman.

I'll try to keep this at a layman's level, say around high school senior or college freshman.

I will need to use some analogies (metaphor).

 

What is a "layman's perspective" of rocket science? (I am in some position to know this.) It is that the rocket engine burns fuel that causes hot gases to rush out of the engine nozzle and push against the ground, and then against the air, causing the rocket to climb faster and faster. This makes sense -- to a layman.

 

Is it correct? Is it correct in the sense that you can use this to actually calculate how fast the rocket will go or how high? No, you cannot.

 

Because the hot gases do not REALLY push against the ground or the air. What the hot gases REALLY do is push upward against the engine nozzle. This strikes a lot of laymen as just non-sensical.

 

BUT -- it is correct, in the sense that you can use this "scientific perspective" to calculate where the rocket is going and how fast it will go. You can calculate this even if the rocket engine is firing in a vacuum, where there is NOTHING to "push against".

 

And so we see that the "layman's perspective" of rocket science may seem like common sense but it is incorrect, it cannot be used to predict how a rocket will behave either in the air or in a vacuum. It's not good for anything. It has no real explanatory power.

 

Biological evolution is like rocket science. There is a "scientific perspective", using scientifically defined terms, and applied only within certain boundaries, that gives Darwin's theory great explanatory power. First, Darwin was talking only about inheritance between generations of living creatures. That's why the theory is called biological evolution. And second, Darwin was trying to demonstrate that the mechanism behind biological evolution was a series of natural processes: survival of the best adapted; natural selection; sexual selection; population splitting and independent adaptation; etcetera.

 

When one confines one's conversation to biological evolution within those constraints, one gets a theory of awesome explanatory power. It's like being able to predict the paths of comets in the sky just using Isaac Newton's theory of gravity, or the path of a rocket just using Newton's F=ma.

 

When one starts using a "layman's perspective", this explanatory power is lost.

 

So, there is a reason why we criticize your post from "Darwin's theory with all its subsections". When you mix the evolution of species with the evolution of human society, you get something that has no explanatory power -- either in biological evolution OR in human society.

 

If you want to discuss changes in human society, then limit yourself to just that. You might have some valuable insights that do have explanatory power, maybe even predictive power.

[Turtle]

Don't get defensive old buddy - not knocking Evolution, so get off your high horse and put down that bible you're thumping - whoops, I mean Origin of the Species you're thumping. This isn't attacking the theory just trying to add to it and put forward the point that there is intelligent design but it is within each of us as living organisms. Use your brain - that was what it was grown for.:shrug:

 

sorry; can't accomodate you. i remain in my saddle & will go after whatever i see fit. my brain is workin' just fine, thank you. your suggestion sounds lamarkian, but i see someone else has addressed that. i see you as adding nothing but roadblocks & confusion in this case. time will tell. :phones:

[modest]

Evolution is insight leading to invention or mind over matter i.e. better tools for working on problems (hands) and improved vehicle design, to get those tools to where they can be best utilized (feet). Evolution is not primarily physical change but mentally driven change, that abandons the past for the future, in order to stay alive as an individual or species: Remember, the only constant in the universe is change, so life that doesn't change is changed by this knowledge (made extinct) as that which willingly changes itself (adapts) survives.

When random mutation meets natural selection you get biological evolution. When purposeful creation meets human selection you get invention and technological advancement. They clearly have such differences that you should beware of making too strong a simile, and certainly of grouping them together!

 

...trying to show that all evolution is inside-out but that feedback is outside-in:

 

In that case variations in technology are not evolution. If two whale oil lamps got together, swapped some genetic material, and had a beautiful baby light bulb then that change would be coming from the inside. But, the electric light wasn't created by a lamp. It was created by an Edison—an outside thing. Is that not inconsistent with what you're saying?

 

~modest

[HydrogenBond]

Humans are a part of evolution, which to me means the theory of evolution needs to be flexible enough to take even cultural evolution into account. If not its leaves out data. If humans were just placed in the garden of nature, by god, then I can see keeping humans separate. But by evolution's own definition of human having evolved, they need to be included with their uniqueness following logically.

 

What humans can do, is use the brain to adapt quicker than we get from the pace of random genetic changes. Evolution created this possibility, so this change is the next chapter in the story of evolution. For example, when humans migrated from Africa to Europe, the climate got colder. They could have waited millions of years to evolve winter fur, like evolution says, or invent clothes and skip the slow boat path of the genetics. A good theory of evolution can't gloss over the brain since it can create adaptive changes and selective advantage faster than genetics.

 

I would also assume this human evolutionary addendum was not one day placed in the garden. As such, the impact of the brain, on evolution, has been there for a long time and it has been increasing its contribution, over time, as part of evolution. Brain dead nature with genetic changes was a good first attempt. But once we include the human effect and extrapolate backwards, we need to make a second pass and add the brain.

