A few months back while thinking on Darwin and Evolution I had a thought, that to me seemed quite awsome.
I must point out I have never read anything by Darwin or about evolution apart from the most basic ideas , that being the development of species over time.
It struck me that brains are in fact the critical or maybe the only part of an animal that really matters.
As far as I am aware all animals have a brain, even if it’s very primitive by our standards.
So the brain is the common denominator.
Imagine going back to the begining of evolution. When the first living cells appeared.
These living cells grouped together to form a mutually benificial alliance to form simple organisms.
I see these first organisms as precursors to the brain.
Once these brain like structures had begun to form and ‘think’ evolution kicks off.
These brain structures start messing around with ways of making themselves smarter/better.
To start off with they need protection from other brains or the enviroment, so the ones with some sort of shell do well.
They need to move. Different brains, develop different ways of moving, through eveolution this gets refined and adapted in many ways.
The brains need more energy for their movement so the ones that can harvest more ‘food’ do well.
The brains that form some sort of way to reproduce do better otherwise they just have to start from scratch each time.
etc etc, evolving (growing) all the different parts of bodies like nervous systems, breathing, legs, eyes etc to make the efficiancy of the brain better.
So basically evelotion is about a group of cells we call a brain trying to find ways of bettering itself right up to today where humans have highly developed brains judged against what has gone before.
The body is irrelevant, what ever does the best job of promoting the growth and expansion of the brain is what is required.
Was this Darwin’s arguement? That the brain is the driving force behind evolution and ultimately the only bit that matters?
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Conciousness seems to be located in the brain. It is very hard if not impossible to relocate your source of conciousness.
Emotions on the otherhand seem to be located in different areas around the body.
Any pointers to links and/or thoughts would be very welcome.
All life evolves, not just animals. Plants do not have anything resembling a brain. But they evolve.
Human evolution has been marked by increasing brain power and by adaptations to facilitate that end. We have been selected for brain power. We humans (and primates in general) are specialists in thinking. It would be natural for us to assume that thinking is the highest pursuit and the most beneficial specialization for animals. But that’s anthrocentric to be sure.
Besides, an argument can be made that without our hands and our upright gait, our brains would be useless. We are toolmakers. Our brains have precipitated that specialty. If a horse evolved to have a brain like ours, they would not be as successful as humans. They can’t make tools because they don’t have fingers. Even if they did have fingers, they walk and stand using all four limbs, so their fingers would be occupied with keeping them off the ground.
Other organisms, even other animals, make do with at most a moderate amount of brain power relative to humans but great advances in other areas. Cheetahs have speed, and couldn’t live without it. Blue whales have enormous size; they out grew all competition. Bacteria reproduce at a phenominal rate causing rapid evolution and adaptation to new environmental stresses. That key to their survival. Carrion fowl have evolved uncanny senses of smell combined with flight muscles giving them the ability to stay aloft for hours without effort. These two adaptations are key to their survival and evolution.
The main reasons for my post where to get some feedback on my thinking and also to check if this what Darwin had said.
Mainly becuase when I ran this idea by my Dad he said that it had been thought of before by Darwin.
This left me thinking either my Dad completly missed the point of what I was saying OR there was more to Darwin’s theory of evolution than I was aware of.
I agree that we as humans have specialized through evolution in one kind of intelligence and tools making.
You say with out our upright gait and hands our brains would be useless, but that was kind of my point. The way different species bodies evolve corrisponds to how their brain behaves. The species is irrelevant, it is the direction the brain is pushing the species evolution in, to gain benefit for itself.
Basically, does the brain as an organ, or self contained unit, drive evolution?
All you say makes sense and as far as I’m aware is true, but it still doesn’t disprove that evolution is driven by the needs of the brain.
First, plants evolve. They have nothing resembling a brain. Therefore, evolution is independant of the brain.
Second, evolution is the most common short-hand form of Darwin’s “descent with modification by means of natural selection”. Basically, it says that environmental pressures cause certain phenotypes to be “selected” from a pool of competitors. The “progress” of evolution often leads to specialization.
