"Causality" or "determinism"?
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From: Darwin123 on 8 Mar 2010 16:49 On Mar 5, 10:27 pm, Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On 5 Mar., 21:20, Luke Campbell <lwc...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > On Mar 4, 5:37 pm, Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > 2. > > > Isn't it obvious to anybody that mammals are more complex than, say, > > > amphibians? > > > No. Not obvious at all. > > > This is an example of species chauvinism with no biological support. > > It is not! > > > In fact, the biochemistry of amphibians tends to be more complex than > > that of mammals, if for no other reason than they need proteins which > > work over a wide temperature range, whereas we mammals can hyper- > > specialize to a very narrow temperature range at which to carry on our > > bio-chemical processes necessary to life. > >The more complex the > environment, the more complex the adaptation. This does not at all follow. >As plant and animal life > become more complex, a process of upwardly spiralling complexity is > taking place. While many species are adapted to very narrow > conditions, humans have transcended this stagnation and can adapt > dynamically to almost all environments. Humans are adapted to simplify their environment. Human beings can destroy a forest to make farmland, or to dig a mine. However, the environment has become simpler. All over the world, jungles are being destroyed to make farmland. As far as I know, only one people manage to live in jungles almost exclusively. Only the pygmy bushmen actually live in the middle of a jungle. Although many aboriginal peoples are said to live in the jungle, most of them are low tech farmers. They have to destroy the jungle to live in it. They are incapable of living in a true jungle. I will not say whether this is good or bad. Maybe the farmers are happier than the bushmen. Maybe they always were. However, I will argue that the popularity of farming is precisely because it entails living in a simpler environment. Hunting and gathering is rather complex for the individual. Lets get away from humans, since there is emotional baggage associated with them. Let us look at insects. Honey bees are social and bumble bees are solitary. However, the honey bee does not developed a rich behavior to deal with a complicated environment. The honey bee simplifies its environment. It goes into an extremely complicate tree cavity, and lines it with wax in a simple geometric pattern. As Darwin showed, the change in behavior that makes a honeybee social is not a complicated behavior. The honeybee merely has a smaller comfort zone than a bumble bee. There is almost not change in behavior necessary to make a hive. In fact, making the hive makes its environment simpler. Conclusion: The correlation between complex behavior and complex environment is weak.
From: Tue Sorensen on 8 Mar 2010 18:03 On 8 Mar., 21:51, Darwin123 <drosen0...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On Mar 5, 11:04 pm, Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > On 6 Mar., 04:26, Peter Knutsen <pe...(a)sagatafl.invalid> wrote: > > > > On 05/03/2010 21:20, Luke Campbell wrote: > > > > > On Mar 4, 5:37 pm, Tue Sorensen<sorenson...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > >> 2. > > > >> Isn't it obvious to anybody that mammals are more complex than, say, > > > >> amphibians? > > > > > No. Not obvious at all. > > > > > This is an example of species chauvinism with no biological support.. > > > > In fact, the biochemistry of amphibians tends to be more complex than > > > > that of mammals, if for no other reason than they need proteins which > > > > work over a wide temperature range, whereas we mammals can hyper- > > > > specialize to a very narrow temperature range at which to carry on our > > > > bio-chemical processes necessary to life. > > > > I wondered too, about that one. I believe I know that mammalian lungs > > > are more sophisticated, and also mammalian brains, but beyond that, I > > > don't know of any great difference, although of course I should have > > > thought of the protein thing. > > > > Are there any examples, other than lung structure and brains, where > > > mammals are more complex than amphibians? Do you have some examples, Tue? > > > Warmbloodedness (which the lungs evolved to accommodate), leading to > > more efficient cellular processes. Agility of limbs. Speed of > > movement. Strength of bones. > > I don't think any of these things require more complexity. > Complexity deals with more features, not improvement in function. > Agility and speed phave a lot to do with lever ratios in the > limbs, for example. If the ratio between bone length and joint > diameter is increased, the speed of the limb is increased at the > expense of the strength. There are two types of muscle cells, fast > twitch and slow twitch. Faster muscles require more fast twitch cells, > stronger muscles require slow twitch cells. So the ratio in numbers > between the two sets of cells determines the difference between an > agile muscle and a strong muscle. Since the animal has the genetic > blueprint for both types of cells, there is no difference in > complexity between an agile animal and a muscular animal.>Complexity of behavior. Adaptive range. > > Both complexity of behavior and the associated increase in > range may require more genes. However, individual amphibians have a > greater adaptive range than individual mammals. Consider the life > cycle of an individual frog. A tadpole has a different form than an > adult frog. The tadpole has to have a complete set of behaviors to > live in the water, while the adult frog has to have the complete set > of behaviors to live on land. The individual frog has to carry the > genes necessary to survive over the entire adaptive range. It's > behavior at any one stage of life may be simpler than the associated > mammal, but the complete set of behaviors over its entire life may be > larger. The number of separate behaviors over the entire life of a > frog may be greater than the number of separate behaviors in the life > of a mole.