Evolution

filed in Uncategorized on Feb.01, 2002

Evolution is an interesting thing. It seems that evolutionary branches converge on a perfect species that can live forever under favorable conditions. The weird thing is, in every case they are just digestive systems adapted to their environment. Things like sharks, earthworms, and amoebas are perfect in this sense. They don’t sleep, they don’t play, they don’t age (past adulthood), they just eat and reproduce.

This is interesting because it means the whole point of life (in the general sense) is a mechanism for breaking down organic matter. But, the only reason organic matter needs to be broken down is so it can be recycled into new life. Conclusion: Carbon is our self-serving master.

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5 comments

rickysaccount said:
February 1st, 2002 on 3:52 pm
Would that life lent itself to such neat little packaging. Unfortunately, life is much more complicated than that… we’ve got organisms like cyanobacteria that just use sunlight and don’t need to rely on carbon for a food source (i.e., they’re not mere mechanisms “for breaking down organic matter”). Besides, even if the majority of species on this planet seem to do that, that doesn’t mean that that’s the “meaning of life”. That just happens to be what this particular subset of life does… no more, no less. I think that’s part of a common mis-conception about evolution… the idea that there is a “perfect species”. Evolution has no such goal at all… under perfectly favourable conditions, you can easily have a species that’s much less than “perfect” survive. In fact, evolution, the fact of evolution and not the theory, has no goal whatsoever. It’s just a natural process and to imagine it to have a goal or purpose is simplifying it and doing it a disservice. But, all that being said, it’s good to have you back! You were missed during your extended hiatus!

Administrator said:
February 1st, 2002 on 4:30 pm
I suppose it’s human to anthropomorphize everything, even phenomena, without thinking about it.

I didn’t really mean to imply that evolution had a goal. I think of evolution (and genetic algorithms) like a height field, with the peaks being solutions. You start by choosing a random point in the field, and natural selection moves you toward the highest neighboring point. You’ll eventually converge on a peak, even though it might not be the highest, ie. you’ll get a solution, but maybe not the best solution.

So what I meant by saying that evolutionary branches seem to converge on one type of thing is that the solution to evolution seems to be, at least for the animal kingdom, an organism whose cells never stop dividing, and who does nothing but consume and reproduce. I guess this is an assumption though, since it’s probably only a coincidence.