what I just don't get about evolution (which Gaia theory seems to address) is how these little phyloplankton get so smart as to do stuff that we still can't do in a laboratory? like where does random change, or natural selection come up with these ideas...that horny shells are good defense for an example....it just seems that stupid things are sooo smart that something else must be driving - or pulling? - the whole process... Gaia sort of says it is the drive toward self-awareness or someting like that, which I think explains things better than brainless self-preservation. any thoughts on that?
It isn't so much random change so much as the best mutation for a particular variable is the one that survives the longest. By random mutations, I don't mean thrid arms or anything so drastic. Think instead of simple things. Things that can be observed in the human populace. speed of hair growth, body hair, things of that nature. While in our society, these things don't have too much influence over survival, take the same ideas and transplant them to lower organisms. In a colder climate, thicker hair that grows fast could mean higher chances for survival. The individuals that survive are the ones that have these traits. These traits then get spread to the next generations until they become commonplace. spikey shells probably started as a rough shell, then bumpy shells, then slightyl spikey, then sharp protruding spikey of death. it's just accentuation of what is already there.
Intelligence is basically information, regardless of how it is arranged or perceived. Why does a plant lean towards a light source? It knows its there more or less by instinct, clearly because its survival depends on it. Nonetheless it knows its there, though thanks largely to its chloroplast. Life or consciousness is not one thing; it’s the result of a fantastic and beleaguering division of labor. If I had one million clones of myself and can access their memories at any instance with telepathy I won’t have to learn too many things myself, I will depend on this division of labor. Thus if you take these clones as a single organism you will In turn see a single very smart organism. Thus the brilliance of working together; of division of labor. If the earth was thought of as a living entity by a stray alien colony and attempts to destroy it only to be stung by an array of missiles by us, the aliens will assume this living earth also has a defense mechanism. And it is the little things that count; it is the little things that support the big things. But why does chloroplast attract light? That’s like asking why dissimilar magnetic poles repel. Of cause this division of labor is what some have come to call nature; euphemism for “shit happens”. Life is everywhere. Get a boat load of greenbacks and start a business, hire people and impose a division of labor, all this leads to the life and death of a business. To me no one person or thing is responsible for life and there is no such thing as consciousness; euphemism for “what exactly is my job?”
A lot of people have difficulty grasping really large numbers. They can't understand just how many things can happen by sheer chance in, say, a billion years.
In a way, I really wish that this forum hadn't been started, but I can'r resist the temptation to reply. The "Gaia theory" states that earth is a living organism, which I would uncategorically reject. The earth contains countless living organism, but to say that these all add up to one big one called "earth" is absurd. Anyways, where are you getting these ideas that Gaia theory suggests the "phyloplankton get so smart"? They do not have a brain? Horny shells are and were good for defense, and still are: "horseshoe crabs." Gaia "drive toward self-awareness."? What does this mean? That the earth has a conscious?
I just seem to think that the drive to life is not as manifest as the drive to intelligence. sickle cell is an adaptation that let's you live (escape malaria), but not well. According to evolution, intelligence adaptd to further life. According to Gaia, life adapted to serve intelligence. when I say phyloplankton are "smart" , or that, the human knee joint is a brilliant breakthrough manuever, I am really asking: "HOW the hell did dumb nature come up with this stuff!!?" and the evolutions respond, by random selection finding that it works....but these are genetic changes....how do the genes change? what causes them to change?
Genes change because of mutation. Mutations come about through errors in transcription and due to damages to the DNA through outside influences such as radiation, radicals etc.
