Does evolution lead to the most complex and sophisticated organization of matter?

[nameta9]

This idea came out pondering the question if scientific research is limited in what it can achieve.

 

Evolution is the process that can lead to the organization of matter as complex as the human mind. Scientific research can lead to different (not necessarily as complex) organizations of matter. There may be other processes in the universe which do not follow neither evolution nor man's scientific research to achieve even more complex and sophisticated organizations of matter. Maybe plasma effects at the center of stars or similar. The point is that matter may be organized into very complex structures like the mind but through different processes. There may be barriers between one process and another, for example evolution can only lead to a certain subclass of organized matter, man's scientific research can lead to another certain subclass of organized matter but may never be able to reach the class of objects that evolution can. Evolution may never be able to evolve silicon chips without having first evolved man. These may be barriers between progressing processes that limit what each process can achieve. The real point is that matter as such can be potentially organized into very complex structures, we may just never be able to force it past a certain limit. In this sense science may have a limit, but matter may not. And even if matter were organized in an alien very complex structure and internal process, we may not even be able to recognize it!

[atinymonkey]

Interesting thoughts. You are still misusing the term evolution, limiting the scope in one direction and extending it to technology at the same time. Other than that, it's a good discussion point.

[Sayonara]

What are we talking about here, with respect to the term "complexity"?

[nameta9]

Complexity as it is conceived and understood by the mind of man. Of course this is a somewhat arbitrary concept, maybe mostly "aesthetical" , but let's intend its meaning in the usual sense. A color TV is a complex organization of matter a simple stone is not etc. Although it is subjective (to man) it is interesting trying to imagine how complex, intricate and developed matter can be organize whether by itself or by an intentional being or ANY OTHER PROCESS WE CAN'T EVEN CONCEIVE, for some secondary goal or just as a group of complex processes.

[In My Memory]

Nameta,

 

Although it is subjective (to man) it is interesting trying to imagine how complex, intricate and developed matter can be organize whether by itself or by an intentional being or ANY OTHER PROCESS WE CAN'T EVEN CONCEIVE, for some secondary goal or just as a group of complex processes.

 

Nature for the most part isnt terribly goal-oriented (I believe the analogy is "the blind watchmaker"), so trying to imagine it churning out things to achieve some secondary goal (or even a primary goal) is probably skirting into the territory of anthromorphism. Its probably inappropriate to ask "did nature evolve me to invent the microchip?".

 

Although, I find inspiration in the complexity (whatever that means) arising out of nature from a few simple mathematical functions:

 

* the movement of a speck of dust, while unpredictable and seemingly random, can be precisely stated as a few simple mathematical rules

 

* the movement of stream will sort rocks according to their size and density (larger rocks will be found in fast moving water, smaller rocks and silts will be found in sluggish water)

 

* populations of animals can be modeled and predicted on a few simple differencial equation

 

* Clouds, coastlines, and mountain tops appear to more or less meaningless, but models of these objects can be expressed as chaotic systems

 

I find such things very aesthetically intriguing.

[metatron]

Nameta' date='

 

 

 

Nature for the most part isnt terribly goal-oriented (I believe the analogy is "the blind watchmaker"), so trying to imagine it churning out things to achieve some secondary goal (or even a primary goal) is probably skirting into the territory of anthromorphism. Its probably inappropriate to ask "did nature evolve me to invent the microchip?".

 

Although, I find inspiration in the complexity (whatever that means) arising out of nature from a few simple mathematical functions:

 

* the movement of a speck of dust, while unpredictable and seemingly random, can be precisely stated as a few simple mathematical rules

 

* the movement of stream will sort rocks according to their size and density (larger rocks will be found in fast moving water, smaller rocks and silts will be found in sluggish water)

 

* populations of animals can be modeled and predicted on a few simple differencial equation

 

* Clouds, coastlines, and mountain tops appear to more or less meaningless, but models of these objects can be expressed as chaotic systems

 

I find such things very aesthetically intriguing.[/quote']

 

 

 

 

Yes, I believe man did evolve to invent the microchip. Communication is a natural self organizing principle of nature. This is inevitable as water running down hill, or the formation of snow flakes. The Components of the universe organize around the a flow of information. These currents can be gravity, light waves, water waves, the currents that develope between cellular structures, or the need for beings to communicate between one another.

