The Purpose of Purpose.

[trdsf]

Yes, AI will work just as good as the Windows Registry ;-)

AI, as I'm fond of saying, is to computer science what fusion reactors are to physics: twenty years in the future, no matter what date you're making your prediction from.  :)

If nature (in the neutral sense) has any purpose .. then the reason why anything is here, is because it is somehow necessary.  This is how theists get around the theodicy question too ... G-d allows crap, because it is a necessary consequence in order to allow what tasty bits you put into your mouth to begin with ... you wouldn't want the end product of the digestive tract to just stay in you, right?

I wouldn't assign any purpose to nature beyond just being.  And evolving according to the laws of physics and chemistry, and where applicable, biology.  Whatever comes out of is is what comes out of it -- it wasn't destined to be that way.

I mean, it's not that difficult to imagine (though it's a little harder to figure out a mechanism) a biological entity that is able to process all of whatever tasty bit was inserted into its appropriate orifice -- and for all I know, maybe there already is some small microscopic multicellular critter that can do exactly that.  No crap in its world, and it's not a question of anyone allowing anything.  It is what it is.

We didn't evolve from cups, though.  We evolved from tubes.  So we got digestive systems that handle the 'easy' stuff and pass the rest on through for bacteria to take care of, since bacteria can process almost anything.  And the reason that happened was because it was easier to evolve than a more efficient and less wasteful system.

And if we were evolved from cups rather than tubes, we would think that's just completely weird.

Usually human-imagined ultimate evolution etc ... pretty much looks like a personal nightmare to me.  Steady state ... where nothing ever changes?  Do you think that Stone Age man would have had any luck predicting us?

Predictions regarding biological entities are made by fools, and while I'm sure there were some foolish cavemen, I don't think they could tell us what we, ten thousand years or more in their future, would be like any more than I could give you the very vaguest of tentative guesses with every caveat I can think of as to what the year 12000CE will look like.

I think we have reached a stage where we have probably slowed the rate of our own evolution by virtue of better control of our environment, and we could in principle further manage it through deliberate genetic manipulation, although that is the scenario that sends a chill down my spine.  Not because I oppose genetic research, but because evolution is stochastic -- if we twiddle something now, we don't know what impact that's going to have ten, a hundred, or a thousand years in the future as genes combine and recombine down the generations.  It's a prospect that needs to be approached with the greatest of care, and we're still clumsy monkeys.

And I often wonder what we might be a half a million years from now were we to evolve at a natural rate, but that's simply not predictable -- and not likely either, since we do not live a natural existence, but a technological one.  We are no longer the helpless victims of the blind forces of nature (discounting extreme events like an asteroid strike or a too-near gamma ray burst or the Siberian Traps opening up again).  So to that extent, we are probably approaching your 'steady state' -- if an organism has no reason to evolve, it won't, after all.

[Baruch]

Evolution for humans has stopped temporarily ... because we no longer cull the herd, but care for the disabled (biological, not circumstantial).

Yes, if we had evolved from cups (though in early embryology we are cups before we become tubes ... embryology recapitulates evolution) ... we would be like hydras, corals and anemones.  But time and tide wait for no shore creature ;-)

[Cavebear]

Gold has no purpose.  Oxygen has no purpose.  Most life has no purpose.

Purpose suggests intent.  Fish never had the intent to become amphibians, they just did.  Changes that made sense for the fishes where they succeeded better allowed the possibility of some to utilize land. 

Etc, etc, etc...

I'm not going to explain it all.  Read some books!

[GSOgymrat]

https://youtu.be/HxTnqKuNygE

[SGOS]

https://youtu.be/HxTnqKuNygE

That's a perspective on entropy that I had never considered.

[Mr.Obvious]

Evolution for humans has stopped temporarily ... because we no longer cull the herd, but care for the disabled (biological, not circumstantial).

