what phase of humans are we?

[TwilighterX]

Ok today me and my friends were talkings during a show he liked called "Rage against the mechians" and we started to wonder about evolution. We eventually came to this: There a only a few steps in evolution and the all have ended the same so far.

First Step- Regionization: A race of creatures with intellegents realizes that their race is called "Man" or "human".

Second Step-Orgionization: The race of humans begin to form tribes,clans, a government etc.

Third Step-Devolopment: The groups of humans start to gain and control land and start to develop new means of gaining more land, i.e. Technology.

Fourth Step-Humans of Tech.: THe humans are fully developed and have made something human like out of their technology.

Last Step-Passing to anew: THe humans made out of the technology destroy their makers and restart the evolutionary process from step one

 

Please tell me your thought on this and forgive the spelling hehe...

[Deified]

Are you suggesting we were created by early Hominids? The first step (recognition? realization? regionalization?) is worded a bit awkwardly. I sometimes refer to myself as "fat-ass" but I didn't realize one day that I was someone called "fat-ass".

[aguy2]

Last Step-Passing to anew: THe humans made out of the technology destroy their makers and restart the evolutionary process from step one.

 

Unless we insist on displaying our stupidity and try to murder the next logical phase of evolution like they tried to do in "Terminator 1 & 2", I think your extrapolation of evolutionary development could prove to be pretty accurate, if you left out the phrase, "destroy their makers". We are already starting to physically integrate ourselves with our 'true' progeny.

 

aguy2

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Last Step-Passing to anew: THe humans made out of the technology destroy their makers and restart the evolutionary process from step one

Why must you bring things such as this into the discussion? It's rather unlikely that robots that we devolop to do certain tasks will suddenly go off and try to kill us.

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showpost.php?p=16294&postcount=18

[Guest thrush]

The next step in human evolution is a human decision. Since we are currently controling our enviorment we also have the key to evoultion. Evolution usually happens with a change in enviorment resulting in certain biological forms either adaping to the change or dying out, Most of life has little control over this. However man can change the enviorment to suit him in conditions that he might not normally live. He also has control over selction so any drastic change, like the often suggested one day he will not have legs or only one finger to push buttons with is foolish thinking enless man decides that this is a cosmetically desirible trait. He also has the ablity to destroy his enviroment or create possible ecologial or physical holocosts if he desires. Ultimately the future of man is (unlike any spieces before him) what he decides knownly or through ignorance.

[Phi for All]

Fourth Step-Humans of Tech.: THe humans are fully developed and have made something human like out of their technology.

Are we only discussing this Rage Against the Mechians show? If not, this is where it breaks down for me. With all the fear generated by the "robots turning against their masters" genre of fiction, why would we ever be able to go down that road? Market conditions will never favor a completely humanoid robot because of this paranoia. The only reason we would need robots that looked exactly like us would be to perform tasks that only humans used to do, using existing human tools and technology.

 

Would we ever be capable of accepting a robot who stole our job when we scream because a foreigner did? Why wouldn't a technology that could develope humanoid robots bypass the need to make them look like us? Why have a humanoid hand to hold a screwdriver when the hand could be a screwdriver?

[syntax252]

It would seem like we have already included robots in our everyday lives to some extent, and as far as I can see, it has freed us from mundane chores so that we can devote ourselves to more intellectual persuits--like discussion forums.

 

How far this will go, I would not care to hazard, but I will tell you one thing, if I could have bought a robot and sent him to work in my stead, I probably would have done so 40 years ago......

[Synaptik Gap]

I must agree with thrush that our own thoughts, knowledge, actions are the ultimate determiners of our fate, and we are the only species with this capability. The cool thing is, not only do we hold this dominion over ourselves, but over any other species as well, if we so choose. So the theory of evolution as a recurring process is a little farfetched, no doubt influenced by modern fiction. However this brings another issue, if this is indeed the top of the evolutionary latter, and a fall from this point is not possible, then what comes next for human kind??

[Sayonara]

I must agree with thrush that our own thoughts, knowledge, actions are the ultimate determiners of our fate, and we are the only species with this capability.

Don't discount abiotic factors out of hand.