 

For example, if we changed the environment, an animal can't always wait for genetics to passively help out. There may not be enough time. The brain needs to take over, to pick up the slack, using the existing genetic parameters. With humans this process improvement has led to the situation, when we don't really need to overly depend on genetics for continued evolution. If we do need the genetics we use the brain in the lab and directly tweak it for speed.

[Pyrotex]

Humans are a part of evolution, which to me means the theory of evolution needs to be flexible enough to take even cultural evolution into account. ....

No.

 

Does the theory of gravity need to be flexible enough to take the concept of beauty ("attractiveness") into account?

 

No.

 

Does the theory of mathematics need to be flexible enough to take the concept of human procreation ("addition") into account?

 

No.

 

Biological evolution is a theory that concerns biological evolution. Period.

 

This "need" you speak of to "be flexible" is a concoction of your own imagination.

The theory of biological evolution has no "need" to include anything other than what it was set out to explain.

[paigetheoracle]

Well you don't understand what I'm on about, this becomes obvious by your attacks upon me, like someone defending their religious views. I don't disagree with a lot of what others on this thread have said but the reverse cannot be said about my views. You're trying to analyse and I'm trying to synthesize and that is the difference. If you cannot see that this is the only difference, then this thread is dead, Fred (Mr Spock has left the building).

[modest]

You're trying to analyse and I'm trying to synthesize and that is the difference.

 

There is nothing extraordinary about people analyzing that which you try to synthesize. It is mostly the reaction you should expect when synthesizing an idea on some public forum. Nothing to cry "e pur si muove" about.

 

You propose adding (in some way) the advancements of humanity (e.g. technology) to a theory of biological evolution. It is not a good thing to propose for the simple reason that biology changes through random mutation while the human creation of technology is anything but. No one would invent an appendix. Sickle cell anemia doesn't solve problems. Necessity is the mother of invention while randomness is the mother of biological evolution. This is reason enough for a very strong objection to any formalization of the idea you're loosely describing.

 

Not to mention, when you say things like this...

What I'm trying to say is that there is a mind at work here, which extrudes into the environment and withdraws, depending upon the situation it finds itself in and this variety, which occurs in nature is the same we see in human society, even if it appears different.

...you may be unaware, but you are echoing a very political (and indeed religious) sentiment. You may not mean for it to be provocative, but it would help to be aware that it could be taken that way, if you know what I mean, which you may not...?

 

~modest

[paigetheoracle]

Thank you Modest, for two reasons. Firstly for being reasonable and not assuming that I am being deliberately provocative. Secondly for providing evidence against my assumption, so that I can counter it or at least have something to think about on the subject (Too much defensive reactions to my points that come across as 'Blasphemy!' being shouted, which puts me in the same position as Hydrogenbond: Forums are for debating points, by positing ideas that others can back or reject, through showing evidence that supports or runs contrary to those raised. For this to happen, both sides must remain dispassionate and level headed, not pick up verbal or real sticks to beat the opposition into silence, which shows fear on the part of the aggressor: We are supposed to let the light of understanding penetrate our craniums, not suppress it. Do you know why people get mentally sick according to Buddhist tradition? Because they refuse to look at the reality around them and the recordings inside of a past they equally find hard to face - trauma in other words. Why is this important and how does it relate? To view life and our memories dispassionately means we see things as they are, not as we would like them to be and therefore we see them 'accurately'. This is the basis of discovery (The ignorant won't go where they fear there are dragons - the courageous go and check out if there really are any; check if their memories are accurate or whether they've suppressed data, to create an illusion/ avoided looking at the actual truth)

[paigetheoracle]

There is nothing extraordinary about people analyzing that which you try to synthesize. It is mostly the reaction you should expect when synthesizing an idea on some public forum. Nothing to cry "e pur si muove" about.

 

You propose adding (in some way) the advancements of humanity (e.g. technology) to a theory of biological evolution. It is not a good thing to propose for the simple reason that biology changes through random mutation while the human creation of technology is anything but. No one would invent an appendix. Sickle cell anemia doesn't solve problems. Necessity is the mother of invention while randomness is the mother of biological evolution. This is reason enough for a very strong objection to any formalization of the idea you're loosely describing.

 

~modest

 

Are you implying that technology and science doesn't make chance discoveries, which is random mutation, is it not? (This didn't work, so let's try something else).

 

The appendix did have a use when our diet was different and I thought sickle cell anaemia stopped malaria developing or have you (or anyone else) evidence to the contrary?

 

Your quote is also a fine example of what stops progress (I don't mean it as a deliberate ploy) in that if you don't understand something, you cannot progress beyond it (Is it Latin - looks more like Spanish? Neither are my strong points but this does raise an interesting point in itself about ignorance (not knowing))