Morons are needed (some considerations on evolution) — OZONE Asylum, home of the Mad Scientists

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Morons are needed (some considerations on evolution)

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Your Text: Insert Slimies » Insert UBB Code » Close Last Tag \| All Tags UBB Help	Roflmao... well, while I have kept referring to the Sudoku example, and indeed, to the idea of an "evolutionary" goal, which, as you said, does not exist per se, there are a couple more things that can be said about evolution. Humans have their "objective function", eg. the evolution of species on earth is determined by "fitness functions" as in code somehow. That fitness function is, in turn, defined by available ecological niches. Eg. earth a certain "life capacity". It can be represented as a n dimensional space. For example, most species live "best" between 20 degrees and 40 degrees. Draw an axis that goes from 0 to 40 degrees, and you can use this to draw a "curve of ideal temperature" for a given species, the curve having a peak around 20 degrees for most mammals. Then draw another axis, dimension, with a similar curve and values for pressure conditions, you get a "curved plane" which is the niche for the observed species in given conditions of temperature and pressure. Then draw a third curve for another parameter that impacts the ability of a species to survive (moisture, sun exposure, whatever..) And so on... the n axis diagram you'll get is the ecological space where your species belongs, and the bizarre n dimension volumes elaborated from all the curves will be the ecological niche occupied by that species. This representation is assumed to be finite: earth is one finite ecosystem. So when a species disappears, it's niche is left to be filled by the others, and this will "push" evolution somehow, acting a bit like my fitness function above. Obviously, due to the complexity of this object function, the fact it relies on pretty uncontrollable factors and all, there is no final evolutionary goal to species on earth, just sporadic gaps to fill in the ecological niche (and implicitely, billions of human on earth closed niches for the many species that disappeared during our reign). It's difficult for me to draw conclusions from this, namely because it is pure folly :) I am merely trying to gather the few facts to expose about the topic. A biologist and friend of mine mentionned the fact evolution has no clear goal, that's granted, there is no "ideal" to real evolution, just casual, and temporary goals. Still, it's everything but a random process, and that's what makes it usable in computer science. It's not a permanent lottery with luck-a-lot all the way, it's more like a "well designed fitness machine" pushing beings to adapt over generations based on some controlled, limited random factors. Hey, one more fact. I discussed all this with a biologist and friend of mine. While she agreed with DL that "hey, stop, there is no final goal to evolution", she also totally seconded the concept of evolution as a "clever process" rather than a casual miracle, and told me the following story. Some species seem to keep an intact copy of given genes, while a second copy is left free to mutate over generations, at some stages. This echoes what I said about required regression. However, often, when the species has evolved, the mutated gene serves a purpose, and the original gene does as well, but in many cases, it's completely different of it's original purpose. Just as if evolution had even more subtle mechanisms to try, succeed, then move on, and recycle old mechanisms into brand new purposes. One more, weirder fact. In organic chemistry, eg. in the study of all molecules considered "organic" (carbon/oxygene/hydrogene/nytrogene compounds), there is a tendency to chain and mix and connect and build up more elaborate organic molecules. A sort of tendency of atoms of life to get together. This has been reported to happen sporadically in space, even: I remember a cloud, several light years-wide, of alcohol that had been observed a few years ago :) So while blakc holes or Suns aren't place that could hold life, the rest of the universe, including space, could. ..Time for a dozen of coffees. Loading...
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