Survival

[Sebastian Toe]

I suspect you aren't funny.

I suspect that you read my post!

I never get to the end of Seb's posts since I always nod OFF decisively everytime.

 

[Sriram]

That is just your belief. There is no evidence that these are all just random chance driven happenings. You are assuming that.

Natural Selection is just a metaphor. It is a term that can be used anywhere. A 'all in one' solution for everything. Your idea assumes that survival is important to begin with, but you take it for granted as just a natural fact of life.

I am also assuming that survival is important to begin with but prefer to ask the question...why?  Why do organisms survive? What is it that drives this instinct? What survives in spite of so many organisms and species going extinct?

Human made products evolve too and they are also subject to 'artificial selection' by humans depending on what proves useful. There is a clear parallel.

I don't think we have any answers as to 'why' we are surviving.   Why at all have a survival instinct and why the complexity?

Randomness and NS are the obvious 'answers' given by science.....but clearly these are not enough. And true randomness may not even exist....as we know. 

DNA strands surviving, replicating, synthesizing proteins and evolving into complex organisms due to 'Natural Selection' is clearly nonsense.

'We don't know' should be fine.  A pretentious 'science can explain all that'....is dysfunctional.

[Stranger]

I don't think we have any answers as to 'why' we are surviving.   Why at all have a survival instinct and why the complexity?

This has been explained to you. Just because you can't or won't understand or accept it, or even offer a counterargument, doesn't change the fact that the survival instinct is trivially easy to explain in terms of natural selection.

Randomness and NS are the obvious 'answers' given by science.....but clearly these are not enough.

Baseless assertion. Why are they not enough?

And true randomness may not even exist....as we know. 

Irrelevant. The randomness need only be effectively random with regard to the process.

DNA strands surviving, replicating, synthesizing proteins and evolving into complex organisms due to 'Natural Selection' is clearly nonsense.

Your baseless assertions are clearly nonsense.

'We don't know' should be fine.  A pretentious 'science can explain all that'....is dysfunctional.

In this instance, we do know (well "know" as well as we know anything in science). Why are you insisting on ignoring the blindingly obvious?

[Maeght]

I don't think we have any answers as to 'why' we are surviving.   Why at all have a survival instinct and why the complexity?

Randomness and NS are the obvious 'answers' given by science.....but clearly these are not enough.

Why?

[torridon]

I don't think we have any answers as to 'why' we are surviving.   Why at all have a survival instinct and why the complexity?

Randomness and NS are the obvious 'answers' given by science.....but clearly these are not enough. And true randomness may not even exist....as we know. 

DNA strands surviving, replicating, synthesizing proteins and evolving into complex organisms due to 'Natural Selection' is clearly nonsense.

'We don't know' should be fine.  A pretentious 'science can explain all that'....is dysfunctional.

Don't really understand the sentiments here.  Things evolve because it is logical for them to do so.  It is logical for instance that living creatures would evolve a survival instinct.  it is when things seem illogical that we need to ask 'why'.

[Sriram]

Don't really understand the sentiments here.  Things evolve because it is logical for them to do so.  It is logical for instance that living creatures would evolve a survival instinct.  it is when things seem illogical that we need to ask 'why'.

You are telling me evolving is logical?!  DNA thinks logically now?!!  Hmmm!

[Stranger]

You are telling me evolving is logical?!  DNA thinks logically now?!!  Hmmm!

Now you're just being silly, well, more silly than usual...     

This has been explained - what is it you are finding difficult to understand?

[Maeght]

You are telling me evolving is logical?!  DNA thinks logically now?!!  Hmmm!

Of course that's not what is being said.

[Enki]

You are telling me evolving is logical?!  DNA thinks logically now?!!  Hmmm!

Are you just being silly for the sake of it? The idea is that as entities evolve it is logical that the progress of their evolution is linked to their greater capacity to survive. To suggest that those entities that survive have a lesser capacity to survive is surely illogical, isn't it?

How on earth do you get from that to the nonsensical idea that DNA must think logically?

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

This is not very difficult to understand really....!

There is no logic to this world. There is no logic to the stars, planets, galaxies, Big Bang, gravity, earth, Life, evolution, complexity.....etc. etc. The world does not function according to any logic.

Logic is a human construct and implies anything that appears reasonable to our minds.  Once a certain law or natural disposition is given, we can talk of logic .....not before that!  For example, once we take gravity for granted, we can then assume logically that all objects will be attracted by it. Once we take evolution for granted, we can logically assume that all living things will evolve.

But there is nothing logical about the existence of gravity or evolution or Life by itself.

Either we assume that these forces and processes exist due to random reasons (if there is anything that we can call truly random) or that they are caused by something that precedes them or there is some intervention from external agencies beyond this world. Saying that they are 'logical' doesn't make sense in this context.

Cheers.

Sriram

[Enki]

Hi everyone,

This is not very difficult to understand really....!

There is no logic to this world. There is no logic to the stars, planets, galaxies, Big Bang, gravity, earth, Life, evolution, complexity.....etc. etc. The world does not function according to any logic.

Logic is a human construct and implies anything that appears reasonable to our minds.  Once a certain law or natural disposition is given, we can talk of logic .....not before that!  For example, once we take gravity for granted, we can then assume logically that all objects will be attracted by it. Once we take evolution for granted, we can logically assume that all living things will evolve.

But there is nothing logical about the existence of gravity or evolution or Life by itself.

Either we assume that these forces and processes exist due to random reasons (if there is anything that we can call truly random) or that they are caused by something that precedes them or there is some intervention from external agencies beyond this world. Saying that they are 'logical' doesn't make sense in this context.

Cheers.

Sriram

I would suggest that what I suggested in post 33 is perfectly valid.(i.e. evolutionary progress is linked to survival). The Oxford definition of 'valid' that is appropriate here is 'The quality of being logically or factually sound; soundness or cogency.'

Hence I see no reason at all to change what I have written. The idea that DNA can  'think' and can think 'logically' bears no resemblance to what has been written. It is entirely a conjecture of your own making, and, to my mind, is a particularly silly one.

This is not very difficult to understand really....! 

[Stranger]

This is not very difficult to understand really....!

Yet it still seems to be beyond you...

There is no logic to this world. There is no logic to the stars, planets, galaxies, Big Bang, gravity, earth, Life, evolution, complexity.....etc. etc. The world does not function according to any logic.

Given that the world is predictable, self-consistent, and most significantly, modellable with mathematics, we have good reason to think you are wrong.

Logic is a human construct and implies anything that appears reasonable to our minds.

I'll add logic to the list of things you don't understand.

Once we take evolution for granted, we can logically assume that all living things will evolve.

There is actually no need to take evolution "for granted", evolution by natural selection follows logically from populations of replicating entities, with inheritance and variation, faced with limited resources.

Survival "instinct" follows logically from natural selection.

Either we assume that these forces and processes exist due to random reasons (if there is anything that we can call truly random) or that they are caused by something that precedes them or there is some intervention from external agencies beyond this world.

Then we can apply exactly the same logic to whatever you might imagine causes these things or intervenes from "beyond this world" and head off into an infinite regress...