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Can Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’?

nytimes.com

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Re: Can Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’?

#61

Post by socmag »

posterboy wrote: post #47
socmag wrote: post #25

Well duh. Yes I realize that comment seems "trite" What is it that the genome is doing. Look around and see how it is expressing itself. I'm not a huge fan of Dawkins recently after he went a bit nuts on the whole atheism thing. Not because of the atheism thing but because it distracted him from what he was really about. The genome is expressing itself, and it is way more than selfish. That thing is regression analys…

>That thing is regression analysis to a large power. Constantly calculating minimal cost to self preservation and better versions of itself Edited: That doesn't sound very articulate, hence doubtful. Your interpretation is just that, recognizing already known patterns. Does that relate to the evolutionary "purpose" from the title? The implicit idea of order ("better") is largely based on the temporal succession of wh…

To continue...

Wouldn't you like to teach the younger generation something so that they can survive better in the current world?

Where the heck does that come from?

The Genome

Re: Can Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’?

#62

Post by randcraw »

milesf wrote: post #16

Do you think it's reasonable that conversations like this are fine on HN, but anytime I bring up Christian thought on the matter I am pressured to "not talk religion"? Wrestling with these top shelf Maslow's questions like "why am I/we here?", "what is the meaning of life" and other big life questions are common among all of us. So why the willingness to conjecture that (we live in a simulation | aliens may have seed…

It may be a fine line that separates philosophy and religion, but their respective "theaters of the mind" are pretty different.

Possible worlds that are built on novel premises or inferred from unrecognized patterns are likely to interest anyone who has an imagination. That's true even for nutty worlds like simulacra and multiverses.

But possible worlds that must conform to dogma, especially when it's structured and inviolable (religion) or where imagination and doubt are forbidden (faith)... These seems a lot less interesting, to a nonbeliever like me anyway.

Re: Can Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’?

#63

Post by DonaldFisk »

ubernostrum wrote: post #28
roywiggins wrote: post #7

Both the Intelligent Alien and Simulation ideas just push the question of 'purpose' up a level. Sure, the aliens may have a purpose, but if they are themselves a cosmological purposeless accident then by extension it's arguable that so are we.

I did my thesis on the argument from design post-Darwin. A lot of interesting discussion centers on how to reconcile the generalized principle of mediocrity with the apparently low probability of a life-supporting universe existing (in terms of how fine-tuned basic constants have to be for it to happen). Some people try to end-run around this with anthropic arguments (which better writers than myself have pointed out…

I have a number of points to make.

The Many-worlds interpretation of QM does not mean that different universes have different fundamental constants. If that were the case, the fundamental constants could change in value each time a quantum measurement took place.

The universe might be infinite in extent (e.g. Einstein-de Sitter) even though at any time you can only see a finite part of it, so even though the probability of life in any galaxy might be vanishingly small, as long as it's finite you can expect life to emerge somewhere.

Supposing our universe is a simulation, possibly running inside another simulation, etc. At some level there still must be a ground reality in which the first simulation was made. So, there needs to be at least one level, which appeared out of nowhere, or always existed, in which computers can be built to run the simulation.

I'd rather not have to repeat the same points I made in an argument I had here previously, as no one seems to change their mind about these things, but I can't see any way that NPCs in a virtual reality/simulated universe can be conscious - even though they might appear to be - so I think that if we're in a simulation, consciousness must be based in the universe which is not a simulation.

It might be possible for the fundamental constants (and, indeed, the laws of physics) to be fine-tuned, but only in a simulation, by its programmers.

The idea of a creator God (of any non-simulated universe) has no explanatory power. All it does is hide complexity inside something supernatural. How would this god appear out of nothing?

Re: Can Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’?

#64

Post by socmag »

projektir wrote: post #56
socmag wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Evolution" is a man made term for "The Genome is trying to create a better entity than itself" I think with regard to humans it is well on its way to manifesting itself with that purpose... It's called" The sum total of the Internet". Not sure I agree with its choices, but compared to an individual there is quite a large organism at large there, for better or worse, and that thing is just as potent and self protecti…

Funny, for all the claims that evolution has been defeated, humans act very much like everything under evolution has acted since it got started. And those genomes that want to make a better version of themselves seem to just follow what evolution wants them to do to this day. Without evolution, and the precursor to it (Big Bang if you will) the genomes wouldn't exist to begin with. It is not from their own cause that…

Yes and we should be a little bit more humble about it. Stepping stones and all.

Looking back at Dinosaurs and thinking how clever we are is pretty egotistical.

I agree.

Re: Can Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’?

#65

Post by hathawsh »

ozy wrote: post #54

If compute power is the only thing that matters, we do not live in a simulation. The best computer we can hope to build in the future will only have a minute fraction of the compute power of reality. Simulating reality on that computer will either be a tiny reality, or a much lower fidelity reality. If you find yourself alive, likely you live where there is the most compute power, therefor, base reality. Especially s…

Reality in the universe one level up could be different in such a way that it is more conducive to creation of virtual universes. Our idea of reality could be a mere shadow of what others think of as reality.

