Quote:
Originally Posted by mjc
I think I'm on board with what Bojan has been advocating - particularly with respect to the "no paradox" idea. I agree with Craig with respect to difficulties of language usage. There isn't any selfishness per se - nor any purpose or design - it just the way things tend to happen after the (physical) laws of nature pan out. When a mutation occurs its usually detrimental - sometimes its beneficial. In the case where its beneficial its because of what benefits this change has rather than what this change was "intended" to do that aids in the propagation of a species. But underlying all this is a bunch of genes - of which some are shared widely (between species) and the tendency is that there is a core bunch that do better than others. It doesn't matter what species survives or is demised - the only significant outcome is that some bunch of genes dominate - regardless of what host they contribute to the definition of.
Two observations I'd like to raise:-
1) Randomness - we can go down a dark road on that one, "God does not play dice" etc. But there are events that we cannot predict and the concept of randomness - with the appropriate mathematics works well (Gaussian and Poisson distributions, for example).
2) Life has a tendency to organise - which is counter to the over-all universe's tendency to transition from order to disorder. If I'm correct - you can always find a way of burning things that were alive.
Just some thoughts.
Mark C.
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Hi Mark;
Have a look into Chaos Theory in particular, the emergence of self-organisation.
It really is truly fascinating !
Cheers