These currents are the underlying forces that run though our biology as well as the stone.

 

Silicon has certain qualities that enable it to store and conduct information. The universe is utilizing this quality when we do.

I do not see this as anthropomorphic but, rather as a seamless whole. The silicon chip is an informational inevitability of the planet. Just as carbon was inevitable as the main component of biological systems.

[Mokele]

The silicon chip is a informational inevitability of the planet.

 

Except that humans, or even intelligent life, is *not* an inevitability of any sort, ergo no technological device is an inevitability. Species evolve to suit their environments (biotic and abiotic), which can change. Those environments might change for preditable reasons (like the slow movement of tectonic plates), or they might change for entirely random reasons (like 20-mile-wide rocks slamming into earth).

 

Of course, this is ignoring that evolution itself is dependent on randomness (like when or if a mutation will occur) as well as subject to it (fat lot of good a new mutation for disease resistance does a species if the sole carrier, the first mutant, dies when trying to cross the freeway).

 

Since the evolutionary path that lead to us is based on millions of random events, large and small, to assert that there is any sort of inevitable outcome is foolish. We are no more inevitable than this week's lotto numbers, and a good deal less probable.

 

Mokele

[metatron]

Except that humans, or even intelligent life, is *not* an inevitability of any sort, ergo no technological device is an inevitability. Species evolve to suit their environments (biotic and abiotic), which can change. Those environments might change for preditable reasons (like the slow movement of tectonic plates), or they might change for entirely random reasons (like 20-mile-wide rocks slamming into earth).

 

Of course, this is ignoring that evolution itself is dependent on randomness (like when or if a mutation will occur) as well as subject to it (fat lot of good a new mutation for disease resistance does a species if the sole carrier, the first mutant, dies when trying to cross the freeway).

 

Since the evolutionary path that lead to us is based on millions of random events, large and small, to assert that there is any sort of inevitable outcome is foolish. We are no more inevitable than this week's lotto numbers, and a good deal less probable.

 

Mokele[/quote

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These stages of organization have an underling {pre-existing probabilities of order} It is just a matter of seeing it as such. This “seeing” is an evolutionary stage we are currently entering now with system science. It has not been well applied in certain fields as yet but..

I shall borrow your analogy of plate tectonics as an example of these built in organizational probabilities between the geological and biological systems, and how these systems co-evolved from pre-existing possibilities.

The oceans of the very early earth contained micro-organisms that fixed calcium carbonate into the sea floor. These layers then became subducted into oceanic plate margins.

These subduction zones became engines powered by the highly reactive carbonate rocks that initiated the system of plate tectonics, that subsequently lead to the development of shallow inland seas that spawned the first complex life. This life then evaded the continent creating the ecosystem we see today. This is just one example of the pre-existing order found in the elemental components that build bridges of organization.

[Kygron]

Except that humans' date=' or even intelligent life, is *not* an inevitability of any sort...

...Since the evolutionary path that lead to us is based on millions of random events, large and small, to assert that there is any sort of inevitable outcome is foolish[/quote']

 

Well, not a specific outcome, but intelligence? I think that's general enough to be debatably inevitable.

 

Given a few things:

Life evolves in the first place,

The environment fails to eradicate it,

Random events continue to occur,

Enough time passes,

 

I don't see why it would be foolish to call intelligence inevitable. In general evolution DOES lead to more complex organization. Intelligence is just one form of complexity. Evolution, as you pointed out, IS dependent on randomness, but the results, or better, the form of the results, are NOT completely random.

[Mokele]

The oceans of the very early earth contained micro-organisms that fixed calcium carbonate into the sea floor. These layers then became subducted into oceanic plate margins.

