7 replies to this topic

[agwoodliffe]

Traditionally, if you have a serious problem genetically, you are phased out. You don't get to reproduce, and your defective genes are destroyed. Natural selection. The strong go on, the weak are eliminated.

Today, that idea has been turned on its head. Deep-rooted diseases like Diabetes, weak immune systems, and particularly mental disorders (which up until recently you were doomed to just 'live' with) can be treated and even cured medicinally. And I don't just mean with the invention of new drugs; but also the greater studies and publicity about natural remedies that have been used around the world - for instance, 150 years ago, a person living in England would have had no idea about the benefits of stuff like Ginkgo Biloba or Fructus Akebiae.

In short: today, genetic problems can be cancelled out. Weaker people can finally become strong. Ill people can live longer and live perfectly normal lives.

Charles Darwin: eat your heart out.

[Absent]

I disagree. Survival of the fittest does not exclusively refer to fitness in a physical sense. Survival of the fittest refers to the specific condition of a species necessary to thrive in a particular environment.

Presently, we as humans live in an environment of intelligence. The overall smartest and most apt to adapting and problem solving are the ones who climb to the top. The people who are able to figure out how to become millionaires, billionaires, etc. These people will leave much less stressful lives, and have it within their capabilities to afford things that average people can't that will allow them to live longer. In a couple decades or centuries, the ability for humans to be immortal through technological means will be available, and likely very expensive, for obvious reasons. The term fitness is entirely relative to the environment and its demands.

The dynamics are always shifting. Alpha, Beta, will always exist as observable paradigms in any species. People say slavery doesn't exist, It does, It has just taken a different form. Things will always be this way, alpha, beta, etc. People are always looking for ways to one-up their neighbor. It is this difference in drives, in motivations, in efforts, in persistence, that create these divides. It is what causes a fit classification to exist, and a not so fit classification.

Edited by Siro, 25 November 2013 - 03:29 AM.

[agwoodliffe]

So would you say 'ambition' plays a great role?

[Absent]

Of course. Luckily as self-aware creatures with the ability to plan for the future, this also gives us the ability to improve ourselves to make our lives/self better than the person next to us. Animals don't have this luxury and are more at mercy to their genetics and animalistic impulses. Things like ambition, motivation, drive, persistence, desire, actions, self discipline, are all products of decision. Albeit some people are born naturally with these things, a great deal of people who chose to set out and cultivate these things and cultivate themselves first made the decision that they were going to.

I marvel at the idea of survival of the fittest in its modern sense because realizing these things is part of the requirement to elevating ourselves to the top.

[Fluffkat]

At some stage, roughly about 3.5 billion-ish years ago there was a single celled organism referred to as LUCA (last common ancestor). As far as we know, all living organisms on earth have evolved from LUCA, it's astonishing to me, that all living organisms are related.

LUCA could never know the implications it/she/he would would have on all life on this planet, to think we, sentient beings evolved from a single celled organism is just astounding. Never mind the amount of evolutions or steps it took to even get to LUCA's state.

Are we to LUCA, as AI may be to us?

It seems obvious to me that that is the most likely scenario besides self annihilation and then provided our planet isn't destroyed by an asteroid or marauded by aliens..

The notion of survival of the fittest seems irrelevant in to me in the context of human survival, evolution has progressed at the pace at which the tools available at the time have allowed the progress. Culminating in the apex of biological evolution, the brain! But even the marvelous brain seems to progress too slowly for evolution.

So we start to outsource, starting with the first language and writing, outsourcing information and sharing information, papyrus, the printing press, computers, the internet....Jump...AI Boom!

What can evolve faster than Moore's law? I guess the AI's will find out? If Luca is to us as we are to AI, then my god! What would an AI be to it's tranceder? What could be more transcendent than an AI?

We are as likely to figure that out, as a single celled organism is likely to find out that it even exists

Can it be disputed that each paradigm shift in evolution's progress has resulted from components or individual parts (forget semantics pls I'm not a scientist) which have come together to create something that transcends itself? It's gone on for billions of years...

For me the interesting question is why? It's an awful lot of fuss and all life is hardwired to live and strive, why?

[Marios Kyriazis]

For me the interesting question is why? It's an awful lot of fuss and all life is hardwired to live and strive, why?

There is no answer. Natural laws have this tendency, to go from a more simple level to a higher one. You will see this everywhere you look. Because living organisms are the result of, and obey, natural laws they will always aim to live/stay alive. Not only that but higher organisms such as humans will continue evolving to proggressively higher levels. That is where science, philosophy and religion become one.

[niner]

It's an awful lot of fuss and all life is hardwired to live and strive, why?

Life evolved that way. All the lifeforms that were not hardwired to live and strive died out. Being hardwired to live and strive means that you are more fit, in evolutionary terms than the animal who isn't so wired. In the modern world, humans are changing the fitness landscape in myriad ways. In the long run, this could change the result of evolution, but that horse has left the gate. We're fully in charge of our own evolution, now.

[cats_lover]

I think the survival rules have changed significantly in the last 20,000 years.

And as Siro said, physical qualities are no longer so important, although many people tend to live less or have poor quality of life due to physical problems that can be solved just with exercise. Overall, intelligence is what should distinguish the fittest in the modern world.

However, disagreeing with something Siro said, I think that today are not smart people who have great fortunes or became rich, in one hand because there are families who have monopolized the large amounts of money of the world, on the other hand; today those who became rich tend to be bussiness kamikazes betting money in investing and become rich or committing suicide because they were bankrupt (half of them dies, the others becomes rich).

Maybe the most brilliant mind of the 21st century is working in a mine in China and he/she will die at 20 years old because exposure to gases.

So I think that survival depends mainly on luck to born in the first world and other factors then intelligence is the most important factor.