Re: Announcing A New Unifying Principle of the Evolutionary Sciences


"Jim McGinn" <jimmcginn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:docukg$1brp$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Announcing A New Unifying Principle of the Evolutionary Sciences:
>
>
> The biota (the sum of all lifeforms) is a naturally occurring purposeful
> entity that continually calculates the design (morphology) and
> distribution
> (location) of it's constituent parts (lifeforms) that will maximize the
> probability that life will survive into eternity. This also involves
> making
> changes to the atmosphere (and the environment in general) which effects
> shifts in climate toward the same end. Catastrophic events are the
> computational input to this calculatory entity in that they cause the
> death/extinction of many parts of Gaia. This serves as the information
> that the biota employs to calculate and achieve a new design and
> distribution of it's constituent parts (and the atmosphere) that Gaia
> calculates/predicts will better prepare it for surviving into eternity.
>
>
>
> This description of the biota serves as the bridge to conceptually unify
> evolutionary biology (Darwinism) with the following:
>
> 1) Physics
>
> 2) The Science of Complexity (and Chaos Theory and computational
> theory)
>
> 3) Punctuated Equilibrium (and other observations associated with
> paleontology)
>
>
>
> More precisely, and to kind of sum it up, this new scientific principle
> provides us the framework-by way of some explanatory assistance from the
> science of complexity--upon which to view evolutionary phenomena as the
> result of a naturally occurring, calculatory process (as scary as that
> thought may be) which offers us predictions that, I contend, will prove to
> be consistent with the paleontological record (the fossil evidence) in
> general and with "punctuated equilibrium" in particular.
>
>
>
> Jim
>

Jim,

I recognize a pattern in your thinking, I think..., that I recognize in my
own. Not saying I'm right, but
I get the impression that you -- like me -- can have an entire complex
concept or idea come in the batting of an eye -- a sort of Joycean
epiphany -- that flashes into the consciousness in a thousandth of a second
and that would take sometimes at least 5,000 words to communicate to others.

When such an idea comes and we try to communicate it in a mere one or two
hundred words, it comes out like intellectual mush.

But I think I'm reading your flash, dude, rather than the mush that the
first effort at articulation indicates.
So, let me make a few comments, and then you straighten out my (also first
gush) response. I'll copy and past and interject my comments:

> Announcing A New Unifying Principle of the Evolutionary Sciences:
>
Might that mean an epiphanical flash of insight into a concept of a possible
synthesis of biotic "life" as a single unit? There are those who view Earth
as a single living unit. And the notion of all the seeming non-living stuff
as being a part of the seemingly living stuff is not so far fetched as some
might deduce in a knee-jerk. If we were to break down a human body into
pure substances, we would end up with H-two-O, carbon, calcium, etc., etc.,
etc. none of which, in and of itself alone fits a definition of "living."
And, even if we do not break apart these things, we could look at the
stomach acid mixture (mostly hydrocloric acid and water) and see that is is
not living. We could look at a bone in a mature adult and see that it is
not living, although there might be some living tissue at the ends. And, as
a matter of fact, if we removed from a human body all that is not living,
the living part would be killed instantly by that very insult.

Not only is the human body not made up primarily of living stuff but, also,
as viewed in its "living condition" it cannot even sustain its own life
without other forms of life in place, such as the gut bacteria without which
we would starve to death or leak vital fluids or fall victim to some
opportunistic enemical life forms just waiting in the eaves to invade us.

> The biota (the sum of all lifeforms) is a naturally occurring purposeful
> entity that continually calculates the design (morphology) and
> distribution
> (location) of it's constituent parts (lifeforms) that will maximize the
> probability that life will survive into eternity.

This is getting a bit "strong," if I may say so. Yes, it is true that all
life on Earth is related. For all we know (but cannot be certain) all flora
and fauna MAY have descended (ascended?) from a single first
living form. Yes, also, we can accurately deduce that all the carbon-based
living forms can be grouped together as specializations playing on a single
theme. (Defining the precise nature of that theme might be an interesting
challenge, due to the huge amount of diversity in forms and functions, kinds
of energy conversions, and sizes and shapes and mechanisms of coping... but
there seems to be a good possibility that a single, unifying theme might be
found. Being sure might take a lot of work and a lot of fudging to get
disparate things all to fit. But... MAYbe.

