Re: Earth Day Essay: Space program may allow climate repair/defense

"jonathon" <three@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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>
> "Pete Lynn" <pete@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:Nwrae.21242$5F3.1560@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> >
> > While the human perspective remains within the context
> > of Earth, I doubt humanity will embrace such
> > responsibility. We will continue to acquiesce to some
> > "higher power" whether it be god, some green thing, or
> > even evolution. What a strange one that is, I study
> > evolution so as to thwart its limitations, not give in to
> > them. People will believe in anything if it enables them
> > to avoid taking responsibility.
>
>
> Limitations? Such as?

Been a while, lets see, a useful analogy for evolution is that of a
dynamic control system, actually in the neural network context it is not
really an analogy.

Evolution operates by small increments and is without direction.
Evolution is far more interested in the next meal than in preventing
mass extinction, which is why so few species, (and so very few
individuals), survive such events.

Back to the dynamic control system analogy, evolution naturally refines
itself to within ever narrower margins of optimal behaviour for a given
environment, in the process loosing adaptability. This is advantageous
in the short term, then a long comes some mass ecological shift and that
species that has evolved itself into a corner is now left high and dry,
and dies off.

It is often the case, (Darwin said this), that competition within one's
species is greater than competition without. Hence we get these
situations where males are breed for ever increasing size , or peacocks
grow ever larger tails, evolving out of their original environmental
niche, and because they can not evolve back again over night, some
factor can easily push them over the edge, and they all die off.

Evolution has other limitations, for example, it does not directly
incorporate the great wealth of neural understanding. Intelligence is
mitigating this somewhat, and evolution is using that, however, before
long evolution will bind such intelligence to its own short term goals.

Back to the control system analogy, for humanity to survive we must
actively use our intelligence to maximise our adaptability - at the anti
evolutionary, short term survival expense of some individuals. The best
way of ensuring that we retain that high degree of adaptability is to
continually push ourselves into new environments. If we let stagnation
catch up with us, then we will quickly evolve into that stagnation and
even more quickly loose the capacity to evolve out of it - stagnation is
death.

Our extent of freedom can be considered to be out extent of
adaptability. The gap between what we are capable of and what our
environment demands of us to survive. As we evolve into our
environment, that gap diminishes, we evolve to the limits of local
resources and have no resources left over to advance beyond current
environments, we become trapped within our immediate environment.

This is why space is so imperative, we have to use our intelligence to
override our evolutionary impulses and make the leap while we still have
the capacity. The longer we wait, the more we evolve into our
environment the less chance we have. That is a very slippery slope,
once it starts the whole species will quickly be sucked in.

Currently our technological know how continues to increase and our
economies continue to grow, it is necessary to make that jump now while
we can.

Pete.




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Relevant Pages

  • Re: Beneficial mutations (Was: Re: Challenge for Darwinists)
    ... If you want to argue that evolution has not occured, in that time span, ... The chance of that mutation being done is exactly the same as the ... speaking of the environment. ... The umbrella function, reproduction, is the thing that is maintained. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: To Garamond: Genesis Commentary
    ... individual mutation as my meaning. ... negative influences in the environment. ... evolution is defined as the change of allele frequencies over ... Babylonian creation god. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: To Garamond: Genesis Commentary
    ... A species can change radically over ... negative influences in the environment. ... The fact that some aspects of evolution are treated as though they are ... am I certain that my interpretation of Genesis is correct? ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: To Garamond: Genesis Commentary
    ... A species can change radically over ... negative influences in the environment. ... And the healthier immune system is more able to defend itself, ... The fact that some aspects of evolution are treated as though they are ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Speculative Design Hypothesis (with predictions)
    ... Life comes from life. ... Evolution show exactly how the complex has come from the ... adjusted well enough to the environment to reproduce. ... As for random mutation not being the cause of variation; ...
    (talk.origins)