Following Charles Darwin's theory in a thought process

[iknowabsolutelynothing]

I thought about it quite a while ago but it was kind of interesting so i want to ask the opinion of experts,

 

The theory of evolution says organisms adapt to change through variations. In a more concerted view, let us assume that at a point of time there were organisms that had no visual perception of the world.

 

(I personally think the first sense developed by any organism was touch and the last maybe sight. Reason, feeling gives idea of danger only at impact, smell then follows suit we can know danger next best with our nose, the trough sound. Our most developed organ in danger perception are our eyes. )

 

So till this point of time sound, touch and maybe smell were the only sense options.

Now let us close our eyes. We have no perception of the world without it.

The very existence of electromagnetic waves is an unknown.

Now thermal radiation is the only thing that we can feel.

So theoretically our first evolution towards sight was the ability to feel warmth a low frequency wave.

 

Then of course the next question was how did an organism with no idea a thermal radiation existed suddenly develop an awareness?

What caused the evolution?

[CharonY]

Selection works without the knowledge or perception of the organism. The first "sense" was most likely chemosensory perception. Natural selection just reduces the likelihood of certain offspring to survive. This is true for single celled organisms, as well as for more complex ones regardless of their perception of their environment.

 

Just to reiterate, in evolution, organisms do not actively adapt to environmental situations (at least not in a way probably envisioned by the OP).

 

Considering that the the premise of this thread is speculative, I move it to the speculations forum.

Edited August 16, 2011 by CharonY

[Realitycheck]

A favorable mutation oddly enabled it to sense that. That was pretty far back. What I have caught glimpses of is that other species completely separate of the one in question seem to have developed similar sensory organs independently. So the question (in my mind) shifts to why did these completely different creatures develop similar organs indepently of each other? Or do I have it wrong and we can trace eyes back to one species?

[Ophiolite]

So the question (in my mind) shifts to why did these completely different creatures develop similar organs indepently of each other?

If you start with the same toolkit you are constrained as to what you can build.

[Rhoops]

I like this kind of speculation, because it leads to an intelligent questioning on evolution. I don't mean questioning whether Darwin was right, that's a given as far as I'm concerned, but the processes which he did not know about (DNA/genetics), and presumably those we still do not know about, associated with it. Evolution is not just a simple mix of Natural Selection, mutation and response to environmental change. The coelocanth/shark enigma shows that. They both stopped evolving. Similarly, after the land/sea transition c.430mya there are no new sea associated locomotive forms, only land based. This may be taken to imply, (and has) that the sea is a stable environment, which it clearly is not.

I always used to think that Flight, and the sea/land transition were very peculiar in terms of Natural Selection. The implied 'inbetween' animals, neither specialist in one thing nor the other would have been extremely inefficient creatures, and with normal genetic mutation rates, would have had to be for tens of thousands of years at least. An unconvincing scenario.

However, that view point is somewhat black/white, and fails to appreciate numerous minor factors in favour, which in aggregate may well have been sufficient. Dealing with minutiae over millions of years is problematic, because few people actually think like that. It takes familiarity, and some training to get one's mind accustomed to working with the known evolutionary parameters involved, and even more so if you appreciate that Darwinian Evolution is not complete. Darwin himself was very clear on the matter. He described the mechanism as "Unknown".

Then we come to the Neo Darwinists...

You know that mob... they have the predominant evolutionary view point at present. They're the ones with the presumption to substitute Darwin's "unknown" with the mediocre mathematical concept: 'random'. Which is to say "ineffable". Not much of a substitute you might say!

Doesn't it strike you as being somewhat ironic that the Neo-Darwinists with their strong anti-religious connotations, actually rely upon 'ineffability' too for their evolutionary explanation! No wonder the poor little Creationists gets so grumpy, their fundamental belief has been both stolen, and insulted! To me Neo Darwinism is a product of the 1930's, futurism, fascism, communism, etc etc, not pejoratively, but simply because these philosophies were designed to be radical and NEW. Rejecting the old was the primary message. Neo Darwinism was born in that environment, and appears to be strongly constructed as a simple binary opposite to religious explanations of biological matters.

That's just not good enough for Science 3 generations later. Anti-religion is out of date, religion has had nothing to do with accurate explanations of reality for at least a millennium, and even unconsciously including them in opposition is unacceptable in the process of expanding empirical knowledge. Personally I'd be inclined to add Philosophy too to the list of out dated thought processes, because so many of the concepts involved are either sloppy or redundant. I'm not particularly bothered by it though, given another decade, Science will have finished... nothing more to find out, so there'll be no need for any more Philosophical speculation!! Won't it be dull though...

[Pincho Paxton]

I trace the first sense back to particles bumping together. They have to have a feedback system that they bumped, so I would call the first sense entropy.