RE: What do you think about aliens?
May 4, 2019 at 10:14 am
(This post was last modified: May 4, 2019 at 11:48 am by Anomalocaris.)
You use the expression “we evolve [whether] you like it or not” as if that is an somehow overpowering assertion leading inevitably to where you, for purely subjective reasons, wish we as a specie are going.
But your confidence in evolution having a predictable end point and that end point must somehow be pleasing to you makes it clear you have no idea what evolution really is, so your using it as a assertion in support of your conclusion merely makes it clear how flaccidly and sloppily you drew your conclusions.
We are most definitely evolving. But the only reason for it is there can be no form of existence involving genes and biological reproduction that does not involve the process of evolving. If not all members of our species all succeed to the exact equal degree in reproducing purely by parthenogenesis, then we are evolving. We evolve simply and totally because each of our genes are slightly different, we are driven to reproduce, there are reasons why not all of us succeed to the same degree, and we are not yet extinct. That’s all.
But evolution is not an goal directed activity. Evolving doesn’t mean getter better by any subjective criteria, such as more peaceful, or more high minded, or nicer to each other. Evolving doesn’t even mean becoming better adapted to our environment of the future. It only means composition of our gene pool reacted in a very deep and complex, and not cosmetically driven or ideologically pleasing way, to the environment of its own past. We were evolving when we went from being less cannibalistic to being more cannibalistic. We were also evolving when we went from being more cannibalistic to being less cannibalistic. We were evolving when we killed eeachother less often and more reluctantly, and we were evolving when we killed eeachother more often and ore lustily.
This is not pessimistic, nor optimistic, any more than saying protons have positive change is either optimistic or pessimistic. This is reality at a level more fundamental than we have the power to affect.
But your confidence in evolution having a predictable end point and that end point must somehow be pleasing to you makes it clear you have no idea what evolution really is, so your using it as a assertion in support of your conclusion merely makes it clear how flaccidly and sloppily you drew your conclusions.
We are most definitely evolving. But the only reason for it is there can be no form of existence involving genes and biological reproduction that does not involve the process of evolving. If not all members of our species all succeed to the exact equal degree in reproducing purely by parthenogenesis, then we are evolving. We evolve simply and totally because each of our genes are slightly different, we are driven to reproduce, there are reasons why not all of us succeed to the same degree, and we are not yet extinct. That’s all.
But evolution is not an goal directed activity. Evolving doesn’t mean getter better by any subjective criteria, such as more peaceful, or more high minded, or nicer to each other. Evolving doesn’t even mean becoming better adapted to our environment of the future. It only means composition of our gene pool reacted in a very deep and complex, and not cosmetically driven or ideologically pleasing way, to the environment of its own past. We were evolving when we went from being less cannibalistic to being more cannibalistic. We were also evolving when we went from being more cannibalistic to being less cannibalistic. We were evolving when we killed eeachother less often and more reluctantly, and we were evolving when we killed eeachother more often and ore lustily.
This is not pessimistic, nor optimistic, any more than saying protons have positive change is either optimistic or pessimistic. This is reality at a level more fundamental than we have the power to affect.
