Continuous evolution

i see you are very well organized ! All I have to do is split my contacts into groups (If I can )

to Muriel

You wrote on 10th February: «My belief is that the universe can only move in the direction of more complexity and consciousness.»

This is a typical evolutionary view. As we may conclude, by deduction, what happened immediately after the Big Bang, quarks formed protons and neutrons, which formed atoms, which formed electrons, which formed chemical elements, which formed molecules, which formed cells, which eventually formed what we call «life». This seems to be a natural move to complexity. But life, as we see it from our little window on Earth, cannot maintain itself and will decay.

Similarly, in space, gas clouds condensed to stars, which formed galaxies, which formed clusters of galaxies; which formed strings of clusters. It can do so as long as matter is hold together by gravity. The problem is that matter, as we know it, represents only 5% of the contents of the universe. There is an additional 25% «dark matter», which must be there because it is obviously subject to gravity. Today, nobody knows what dark matter is about. The next Nobel Prize winner may reveal its physical reality. 30% taken away from hundred leaves 70%. There again, nobody knows what it is made of. Probably some kind of anti-gravitational field. For want of anything better we call it «dark energy». As it seems to counteract gravity, it enables the universe to expand exponentially, i.e. return to chaos. What happens next? The universe collapses and will regenerate a new Big Bang. Cosmologists believe this is an endless cyclic process in which matter turns into energy and the other way round. E – mc².

Insofar as «increasing complexity» is concerned, you are quite right when seen from a human scientific point of view. We should, however, keep in mind that the universe is not static and unique – as Newton and Einstein believed – but dynamic and diverse in terms of space and time. Modern cosmologists speak of «multiverses».

As regards «consciousness», I suppose you meant «self-awareness». I’m afraid we are hemmed in by the anthropocentric idea of evolution. Self-awareness is just the accidental ability of noticing the echo and image of ourselves. Just a particular feature without any impact on the biological evolution itself. It doesn’t make us superior to other mammals. You can make any animal brain self-reflective by adding more and more neurones and synapses, as you can make any computer self-reflective by increasing the number of interconnected integrated circuits, the volume of memory capacity and the complexity of logarithms.

Philippe-Henri

Thank you Philippe Henri for your very interesting post... I have read it several times because that subject interests me very much. Unfortunately I can't answer right now because I am not home and I need my own dictionary to do so.
Bye for now

Do you know that one of the most famous astrophysicists in the world is french : André BRAHIC. He discovered the rings and bows of Saturne. I was lucky enough to attend one of his conferences recently.
Concerning dark matter, he thinks that - perhaps - it's only because gravitation law has limits. It would avoid a dark matter. Anyway this field of research evolves very quickly; 5 years is already long...
He also thinks that life probably exists somewhere else in the universe, but this life could be different from ours.

Anyway, that doesn't solve our problem of metaphysics. Where do we come from ? What is universe ? Even if the universe comes from a initial radiation, then transformed in atoms, which agregated, even if matter goes back to a radiation, we still can't understand where this radiation comes from etc...

What is sure is that we are a very little thing in the universe.

We also know that the only difference between human being and animals lives in a problem of size - brain and also body...

To Remy





In your latest
post I forgot to answer your remark:


[i]We also know that the only difference between
human being and animals lies in a problem of size - brain and also body...[/i]


Let me point out that, in terms of animal anatomy and evolution, there’s no difference
between humans and animals. All of us are animals.


In
addition, there’s no fixed mass ratio between brain and body. No correlation
either between brain mass and intelligence.

To Philippe-Henri,

Sure, we are all animals; I used this word in the common way. What I meant is that we are more clever than other animals; we can speak; some of us can solve very difficult problems; perhaps it's not only a question of brain...

To Rémy


Actually,
brain is just a pilot of our nervous system, associated with some storage
capacity for inborn and acquired information. We wrongly believe ourselves smarter
than other animals. The ultimate of arrogance! Articulated speech… so what?
Just a biological feature, nothing to do with cleverness. Every species had developed
its own communication system. What we call «singing» of birds or «dance» of
honey bees is an intraspecific tool for communication. A huge flock of birds in
the air or a herring shoal can suddenly change direction as a whole: a human
crowd cannot, it would cause a dramatic stampede. As to our ability to «solve very
difficult problems», there’s no reason to be proud of: we are unable to solve
very simple problems, such as traffic jams, equal pay, human rights, homosexuality,
euthanasia, drugs addiction, environmental pollution, mass destruction, armed
conflicts…


I believe
we should stop considering ourselves to be the summit of intelligence or the
ultimate step of evolution. We are just a link in the chain.