Do you really mean you think evolution has temporarily stopped because we no longer cull the herd, or is that sarcasm I'm missing somewhere?
If you really mean it, why would not making sure the disabled or 'weaker' of the herd stop evolution? It just changes it.
Let's take a mild disability; colorblindness. In ancient times it would've severly reduced your chances of surviving to the age of reprocreating. Nowadays, this 'disability' will be passed on more because we make sure life is liveable for those with this condition. This, like other traits simultaneously being passed on from generation to generation is evolution.

Then again, maybe I'm missing something in your post.

[Baruch]

Thanks for serious reading.  And sorry Belgium has surrendered to TISA etc ... y'all were made of sterner stuff in 1914.

OK ... population evolution occurs, because there is a mean, and a gaussian spread about the mean, and one tail of the spread fails to breed at the normal rate.  Helping someone who will never breed, doesn't effect that (or we can sterilize such people as was proposed or done in the early 20th century).  As you progress from generation to generation, the mean moves because of the prevention of regressive (not recessive) genes from continuing in the gene pool.  Of course if the competition is too fierce, there are no future generations.

Culling usually occurs thru the four horsemen of the apocalypse ... war, plague, famine and wild beasts (not clear if this is actual wild animals, or just evil leaders).  But the culling is neutral in such disasters as the Indian Ocean tsunami ... that took people's lives randomly.  Non-neutral culling (say if we have people who have inherited bleeding, who are not prevented from reproducing, see Queen Victoria).  Of course such stupid distinctions as skin color, is in most cases, neither a plus nor a minus ... low IQ is significant, but doesn't correlate with anything else, stupid does as stupid is.

This is all very statistical and long term trending ... you can't judge on an individual basis.  The most significant evolution today with people, is cultural, and has been for 10,000 years.  What we do to people socially, rather than what nature does to us naturally, is the stronger factor.

[Cavebear]

Do you really mean you think evolution has temporarily stopped because we no longer cull the herd, or is that sarcasm I'm missing somewhere?
If you really mean it, why would not making sure the disabled or 'weaker' of the herd stop evolution? It just changes it.
Let's take a mild disability; colorblindness. In ancient times it would've severly reduced your chances of surviving to the age of reprocreating. Nowadays, this 'disability' will be passed on more because we make sure life is liveable for those with this condition. This, like other traits simultaneously being passed on from generation to generation is evolution.

Then again, maybe I'm missing something in your post.

If it is Buruch, it is meaningless sarcasm.

Aside from that, I used to think that humans were not evolving.  I have changed my opinion on that. 

Humans continue to evolve in response to diseases, parasites and microbes; climate change; and technology.

[Mr.Obvious]

Thanks for serious reading.  And sorry Belgium has surrendered to TISA etc ... y'all were made of sterner stuff in 1914.

Well that came out of left field. But, okay?

OK ... population evolution occurs, because there is a mean, and a gaussian spread about the mean, and one tail of the spread fails to breed at the normal rate.  Helping someone who will never breed, doesn't effect that (or we can sterilize such people as was proposed or done in the early 20th century).  As you progress from generation to generation, the mean moves because of the prevention of regressive (not recessive) genes from continuing in the gene pool.  Of course if the competition is too fierce, there are no future generations.

Culling usually occurs thru the four horsemen of the apocalypse ... war, plague, famine and wild beasts (not clear if this is actual wild animals, or just evil leaders).  But the culling is neutral in such disasters as the Indian Ocean tsunami ... that took people's lives randomly.  Non-neutral culling (say if we have people who have inherited bleeding, who are not prevented from reproducing, see Queen Victoria).  Of course such stupid distinctions as skin color, is in most cases, neither a plus nor a minus ... low IQ is significant, but doesn't correlate with anything else, stupid does as stupid is.

This is all very statistical and long term trending ... you can't judge on an individual basis.  The most significant evolution today with people, is cultural, and has been for 10,000 years.  What we do to people socially, rather than what nature does to us naturally, is the stronger factor.

We can have a discussion about everything cultural actually being nature (my position) or not, some other time. :p
I think you are thinking too narrowly if your explanation of evolution means evolution ain't happening.

Cavebear makes a good point, for one.

Aside from that, I used to think that humans were not evolving.  I have changed my opinion on that. 

