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How Nature was able to understand what we need.
#21
RE: How Nature was able to understand what we need.
(October 14, 2017 at 8:41 am)Mathilda Wrote:
(October 13, 2017 at 9:07 pm)RayOfLight Wrote: How was nature able to "understand" or "determine" what a living being needed?

Get a closed container and half fill it with sand and pebbles of different sizes. Start shaking it, first quite vigorously and then progressively more gently until you are hardly shaking it at all. After a while you'll find that the smaller stones slip through the spaces in-between the larger stones, and the sand, made up of the smallest stones is at the bottom.

The container was not able to understand that the sand needed to be at the bottom, it was an undirected physical process that sorted the contents over time. Evolution is the same.

That explains why my cousins have rocks in their heads.
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#22
RE: How Nature was able to understand what we need.
How does a hole know how large to be to hold the puddle?
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#23
RE: How Nature was able to understand what we need.
(October 14, 2017 at 9:18 am)Cthulhu Dreaming Wrote: How does a hole know how large to be to hold the puddle?

It sweats on it!!
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#24
RE: How Nature was able to understand what we need.
Thanks to those who took the time to explain to me what I may be not able to understand.

So as far as I understand, nature doesn't "know" or "determine" what a creature needs, it just follow the rules. Where thousands upon thousands of mutations take place, many of them are harmful, and cause the death of the creatures that have them, a few, however, are "good"(sometimes really good, and sometimes just good enough).  In turns gives the creature a better chance to survive which means a better chance to reproduce an offspring with this good mutation, and then millions of years later another good or good enough mutation takes place and so on. Did I get it wrong? Am I missing something? Please let me know what you think.
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#25
RE: How Nature was able to understand what we need.
Actually, the majority of mutations are neutral.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist.  This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair.  Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second.  That means there's a situation vacant.'
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#26
RE: How Nature was able to understand what we need.
ROL, you didn't mention GOD at all! You sir, are on the right track.

If you google evolution dna, the nova or pbs documentaries cover all of this in detail!
There's multiseries episodes on the evolution of the eye, flight, poisons, etc ...It's all there matey. You just have to want to know the truth.
Most of this evolutionary stuff isn't a mystery or even controversial.
The DNA tree of life are the final nails in the coffin if ever there was any doubt.
No God, No fear.
Know God, Know fear.
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#27
RE: How Nature was able to understand what we need.
To be fair, I should point out that a creator God and evolution are not necessarily incompatible. Contrary to what many people believe, evolution does not address how life got here in the first place - only how simple life evolved into more complex life and how successful lifeforms adapt to their environment. There is a separate field of study called abiogenesis that addresses how life got started in the first place. Thus far, it has been unable to put together all the steps between complex molecules and life. That has proven to be a tough nut to crack.

The Catholic religion is notable as a major world religion that has largely accepted the truth of evolution. Pope John Paul II publicly came out and acknowledged it. Presumably, he viewed the biblical book of Genesis in a non-literal way.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.

Albert Einstein
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#28
RE: How Nature was able to understand what we need.
(October 14, 2017 at 12:15 am)Cyberman Wrote: Asteroids are [sic] is a bit of an [sic] overkill.

Hey! It's one of my favorite retro games and I still play it today!
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#29
RE: How Nature was able to understand what we need.
I should hope so; it's a true classic!

Do you use the engine and/or the warp-jump thing to move about, or do what I do and stay in the middle constantly shooting and rotating?
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist.  This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair.  Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second.  That means there's a situation vacant.'
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#30
RE: How Nature was able to understand what we need.
(October 14, 2017 at 10:14 pm)Cyberman Wrote: I should hope so; it's a true classic!

Do you use the engine and/or the warp-jump thing to move about, or do what I do and stay in the middle constantly shooting and rotating?

I play THIS version! Big Grin

(And the levels I play are usually my own songs I made myself!)













Procedural generation FTW!
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