These subduction zones became engines powered by the highly reactive carbonate rocks that initiated the system of plate tectonics, that subsequently lead to the development of shallow inland seas that spawned the first complex life. This life then evaded the continent creating the ecosystem we see today. This is just one example of the pre-existing order found in the elemental components that build bridges of organization

 

Yes, there are consequences and interactions, but there is also probability. Sure, organisms that fixed CaCO3 evolved, but just because it *did* happen does not mean it *must* happen. That's like saying that just because yeterdays winning lotto number was 6357 means that it must always be so. The difference is that life has only played out once (that we know). What would have happened if such organisms had never evolved? That would have altered all of earth's history.

 

My objection is merely that you state that certain outcomes are pre-destined, ignoring the massive levels of randomness in the system, and how that randomness can drasticly alter the outcome. Gould once said that if we rewound the tape of life and played it again, the results would be completely different with each playing.

 

I don't see why it would be foolish to call intelligence inevitable.

 

Well, remember, for over 3 billion years there weren't even multi-cellular life forms. Only recently have organisms with many cells and nervous systems shown up, and we're so recent that it's a blink of an eye in evolutionary time. And we aren't exactly terribly important, either: 50% of all living species are beetles, not mammals. Verebtrates are only a tiny fraction of life. Hell, 45% of all mammals are rodents.

 

Life seems to get along just fine without intelligence. Furthermore, our brain takes up a *huge* amount of energy, 20% of our metabolism, iirc. It takes some pretty unique circumstances for something that costly (no matter what it is) to evolve and be of sufficient benefit not to be wiped out pretty quick.

 

In general evolution DOES lead to more complex organization.

 

I disagree. How many "intelligent" species are there? Compare that to the number of monogenan flukes, parasites that have pretty much become nothing but a sack of gonads. Then there's all the other parasites that have undergone similar simplification.

 

Evolution *can* lead to complexity, but does not necessarily, nor does it most often, IMHO. I think, instead, that we're more likely to *notice* complexity, and thereby get a skewed view of it. Sure, that complex deer is a product of evolution, but so are the ticks, tapeworms, fillarial worms, and flukes feasting on it.

 

My point is that most organisms have done just fine without anything near our intellect, and there's no fossil record of anything with similar intellect to us (indicating, likely, that it's only happened once in the 560 million years of multicellular life). Our brains have paid off, but I think the real issue is the intermediate stages, before it's as usefull as now, but still pretty costly. I doubt evolutionary conditions to allow that development have happened too often, nor often coincided with a species with the capability of following such a path.

 

So, basically, my answer boils down to beetles.

 

Mokele

[metatron]

Yes' date=' there are consequences and interactions, but there is also probability. Sure, organisms that fixed CaCO3 evolved, but just because it *did* happen does not mean it *must* happen. That's like saying that just because yeterdays winning lotto number was 6357 means that it must always be so. The difference is that life has only played out once (that we know). What would have happened if such organisms had never evolved? That would have altered all of earth's history.

 

My objection is merely that you state that certain outcomes are pre-destined, ignoring the massive levels of randomness in the system, and how that randomness can drasticly alter the outcome. Gould once said that if we rewound the tape of life and played it again, the results would be completely different with each playing.

 

 

Mokele[/quote']

 

 

You cannot equate lotto numbers with the evolutionary process. There are mathematical relationships that can be studying and applied in physics and evolution. This study that separates the random from probabilities is called,,Bayesian theory.

 

 

quote

BAYESIAN THEORY; Belief does not come in an all-or-nothing manner. If it has been raining heavily today, and the clouds have not cleared, you might believe it is going to rain tomorrow as well. But you might not be certain that your belief is true, as it is possible that tomorrow turns out to be sunny. Still, you might decide to bring an umbrella when you leave home, since you think it is more likely to rain. The Bayesian framework is a theory about how we should adjust our degrees of belief in a rational manner. In this theory, the probability of a statement, P(S), indicates the degree of belief an agent has in the truth of the statement S. If you are certain that S is true, then P(S)=1. If you are certain that it is false, then P(S)=0. If you think S is just as likely to be false as it is to be true, then P(S)=0.5.

