@jknilinux,
jknilinux;34317 wrote:So existence is relative?
It's what you make out of it. Existence itself may not be relative -- but who cares? It is what it is. You are completely free to make out of it what you want.
Quote:Also, I am familiar with evolution, and I know how it works- it depends on random changes in genotype, leading to random changes in phenotype. Phenotypes that lead to more offspring will allow the genotype to continue in a greater ratio to the next generation. Repeat a quintillion times, and you get us. Our only goal, therefore: reproduction. That is, if there is no God.
This is grossly incomplete or incorrect in many ways, and to say "you know how it works" is not merited by your understanding. You do not understand the word random, which is a statement of equal probability and not a statement about whether something was consciously guided or not. You do not understand the mechanics of molecular genetics, and you do not understand population genetics.
1) The terrestrial conditions in which organic molecules and then early life forms first appeared was NOT random, and based on some recent research it may be highly probable that life will eventually come into being in such an environment, given enough time. So the beginning of life might have been
likely, not random.
2) Base pair mutations are not the only form of genetic change that leads to phenotypic change -- you're forgetting recombination events, crossover mutations, translocations, etc, which do not happen in a random way -- some are much more likely than others to occur, and big probabilistic asymmetries are by definition the opposite of randomness.
3) Our genetic material does not have equal susceptibility to mutation throughout its entire sequence. AT base pairs are more susceptible to mutation than GC base pairs, telomeric regions more sensitive than centromeric regions, and different individuals can have different DNA repair mechanisms.
4) It is known (among other places, from Chernobyl) that environmental stress decreases generation time and increases fertility, which means that under conditions of stress mutations are more likely to be generated (due to faster turnover of genetic material). Thus, in part, conditions are
inducing evolution. This is strongly supported by research into punctuated equilibrium.
5) Selection is not only not the only thing that leads to population genetic changes, in fact it may not even be the most important. Geographic issues like founder effects, cultural issues like nonrandom mating, and statistical issues like genetic drift (which is perhaps the STRONGEST factor in the entire history of evolution, stronger than natural selection).
6) Phenotypic changes are not random, they're specific to certain polymorphisms and they can be secondarily regulated in some cases.
The point is that our evolutionary history is not at all one of randomness, it is simply one of an enormous number of variables with many possible outcomes; and while the actual genetic milieux of today may have been statistically unlikely
a priori, it's kind of like picking the winners and losers in the NCAA basketball tournament -- one specific outcome may be more or less likely, but a finite
group of possible outcomes may have been
highly likely..
As for our moral and biological imperative vis a vis reproduction? We can do what we want. We're alive, we decide. Nothing forces us to reproduce. And nothing forces us to post on philosophy forums. To
morally interpret that evolution reduces us to meaningless mating machines is one of the more crass arguments I've heard from the fundamentalist creationist school for a while -- but we learn new things every day, so thanks.