> Quality of the senses in all but a few exceptional cases. Intestines > > adapted to more complex food stuffs. > > A platypus (a mammal) has no stomach, and a very simple > intestine. It has a very simple diet of small crustaceans. Some frogs > frogs eat insects, bird eggs, birds, other frogs. Their tadpoles eat > insect larva, other tadpoles, and fish eggs.>Increased vulnerability to > > parasites and therefore an improved immune defense. > > Think of the number of different types of parasites a frog has > to face its entire life. It has to worry about both aquatic and > surface parasites. > > > Of course all terminology depends on the context, but mammals are more > > efficiently adapted to the environmental conditions that predominate > > on this planet's surface in general, and this must be the relevant > > yardstick to use. > > Individual species of mammals are no more diverse than > individual species of amphibians. A panda does not live in a complex > environment. It eats only one type of food, bamboo. The bamboo keeps > predators away from it. Take a panda away from its bamboo, it dies. > However, a toad can live in a number of places. In fact, the > individual toad has to live in several different places just because > of metamorphosis.>The more complex behavior we can exert in this > > environment, the greater also the possibility that we will one day > > evolve or technologically invent the capacity to transcend this > > planetary environment and invade the exo-planetary environment to some > > degree, using ever more complex technology. > > This is true. A frog will never jump to the moon, while a human > being has lived there. Amphibians have little chance of developing any > technology. The single exception is the fish-man in "Creature of the > Black Lagoon." |:-) However, human beings are the only mammals that > has developed technology. > One doesn't need extra genes to develop technology. One needs a > simple but flexible strategy to qcquire knowledge. A Mandelbrot set is > generated by only a few simple rules. However, the pattern itself is > quite complex. Similarly, a human has just a few genes compared to a > frog. However, humans apparently have the right genes. By choosing particular examples, I think we could both make an equally good case for the complexity or lack thereof of mammals. In fact, I would like to see (/have recommended) a book that discusses the nature of complexity, in non-mathematical language. Know of any? Complexity, as we have concluded, is contextually dependent, but I don't think the context here should simply be the number of genes. How they work together should also be a consideration. I know some species are almost specialized into a dead-end (like the panda), but I will still maintain that mammals are generally, by and large, significantly more complex than fish, amphibians and reptiles. For several major reasons, but mainly for the brain. I will also maintain that complexity of life forms is a function of environmental complexity (incl. the influence of the other animals in the environment). And since genes are merely passed on and rarely actually improve (most mutations have negative effects), I also think it is reasonable to ask how it can happen that increasingly complex life forms evolve. I think the answer is in the brain; the capacity for complex behavior. The current theory of evolution is not focused enough on the evolutionary influence of the behavior during an individual organism's life-time. What the brain enables an animal to do, has lasting repurcussions for that animal's future evolutionary line. After all, behavior is what every organism spends its entire life engaging in, and evolves to be proficient in. So I think behavior is a crucial source of evolutionary complexity, and a subset of evolutionary theory that we have so far only scratched the surface of. - Tue
From: Tue Sorensen on 8 Mar 2010 18:41 On 8 Mar., 22:49, Darwin123 <drosen0...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On Mar 5, 10:27 pm, Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > On 5 Mar., 21:20, Luke Campbell <lwc...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > On Mar 4, 5:37 pm, Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > 2. > > > > Isn't it obvious to anybody that mammals are more complex than, say, > > > > amphibians? > > > > No. Not obvious at all. > > > > This is an example of species chauvinism with no biological support. > > > It is not! > > > > In fact, the biochemistry of amphibians tends to be more complex than > > > that of mammals, if for no other reason than they need proteins which > > > work over a wide temperature range, whereas we mammals can hyper- > > > specialize to a very narrow temperature range at which to carry on our > > > bio-chemical processes necessary to life. > > >The more complex the > > environment, the more complex the adaptation. > > This does not at all follow. Does, too. >> As plant and animal life > > become more complex, a process of upwardly spiralling complexity is > > taking place. While many species are adapted to very narrow > > conditions, humans have transcended this stagnation and can adapt > > dynamically to almost all environments. > > Humans are adapted to simplify their environment. Human beings > can destroy a forest to make farmland, or to dig a mine. However, the > environment has become simpler. What about the cultural environment? That is getting far and away more complex every decade. > All over the world, jungles are being