Hummingbirds became specialized nectar-eaters. Over time, selective pressure led these small birds to develop long, narrow beaks and the ability to hover in flight to drink from the recesses of flowers. The brain had nothing to do with their adaptations.
Rockfish are specialists in ambush predation. They developed a body that looks like a algae-covered rock and the ability to lay perfectly still and snap into motion faster than the human eye can detect. The brain did not drive evolution in the rockfish.
Personally, I don’t see the need to separate the mind from the rest of the organism. All the organs, tissues, cells, or carbon chains of a life form are interdependent (they cannot survive without each other) thus the whole living organism has to evolve concurrently. In medicine and biology, there is a need to identify difference parts of an organism in order to understand the subject and make progress. However, you have to keep in mind that the human brain operates within a specific environment (within the human body) and without the body, the brain is just a lump of useless cells.
Ok so your point is that plant life doesn’t have a brain.
Plant life also doesn’t have legs or arms, nor does it have hair or fur.
It is not made of flesh and bone. Yet it is still alive.
We have Animal, mineral and vegatable.
All animals have brains(as far as I’m aware)
Vegatables are made of something different to animal flesh. Wood is basically a corpse of a living thing. It’s skeleton if you like…
Just becuase plants do not have a brain similar in comparison to animal brains does not mean that they have no brain at all.
It has been scientifically proven that if you take an axe to a tree, that tree will emit a very slow moving and extremely low frequency sound. Other trees around it will react to that ‘vibration’.
Just becuase plants are not similar to our soulves we can not say that they do not think, feel or even comunicate. With our limited understanding and knowledge it would be foolish for us to do so.
So it follows that we can not say for fact that plants do not pocess a structure that has a similar purpose to our brain.
Minerals. The same applies here (although no scientific proof similar to trees)
We can not say that rocks are not alive as fact. They appear not to be alive as we understand it. BUT that is the whole point. ‘As we understand it’
Maybe rocks breath and evolve, comunicate over such a great time span that in our fleeting life span, we notice no difference…
We can not be sure that they do not…until we have observed and tested in every feasible way possible…not just known to man, but evry way possible. And with our infant knowledge of the universe all we can do is summise from what we ‘think’ we know.
So plants evolve, maybe they too have a brain.
Let us go futher and think more on the brain and evolution.
With animals, life starts as a single cell (as far as I’m aware). That cell needs to be fertilized to kick off cell division.
Is it at this point that thinking starts? That origional cell is the centre of conciousness/awareness/intelligence (call it what you will) ?
Maybe the origional cell ends up being found at the centre of the brain?
As you can tell this is all ‘what if’ thinking.
I have no proof either way right now and I really do appreciate your input
Build me up or bash me down, it makes no difference as long as we find the answer…
It was for the energy the nectar gives that this evolved. The humming birds brain found the best way to get excess energy over what it would use daily, to develop it’s mental processes.
Lets bear in mind that it is only us who think that we are the most intelligent creatures on earth.
We can not prove it.
Just becuase we ‘talk’ use tools and think in three dimensions, does not make us intellectually superior to other lifes forms, although most think it does.
We can not say that humans are the pinnicle of evolution so far. To do so would be very arragant and stupid. Yet that is exactly what most of us think.
Our tiny minds strive day after day, trying to understand it all and make sense of the world.
Who’s to say the other animals aren’t observing us and thinking, bloody hell I’m glad I’m not one of them stupid things.
We judge the world by our own behaviour and by the measurements we can make within our own species…
Now if we really could talk with the animals…
I’m not saying that all evolution is a success, and that a specific species took the best root to help enhance it’s brain, like you say, they make the best of what they have around them, so it may lead them up a dead end.
True the ones that looked like rocks did better in the survival game. The same with speed. The faster ones went on to be more successful.
But what I am saying is the whole driving force behind this ‘survival of the fittest’ is the brains drive to find the best and most economical way of bettering itself.
When I say bettering itself, maybe not the way we better our brains, but in a more subtle way we can not comprehend.