 

However this brings another issue, if this is indeed the top of the evolutionary latter, and a fall from this point is not possible, then what comes next for human kind??

There is no 'top of the ladder' as such. What comes next will be decided by how our habitat and interspecies relationships change in the future, which is - unfortunately - not very predictable.

[Deified]

Very good point Sayo. It is important to remember that the only measure of evolution is survival. Why do we consider ourselves the most successful species? They're are many many species that are far more prevalent than humans. Our pride is actually quite unjustified, we're just a bunch of egotists.

 

Each species takes a separate route of survival. When I look at the human body, I find the poor structure quite laughable. It's like we took many wrong turns structurally, but made up for it by evolving absolutely massive brains.

[Tommio]

Would it be plausible for the next series of 'phases' be -

 

1) The species gains complete control over it's planet -

 

crops, weather, devastating circumstances such as earthquakes and volcanoes, disease, ageing etc.

 

2) The species gains complete control over it's solar system -

 

harness suns power, be able to protect itself from devestating circumstanges, eg asteroids. etc

 

3) The species gains complete control over its universe -

 

the ability to tavel around the entire universe instantly, create and destroy 'other universes' and be able to control it's own destiny and evade the complete destruction of said species.

 

 

if this is acceptable mankind is only in pahse 1, so we have a very long way to go, if we are actually capable of these things.

[Sayonara]

None of those 3 steps have much at all to do with evolution.

[Tommio]

Your right, in a physical state anyway.

 

Surley the epitamy of human evolution will be to lose the need for a physical state. The idea of a species reaching a state where it is outside time and state seems far fetched, but evolution has done some pretty strange things already.

 

However evolution implies survival of the fittest, and it's clear humans are degrading in that respect as the gene pool is being added to by people, who in a natural environment without aid, would not be alive to do this.

 

But perhaps this is why humans will continue to live - the ability to care and supplement individuals who would otherwise not survive. This ability meant that stephen Hawkin is still alive and adding to the sum knowledge of mankind.

[Guest thrush]

Even the neanderthal were known to take care of their crippled, it seems a part of some spieces surviving is the ability to care for one another. In humans it gives us a way to observe people surving under difficult circumstances and sometimes even adding to our knowlege of life and the universe around us. If our spieces did not care for those with differences would we be where we are today? One avantage (and perhaps disavanage) of our spieces is its ability to be able to think indepentendly and yet cooperate with each other. On our own we would be unable to obtain much beyond meeting our basic needs yet we do not use a herd instinct to cooperate but each adds his own ideas. I believe this gives us enough stability and flexiblity tobe able to face many challenges that have overwhelmed other spieces.

[Tommio]

Good point and in evolutionary terms, the ability to conserve more individuals would help immmensily. However, the ability to think independantly also means that people have very different ideas, and whilst this could be one of the greatest evolutionary steps - the ability to pool different ideas and get viable solutions- it has also doomed humanity to never unite. These differences in thought that there has always been conflict, and there probably will. Evolution has made this human nature.

 

Perhaps the greatest challenge that will be thrown to humanity is to create a peaceful world.

[Ophiolite]

None of those 3 steps have much at all to do with evolution.

The introduction of intelligence has made possible an entirely new form of evolution that is as different from the evolution of life as that was from the 'evolution' of matter. These three steps, tied as they are to this cultural evolution, have everything to do with it.

[Tommio]

Yeah. Evolution does not have to be specific for physical adaptions, but can be applied to psycological, behavoural and even technological changes and advancments.

[syntax252]

I have long had a theory that humans rose to the top of the food chain because of 2 primary things.

 

Intellience and hands with opposable thumbs.

 

After all, what good would intelligence do to an earthworm? What would he do with it? But since our ancestors had hands, they were able to grasp tools that made life a more probable eventuality.

 

If evolution depends upon random mutation to see what works out to be an advantage to a species, then it seems to me that the human hand is a valuable asset to the utilization of any flashes of intelligence that may occure.

 

A horse may have a colt that can imagine how to make a spear, but what is a horse going to do with that sort of knowledge? This is of course, an oversimplication, but do you see what I am getting at?

[Tommio]

Yes, but i would add one more necessary adaption.

 

The need for a decisive and articulate written and spoken language which has the ability to grow and change.