One important aspect of the theory is that rational degrees of belief should obey the laws of probability theory. For example, one law of probability is that P(S) = 1 - P(not-S). In other words, if you are absolutely certain that S is true, then P(S) should be 1 and P(not-S)=0. It can be shown that if your system of degree of belief deviates from the laws of probability, and you are willing bet according to your beliefs, then you will be willing to enter into bets where you will lose money no matter what.

What is interesting, in the present context, is that the Bayesian framework provides a powerful theory of confirmation, and explains many aspects of scientific reasoning.quote

 

 

 

 

Their exist in the universe two basic aspects of order, probabilities and certainties. Knowing the difference is the key to understanding (pre-existing probabilities ) Everything else is just a matter of time.

 

At the quantum level there or no real boundaries between what is living what is not living , conciseness from non conciseness. There is only cycles of movement between our temporal view and the opposing eternal aspect or quantum view.

 

In other words when you observe movement from disorder to the ordered you are only moving your view from the temporal to the eternal aspect. As for locating the higher intelligent {or pre-existing order] in the process, if you are not seeing it everywhere at once, you will never see it anywhere, at any time. If anyone sees this as drifting to far into the philosophical, they need to brush up on their quantum physics.

[nameta9]

The debate focused too much on natural evolution, which is an enormous debate in itself. My point is more about how complicated can matter be organized in general whether through evolution or man made devices OR SOME OTHER PROCESS. We could force matter into an incredibly entangled construction of chips, neurons and mechanical parts WITH NO PURPOSE OR GOAL WHATSOEVER just to see how complicated matter can be organized. Now the resulting object would not have evolved through natural evolution, and neither through scientific - technological reasoning, so it would be a completely ALIEN object that has been produced according to a completely alien process. From our point of view as man, this object would be considered a work of ART or an ART form since it has no purpose except that of testing the limits of how complex matter can be organized. In general how complicated can matter be organized whether for a goal or not ?

 

Can we imagine a planet that naturally evolves color TVs without evolving any lifeform ? The fact that it coincides with a function useful to us could be just a quirk chance. Is evolution the only process capable of creating vastly complex organized mechanisms ? What are the real limits of MATTER as such disregarding the processes that organize it ?

[atinymonkey]

Are you talking about the limits of matter to form objects and tools, by whatever process?

[Sayonara]

Complexity as it is conceived and understood by the mind of man. Of course this is a somewhat arbitrary concept, maybe mostly "aesthetical" , but let's intend its meaning in the usual sense. A color TV is a complex organization of matter a simple stone is not etc. Although it is subjective (to man) it is interesting trying to imagine how complex, intricate and developed matter can be organize whether by itself or by an intentional being or ANY OTHER PROCESS WE CAN'T EVEN CONCEIVE, for some secondary goal or just as a group of complex processes.

I meant what is it exactly that is being described as complex?

 

"Complex organisations of matter" is extremely vague, whereas evolutionary theory is not.

 

Are you talking about matter at the individual level (e.g. neural interconnections in the brain), at the population level (e.g. phenotypic distribution within a herd), or at the community level (e.g. biomass representation in a trophic web)?

[nameta9]

 

"Complex organisations of matter" is extremely vague' date=' whereas evolutionary theory is not.

Are you talking about matter at the individual level (e.g. neural interconnections in the brain), at the population level (e.g. phenotypic distribution within a herd), or at the community level (e.g. biomass representation in a trophic web)?[/quote']

 

I mean complex and organized matter in any sense, even the most abstract. A planet with a population can be seen as a complicated ball from a given perspective. In this sense I am really raising the abstraction level of the thread. I agree it isn't easy to imagine, but MATTER as any combination of items or processes and interactions. So a stellar plasma can be considered a given combination, a planet with a population another given combination etc. The limits of MATTER as considered in these terms may well be greatly in excess of our ability to manipulate. And the possible combinations that matter can achieve may greatly exceed even evolution. Matter may potentially have the ability to combine in vastly more complex ways.

