> John's reply to Alexei:
>
> >>In simpler words, free will can alter
> >>selective forces and thus decisions can reproduce themselves through this
> >>means and become "registered" in future forms, altering evolutionary
> >>pathways.
> >
> >I like what you say here! Many biologists erroneously view selection
> >as a passive seive (Gould, Dawkins). They talk about fitness landscapes
> >as if an organism has no control of it. I like saying that death is
> >optional because there are numerous ways to live.
> >
> >>We've mostly been discussing semantic
> >>closure in current time, which is ecological time. Semantic feedback
> >>(between form and function) through time (via generations) seems likely in
> >>evolution. That would produce semantic pathways which would affect
> >>phylogeny, getting very close to a causally effective end-directed process,
> >>or teleology. This is a very different conclusion than many evolutionary
> >>biologists believe (e.g., SJ Gould's "Full House").
> >
> >I agree!
Could you explain your agreement in more detail? To be honest, as a biologist I
agree with Dawkins, Gould, and most other biologists that natural selection is
nothing more than a blind seive, without teleology, and the above sounds like
blasphemy or scientific nonsense! And what do you mean by free will? It does not
really exist.I would like to understand what good reasons you have to agree on
the opposite of the current paradigm.
> >
> >>At the other extreme, quantum phenomena, as you say, do not necessarily
> >>"communicate" to future generations without some other macroscopic process.
> >>But we also cannot get rid of it when we have mechanical evolution> So once
> >>quantum phenenomena are carried along with biological reproductive
> >>evolution, it seems that a means for communication of quantum phenomena to
> >>future generations exists. Without this form of communication, however, is
> >>seems reasonable to say that states are "communicated" only by their
> >>non-local effects, which I assume is thermodynamically limited as you say.
> >>But it is this non-local phenomena (communication in space) that I suggest
> >>is being magnified by biological evolution (communication in time). Is this
> >>consistent with what you are saying, or do I not understand what you mean
> >>by communication?
The problem with quantum physics, or self organisation (an oxymoron) -
complexity
theory - chaos theory, etc. is that they are buzz words which promise to explain
everything. When QM really plays a role at the macroscopic level (as far as I
know, the only example of quantum effects at the macroscopic level is that of
atoms in a certain experiment, but then these atoms were accelerated to
velocities which are rather unusual in biology. Correct?), than all our
reasoning
is not necessary: simply everything can be explained and even people claiming
telepathy can say: 'But of course telepathy exists because we have nonlocality
as
in QM'.
Why should we need QM all of a sudden to explain consciousness, while we could
do
without to explain the rest of evolution? This is a bit like pretending that, to
explain human existence, you need some kind of deus ex machina solution.
Mario Vaneechoutte
Department Clinical Chemistry, Microbiology & Immunology
University Hospital
De Pintelaan 185
9000 GENT
Belgium
Phone: +32 9 240 36 92
Fax: +32 9 240 36 59
E-mail: Mario.Vaneechoutte@rug.ac.be
J. Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission:
http://jom-emit.cfpm.org/
The memetic origin of language: humans as musical primates
http://jom-emit.cfpm.org/1998/vol2/vaneechoutte_m&skoyles_jr.html