 

As you said, what could an earthworm do with intelligence, but what would it do if it won't to prove it was intelligent?

[Sayonara]

Your right' date=' in a physical state anyway.

Surley the epitamy of human evolution will be to lose the need for a physical state. The idea of a species reaching a state where it is outside time and state seems far fetched, but evolution has done some pretty strange things already.[/quote']

I'd hate to think what sort of conditions would be required to force such adaptations.

 

I fail to see what pseudo-scientific speculation in the vein of Babylon 5's 'human destiny' sequence has to do with the current state of human evolution.

 

 

However evolution implies survival of the fittest, and it's clear humans are degrading in that respect as the gene pool is being added to by people, who in a natural environment without aid, would not be alive to do this.

You're talking about selection, not evolution. The two are not synonymous.

 

It doesn't make sense to say that humans are "degrading". By what standard are you judging that to be so? Likewise, it really doesn't matter what proportion of the population fails to be adapted beyond the average distributions - as long as some are, selection can occur towards any given phenotype.

[Sayonara]

The introduction of intelligence has made possible an entirely new form of evolution that is as different from the evolution of life as that was from the 'evolution' of matter. These three steps, tied as they are to this cultural [/i']evolution, have everything to do with it.

Which is why I said "much at all", instead of "nothing at all". A small concession to the fact that we are different, and that difference will change our biology.

 

When I talk about evolution, I refer to the formally recognised ecological time-dependent process. Not any old thing that can be said to be evolving (i.e. going through a process of change, for whatever reason, with any or no degree of coherence.)

 

My problem however is actually with the pop-sci speculation, rather than the specific use of the word.

[Gnieus]

The next step in human evolution is a human decision. Since we are currently controling our enviorment we also have the key to evoultion.

 

This is wrong .... Evolution made us giving some control over some parts of the environment, as ants/wasps make nests to control temperature. It is fatal to make the old anthropocentric mistake to declare us some kind of God ... We are an experiment in consciousness nothing else ... If evolution makes a species able to pop DNA together than thats the next step in our evolutionary time line. Should we make a killer virus and we die and that's us evolutionary settled as a mistake .. should we make new species then evolution found a new way to creat e life...

 

OMG we ain't God/Evolution and we never will be ...

[Gnieus]

The introduction of intelligence has made possible an entirely new form of evolution that is as different from the evolution of life as that was from the 'evolution' of matter. These three steps, tied as they are to this cultural [/i']evolution, have everything to do with it.

 

Nope our phenotype is evolution, came from evolution, hence what we do IS evolution .. ... .... What can you change about evolution? Nothing ... The communality of interest of you genes gonna bite the dust sooner or later .. should you have produced the right offspring and your genes make it into the future then good, maybe someone else lives longer through cryogenics and shags when he is awakened, then gets kid, then these genes make it a bit longer ..

 

Should you upload yourself into a computer it's a new evolution game, if the energy runs out your entity is history and your strategy has been deselected.

 

Firstly: you or an alternative life form. But even the support machine might come into problems. If you ain't have a mechanism to adapt to changing conditions, ie. death and resampling of gene material program code or new hardware you are fcuked.

 

Changing environments necessitate change and adaption in all that is, unless it's some end particle wave.. I don't know if that exists. Suns go extinct, mountains fade.

 

Unless you freeze the universe, adaption is necessary, adaption necessitates some form of adaption to changing environments, whatever way it is. Hence we won't be outside evolution ever...

[syntax252]

It seems to me that man's reliance on intelligence for survival has changed the game somewhat--perhaps a lot.

 

In a primitive setting, the things that made life more probable, that is to the point of procreation were physical things like strength and endurance. As man's intelligence developed, things like mechanical ability and problem solving rose in importance until now, physical attributes are not very important at all.

 

Whaddya think?

[Gnieus]

nope you still gonna die.

 

And if they disable the cell suicide, you still gonna die if a car smashs into you. And if you get yourself a nice atom bunker, when a meterorite hits the planet you gonna a die. And as long as there is some possibility that your subatomic particle collection entity gonna bite the dust in any shape or form [even if you are made of a pice of junk metal] the only option is adaption, reproduction and a new try.