Evolution of Intelligence (Origins)

by Balance_Maintained , U.S.A., Sunday, March 31, 2013, 18:48 (4036 days ago) @ dhw

DHW: Then I wonder why you only mentioned randomness and competition.-Because your hypothesis demands all three, but there is no room for randomness and competition at the lowest levels. Elementary particles and sub-atomic particles behave with exacting precision within very specific tolerances. It is this very thing that makes science as we know it even possible. That type of precision does not happen among individuals cooperating without some common purpose, practice, or guidance. Cooperation, perfectly executed, could indeed do great things, hence the reason I left it alone, however, it is not sufficient to explain the observations.-> 
> TONY: The problem is that cooperation does not explain the unity of the design, not to mention exponentially complicating the issue of 'first intelligence' by making it happen not once, but numerous times.
> 
> Design entails different elements combining into a functioning unit. -Correction: Design entails combining different elements into a functioning unit.-What you described is straight Darwinian evolution. -The engineer doesn't allow stuff to happen without pre-planning. Neither does he throw sticks in a pile and expect a house to appear. Rather, he studies his building materials intently, learning everything there is to know about them, and then uses that knowledge to put them together in an arrangement that suits the purpose he is trying to achieve. Information BEFORE implementation, not information FROM implementation.-> 
> You wrote: "The Genome is a chunk of code that reacts the way that it is programmed to react." Does this mean your God individually programmes cells, ants, wolves, citizens, flowers and bumble bees to cooperate? Or are you saying that he invented a mechanism which would enable them all to work out their own particular designs?
> -There is a concept in object oriented programming called 'Instantiation' in which a template is used to create new and unique objects. Now, the blueprint itself covers every major aspect that any instance spawned from it will have, but it does not limit those instances to ONLY containing the information from the blue print. Variables, can be passed from various elements to help shape the way each instance will appear, but any variable that falls out side of the spec of the blueprint will cause an error and be discarded. So, to answer your question, he did both. He designed the base blueprint for each "kind" of creature, but allowed for variability within certain tolerances.-
> As regards 'first intelligence', I look forward very much to hearing your own hypothesis as to how a single entity of mindless energy might have acquired it.
> -I would point you to Ken Perlin. Patterns often emerge from random noise and become self-sustaining in terms of organization. Once the pattern has emerged, there is information their to learn from. So there is no need for matter to have been created prior to intelligence or information. YHWH refers to himself as "I am". How apropos that "I think therefore I am". -
>DHW: The energy in my mind is acquiring information all the time by its interplay with matter and with other energies. That is why I am suggesting that a single, pure energy would have nothing to learn. Hence my questions.-Introspective.. It could learn about it's own properties. Since waves comprise the foundation of nearly everything, I find that concept particularly fitting. ->DHW: In my scenario, energy mindlessly forms matter, and instead of energy becoming aware of nothing in particular, it becomes aware of the changing matter it is embedded in. You can if you like say it's lucky that individual "intelligences" were disposed to cooperate in the creation of life (and continue to do so). But then I can say it's lucky that your eventually intelligent God was disposed to creating life instead of spending eternity contemplating his energy. All we know is that life has resulted from cooperation. Whether that was directed by a single "intelligence" outside matter or by individual "intelligences" inside matter is pure speculation.-
I personally will disagree, and say that we know all life has resulted from unity, which is something that is extremely difficult to attribute to cooperation.

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What is the purpose of living? How about, 'to reduce needless suffering. It seems to me to be a worthy purpose.