Intelligent Evolution?

Very well.

So would you prefer to separate things by technological development and non-technological development or biological evolution or non-biological evolution. We don't really need both "technological development" and "biological evolution" when one is the negation of the other.

The distinction I am trying to make in this thread is between development and evolution. The former requires the involvement of an intelligent agent while the latter precludes it.
 
The former requires the involvement of an intelligent agent while the latter precludes it.

Humour me - what is the minimal level of involvement required for the former?
 
Regarding Posts 1857, 1903, 1906:

These are my popularizations of the theme of this tread. Over generalizations.
My backgrond's not in science or egineering (The Astronomy major got ditched when I flunked Calculus.)

After writing those narratives, I couldn't help wonder what the ID proponent's reply to my ignorant presentation would be.

Here's what I imagined today:

ID Guy:
"You've got to be kidding! How low are you evolutionists going to go. Now to escape the obvious evidence of Intelligent Design in Nature, You just deny any intelligence exists, even in human activity! What a load of dingo's kidneys.
What will you tell us next? That were all just mindless zombies without a clue?

Oh? You say there is intelligent behavior, but it figures very little into engineering and invention, and that it isn't relevant to the subject?

So tell me how, show me the process, step by step, how you'd get from a junkyard to a 747 without, or with a very minimal, intelligent input,
You may use as many tornados as you need."

I'd be at a complete loss, cause I don't know where to begin to describe the process of human information selection.

Now I agree that self-concept and intelligent purpose are abstract illusions, like rainbows, if you like. But I don't know my own unconscious process that results in me being conscious of this fiction I call myself and the way it ascribes goal direction to the behaviors I exhibit.

I could give the ID Guy a copy of something by Daniel Dennett and tell him we'd continue the discussion after he read it.

I'm tempted though to back up and cover the ground of the Blind Watchmaker before trying to get him to see the Headless Watchmaker or Automaton Analogy.

Of course I realize that the greater majority of ID Guys and Gals have too much ideological baggage to grasp even the simple, much less a philosophical deconstruction.
 
We don't really need both "technological development" and "biological evolution" when one is the negation of the other.


Funny. I thought just the opposite. That technological development and biological evolution are distinct and separate doesn't make them balanced and void but, rather... effective.
 
I would also recommend that you read Posts #1059 and #1200 which hypothesise the analogy in order to bridge some gaps that have emerged during the debate, and that the original analogy, because of the level at which it applies, sought not to address specifically. Sam, who appears in the story at Post #1059, has essentially now been replaced by an automaton. The automaton analogy is sometines abbreviated to 'the AA'. Please feel free to stick around, and good luck!
Thank you both for the advice. I will go to the start of the thread to catch up, as well as #1059.
Regards. Angelo.
 
OK, thats an interesting way to look at it that I had not considered.

And of course in a "survival of the fittest" like manner, the arrival of new competitors (Plasma, LCD) may result in the extinction of the existing inhabitant (CRT).
Here is one instance where evolution is taking a backward step. [CRT] [ apart from size] TVs have a far better overall image than either plasma or LCD, at the present time. Makes me think, how many times has evolutionary life taken a backward step before more complex life jumped over and became more dominant?
 
He's not deliberately misattributing that post to you; he's just demonstrating that changing a couple detail of the post (e.g., electronics hobby sets to easy bake oven) may actually produce a "parable" that people no longer agree with in so far as the conclusions drawn from your "parable" seem nonsensical when drawn from his.

Where did I give you credit for writing about Stan and Ollie? As Apathia and, then, cyborg noted about such things... they write themselves. :D

I realize that mijo, but Mr President's directing newcomers to such posts is likely to have them believe that I wrote it, and I wouldn't want to be tarred with the same brush!

Mr President, please refrain.
 
Mr President, please refrain.


As cyborg noted:


... "it wrote itself," seems a ludicrous thing it does, at an another level, ring true.


So what do you want me to do, Southwind17? If you have an issue with the story of Stan and Ollie... take it up with "it", not me.

Come to think of "it"... what would oppose "it"? Nothingness? I'm afraid that's not going to help. :)


We don't really need both "technological development" and "biological evolution" when one is the negation of the other.
Funny. I thought just the opposite. That technological development and biological evolution are distinct and separate doesn't make them balanced and void but, rather... effective.
As ever you fail to understand anything.


Please elaborate.
 
Please elaborate.

DVD and non-DVD is not a fundamental dichotomy. There is VHS, Blue-Ray and myriad other video storage media.

Natural and artificial is a fundamental dichotomy. You can equally well say that which is "natural" is non-artificial and vice versa. All cases are covered.

Does "biological evolution" and "technological development" fit into the former or the later?
 
DVD and non-DVD is not a fundamental dichotomy. There is VHS, Blue-Ray and myriad other video storage media.

Natural and artificial is a fundamental dichotomy. You can equally well say that which is "natural" is non-artificial and vice versa. All cases are covered.

Does "biological evolution" and "technological development" fit into the former or the later?


Based on how you had responded to mijopaalmc in this post I had assumed you were suggesting the latter, cyborg.

Though I'm kinda hoping now that you'll say you really meant the former. That way maybe biological evolution could be described as analogous to an advertiser-supported pornographic website while technological development would be more like PlayStation 3.
 
BTW jimbob - are we agreed, yet, on what constitutes the trigger for biological reproduction, or rather a trigger? Are we agreed that attainment of sexual maturity can be seen as the trigger just as well as conceivement can; both denoting that the traits of the entity species have survived their environment, whether that be directly or by the conceiving predecessor?
 
Based on how you had responded to mijopaalmc in this post I had assumed you were suggesting the latter, cyborg.

Though I'm kinda hoping now that you'll say you really meant the former. That way maybe biological evolution could be described as analogous to an advertiser-supported pornographic website while technological development would be more like PlayStation 3.

You take living up to your namesake's retardation seriously don't you?
 
I'm just glad Laura and the twins aren't here to see my considerable faults laid bare.
And believe me, there a many.

How is it possible in the greatest democracy on Earth to elect such a man with so many faults?. Never mind Laura and the twins. It's there for all the world to see.:)
 

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