Humans continue to evolve in response to diseases, parasites and microbes; climate change; and technology.

And even then; just because we change our environments and the way we live, doesn't mean we put ourselves out of something so intrinsical to life as evolution. It may be certain vestigial body parts and organs growing less and less impressive. It may be us growing ever so slightly balder across the body. It may be skincolor changing depending on the place where you live and how much sun there is. Ever so slightly. Over each new generation.

[Cavebear]

I don't mean to over-reach what I said earlier.  We do evolve slightly.  But not in the way we used to, and not in the way wild animals do today.  We have a lot more control over our environment.

We are freer of natural selection, for example.  We can pretty much eliminate (and are sadly) eliminating all of our large predators.  Lions and tigers and bears (oh my) live mostly at our indulgence.  If we decided to eliminate them, we could do that in a few years.  It takes effort just to keep them among us.

And we know how to eliminate most insect pests if we wanted to take the effort. Mosquitoes could be eliminated through the production of millions of sterile males. 

Diseases could be wiped out like smallpox, if we decided to.  Its just a matter of money and effort. We probably will do that "someday".

[Mr.Obvious]

I dunno, I don't think the term 'freer' is correct here.
it's a process that Every living thing experiences differently, mayhaps, but not one more or less than the other.

[Cavebear]

I dunno, I don't think the term 'freer' is correct here.
it's a process that Every living thing experiences differently, mayhaps, but not one more or less than the other.

OK, if "freer" is not a good term, how about "having some control"?  Do you deny that humans have somewhat more control over their environment than rats or lions?

[Mr.Obvious]

OK, if "freer" is not a good term, how about "having some control"?  Do you deny that humans have somewhat more control over their environment than rats or lions?

Yes, I would agree we have more control over our environment.
This doesn't, I feel, make one freer from evolution itself. But I agree with what you are saying and in essence what it entails.

[Baruch]

Clarifying ...

Evolution and change are different.  I change every day (maybe not my underwear though).  But I don't evolve, the gene pool evolves.  It is a population, not an individual.  Most changes are both random and neutral (net-net).  The random changes only impact if it prevents a defective individual from reproducing (and to the extent we do that, we have stopped evolution (if in zoo animals or humans).  If you have mental defectives using artificial insemination to get women pregnant, because they otherwise can't get dates ... that stops evolution.  Doesn't stop change.  Also I still get a whiff of ... teleology.  That change is purposeful (the OP).  There is no point to the existence of the universe, the existence of life, the existence of consciousness, the existence of humanity ... or to my own existence.  It is all an accident, a 13 billion year long chain reaction car crash (where all the drivers and passengers die eventually) ... I happen to believe that G-d is responsible for the car crash, people are not ... we are only responsible for our reaction to the car crash (before we succumb).

[Cavebear]

Well, what are the main drivers of evolution?

1.  Environment.  More than any animal or plant, humans control their environment. We can live in deserts and the arctic.  Few animals or plants are as widely ranged as we are.

2.  Pest Reduction.  From cooked foods that kill most microbes and parasites to pest repellents and barriers, we eliminate most of our threats.  Vaccines and medications do a lot of the rest.

3.  Predator Reduction.  We have killed off most of our serious larger predator threats.  We even have to act deliberately to keep our predator threats alive. 

4.  Food Supply.  We have actually created excellent food sources rather than having to adapt to natural ones.  We created corn, potatoes, and rice.  We made apples and citrus fruits from crabby little things.  Our local grocery store has more variety than any animal has even known.

5.  Medicine.  Some few animals self-medicate, eating clay for minerals.  We know details and dosages of all needed vitamins.

6.  Science.  The rational observation of our needs has taught us many ways to grow bigger and stronger.  We are on the verge of genetic enhancement, and it will happen.  Genetic research is bring sight to the blind, health to the weak, and faster stronger humans.  Genetic engineering will eliminate most of our weaknesses this century.

I could go on, but I hope you see my point.  We have some slight evolutionary trends, but thos will be within our control soon.  Wisdom teeth a problem?  Remove them. And stop them from growing in a couple generations.