> changes to the atmosphere (and the environment in general) which effects
> shifts in climate toward the same end.

Stretching pretty thin here. You could be interpreted as saying that what
unifies everything is the fact it is in, on, or attached to, or involved
with the Earth, and THEREFORE all of it is... in, on, or attached to, or
involved with the Earth. This is tantamount to saying little more than, "A
is B and THEREFORE B is A. That does not ring a genius bell, exactly.

>Catastrophic events are the computational input to this calculatory entity
>in that they cause the
> death/extinction of many parts of Gaia.

A catastrophic causality hypothesis, by itself alone, fails to take into
account all the slow, incremental, cumulative changes brought about by what
goes on in between catastrophic events. You would have to come up with an
enormous amount of compelling hard evidence to sell me on such a "partial"
view of causality.

>This serves as the information
> that the biota employs to calculate and achieve a new design and
> distribution of it's constituent parts (and the atmosphere) that Gaia
> calculates/predicts will better prepare it for surviving into eternity.

This waxes into what might be pure poetic license or metaphysics. Just as
with the surface of Earth as changed drastically, within certain locales, by
earthquakes and volcanos... the surface terrain of Earth is not changed ONLY
by such collosal episodes alone, but by the water-weather cycle in which
water evaporates, rises, condenses, falls as precipitation, erodes the land,
flows into reservoirs and tributaries that cumulate and flow into the sea...
etc. , it would be naive of us to imagine that the terrain is changed only
by the big stuff. Furthermore, earthquakes and volcanos themselves are
products of very slow, incremental processes. So it is only in a very
poetic way that there is any credence to the idea that Earth surface changes
are all about the big events.

Am not saying these incremental influences on Earth's surface are "life."
Am just saying that processes, such as the averaged-out whole of living
things on Earth are not the whole story of Earth-life, any more than
earthquakes and volcanos are the whole story of changes in Earth's surface.
>
>
>
> This description of the biota serves as the bridge to conceptually unify
> evolutionary biology (Darwinism) with the following:
>
> 1) Physics

This is at best a poetic or impressionistic conceptual unification. Without
an enormous amount of detailed tying together of the DETAILS of biological
phenomena and theories of physics, it is little more than a huge, sweeping
gush.
>
> 2) The Science of Complexity (and Chaos Theory and computational
> theory)

Same as above.
>
> 3) Punctuated Equilibrium (and other observations associated with
> paleontology)

Punctuated equilibrium is only as accurate as it describes the fact that
evolutionary changes have seemingly crept along in some time periods and
galloped along in others. As far as being an established "law" or
"principle" or tidy explanation of anything... that is far from established.
Slow and fast "happen." But as to hard data to support exactly why or how
they happen... that is highly controversial and debatable.
>
>
>
> More precisely, and to kind of sum it up, this new scientific principle
> provides us the framework-by way of some explanatory assistance from the
> science of complexity--upon which to view evolutionary phenomena as the
> result of a naturally occurring, calculatory process (as scary as that
> thought may be) which offers us predictions that, I contend, will prove to
> be consistent with the paleontological record (the fossil evidence) in
> general and with "punctuated equilibrium" in particular.

That a cognitively useful concept has synthesized in your mind, relating to
how all Earth-life may be
viewed as consisting of a collective "life unit" is not in question, so far
as I am concerned. That it is THE answer to a wholistic Earth-life reality,
which consists to the exclusion of any other unifying view is quite another
thing.

That this epiphanical view is worth considerable further thought and
discussion is not asserting too much. But that it is any kind of
breakthrough into a great new synthesis... sorry. To make such a case would
require a mountain of evidence all pointing to this single view, and all
tied together into a
seamless and knotfree chain of connected ideology and unquestionable
intertwinings.

With all due credit to good creative thinking. This barely gets the raw
idea across. And it falls FAR short of representing a well-developed,
compelling argumentation for its qualifications to be called a "principle."

With all due respect, these comments are not meant to disparage but merely
to encourage a lot more thought, a lot more organization, and a lot more
detail than has been tendered by you yet. I am saying I am totally
unconvinced... not totally opposed, nor totally uninterested.

g




.

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