I liked your comments - thoughtful. I too am at least "not hostile" the the Gaia idea = Earth is a living organism. I raised bees for a couple of summers. Never got much honey, but got them thru a cold winter and generally became interested in them. It is not the standard view, but not rare either, that the hive is one living organism. The individual bees are just specialized cells of that organism. I put a little flour on one bee who, like several others that warm fall day, seemed to be on "ventulation duty," feet locked to one spot and wings beating furiously at the slit entrance of the hive. Then, I went into my woods and cut all the firewood my pickup would hold. When I went back, the flour marked bee was still on duty. From books I learned that bees are expendable, have no ability to do even minor self healing. In heavy nectar flow periods, they have about a three week life - they literaly "wear them selves out" serving the hive - storing honey they will never eat. Inside the hive, it is even more specialized. Each bee has a task, but as it gets older the task may change. I am firmly convenced the Hive is the living organism. One organism with physically separate, specialized, cells is the correct view of the living hive. My organism almost died that cold winter, but with sugar solution, I got it, not them thru. Thus, it is not very hard for me to accept the Gaia idea. No doubt humans will have a relatively short stay as a separate set of specialized cells of organism Gaia, compared to say the crocodle or scavengers - they eat the trash etc and vegatible matter is processed by worms, etc. There will always be a need for "trash colletctors" by living Gaia as far into the future as I can imagine, but the nature of the trash they must dispose of will surely change as the eons pass. I think is quite likely that inteligence will migrate into artificial forms (Perhaps with Google it is starting already - certainly Google is a lot more knowledgable than any 100 humans. This "smart creature" is already mobile. Just wait until it gets some arms, etc. Probably not too long to wait as more factories need ever more information to produce economically competive and desired products, "Just in time" inventroy control, etc. will tie all separte cells together.) I give humans much less than 10,000 years (a batting of the eye on Gaia's time scale) more to exist. I don't know if the wide spread of "bio-knowledge" in the wrong hands is more likely that "nuclear knowledge" to be the final nail in Gaia's experiment with "big intelect creatures" or not, but that seems (to me) to be the most likely self created path to extinction. As I said about bees, the individual cells of the greater Gaia organism are expendable.
By your own theoy about the hive being one organism...countries created and composed of people could fit that same role. You have stated that the individual bees have to reason to survive other than the well being of the hive. So, do you believe people are expendable to the existance of the planet/county/city/race? I have thought often about the idea of Gaia. Not necessarily as an intelligent being, but as a system similar to the human body. Living systems upon living systems interacting and evolving - built upon a nonliving frame. I have always wondered what the role of humans are in this scheme. We are the only space going "cells". Does that make us Gaia sperm? Hmmm, squigle squigle... - KitNyx
Dumb is the operative word. Consider the penis for a moment. If you were an engineer, would you be foolish enough to run a waste disposal system through the centre of a recreational area? I rest my case.
Gail's sperm - good idea KitNyx. I had not thought of it that way. General I am very opposed to "man in space." The 140 billion just proposed for sending man to Mars is much more likely to be 410 billion and man is just a problem in that he likes air food and water etc. whereas well designed instruments could get more information back at 10% of the cost, etc. but I will perhaps at least need to think if I really want to "stearlize Gaia." I am slightly dislexic and a poor typist. Two posts appeared while I was correcting /modifying mine - hope you will skim the final version again. It is signifiicantly changed. As to your quesion, certainly in wars, people are expendable ("Hold this bridge while we retreat.") I did not state anything about "bee's reasons" - I think most of what even humans do has little reason or purpose. - as someone here crudely put it "shit happens." I do not beleive even Gaia has a purpose. We human cells are just swept along with with flow to a large extent. the small ripples most of us make will be entirel gone in a 150 years. A few greats like Pasture, Einstein, Newton, Salk (polo vactunations) will still have significant impact ot the flow 1000 years from now, if any humans exist, and if we have been relpaced by intelligent machines, at leat the middle two listed will be influcing them still. PS I mentioned Pasture but Simelvise (not spelled correcty?) is the one who should be credited - lean who he was, especailly if you are a woman - he was considered crazy by his fellow doctors, gave himself child birth fever, etc to prove they should wash their hands before attending the next woman - "Ridiculus" they replied. It is the women who are filthy "down there." etc. They put him into an instutiution for the insane in Hungury, well before Pasture had ideas about germs.
According to evolution, life adapted to survive - whether it be "not well" or well. But when you say things like "phyloplankton are smart" you are attributing human characteristics to something non-human, which you can't do. That's called anthropomorphism. People always do that with their pets too. "Oh my cat is just being silly," or "that dog is really dumb because he doesn't bring back my frisbie." All these statements are probably not true. Who knows? I mean, that is not what the cat or dog is thinking: that is what we only think they are thinking, but how can we ever know unless we were or are a cat or dog. We can't. Its just guess work. But with assuming the entire earth has an intelligence - Gaia? Whoof!
