Evolution:
a learning process
For me as life scientist, one of
the most important items is the ongoing dispute about autonomous
evolution, intelligent design or creation.
After more than thirty years studying life
and matter, confronting my own views with those of numerous others,
I end up where I started; No complete answers, only speculations
or beliefs.
In
the ongoing discussion about the nature of evolutionary processes,
designed, purposeful or just governed by indifferent chances,
it is my stance, that both viewpoints are hindered
by the same "blind spot".
Reasoning as is recently developing in Biosemiotics
might offer a way out.
Mere chance does not recognize the intricate LEARNING process
that manifests itself in evolutionary outcomes (be it a virus,
palm tree or you and me).
If "It" is obviously learning, life as a phenomenon that
is, then evolution should be interpreted as a conscious process.
Acting on impulses from outside, taking in feedback en reacting
on it, storing gathered information and adapting from generation
to generation.
In ACTING this way, it accumulates KNOWLEDGE, stacked in a molecular
database in DNA and a collection of individual carriers. Using
it in the every day life of individuals with the acting intermediate
RNA. In a process like that, the essential activities are stacking,
exchanging and using of information.
Exchange of information is only possible with a "sender"
and a "receiver", vice vera
of course.
It is undeniable, that in that case, there is a certain level
of consciousness in both "players".
This consciousness is an essential element in all manifestations
of life. It is intelligent; not artificial, like in the intricate
artificial neural networks of Silicon Valley of today,
but NATURAL, spontaneous.
And in its reactions
life is intelligent and purposeful, even goal oriented; not merely
surviving, and getting better in the process. Learning more and
more, with ever more information in the totality of life forms
in the biosphere.
That is what is overlooked by pure reductionist scientists. They
do confuse the new element of consciousness in man - "AWARENESS"
- with the basic parts of which this awareness is made of / emerged
from; the different stages of natural consciousness AND awareness
in all livingsystem elements.
They cannot accept that the ongoing CREATION that we see by life
itself IS intelligent, constantly exploring new ways of living, opening new possibilities.In fact, we now recognize
that life has adapted to the very process of evolution itself;
jumping genes, hotspots for crossing over in chromosomes, incorporating
useful viral genes in our genomes, our genes getting profitably
hijacked by viruses, stacking symbiosis on symbiosis. Learning
ever more, using information from other parts of the living network
and speeding up the process by acting like this.
One of the spectacular demonstrations of the outcome of such processes
you can observe in your own immunity system. A lifelong learning
system, based on evolution by selection and ongoing feedback,
providing you with your own special database of immunoglobolines
and memory cells that is adapted to your personal habitat / life
history.
Or...... could have been, because we are interfering in this delicate
process with active immunisation, antibiotics, traveling
to distant - and in the sense of our immunity system unfamiliar
and hostile - environments. The number of "signals"
mentioned in the scientific literature on this process
is getting complexer and longer and
longer...
A
list of interleukins with function:
-
* IL-1: secreted
by macrophages, induces acute phase reaction
-
* IL-2: secreted
by T cells, stimulates growth and differentiation of T cell
response. Can be used in immunotherapy to treat cancer.
-
* IL-3: secreted
by T cells, stimulates bone marrow stem cells.
-
* IL-4: involved
in proliferation of B cells, and the development of T cells
and mast cells. Important role in allergic responses.
-
* IL-5: role
in stimulation of B cells, eosinophil production, IgA
production
-
* IL-6: secreted
by macrophages, induces acute phase reaction
-
* IL-7: involved
in B, T and NK cell survival, development and homeostasis
-
* IL-8: Neutrophil
chemotaxis
-
* IL-9: stimulates
mast cells
-
* IL-10:
inhibits Th1 cytokine production
-
* IL-11:
acute phase protein production
-
* IL-12:
NK cell stimulation, Th1 cells induction
-
* IL-13:
Stimulates growth and differentiation of B-Cells, inhibits
Th1 cells and the production of macrophage inflammatory cytokines
-
* IL-17:
Induces production of inflam matory cytokines
-
* IL-18:
Induces production of Interferon-Gamma (IFNy)
-
* IL-23:
Increases angiogenesis but reduces CD8 T-cell infiltration
-
* ...............................
Source: Wikipedia
This element is not recognized,
or rather neglected by purely reductionist scientists. They are
confusing their own transcendented human " awareness"
they know (but do not understandl) with more basic forms of natural
consciousness in living things.
They deny or cannot accept that the ongoing process of 'creation'
by life itself indicates consciousness and intelligence in a form
that is not hindered by inflated human " brains"
that do obscure the in itself already virtual reality with yet
more virtual layers of symbols and words.
An example of the pitfall this represents is the an early definition
of " instinct" by Jacob von Uexkuhll in the thirties
of the last century: " Zweckmassig handeln ohne Bewusstsein
des Zweckes" .
