How best to see outside your own culture, beyond the ideas in vogue?

[thedoc]

Evolution is change to adapt to an environment, but not all change is evolution. Evolution happens from one generation to the next, not within one individual.

[Obvious Leo]

Evolution is change to adapt to an environment, but not all change is evolution. Evolution happens from one generation to the next, not within one individual.

This statement is bullshit, doc, and any high school biology teacher will confirm that it is bullshit. Your body evolves throughout its life through the process of cellular mitosis. This process is called adaptation.

[Obvious Leo]

Hobbes. I've told you time and time again that speciation is a particular subset of the evolutionary process and not evolution itself. I truly thought all the Darwinists were dead but it seems not. Almost all biological evolution takes place at the molecular level and is then expressed upwards through a hierarchy of structural complexity. THE ENTIRE BIOSPHERE IS EVOLVING IN THIS WAY. I originally trained as a molecular biologist and I've closely followed the literature throughout my life but I have no intention of arguing with you further on this matter. You are free to believe what you like.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Hobbes. I've told you time and time again that speciation is a particular subset of the evolutionary process and not evolution itself. I truly thought all the Darwinists were dead but it seems not. Almost all biological evolution takes place at the molecular level and is then expressed upwards through a hierarchy of structural complexity. THE ENTIRE BIOSPHERE IS EVOLVING IN THIS WAY. I originally trained as a molecular biologist and I've closely followed the literature throughout my life but I have no intention of arguing with you further on this matter. You are free to believe what you like.

You've not really said in what way. You imply everything but have little to say of substance. (like your psychic ducks)
Whatever you might say about the promiscuity of DNA between microbial lifeforms (which are NOT the 'entire biosphere" by any means), somatic evolution still has to run the gauntlet of natural selection by which their genome is transmitted to subsequent generations.

[thedoc]

I have no intention of arguing with you further on this matter. You are free to believe what you like.

Thankyou.

[thedoc]

I originally trained as a molecular biologist and I've closely followed the literature throughout my life.

I am truly sorry for your loss.

[Obvious Leo]

Hobbes. We're talking about two different things, which is why there's no connection being made. Undoubtedly DNA is the fundamental unit of heredity but this is only a tangential function of its role. The primary function of DNA is to orchestrate the metabolism of a living organism and it does this by encoding for the manufacture of proteins. Every DNA molecule in your body is continuously doing this and yet only the smallest fraction of these DNA molecules are what we might call "human" DNA. You're an entire ecosystem comprised of tens of thousands of different species of organism, each of which is evolving. It is this evolutionary trajectory OF THE ENTIRE SYSTEM which determines how proteins are expressed and it is literally true to say that a cell never replicates in the same way twice because of it. As a cancer survivor you'll be well aware of what "rogue" cell division can lead to but in most cases dodgy replicants are simply excreted from the system.

You seem to be focusing too much on what DNA is and assuming that our bodily processes are being determined by whatever genes we may have inherited. This is only a tiny part of the story because the important thing about DNA is not about what it is but about what it DOES and this changes throughout our lives. Via the microbiome what our DNA does is also transmissable between individuals, between species and across generations. Its most profound influence is in utero. When the two haploid strands of DNA zip together to form a zygote we can truly speak of an individual organism. However by the time this individual emerges into the world 9 months later he's an entire ecosystem symbiotically interwoven into a vast biosphere. What his DNA will do from then on can never be known, even in principle, because the causal dynamics of such an interwoven system are non-computable.

To understand evolution properly you really need to take the individual out of the equation altogether and just look at the bigger picture. it is ALL OF LIFE which is evolving and we're just tagging along for the ride.

[Hobbes' Choice]

Hobbes. We're talking about two different things, which is why there's no connection being made. Undoubtedly DNA is the fundamental unit of heredity but this is only a tangential function of its role. The primary function of DNA is to orchestrate the metabolism of a living organism and it does this by encoding for the manufacture of proteins. Every DNA molecule in your body is continuously doing this and yet only the smallest fraction of these DNA molecules are what we might call "human" DNA. You're an entire ecosystem comprised of tens of thousands of different species of organism, each of which is evolving. It is this evolutionary trajectory OF THE ENTIRE SYSTEM which determines how proteins are expressed and it is literally true to say that a cell never replicates in the same way twice because of it. As a cancer survivor you'll be well aware of what "rogue" cell division can lead to but in most cases dodgy replicants are simply excreted from the system.

Positing this as "a system" is a fallacy. It is chaotic, with survival being rewarded by persistence. There is no systematicality to this process.

You seem to be focusing too much on what DNA is and assuming that our bodily processes are being determined by whatever genes we may have inherited.

No - you are inventing this because you have a need to say the following....

This is only a tiny part of the story because the important thing about DNA is not about what it is but about what it DOES and this changes throughout our lives.

Which is not relevant, because the germ cells of the gametes are not related to survival of quotidian efforts of our lives.

Via the microbiome what our DNA does is also transmissable between individuals, between species and across generations.
Its most profound influence is in utero. When the two haploid strands of DNA zip together to form a zygote we can truly speak of an individual organism. However by the time this individual emerges into the world 9 months later he's an entire ecosystem symbiotically interwoven into a vast biosphere. What his DNA will do from then on can never be known, even in principle, because the causal dynamics of such an interwoven system are non-computable.