[Mokele]

You cannot equate lotto numbers with the evolutionary process. There are mathematical relationships that can be studying and applied in physics and evolution. This study that separates the random from probabilities is called,,Bayesian theory.

 

Ok, let's consider the path of two bouncy balls. They're governed by internal laws (basic physics principles), and interact with the environment, just like evolution. But there is *also* a random component. If you launch the balls from a mechanical launcher, each will not land in *precisely* the same spot as the other. Then, because of this difference, the next landing will be even more different, and so on and so forth. The longer they bounce, and the more complex the environment, the more different the location will be for the same time after launch. The tiny variations induced by the environment (air currents, bugs getting in the way and hit, etc) will accumulate and alter the outcome more and more with time.

 

Now, evolution has internal rules, and interacts with the external world. But there *is* an element of randomness. The evolutionary paths of two creatures from the same starting point will be vastly different, because the "balls" are in a *very* complex environment and have been bouncing (thus accumulating the resulting changes due to randomness) for a very, *very* long time.

 

At the quantum level there or no real boundaries between what is living what is not living , conciseness from non conciseness. There is only cycles of movement between our temporal view and the opposing eternal aspect or quantum view.

 

That's a mixture of gibberish and BS. Life is not defined at the quantum level. If I step on a bug, I doubt I've made a coherent different in it's atoms at the quantum level. But it's still very, very dead.

 

Quantum has no relevance to evolution, with the sole exception of perhaps the mechanisms of mutation. However, since such mutations are random with respect to fitness (whether or not they follow chemical laws), the total effect of quantum interactions on the path of evolutionary systems is 0.

 

If anyone sees this as drifting to far into the philosophical, they need to brush up on their quantum physics.

 

I see it as a drift into psuedoscientific gibberish and time wasting. I suggest you need to brush up on your knowledge of evolution, as it's evidently sorely lacking.

 

Mokele

[metatron]

Ok' date=' let's consider the path of two bouncy balls. They're governed by internal laws (basic physics principles), and interact with the environment, just like evolution. But there is *also* a random component. If you launch the balls from a mechanical launcher, each will not land in *precisely* the same spot as the other. Then, because of this difference, the next landing will be even more different, and so on and so forth. The longer they bounce, and the more complex the environment, the more different the location will be for the same time after launch. The tiny variations induced by the environment (air currents, bugs getting in the way and hit, etc) will accumulate and alter the outcome more and more with time.

 

Now, evolution has internal rules, and interacts with the external world. But there *is* an element of randomness. The evolutionary paths of two creatures from the same starting point will be vastly different, because the "balls" are in a *very* complex environment and have been bouncing (thus accumulating the resulting changes due to randomness) for a very, *very* long time.

 

 

 

That's a mixture of gibberish and BS. Life is not defined at the quantum level. If I step on a bug, I doubt I've made a coherent different in it's atoms at the quantum level. But it's still very, very dead.

 

Quantum has no relevance to evolution, with the sole exception of perhaps the mechanisms of mutation. However, since such mutations are random with respect to fitness (whether or not they follow chemical laws), the total effect of quantum interactions on the path of evolutionary systems is 0.

 

 

 

I see it as a drift into psuedoscientific gibberish and time wasting. I suggest you need

to brush up on your knowledge of evolution, as it's evidently sorely lacking.

 

Mokele[/quote']

 

All things contain their opposite in the universe {ying -yang}{right-left}{positive-negitive} there is a reason for this. One cannot exist with out the other ,This tension is the self-balancing of the universe. The quantum level is the opposite pole to the temporal or physical . Take one away the other looses its contextual meaning just as when I make an error I recognize and admit it so when I am presenting what I say is truth it carries meaning. ie[lotto numbers]

[Mokele]

All things contain their opposite in the universe {ying -yang}{right-left}{positive-negitive} there is a reason for this. One cannot exist with out the other ,This tension is the self-balancing of the universe.