Re: Can Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’?

#66

Post by [deleted] »

milesf wrote: post #16

Do you think it's reasonable that conversations like this are fine on HN, but anytime I bring up Christian thought on the matter I am pressured to "not talk religion"? Wrestling with these top shelf Maslow's questions like "why am I/we here?", "what is the meaning of life" and other big life questions are common among all of us. So why the willingness to conjecture that (we live in a simulation | aliens may have seed…

[deleted]

Re: Can Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’?

#67

Post by posterboy »

socmag wrote: post #49
posterboy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>That thing is regression analysis to a large power. Constantly calculating minimal cost to self preservation and better versions of itself Edited: That doesn't sound very articulate, hence doubtful. Your interpretation is just that, recognizing already known patterns. Does that relate to the evolutionary "purpose" from the title? The implicit idea of order ("better") is largely based on the temporal succession of wh…

It's highly rational. Reduce Entropy. Period

Doesn't mean you should write your comment by the same principle.

Reducing entropy by growing more complex seems counterintuitive. I don't see rationality in the chaos. I don't even see what your "It" is. Attribution of rational reason to an "it" seems like a short cut leading to a domain error.

Ultimately this leads to discussion about free will and what not, for which a short-lived discussion does indeed not seem to be the right format.

Re: Can Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’?

#68

Post by ubernostrum »

DonaldFisk wrote: post #63
ubernostrum wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did my thesis on the argument from design post-Darwin. A lot of interesting discussion centers on how to reconcile the generalized principle of mediocrity with the apparently low probability of a life-supporting universe existing (in terms of how fine-tuned basic constants have to be for it to happen). Some people try to end-run around this with anthropic arguments (which better writers than myself have pointed out…

I have a number of points to make. The Many-worlds interpretation of QM does not mean that different universes have different fundamental constants. If that were the case, the fundamental constants could change in value each time a quantum measurement took place. The universe might be infinite in extent (e.g. Einstein-de Sitter) even though at any time you can only see a finite part of it, so even though the probabil…

The Many-worlds interpretation of QM does not mean that different universes have different fundamental constants.

It's more generally accepted now that the values of the constants were contingent on conditions in the very early universe. This doesn't mean that a fork off of, say, our world right now would get different constants, but that in the early-universe time period there would be forks getting different values, which then evolved completely differently. In this view we exist in one which happened to get the "right" constants.

The universe might be infinite in extent (e.g. Einstein-de Sitter) even though at any time you can only see a finite part of it, so even though the probability of life in any galaxy might be vanishingly small, as long as it's finite you can expect life to emerge somewhere.

We don't have evidence of the universe being infinite in extent, though.

So, there needs to be at least one level, which appeared out of nowhere, or always existed, in which computers can be built to run the simulation.

Again, the claim in the simulation argument is not "uncreated universes are impossible". It's that "an uncreated universe capable of giving rise to simulations is a less specific requirement and therefore more likely to occur".

The idea of a creator God

Which I explicitly said I wasn't talking about. For someone who's tired of repeating himself you sure seem fine with making me do it.

Re: Can Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’?

#69

Post by Cyph0n »

skc wrote: post #37
Cyph0n wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In essence, they are the same thing, but Darwinists won't admit this because "religion". Heck, just bringing up the thought got you downvoted.

> but Darwinists won't admit this because "religion". I don't see how that follows. "Religion" doesn't just make the claim that there is a creator and leaves it at that. In fact I'd have more respect for religion if it did.

What I mean is that Darwinism's extreme anti-religion stance means that it won't accept any idea that even has a tiny whiff of creationism. This is why some Darwinists are going with the simulation argument to address the shortcomings of the theory.

Take a look at the kind of criticism the ID movement has been getting. Their whole argument is that "something" must have designed the universe. They do not explicitly argue for a God, and some proponents even accept the simulation argument! Nonetheless, Darwinisim wouldn't touch ID with a 60-foot stick.

Re: Can Evolution Have a ‘Higher Purpose’?

#70

Post by ozy »

DougN7 wrote: post #2

I've always thought the 'living in a simulation' scenario and creationism are pretty much the same thing, if the person that started the simulation felt some sort of rules ought to be followed (for the longevity of the simulation, or whatever reason they might have). That doesn't seem like a stretch - we do that with the Sim games, and we're hardly brilliant.

If we are living in a simulation, it is a simulation of atoms, or quantum fields, or perhaps something deeper behind that. That got started with enormous energy in the form of hot dense quark gluon plasma. From there the rest follows.

It is not a simulation of humans.

We have zero indication there are rules at a higher level than the quantum or gravity. Like rules on what you ought to do in the bedroom.

Also earth nor humans were created by intelligence, just like how mineral crystals or fjords are not created by intelligence.

Hence we must conclude that bronze/iron age religions and maybe living in a simulator are not the same thing.

For the rest of this question of a creator, we cannot know, anybody claiming to know anything beyond "perhaps" or "maybe" is a fool, or will win a nobel price. By lack of the latter the rest of us will assume the first.

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