What better way than to explore evry avenue it possibly can in every type of vehicle(body) it can create. Some will die out, others will be very successful. Each route will be different, giving each brain a different attributes and thus different experiences.
We can not say at this point, at least in my mind, that evolution is not driven by the brain.
Anyone familiar with DrWho would also be familiar with the Daleks.
They may not be familiar with what is inside a Dalek though. (I’m sure DrWho fans out there will correct me if I’m wrong, but if my memory serves me correctly…)
Inside a Dalek is a soft brain like, sort of crab creature.
It uses the mechanical Dalek as it’s body, to meet it’s own ends.
So…
I’m pretty sure I’m not the first one to come up with this concept. That the brain could use a electrical/mechanical device instead of a body.
The vehicle is irrelevant, it is the ‘brain’ where all the important bits happen.
I feel left out. You responded to Ray but you ignored me. Just kidding. MentualZen, from your last post, I have gathered that you identify yourself exclusively with your brain (your thoughts perhaps), and as a result, you exist as long as your brain is still operating. From that, I can derive that you do not identify yourself with your soul or maybe, you don’t think that souls exist. Using that logic, I guess your hypothesis is true, but I think that there is more to a creature than a collection of thoughts and a desire to stay alive.
Hehe, dragon-heart, looking at the posting times, I was writing my reply as you were posting yours, sorry I missed it!
OK imagine this.
Which parts of the body can science replace with electro/mechanical substitutes and a human still be considered alive?
Also which parts can NOT be substituted…
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Yes I identify myself with my thoughts rather than my brain, but I wouldn’t say exclusivly. I do see myself as a whole, or rather I am aware of the difference between how others see me (existing inside their heads, as in when I am not in view they construct me) and how I am aware of myself.
I used to think of others as a body with a personality. This was the thing I constructed in my brain through interacting with them.
One day it dawned on me that they too had all these amazing thoughts going on inside of their heads, 99% of which no one else is privilige to.
I am inside looking out, everyone else is outside looking in…they are unaware of the details in the decor inside.
I do try to mentally break myself down into bits, to simplyfy things and view myself from an outside point of view.
Now my Soul… well, (WARNING: mad man approaching) was once stolen, at least that was how it felt. It was due to Mental Illness, which I have written about in other posts. Anyway, the result was just a shell of a person, and I made it my job to get the ghost back in the machine… If you’ve been there you will understand.
So yes in my opinion Souls do exist. I have no idea what a soul is, where it resides, how it works etc. It is totally beyond me. So I try to work with something I have a chance of understanding and generally talk bllcks about it
I think maybe I have my Soul back now, or at least most of it. It pretty much terrifies me that something could steal it again oneday…that was one of the driving reasons behind my motivation to recover as much as possible from my Illness and to learn as much about myself, and this place we exist in.
I can hear people laughing and the men in white coats are coming down the drive so I’d best be off for now
I highly recommend you read some details about evolutionary theory. I can’t really go through your posts point-by-point, but there is a basic misunderstanding of the concept at work here.
I don’t mean to insult you by any means. You certainly show a thrist for knowledge and a propensity for abstract thought, both of which are to be applauded. I have a somewhat extensive background in evolutionary theory, so sometimes I assume too much is common knowledge.
In short, there is a gray area when it comes to the brain (pun intended). Do you mean the brain as a philosophical/mystical entity or as a biological/chemical entity? If the former, then you can argue that the brain or the soul or the superconscious drives evolution, I suppose. Biologically, the brain is more narrowly defined. Evolution, biologically/scientifically speaking, is not a conscious process. It is the slow elimination of non- or less-viable traits in favor of more-viable. These traits (genetic variations) arise by means of random mutation and genetic recombination.
In any set of individuals within a species, there will be genetic variation (brown hair, blonde hair, red hair; tall, short; lean, heavy). Many, many factors in the environment and in the population will lead to the eventual dominance of one genetic type (or the dominance and diversion of two genetic types). This is the basic process of evolution.