That's not what James Lovelock intended is it? The intelligence bit. He just saw the Earth as many interlocked systems behaving like an organism. I copied this from the site http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/ Lovelock believes that "the self-regulation of climate and chemical composition is a process that emerges from the rightly coupled evolution of rocks, air and the ocean - in addition to that of organisms. Such interlocking self-regulation, while rarely optimal - consider the cold and hot places of the earth, the wet and the dry - nevertheless keeps the Earth a place fit for life." Does that seem plausible to you?
Yeah, but what happened out of Lovelock's original conception is that many of his succcessors and proponents started elaborating on his idea and now you read about GAIA as a single living entity. You're right though! And there is a partial self-regulation like that that goes on in the universe, but then we also have flare ups and electromagnetic fields from the sun, and background radiation as energy, and the effect of gravity from other galaxies, planets, and solar systems; but most importantly, nowadays, our own human effect on the Earth: pollution, changing the environment, ozone depletion, wars, atomic bombs, biogenetic plant alterations. Get's a lot more complex that just that.
The real question at hand, whose accepted answer does not satisfy many (inclduing me), is this: Does the colder climate CAUSE hair to grow in longer, thicker and faster, which then spreads by Natural Selection... or is the longer, thicker and faster-growing hair simply a "random mutation" that spread by Natural Selection? There is no incontrovertible proff either way, and anyone who says otherwise is simply attempting to interject his or her own opinion or agenda into science. That interjection seems to me to often be caused by the fear that accepting any kind of intentional driving mechanism behind evolution would be akin to saying "God did it". That fear is well justified, but causes people, in my opinion, to reject the idea of anything other than "random mutations" far too lightly without supporting evidence (though they sometimes incorrectly invoke the Principle of Parsimony) and that is irresponsble science. I believe this is the gap (or percieved gap, if you prefer) that fuzzywuz was suggesting Gaia may address in his opening post. I think the idea has merit. valich, First you stated: But then Hipparchia pointed out that it was not true, and not not at all what Lovelock intended or stated in his theory (which is completely correct). Not only does Gaia theory, as prsented by Lovelock not state this at all, he made concerted effort throughout his career to clarify that people misconstrued his theory and he was upset about how people twisted and misinterpreted his words. That's essentially what Lovelock was saying. I don't think you disagree with Lovelock as "uncategorically" as you claim. (By the way, did you mean "categorically" or am I misunderstanding?) I think you just do not understand what Gaia theory actually is or states. Have you ever actuallt read Lovelock's work, or are you basing your assumptions on second hand information and relying on others' interpretations?
Both The body is very adaptive, as getting tan at the beach (etc.) shows, but ony the mutation in the genes of the reproductive system's products is transmitted to the next generation.
Nature is sentient....a posh way of asying that Nature is alive...Intelligent. so there doesn't have to BE an outside force driving it, either 'mechancical' forces or 'divine' forces......matter is active intelligence, and is creative
All that is alive on Earth is one super-organism, I call LIFE It is ONE thing and not many........ Think about that, then you will understand that LIFE is by design and knows what it is doing. It knows that this chemical in this tree bark will cure malaria in human beings, for instance.... it was designed that way from the start... the integration of life forms is not accidental, You may think adaption is beyond understanding, well the biochemistry that spans the whole super-organism LIFE is just beyond belief..... and you all take it for granted.... it is invisible to you..... Humankind are motile cells of a plant, a fungus to be precise. And LIFE is not interested in human affairs, it is already ready to drop all its flowers to the ground to rot.
Does it have any connection with the other LIFEs in the Universe? Does it always come with CAPITAL LETTERS? You don't believe in duality - spirit and matter; yin and yang; male and female - no? You don't believe in the Holy Trinity? You don't believe in the multiplicity of quarks, protons, atoms, molecules, organelles, cells, organs, entities, ecologies and biospheres? A rock is one thing, not many. Is it by design? Does it know what it is doing? Who said it was? You may think that - be my guest. I don't. Beyond your belief URI, not beyond mine. You are the one taking for granted that we are as disconnected from reality and existence as you are. Not so. Not in every case. But relax, I can guide you if you wish. That would explain the crotch rot, certainly. Is LIFE sentient? Is LIFE sapient? (Is URI sentient?)