A -non definition- that does did not help us. Later in his career,
he succeeded better in analysing this rather philosophical problem
and he ended up as one of the icons of pre-semibiotic biological
directions of thinking.
http://csel.eng.ohio-state.edu/productions/woodscta/media/05_umwelt.html
Intelligent design adepts do postulate
implicitly a "designer" . They also do not recognize the
manifest intrinsic consciousness in all living elements and
try to place the "intelligent" AND conscious part that we see
in evolutionary processes (outcome of processes) completely
outside the system.
They postulate a hidden (but by some claimed to be revealed
to them) "player", an engeneering entity in some sort of control
room, the heaven. Recognizing the "intelligence", but
not accepting the emergence of diffuse but active self-creating,
self-realizing forces in the universe.
It is similar to the old problem Descartes tinkered with when
observing his own human mind; "I am thinking, so I am".
The "I " , the little entity inside his, yours and my head
we so frantically tried to find with the most sophisticated
hard and soft scientific approaches; BUT it isn't there, the
I being a floating construct of an astonishingly complex series
of interactions between myriads of neurons (and, maybe even
worse, myriads times myriads micro tubular, quantum chemical
complots).
By placing the intelligent acting force outside life itself,
they kill it as much as pure materialists do.
In any case no brain
that overexpand the already virtual reality with more virtual
H. "sapiens"symbolic wordfiles that mess it more and
more.
The "animal" conciousness you still have of course,
and try to recognize it in yourself and the other spacies companions.
Worsless is how you use it.
To give an example to illustrate it:
I. Eibl - Eibesfeldt: Himba film
http://erl.orn.mpg.de/~fshuman/index.html
Irreducibly complex, improbable
small chances and still inevitable..
Let us look into one of the self proclaimed most powerful statements
of the ID proponents. They claim that the information density
in living things is irreducible complex and cannot be explained
by just coincidental interactions.
In thirty years of explaining what seems to be going on in evolution
I always used the classic Galton experiment to demonstrate that
looking back from the "NOW" to the outcomes of processes, one
cannot decide if these outcomes were inevitable from the start,
or unforeseeable; The Galton apparatus is a perfect metaphor;
Galton statistics
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Imagin
me throwing a thousand grains of lead shot in the
apparatus of which I painted red one piece and start
videotaping
that particular one in its downward trajectory.
Then I play back the tape and view it in slow motion,
analysing spin, hit speed
and angle of the particle on route.
Looking back, the conclusion
is; this outcome "had to be", was "inevitable", or being a "believer"
"was meant to be".
And these two conclusions precisely
do represent the fundamental basis of the clash of views
about evolution.
Realize that this is a very little number of "chances"
compared to what was and is the case on our "living"
planet
(GAIA,
James Lovelock).
But also, IF ... than
an ongoing process can develop and in the eathly
case is was. Otherwise you were not reading this
anaway.
(Cristian
de Duve; Singularities, Landmarks on the Pathways
of Life, Cambridge University Press 2005).
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The chance for the specific sperm cell and egg that together
created you was, before you were conceived½23
for your specific sperm chromosome assembly and also ½23
for the egg.That means for the combination YOU = ½46
= 1,42x10-14
Looking back on the track of the red piece of shot I
have all the information I need to predict a new run, if only
I was able to throw in all the lead shot particles in exactly
the same way. And that is virtually impossible, "an irreducibly
complex task". BUT; it happened once and that was enough!Something
else comes out of this also; if I repeat it, my special ball
is sometimes a "winner" (right wing), a "loser" (left wing)
or average. For this lonely ball I have to repeat the process
hundreds and hundreds of times to see the general pattern
of binominal distribution emerging in its "mean" fate.
As shown above; looking back at a winner's route that seems
always "meant to be or inevitable" as much as that of
a loser. Praying, chanting or offerings do not change that
(or do they?)Something more on irreducable complexity; I can
prove that - when observing the system from the outside
- the chance that you as you are reading this essay at this
very moment is zero or one (like Schrödinger’s
cat being alive or dead).
The chance for the specific sperm cell and egg that together
created you was, before you were conceived½23
for your specific sperm chromosome assembly and also ½23
for the egg. That means for the combination YOU = ½46
= 1,42x10-14 = 0,00000000000000142 = virtually
ZERO
When we take into account the same theoretical values for
your parents, grandparents and so on, its irreducible
impossible that you as you are reading this.
Still you are….
My point here is, that calculations for occurrences in the
real world do miss relevancy in reasonings about the terribly
more complex processes on all levels i the world as we now
it (from super strings to galaxies).
With Nobel
laurate Prof. Christian de Duve
we have to conclude, that the necessary steps for life to
emerge seem to have been a series of singularities, maybe
each one of them highly improbable, but also: once was enough to produce a further leap.
Highly improbable…but not principaly improbable that
is.
Intelligent
designer adepts claiming that life could not emerge by itself
are "believers". They 'believe' that is is not there by itself
AND 'believe' that a form of some one - THE ONE!- produced
it. And than, they 'believe' that als that is SURE.
They are indeed creationists, easing their way out of an existential
problem; postulating an "entity" that is responsible for everything.