 

BS. Prove it. Oh, that's right, you *can't*. You have not a single scrap of evidence to support this beyond "it sounds good". Guess this is why all of your posts are in the Psuedoscience forum.

 

Well, that was fun. Now I'm gonna stop wasting time with you and get back to measuring and quantify the *evidence* I use to support my hypotheses, which is what *real* science does.

 

Mokele

[metatron]

BS. Prove it. Oh' date=' that's right, you *can't*. You have not a single scrap of evidence to support this beyond "it sounds good". Guess this is why all of your posts are in the Psuedoscience forum.

 

Well, that was fun. Now I'm gonna stop wasting time with you and get back to measuring and quantify the *evidence* I use to support my hypotheses, which is what *real* science does.

 

Mokele[/quote']

 

 

Quantum Physics: On the Evolution of the Particle Wave Duality of Light and Matter

The evolution of our knowledge of Light and Matter has been both interesting and remarkable. In the late 1600s we had Newton's theory of Light and Matter 'particles' and Huygens' wave theory of light.

In 1801, Young's famous two slit experiment (which showed interference effects of waves from both slits) decided in favour of light being a continuous wave. Further discoveries by Faraday (electric and magnetic force fields) and Maxwell (Maxwell's equations which deduced the correct velocity for light by assuming an electromagnetic wave) seemed to confirm the wave theory of light as electromagnetic radiation. Then at the turn of the 20th century with Quantum Physics it was discovered that light was emitted and received in discrete amounts (Planck, 1900; Einstein,1905), completely destroying the idea of light as a continuous wave. This was then followed with Schrodinger's wave equations (1928) and the realisation that matter (atoms / molecules) only existed in discrete energy states (which could be defined using wave equations and resonance arguments) and that light was emitted / absorbed as electrons moved from one discrete energy state to another (wave functions rather than orbits). The end result of this the current absurd states of Quantum Physics with the confusion of the particle wave duality of light (it behaves as a wave or a particle depending on the experiment).

 

 

http://www.spaceandmotion.com/Physics-Albert-Einstein-Quantum-Theory.htm

[Mokele]

1) How does that even address my objection?

 

2) I'm not wasting my time on that link. I have better things to do that read crackpot websites, especially ones that have nothing to do with the subject at hand (except in your private little world).

 

Honestly, stop wasting everyone's time.

[Kygron]

The debate focused too much on natural evolution' date=' which is an enormous debate in itself. My point is more about how complicated can matter be organized in general whether through evolution or man made devices OR SOME OTHER PROCESS. We could force matter into an incredibly entangled construction of chips, neurons and mechanical parts WITH NO PURPOSE OR GOAL WHATSOEVER just to see how complicated matter can be organized. Now the resulting object would not have evolved through natural evolution, and neither through scientific - technological reasoning, so it would be a completely ALIEN object that has been produced according to a completely alien process. From our point of view as man, this object would be considered a work of ART or an ART form since it has no purpose except that of testing the limits of how complex matter can be organized. In general how complicated can matter be organized whether for a goal or not ?

 

Can we imagine a planet that naturally evolves color TVs without evolving any lifeform ? The fact that it coincides with a function useful to us could be just a quirk chance. Is evolution the only process capable of creating vastly complex organized mechanisms ? What are the real limits of MATTER as such disregarding the processes that organize it ?[/quote']

 

You've got a problem when you deal with this level of abstraction. It's because RANDOM and COMPLEX converge into the same meaning! If you want a perfectly random organization, I suggest you look at the universe as a whole. The natural structure of matter is quite complex, with different "rules" at every size scale.