Philippe-Henri





PS: did you
get my reply to your story about André Brahic? I sent it some days ago but can’t
find it back at the Forum.

To Philippe-Henri,

tests have showed that dogs have nearly the same level as a two years old baby; solution to traffic jams are given by "Recherche opérationnelle", which is not a simple thing; have you ever seen some animal build a nuclear power plant, a plane, a computer ??? the difference between our world and that of the animals is that ours is much more complicated.
We dominate the world because we are more clever than animals; and that's all.

Hi Gérard, Remy, Philippe Henri, everyone
yes man has a long way to go if he wants to go to improve himself and animal is intelligent in his own way. Thank you for this interesting subject.

To Muriel, Gérard, Rémy et alea

It’s somewhat difficult for me to follow Rémy’s view when he confronts animals with
humans. As I said earlier, we are talking here in terms of «continuous evolution»,
i.e. evolutionary biology according to Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species. In
this sense, we are not different from «animals», we ARE animals ourselves and
just evolved differently from «other animals». All contiguous living systems on
Earth originate from the same stock. Thus, each one has been developing its own
«world» over millions and even billions of years, according to its own ever-changing
environment and ever-changing need for survival.

The point is that we, humans, are as confined in our world as, say, a goldfish in its
bowl or a chimp in its forest. Why do fish or chimps not build nuclear power
plants, aircraft, computers? Because they are clever enough to struggle
to survive in their own world. We, human animals, don’t dominate THE world, we
dominate OUR world, as other animals do theirs. As Muriel believes, any animal
is «intelligent» in its own way.

There still remains the problem of deciding which species is more intelligent than the
other. It appears to me that we, the human one, don’t display great proof of
intelligence by destroying our own environment, but this is another question…

Philippe-Henri

To everybody,

I don't contest that human being is a kind of animals. Among humans, I can't believe that everyone has the same brain's capacity. Teachers know it. In mathematics, some people need one day to understand what others understand in one minute. Human beings are not equal, even in the same family. It's the same, to my point of view, between man and what we call animals in the common conversation. Of course, animals are clever, more or less.
Our human society is nowadays very complex. It's quite easy to manage a little company of some members, but it is much more difficult to manage a company of some hundred thousands of people. You can be clever and evil at the same time, unfortunately. People are not defined only by intellectual capacities. They have their emotions, ambitions, frustrations, they are jalous, eager, selfish...it probably comes from education. We are considered by our mother like the seventh marvel of the world. Then, it is difficult to admit that we are one among others. And we are formated to try to succeed, whereas it's not possible for most people because, by definition, to success is to belong to a little part of the population.
Our world is not perfect, of course. There are wars, some people exploit others, there is much pollution, even in occidental towns. The world is changing. Billions people belong to emergent countries. They were very poor people and since some years, they know what we lived in France in the XIXth century and then after the Second World War. So it obviously brings out fantastic changes in the world.
The present occidental way of life can't be a model for emergent countries, because of pollution and because earth resources are not big enough for everyone. China knows great problems with pollution and she is the first country for developping green energies. In Occident, we are beginning a new revolution, built around sustainable development, green energies and a different way of life, less selfish and more social. It's going to take time, because it must be tought at school. Till today, selfish attitudes were encouraged because this behaviour caused the growth of the economy, which is needed to maintain employment. So we consumed more and more enregy and raw materials. This must change. But it is going to change. In Occident, next economic groth is based on rupture technologies : nanotech, biotech, machines internet, clever house, numerical applications, green energies, robotics, self manufacturing...a Chantastic change is preparing. While emergent countries adopt present technologies, mainly China.
Before to make this revolution, we need to to get over present crisis, which is a very serious one. That's the reason why the States use shale gas, and soon Europe, probably. States debts are enormous.
But this new economic growth must allow to master this problem. For France, it's also a societal problem. We can no longer spend more than we earn.

hi everyone, Sorry for not being able to participate in the discussion. I'm connected with a smartphone. I can read (with difficulty) but surprisingly, I cannot use CRLF nor type down other characters...

I initially started this topic thinking of misunderstanding between generations of humans but it can be extended to living creatures.

I've got the biggest respect in any kinds of animals (not plants nor rocks yet but I'm wondering). This thorough respect didn't exisr when I was a kid (I could kill spiders, moskitoes...

Sorry: mosquitoes. I meant I didn't kill biggest animals. I realized I was not much when I purchased a big old house built in 1905... there were a few spiders in the house and other insects in the yard... I realzed they were there before me and they didn't care about the notary and my official papers: I was not the true or say a full owner... I also thought spiders, ants and the like were on earth way before humans. That's all I can stay for the moment.

