Rapid evolution or epigenetics? (Introduction)

by dhw, Sunday, March 06, 2011, 15:36 (5011 days ago) @ David Turell

I have suggested that innovations may be produced by internal mechanisms that have some form of intelligence of their own, as opposed to being programmed by a UI to lead evolution to humanity, or being thrown up by random mutations.-DAVID: You are theorizing completely. I have presumed a directed pattern. Then I look and see the adaptation abilities with directed allow for any sudden environmental or predatory dangers. A wise director made this kind of direct plan. Wa la! bush. Your bush comes from a different source and mechanism, and the bushes will be similar in overall appearance and different in internal pattern. We are all even!-I am indeed theorizing, and your presuming carries no more authority than my theorizing. My focus is on innovation, not adaptation, but it makes no difference here, as I'm NOT excluding your "wise director". We're talking about the SAME bush, but your mechanism is pre-programmed and mine has a degree of autonomy ... see below.
 
DAVID: My poodle is very intelligent. He is conscious and aware of what he needs to do. [...] But he is not 'aware that he is aware'. Neither were the termites who took to build big mounds. [...] Those insects have no consciousness, but like the poodle are conscious and aware of proper things to do, by instinct.-I'm happy to accept the oxymoron of unconscious consciousness. Using your terminology (termitology?), here is my version: somewhere within DNA lurks a mechanism ... perhaps deliberately created by a UI ... which, like your poodle and my termites, is "very intelligent", has "no consciousness", but is conscious and able to invent every so often a new, inheritable organ (just as the ancestor termite invented the first mound). Your version (correct me if I'm wrong): somewhere within DNA lurks a mechanism ... deliberately created by a UI ... which, unlike your poodle and my termites, has no intelligence or unconscious consciousness, but has been programmed to invent every so often a new, inheritable organ. Same result: new organs, new species, the evolutionary bush.-DAVID: Insects are conscious, as I stated above. The anthropocentric interpretation of evolution is from the conclusion that DNA and its layers of control cannot have been developed by chance. There is no code we know of within human endeavor that is not created by intellect. This code in DNA is extremely efficient, transmits extraordinary amounts of information, and information cannot be created by chance. Try monkeys, a typewriter and a Shakespeare sonnet.-I have frequently mounted precisely the same argument against chance, and my suggestion encompasses the possible deliberate creation by a UI. Your anthropocentric version, as opposed to my let's-see-what-it-comes-up-with version, is therefore derived solely from your presumption of a pattern directed towards the goal of humanity. I admit that my suggestion is pure speculation, but so is yours. (Of course, I think mine fits in far better with the higgledy-piggledy, hello-goodbye, where's-this-leading evolutionary bush, not to mention the UI's apparent absence of interest in what you believe to be the main object of his attentions. But hey, I'll still grant your speculation equality with mine!)