–side note on divergence-- There are two known species of gorilla, highland (or mountain) and lowland. These two have diverged only recently, and they could most definitely produce viable inter-species offspring. The highland version has a much heavier coat than the lowland. When these two groups diverged geographically, the selective pressures on the mountain gorillas living now in colder elevations made it more viable to have more fur (less fur = exposure to cold = death). It could have gone the other way too; both groups could be decended from a common, furry mountain group. I don’t have anything in front of me to say one way or the other. Anyway, before the divergence, we can assume that both phenotypes existed in the parent population. Some offspring were born furry, others not so much (some humans are born with blonde hair, others red). The population diverged at some point, and one phenotype became dominant in each population due to different selective pressures (ie average temperature). The other phenotype was effectively bred out of existence in each group because fewer individuals survived to maturity with what was now a genetic handicap.–back to your regularly scheduled programming–
random genetic variation + environmental pressures → unequal viability
The above does not allow or require intelligence on any level. In order for species to try all possible avenues as you’ve suggested, there would have to be a superconscious, would there not? Something would have to direct variation. But variation is not directed, it is random.
–another brief side note–No one said humans are the height of evolution or the paragon of animals as a certain sad Dane put it. Evolution is not a process of progression, it is a process of diversification and survival. Niches are filled by divergence.–and I’m done–
Ray, I really do thank you for using some of your time to reply to me.
In no way am I insulted.
I know alot of people see me as some mad idiot with only a slight grip on reality, and I do lack any real academical qualifications and have no scientific learning.
I do understand everyting you have said and yes maybe there is superconcious, but I fail to see why the precence of a superconcious would automatically mean it was directing evolution. As we take a brief glimpse of time on this planet, alot of things seem truely random, but given the bigger and whole picture we may think other wise. As far as we are aware right now there is no point to evolution, life, the universe and anything that exists in it. It is just a phenomenum. Kinda don’t make sense to me.
But anyway. Thanks for the input, it has given me more food for thought.
It’s interesting what you posted. here is some points to consider if you TRUELLY want to find the TRUTH and be open minded.
THIS MESSAGE IS FOR EVERYONE WHO SEEKD THE TRUTH
Evolution is a THEORY NOT A FACT, although some mass-misleading scientists say it’s a fact to basically sperate the mass from acknowledging the creator.
IF you search the net you’ll find many honest scientist who proved that Evolution is wrong.
The biggest flause of the evolution theory is that of the “instinct” : example there is aniamls seperate from their parents on the time of birth but still could build it’s complex nests …
Scientist are founding a dinstict species: The Creator reates all the time , so really creatures are not “evolving” by time but rather different creature in different times, this is more logical than evolving in millions of years!
The carbon 14 dating method has many flauds in it, so millions of years (which let you feel that we “evolved” is wrong and has no basis)
We live now in the darkest times of humanities were we live in a see of ambiguity, there is a collective force leading us to NOT believe in THe Creator to be contorolled and not be truly free, just think !!!
The simple truth (by the way there is a “law” by a “scientist” that says if you have many answers to a problem the simplest propbably is the wright one) is the there is a creator in fact it’s proven by science but these information is supressed
Don’t forget that during the middle-eval scientist and their orginization where perscued by the church, now it;s there time of payback, not acknowledging the existance of creator
**Another fact: thinking, understanding, and conciousness is located in the hear! a scientist (german i think) proved by anatomy this fact, but before him 1423 years agao this fact and many other (which scientists are finding the hard way, like bigbang …) in the holy Quran
Please just read it for yourself and decide , give yourself the freedeom of choice before deathm, know the truth
note: the holy quran proved not to be made by humans or any creature, because the complex net of interlocked numbers (numrology) underlying the word construction, even super computers CAN’T write something like the holy Quran (ex A=1, B=2 … like an underlying code)
Also, the scientific miracles in the holy quran are endless
I am sure NO one could deny it if you really search and read it
ex: in the wholy quran Allah speaks of seas turning into fire! completely opposite ! but one scientist prove that water H2O could turn into fire if you spereate the H2 from the O like in the nucular bombs, but an enormous power needed to do that, which is Allah’s word be and it will be
I hope I shed some light
It’s couregious to admit the truth than stik with wrongness forever, it’s not to late. IN ISLAM IF YOU BECAME MUSLIM ALLAH WILL FORGIVE EVRYTHING YOU DID BEFORE, BUT AFTER THAT YOU ARE ACCOUNTABLE FOR YOUR SINS: 1. ASK ALLAH FOR FORGIVNESS IF IT ONLY INVOLVED YOU 2. ASK FORGIVNESS FROM … IF IT ENVOLVES OTHERS
I’ve just been watching Double Helix - the dna years on BBC2 (UK)
(second part on thursday 4th, midnightish)
It is the story of the past 50 years of DNA.