A child is a consequence of the recombination of the germs cells. You can't get over that.

To understand evolution properly you really need to take the individual out of the equation altogether and just look at the bigger picture. it is ALL OF LIFE which is evolving and we're just tagging along for the ride.

I note you have continued to avoid the subject of peanut allergy.

[Obvious Leo]

Positing this as "a system" is a fallacy. It is chaotic, with survival being rewarded by persistence. There is no systematicality to this process.

Utter bullshit. Chaotic processes are self-organising from the simple to the complex and this is what defines the biosphere as a SYSTEM.

A child is a consequence of the recombination of the germs cells. You can't get over that.

I'm not denying it but the development of the child is another matter altogether.

I note you have continued to avoid the subject of peanut allergy.

I offered peanut allergy as an example of a genetic trait which can spread rapidly through a population with no reference to inter-generational heredity. Peanut allergies are all about how genes are expressed and nothing else. Are you suggesting that the sudden increase in this trait is due to Darwinian natural selection?

[Hobbes' Choice]

Utter bullshit. Chaotic processes are self-organising from the simple to the complex and this is what defines the biosphere as a SYSTEM.?

really - this is all of value you said but I think you might need to rearrange what is a complete contradiction in terms.


Chaotic processes are self-organising from the simple to the complex and this is what defines the biosphere Is utter Bullshit.

A "SYSTEM" implies a whole, there is no whole here except the rare emergence of energy demanding co-operative macro organisms.
To imply this is a system is to pretend that it is goal driven, when the goal is retrodictive.
And that's who evolution work; unintentional consequences whose persistence has the effect of evolution. Evolution is not a cause.

[Obvious Leo]

A "SYSTEM" implies a whole, there is no whole here except the rare emergence of energy demanding co-operative macro organisms.
To imply this is a system is to pretend that it is goal driven, when the goal is retrodictive.
And that's who evolution work; unintentional consequences whose persistence has the effect of evolution. Evolution is not a cause.

You've completely missed the point of what evolution is, Hobbes. The entire system evolves from the simple to the complex precisely BECAUSE it is not goal driven. ALL chaotically determined natural systems do this, whether living or non-living. It's why stars form, for instance.

[Hobbes' Choice]

A "SYSTEM" implies a whole, there is no whole here except the rare emergence of energy demanding co-operative macro organisms.
To imply this is a system is to pretend that it is goal driven, when the goal is retrodictive.
And that's who evolution work; unintentional consequences whose persistence has the effect of evolution. Evolution is not a cause.

You've completely missed the point of what evolution is, Hobbes. The entire system evolves from the simple to the complex precisely BECAUSE it is not goal driven. ALL chaotically determined natural systems do this, whether living or non-living. It's why stars form, for instance.

I can see how this applies to living systems. Not stars.

[Obvious Leo]

I can see how this applies to living systems. Not stars.

Stars and their associated planetary systems self-organise out of clouds of interstellar gas and dust. There is no physical law of any sort which mandates that they must do this beyond the law of cause and effect. In chaotic determinism the motion of every single physical entity in the universe is causally determined by the motion of every other and this alone is enough to ensure that matter will coalesce with other matter. In the language of statistical thermodynamics which is used in physics we say that the kinetic energy of matter in motion is transformed into gravitational potential energy. This is a fundamental property of physical reality and it is scale invariant.

[Hobbes' Choice]

I can see how this applies to living systems. Not stars.

Stars and their associated planetary systems self-organise out of clouds of interstellar gas and dust. There is no physical law of any sort which mandates that they must do this beyond the law of cause and effect. .

Except that all matter seems to have an affinity to other matter and tends to congregate. I know you don't like the idea of "Laws", but they tend to call that gravity.
It does this until black holes start to appear. Well that's the story anyway.

[Obvious Leo]

Except that all matter seems to have an affinity to other matter and tends to congregate. I know you don't like the idea of "Laws", but they tend to call that gravity.
It does this until black holes start to appear. Well that's the story anyway.

That's the story and it's a pretty hard story to find a flaw with on the basis of the evidence. However it's been known since Newton that gravity is not something which can be modelled as a "force" but must instead be regarded as a fundamental property of the universe. This was confirmed by Einstein in GR when he showed that gravity was actually an alternative expression for time, or the rate of change in a physical system, and this interwoven relationship between gravity and the rate of physical change has been empirically validated many times over.

It is the inversely logarithmic relationship between gravity and time which causes matter to cohere with other matter and this gives rise to emergent properties in the more complex matter thus encoded for. These emergent properties in turn then allow the more complex matter forms to form yet more complex structures in a hierarchy of informational complexity which eventually leads to complex molecules, to molecular evolution and ultimately to life. It is in this way that evolution from the simple to the complex must be regarded as the fundamental self-organising principle of reality and ONLY chaotically determined systems are capable of generating complexity in this way. It is for this reason that modern biology is seen as an information theory and no modern biologist makes a metaphysical distinction between "life" and "non-life". What we generically call "life" is nothing more than inanimate matter which has evolved to a certain level of informational complexity and there is simply no meaningful line in the sand at which this occurs. This is a fundamental truth of reality which is not further reducible, as any complexity theorist will confirm.