They severely underestimate the flabbergasting complexity
of the interactions that are going on in nature and are apparently
not familiar with or neglecting emergent transcendental "jumps"
that are proven to happen spontaneously in computer experiments
with complex systems.
In those experiments "learning" manifests itself, that is
why one has named these processes "artificial intelligent",
taking place in small dead chips of silica.
These "jumps" you can even observe in yourself, whilst the
stack of miniature living entities in your heavenly body are
day after day transforming the cooked, chopped up and mixed
stuff in your daily meals into this irreducably complex more
or less intelligent "you" that is reading these lines...
What we know
now, is that on the scale of our solar system matter was about
six billion years ago dancing Mendeleyev's
periodic system shuffle. The sun's attraction sweeped
it up and it got clogged and trapped in
- among other oblects - this planet.
On this wet, not so hot and not so cold mixing and grinding
materialised speck of dust object, moving in a merry-go-round
ellips around the sun, matter is constantly interacting. This
all did lead to the unbelievable (irreducably?) complex systems
that eventually produced "its" like me and you.
Learning? Getting wiser?
This is how it works, explained with "semiotic"
metaphores, so anyone not familiar with the trigital
coding system of RNA and DNA will be able to understand it,
starting with a little piece of information, the concept "KIN".
Be aware of the fact, that reactions
even from very "learned" players can be desastrous in their
outcomes; it is a big mistake to think - as many non-evolutionists
do - that adaptations have to be perfect to be inteligent.
Click to enlarge. |
I
depicted the 'evolution process' here as a symbolic
outcome of a "play". You could compare it with computergames
you play with. The example here does mean "play", but
a free running play in "given" boundaries.
Are they "given"? The only thing I can say is, it is
what we can be aware of, helped by more and more technical
possibillities. There is far more that we are not aware
of and never will be.
The nuclear fusion centre of our solar system, the Sun
will and -so is estimated- in 5 billion years. We are
halfway on the trip as earthly dust. Homo sapiens is
here about 400.000 years and our earlier ancestors we
mentioned Homo species also maybe 5 times more.
I think our kind will nt be present any more for a very long
time before the Sun absorb "her" planets when she will
become a red dwarf star.
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So, the ID
propagators do have a point in stating that evolution shows
intelligent solutions.
Molecular motors, monocellular organisms with a complex eye
(see Erythropsis, my favourite), hemoglobin as totally adapted,
fine tuned protein for oxygen uptake and deliverance in our
bodies. And what about the small pox virus that was able to
steal genetical information from
the human self-defence mechanism preventing us to get rid
of it?
Life is not merely evolving but uses functional evolution
in you and me; it is the very basis of the "learning curve"
that is taking place in your own body when you fall ill, building
up immunity against the infecting agent.
If that isn't Intelligent, what is?
Erythropsis
pavillardi
(his kind gave life eyes)
So, that
is where the materialists underestimate the "natural intelligence";
they do not want to take a next step; Life shows
intelligence in its reactions on all levels.
It responds adequately to feedback. It learns and accumulates
knowledge in an ongoing feedback loop from generation to generation.
And that should lead to the conclusion; it is a conscious
process.
What humans do is confusing their own expanded - inflated
- consciousness and awareness with this basic process. If
we do not recognize this, we are ending up with empty theories,
just like Descartes and our neuroscientists did end up with
an empty head.
Thinking this trough, looking for a starting point of this
proces of interacting, this ongoing exchange of information,
I stumled on the Mendelejev
chart in my chemistry textbook; one atom has electrons to spare , the
other lacks some so they "make a deal"; and molecule with
a total new set of possibilities emerges.
Probing even deeper, you will end up in the quantum world.
And if we ever did find a level that is based on pure exchange
of information, it is there.
Every time one quantum entity shares an "event" with another
one - interact - they fix a irreducably (is it?) part of the
fate in this universe, our fate...In "doing"so, they add information
to the system.
The intelligent
"designer" is
not the revengeful/forgiving contradicting male archetype
of the monotheists. Nor is it the cold, mathematical coincidence
"thing" that is the acting agent for materialists.
And, it is not "designing"
that is taking place, it is more achieving solutions for encountered
problems and constructing bridges to cross gaps.
Looking back, like in the Galton
metaphor, this is intelligent. Living things that are thrown
in the Galton machine of "events" in
their lifetime are avoiding certain incidents, based on accumulated
genetical information in former
generations.
Life is more than a heap of material lead shot thrown in the
Galton apparatus of the universe..
This "creative intelligence" is emerging by itself, as an
intrinsic property of the whole complex of time/space/matter/energy
of which we are only ephemeral small and not so very intelligent
(but very arrogant) parts.
Stop giving absolute answers, because there are not any.
But keep on asking questions, look at life and everything
else, be astonished, admire it and respect it in whatever
form you encounter it. And don't forget to enjoy it as long
as you can…
It seems I am ending up as an animist....
Dirk Jan Willem Meijers
Biologist ©2007
updated
March 12, 2012
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