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It was extremely interesting, and from what I understand one of the ideas about life, is that, life is DNA’s way of reproducing itself.
DNA uses animals (which I personally include humans as, and so did they) as a vehicle to reproduce itself.
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It struck me that my ideas, noted above, are in part correct, but it is not the brain which is the ‘animal’, but DNA (or genes as Ray says) that are the animal… So I feel I was on the right track, but just failed to understand the point that Ray was trying to make.
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Ray, if you read this, thanks for the tip about reading up on evolutionary theory, but unfortunatly, I’m not a great reader, and tend to struggle with ‘advanced’ books, and if I do finish one, I need to lie down for a month or two afterward
But TV programmes etc, I find most valuable.
Sadly I feel I will never be a great scientist, in philosophy or otherwise.
But I do like to advance my understanding of things around me.
Thanks for your interest.
MentulZen.
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PS. I finally got the joke from hitch-hikers guide I think it was, and the meaning of life being, if I remember correctly, 46.
edit: Or was it 42? In that case forget about my linking of chromosomes with ‘the meaning of life’
Evolution is not teleological. That is, it does not act with an end in sight.
The purpose of evolution is the same as its mechanism, that is, survival of the fittest. However, I think this can be misleading because if something has the same purpose as mechanism, to state either one in relation to the other is cyclical.
The brain is not the common denominator in living things in any case. There are other features of life, such as feeding and, importantly, reproduction that more aptly can be called such. Furthermore, life - as you acknowledge - precedes the existence of brains. Brains also do not entail thinking any more than a computer “thinks” when it carries out an operation. Brains are merely integrators and mediators of neural signals.
I’d also like to emphasise Ray and ksterling’s point about evolution not being teleological. To put this another way, an organism does not decide it wants to to grow an extra limb, or become more resistant to a particular pathogen. Chance reconfigurations of genetic structure, from generation to generation, mean that some organisms in a population will, by chance, fare better than others under the particular local environmental pressures. Those that fare better will be more likely to reproduce, passing on the genes that allow them to do this to their offspring. Thus the proportion of organisms in the population that are fitter with respect to the environment will increase, such that the population as a whole is fitter. And so on, down the generations, such that the population gradually becomes fitter and fitter. But the organisms themselves do not choose how they change.
[size=75]Just for the record, in response to DeepBlue:
Evolution is a fact and a theory. A theory is an explanatory framework, not synonymous with a hypothesis. A theory cannot become a law, because they are logically different entities. Being a theory does not imply doubt as to validity, and evolution is universally accepted in science. Thus, claiming it is “only a theory” is an empty accusation, and does not mean what you’d like it to mean. And if scientists were as dissembling as you would like to imagine, they’d just not call it a theory in the first place. But they’re not - they’re objective, and as accurate as the evidence allows.
Not true. The only people who “disprove” evolution are dishonest and/or ignorant creationists, and they do not hold to scientific standards.
Err, how is this a flaw?
That is by no means a more logical explanation, given the observations.
Carbon dating isn’t used for such great ages. There are many other techniques proving the earth’s great age - it’s illuminating that creationists conveniently ignore these.
Oh, and everything else you say is rubbish. The Qur’an is no better than the Bible when it comes to “scientific revelations”.[/size]