 

I thought you were talking about self-assembly of "purposefull" structures. For that you'd need to be looking at a level of matter that both has strict rules, and also, has enough freedom to "make something" of those rules. Where will you find these levels? One MIGHT be in the sub-sub-atomic, where currently unknown laws of physics allow particles of so many varieties that only the most educated particle physisists know their names, and even run out of names to give them. Another IS in the molecular, where known chemical reactions allow so many varied reactions and organisms to evolve that only the evolutionary biologists dare try to remember all thier names (modern technology is also at this scale). A final one MIGHT develop between galaxys, where the simple laws of gravity and cosmic expansion allow many complex galaxy groupings, clusters and strings and such. Unfortunatly the first is not within our ability to explore fully right now, and the third has not had nearly enough time to gain any real complexity.

 

That just leaves us with biological and technological evolution. We've chosen to discuss biological because we believe the most complex form (humans) is far more complex than current technology. So you see, we ARE discussing your subject, we're just doing it in the most concrete manner we know of.

[Kygron]

So, basically, my answer boils down to beetles.

Ah, but aren't beetles FAR more complex than the original life forms?

 

 

I suppose I should add one more item to my previous list of requirements for complexity: Competition for limited resources(and simmilar evolutionary pressures). With that, an organism has a choice, do something different, or do something better. One method of the latter is to gain in complexity. I don't even claim that it happens often, but it DOES happen. Even a single instance will increase the "average complexity", and the "greatest complexity". Either way, evolution HAS led to complexity!

 

How many "intelligent" species are there? Compare that to the number of monogenan flukes, parasites that have pretty much become nothing but a sack of gonads. Then there's all the other parasites that have undergone similar simplification.

 

And why is this a problem? This is an excellent AID for evolutionalry pressure. When an organism has become sufficiently advanced there may not be any other reason to continue to gain complexity. But then! You have previously complex organisms becomming parasites to feed off of that extra energy. Without it the complex organism is "thrown back into the ring" and must again compete for resources. And that competition leads to more complexity.

 

 

Sure, I'll agree that complexity is rare, and intelligence singular, but I claim that that is the nature of the process. The tallest pyramid has the largest base, so to speak. Therefore, evolution leads to complexity, and intelligence, being a form of complexity, is a natural, even inevitable, result.

[Kygron]

Mods: was this post originally in the psudoscience forums? If not I don't think it needed to be moved based on a few people expressing those types of views. But that's just my opinion.

[metatron]

The Landscape of Possibility: A Dynamic Systems Perspective on Archetype and Change

 

 

 

 

Maxson J. McDowell

 

Imagine a sand-dune rippled by the wind. The dune is an emergent, self-organized structure. Its surface organizes itself according to information contained within the wind, its velocity, for instance, and its direction. That information is translated into a particular set of ripples by the constraints of the dune's height and shape (equivalent to the gross anatomy of the brain) and by the constraints of an individual grain of sand (equivalent to the anatomy and physiology of a neuron). Once the ripples have been established they influence the subsequent movement of air over the surface of the dune. In the same way, once the fine structure of the brain has been established it controls the subsequent flow of sensory information.

 

 

http://cogprints.org/1084/00/Jap_9.html

[metatron]

Genes and Self-Organization

Maxson J. McDowell

A more general argument concerns the machinery of inheritance. I have only about 100,000 different genes while a bacterium has 3 to 5,000 genes (Alberts et. al., 1994, pp. 339-340). But my anatomy is astronomically more complex than that of a bacterium. It has been estimated that the human body contains about 5x1025 bits of information in the arrangement of its molecules while the human genome contains less than 109 bits of information. Again the disparity is of astronomical proportions. These numbers prove that my genes must be used economically. They must code for processes which enable my structure to evolve, but they are too few to form a "blueprint", or image, of my final structure (Calow 1976, pp. 101-103; Elman et. al., 1998, p. 319). My body's structure, therefore, must be emergent. An emergent structure is layered in distinct, successive levels of complexity; each level self-organizes with minimal guidance from the genes. Self-organization is directed by the inherent properties of the component parts (what fits with what). It is also directed by the inherent tendency of a dynamic system to assume an ordered form. I will say more about this later. Finally self-organization is directed by information from the environment (Elman et. al., 1998, pp. 319-323).See.... vesica attractor