destroyed to make farmland. > As far as I know, only one people manage to live in jungles almost > exclusively. Only the pygmy bushmen actually live in the middle of a > jungle. There used to be a lot of Amazon Indians, too. And there were the Papua New Guineans. > Although many aboriginal peoples are said to live in the > jungle, most of them are low tech farmers. They have to destroy the > jungle to live in it. They are incapable of living in a true jungle. As human intellectual and cultural life evolves (i.e. grows more complex), we have to optimize food production, and this is done by large-scale farming. The environment that influences our behavior (language, identity, etc.), however, is the cultural environment. > I will not say whether this is good or bad. Maybe the farmers are > happier than the bushmen. Maybe they always were. However, I will > argue that the popularity of farming is precisely because it entails > living in a simpler environment. Hunting and gathering is rather > complex for the individual. And yet it was how we lived when we first evolved, and for tens of thousands of years after. Everyone were nomads before agriculture was invented. But yes, agriculture is a *more efficient*, and hence more intelligent, way of feeding a lot of people. You can argue that it simplifies the physical environment, but actually human behavior demonstrates a completely new magnitude of complexity because we are not content to adapt to the environment; we are smart enough to adapt the environment to us. As someone (Bernard Shaw, I think) once said: "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man." > Lets get away from humans, since there is emotional baggage > associated with them. Let us look at insects. > Honey bees are social and bumble bees are solitary. However, > the honey bee does not developed a rich behavior to deal with a > complicated environment. The honey bee simplifies its environment. It > goes into an extremely complicate tree cavity, and lines it with wax > in a simple geometric pattern. As Darwin showed, the change in > behavior that makes a honeybee social is not a complicated behavior. > The honeybee merely has a smaller comfort zone than a bumble bee. > There is almost not change in behavior necessary to make a hive. In > fact, making the hive makes its environment simpler. I think the specifics mentioned by Darwin may be obsolete in this case. We know today that honey bees perform certain dances to indicate to other honey bees where sources of nectar can be found. This is quite a bit more complex and social than the solitary behavior of the bumble bee. > Conclusion: The correlation between complex behavior and complex > environment is weak. I don't accept this argument. Bees are governed mainly by instinct, and the instincts of honey bees have evolved to give them a complex behavior so as to create their own environment. Nature found a way to do something that was more efficient than what a simple behavior could accomplish. That some species are adapting the environment to suit them is a sign of great complexity of behavior, not the reverse. If a manipulation of the environment results in more efficient survival for the animal doing the manipulation, then we are dealing with an evolutionary success story. That this also amounts to a simplification of some part of the environment is not important, because that simplification would not occur by itself. A jumbo jet is less complex than a herring, but it could only have been produced by a highly intelligent species like humans. Nature would not have evolved jumbo jets naturally. The same goes for wheat fields. The manipulation of the environment amounts to our changing the environment into a tool for us to use for better survival. Your argument is like saying that turning a rough stone into a sharp one is like simplifying it, when in fact it can aid a stone age tribe's survival in multitudinous ways. Changing our environment is just turning it into a tool. The greater the scale we can do it on, the more complex a culture we will be building for ourselves. - Tue
From: Wayne Throop on 8 Mar 2010 19:20 ::: 3. About the dual nature of a wave/particle; when a particle and an ::: anti-particle annihilate and become energy, does this represent a ::: real transition from matter to energy? :: First of all, matter-energy conversion has nothing to do with :: particle- wave duality. : Tue Sorensen <sorensonian(a)gmail.com> : Interesting. Tell me more. Isn't a particle usually matter, while : energy (EMR) is in wave form? No. : Doesn't the opportunity to measure a photon either as a wave or as a : particle represents influencing it to convert from the one form into : the other? Also no. One of these days, you really ought to twig to the notion that perhaps you don't understand QM well enough to be dissaatisfied with it in any meanginful way. Wayne Throop throopw(a)sheol.org http://sheol.org/throopw
From: Tue Sorensen on 8 Mar 2010 19:24
On 9 Mar., 01:20, thro...(a)sheol.org (Wayne Throop) wrote: > ::: 3. About the dual nature of a wave/particle; when a particle and an > ::: anti-particle annihilate and become energy, does this represent a > ::: real transition from matter to energy? > > :: First of all, matter-energy conversion has nothing to do with > :: particle- wave duality. > > : Tue Sorensen <sorenson...(a)gmail.com> > : Interesting. Tell me more. Isn't a particle usually matter, while > : energy (EMR) is in wave form? > > No. > > : Doesn't the opportunity to measure a photon either as a wave or as a > : particle represents influencing it to convert from the one form into > : the other? > > Also no. > > One of these days, you really ought to twig to the notion that > perhaps you don't understand QM well enough to be dissaatisfied with it > in any meanginful way. Wow, you're in a helpful mood. |