It seems difficult to compare a man with an animal. Which animal ? The difference between a man and an insect is huge! The difference between a man and a chimpanzee is not so huge and two millions years ago, there was no difference between the ancestor of a man and the ancestor of a chimpanzee! The situation is the same when you compare a computer playing chess and a man playing chess. The man or the computer may win the game. For this reason, can we tell than the man or the computer is upper? It is the same thing if you introduce a crane in a weight lifting competition

to Rémy and all of you

As far as reference to brain capacity, intelligence and managing abilities is concerned, one should draw a distinction between intraspecific and interspecific comparisons.

I won’t comment on human behaviour towards society, as I won’t on social, technological and economic developments on global level. I’m neither an economist not an politician. Personally, I’ve got my doubts about long-term success of the current globalization and neo-liberalism, but leave it to prominent thinkers and utopians to ponder a better system.

Philippe-Henri

For a psychologist, there is no doubt : an average human being is largely more clever than a chimpanzee. And the brain of a computer is only due to programming, which is made by human beings...But of course, we must respect animals, and life more generally.
I agree with Pierre-Henri when he says that this world is far from perfect. Liberalism was imposed by the States, which were the superpower on Earth. At the same time, keynesianism seemed a little bit tired. That can explain why this occured. The result was a global growth, especially in emergent countries, but also problems in Occident and growing inequalities; and at last a big crisis caused by greed and a lack of regulation in finance world.
The politicians of a country are elected to defend the interests of their fellow citizens. They are not due to love foreign politicians. There are not love but only interests between nations, as you know, unfortunately. This system is surely very bad. Our chance is that, since the nuclear weapon exists, we can no more have a war between powerful nations, at least directly. So we are compelled to agree with our neighbours.
Even Africa is changing. And arabian countries try to do the same. Some people dream of a world reduced to a federal country, with different regions. This would mean peace. With differences but everyone with a correct standard of living. Perhaps in 50 years - or one century . But there is still a long way to cover...and the world will probably be revolutioned by new technologies.

Hi pierreP, hi everyone, I'll respond better later (when I'm home). Re humans and animals, I'd just like to write many bacteria can easily kill humans. In addition, humans absolutely need bacteria in the intestines... let's think of it!!

Hi everyone, I am happy for this discussion, even if we are going far from the comparison between human an animal behavior, since I can give my feelings. We must be optimistic by seeing (or by hoping) that in our world there is more and more peace, and less and less inequalities and so on. Unfortunately, I think that our world is condemned to die very quickly, and that wathever the behavior of humans. This is because the laws of physics are inescapable. The so called "second law" states than we cannot have anything without paying more than we obtain because of friction. Even if we use (one latter day) only renewable energy, even if we arrive to recycle 100 % of the materials than we takes fom the earth, we are condemned to spent more than that we use and this cannot have an illimited duration. The problem is to know : in how much time ? I try calculations and because the limitations of our earth, I think than, in 300 years (may be less), our world will be on the wane. Naturally, nobody is obliged to follow me and that is happy, because if everybody believe me, the situation will be worse. The most radical ecologists think that our earth, to have an illimited duration, do not must sustain more than 800 000 people. We are far beyond this figure !

> more and more peace, less and less inequalities really??? I'm sceptic. slavery is coming back... hidden under various forms...

I am theoretically optimistic, even if sometimes I do not think what I write. But for our earth, it is not a problem, because I think than our world will die because of the increasing pollution before reaching the wisdom!

Hi everyone,

what seems to be absolutely sure, according to astronomers, is that in a billion years our planet will disappear...Run for your life !

Hi Philippe-Henri, Gérard, Remi, Pierre everyone
As far as "the end of our world " is concerned I would say that nobody Knows when. Who has predicted the financial crisis ? Who has predicted the environmental problems ? Who knows what will be invented in the near future ? I know that the tendency for all matter and energy in the universe is to evolve toward a state of inert uniformity and that our universe will die one day (The same for everyone) but I find it unecessary to build castles in the air about that. Let's support an environmentally-friendly policy and let's stay zen.
I personnaly believe that the universe is evolving towards complexity and openness (scandals are disclosed and nobody is spared)
I agree that certain problems are not resolved yet and others are coming back but I wouldn't like to be born again in the middle ages for instance because at that time life conditions were much more difficult than to-day.

Hi everyone, I agree that in few milliards (British language) or billions (american language) years, our earth will disappear in the growing sun, but long before that time, the life on the earth will disappear. And even if long before this disappearance the man will not be here to see it, it remains enough time for the man become better and better, and, if we are optimistic, we can think that the man will resolve the growing problems of our environment before it will be too late!