Re: Article: On the Great Chain of Being


Bill Morse wrote:
>
>
>> Well, even Gould (who was very much against the notion of "higher")
>> agreed with the notion of "more complex" as a valid category. He of
>> course did not think "more complex" was inevitable, other than as a
>> result of a drunkard's walk argument. Staying away from the question of
>> complexity as an expected direction in evolution, I think it _is_ both a
>> reasonably neutral phrase and one that has validity. Now one can argue
>> with the particular transitions chosen by Smith and Szathmary, but there
>> do seem to have been transitions in evolution that have led to further
>> elaborations in evolution. As a recent example, the invention of the
>> printing press is a significant event in the evolution of human culture,
>> although I don't know if it is listed by Smith and Szathmary, precisely
>> because it allowed for much more rapid and accurate "inheritance" of
>> beneficial "mutations" in knowledge.
>>
>> Similarly, the reason for considering a hypertrophied brain more
>> significant than a hypertrophied lung is that it allows for a similar
>> leveraging of the process of natural selection. If it did not, then it
>> would be simply anthropocentrism.

Bill,

After letting the above fester a while, my thoughts on it are these:

First let me say that there are a lot of variables to think through.

Is it ascertainable that no specie has become increasingly complexified
(perhaps an original coinage) and, by virtue of that, became increasingly
incapable of mutating in new directions necessitated by drastic changes
in the ecology it was in.

Bear with me, as this is brainstorming, but is highly complex, or
hypertrophied morphology of an organism in whole or in part necessarily
conducive to further adaptation (retorical but posed for thought). Or, to
take a different slant, is more complexity necessarily more... or less...
adaptive to new filters.

Or, let me ask it this way: When is enough adaptation enough, and any
other elaboration beyond that point excess. Would a warior be better
equip to survive (or prevail) in battle if he were to include among his
accouterments every weapon there is, every kind of shield that could be
carried, a sword, a knife, a bow, a quiver of arrows, a javeline, a
truncheon,
an ax and even a bagpipe?

I am not being argumentative here. I am thinking aloud...

Surely there must be a limit attaching to one specialization as over against
another. We do know that wealth and high IQ do not have a high correlation
in the world today. And high IQ seems to be an encumbrance for elective
political office (and, in my opinion certain decisions that were influenced
by
such brilliant people as Paul Wolfowitz, who in addition to a marvelous
brain is also a notorious hawk and Donald Rumsfeld who, despite a marvelous
brain is notorious in taking a bit into his mouth and running with it,
against
the advice of every military expert in or out of the military or the
Pentagon
who said we needed to get a sufficient number of troops on the ground at the
beginning in Iraq to prevent some things that did not get prevented... such
as
the stashing and concealment of weapons by clandestine opponents, and now
have come back to haunt us... although it is politically incorrect to state
such
unhidable facts) there is more to prevailing over others in determining or
influencing mass actions than mere brilliance. So, I cannot help but
wonder:
what KIND. or what MIX of brain attributes is more elaborate. Or... from
another slant... is diversity of brain attribute mixes an advantage. Dr.
Einstein
was a profound pacifist. But whether that was a product of his experiences
as
a Jewish child in the early days of the Third Reich, we cannot know.

Generalizations are easy to make, but hard to justify, so don't let any of
these
thoughts get chisled in stone just yet. It's just brainstorming.

But does it not seem likely that specialization (or "differentiation") could
be
viewed, in accordance with some characteristics of organisms as being more
survival prone if they have fewer differentions to have to change when
change
comes along. For example, could it be that Millipede (Narceus americanus)
owes the fact of its resemblance to ancestors millions of years ago to a
kind
of differentiation that was back then at once BOTH at a virtual dead end for
going anywhere from there... (reached the top of a Sartre-style staircase)
AND
capable of contending with many of the ecological changes.

If so then this raises the question of whether elaboration along a certain
line
of differentiation (on one case, many, many legs) need not NECESSARILY
present a concommitant risk of obsolescence of the differentiated
hypertrophy
either.

Gracious. There are so awfully many variables to consider...

Having the capacity to pour so many things into the mix can render
generalizations
more difficult to come by for some of us. Hopefully when those so accursed
DO
come up with a synthesis of so much, however, it may be of some practical
use in
the world... even if it does not conduce to the aquisition of wealth, nor
access to an
elected public office... nor to being able to write, say, for a newspaper
that is perused
by readers wishing to have life's issues watered down and delivered in an
easy to
understand way.

You and I, I suspect, are not appeased with broad sweeping generalizations
brought
to rein by cutting off the legs of the beast and extracting its teeth,
first, and then
sitting on the carcass and voicing simple statements about it.


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