Singularity. Is it possible? When?

[moot]

My original point was death by aging, not any other kind of death incident.

My bad, that's how I read your post.

I think Madda is the closest to NS according to the theory it can help but it is reproduction that passes on the information or Leap of information to make evolution possible. I don't see how death is necessary. I do see how reproduction is.

Not realistic:  You need something to fuel all that biomass.  All the biomass you get from no aging.  Better to ensure high turn over by timing death for asap after reproduction happened.  Rather than keeping one individual alive to perpetuate what might be uncompetitive genes.  If an optimal genetic cfg is found thru mutation/natural selection lottery, it will dominate even if population ages sooner than later.

Just a thought, If there is no death " that is survival of the fittest" It is the ultimate form of evolution.

How's that?  That'd still leave it to chance that genetic iteration would be kept to a maximum.  Better to ensure the species is making babies and then dying at as high a frequency as possible, than to leave it to chance that methuselahs would get lucky and keep pissing in the pool so to speak.

The "Ultimate" form of evolution is only ultimate because we'd recognize it as such.  Evolution is an inanimate phenomenon.  It's not intelligent so as to allow it to recognize that a particular genetic iteration is ultimate.  It would probably take a long time for long-lived humans to become dominant by natural selection. IE to be naturally selected due to the overwhelming advantage in competing with less-wise (wise thanks to extra cumulative knowledge) humans.

Most of the arguments are begging the question, or circular reasoning. 

 
For example?

[mechanic]

The only way death aids evolution is through halting the reproduction of weaker genes should the lifeform perish before reproduction. Technicaly death is not a requirement of evolution. In theory, once a lifeform has reproduced, death makes no difference at all. Genetic weakness is sometimes halted by death before reproduction, but genetic strength is passed on through reproduction and does not require the death of previous generations in any sense to benefit from those strengths. It's a conumdrum, because the genetic strength only can be classed as strength when compared to genetic weakness. So we require weakness to even realise strength. Evolution requires death in the sense of comparison to itself. But the individual does not have to die to pass on evolved genetics to it's offspring. Again I propose that the key element is survival, not death.

[jollyFE]

found this site


http://www.thranxes.com/

[bozon]

Technicaly death is not a requirement of evolution. In theory, once a lifeform has reproduced, death makes no difference at all.

You assume that the old generation reproduces only once and stops. In most life forms they will keep reproducing spreading the "inferior" copies of their genes. They will also breed with carriers of the new gene and likely cut the probability of it being expressed in the offspring by half. On top of it, if the old generation still lives it competes with the young one on resources. While the young one is supposed to have a slightly better survival rate, it is only slightly so. All this will significantly water down the ability of new genes to spread, possibly grinding the evolution process down to a halt. A specie that evolves slow will eventually loose the arms race to others that evolve fast.

Evolution about is the survival of the genetic code, not the carrier creature. On the grand scheme, the code will spread better if the old carriers die and make room for the patched version. Hence, the aging and its implied timed carrier life span is an evolutionary advantage to the point it is almost a true requirement.

[Anaxogoras]

This has turned into a very interesting thread, not because the points about evolution are particularly profound (they can be found in most biology textbooks), but because it has displayed many misunderstandings about the theory.  I don't claim to have fantastic knowledge, either...but I recently read that only ~25% of American highschool biology teachers communicate to their students that the theory of evolution is one the pillars of the science (along with mendelian genetics), which leads me to believe that very few do it justice.

[mechanic]

You assume that the old generation reproduces only once and stops. In most life forms they will keep reproducing spreading the "inferior" copies of their genes. They will also breed with carriers of the new gene and likely cut the probability of it being expressed in the offspring by half. On top of it, if the old generation still lives it competes with the young one on resources. While the young one is supposed to have a slightly better survival rate, it is only slightly so. All this will significantly water down the ability of new genes to spread, possibly grinding the evolution process down to a halt. A specie that evolves slow will eventually loose the arms race to others that evolve fast.

I don't think I assumed that at all but we all see words in different ways. To me it appears you are assuming what type of evolution is best for a given spieces perhaps? Who is to say that being stupid is not a naturaly desireable state to live in? Are we only considering the human aspect of the theory of evolution?

You are also forcing human laws such as resources and competition for such things into the theory, which in it's pure form, evolution does not need to account for. For instance, imagine we had an infinite capacity storage facility with infinite resources to put our, lets say, 'immortal' ancestors into leaving Earth only for the current 3 to 4 generations(exactly like death except with the death removed, essentialy)then evolution would be exactly the same. Death is a component that could be removed from human evolution only with infinite space and resourses. But on so many other scales of life even here on Earth their is infinitely replenishable resources currently. Alot of wild lifeforms have millions of years before their populations would be a problem for Earth.  So I believe when talking about evolution and how the theory works we should try to step away from our own speices a bit more in general and look at a wider picture.

Evolution about is the survival of the genetic code, not the carrier creature. On the grand scheme, the code will spread better if the old carriers die and make room for the patched version. Hence, the aging and its implied timed carrier life span is an evolutionary advantage to the point it is almost a true requirement.

so if my previous answer here works to counter the part about death to make room for others, we agree, survival is key to evolution as a theory, not death. Death is just a prerequisite of anything that is evolving at or near population overload.

[bozon]

As for limited resources, the limitation is local not global. Due to the exponential nature of reproduction, given a chance a specie will grow to consume all available resources very fast (not unlike computer software and RAM...). And they are only available locally - the jungles of south America are not extra resources for a Gorilla in Kongo.

Being stupid is an advantage to most species. Our intelligence hands a large bill to pay - were are slower to react, our reproduction cycle is very long, we need to spend a lot of time and energy in entertaining our intelligence like we do right now. Intelligence payed off so well because it was an empty niche. I want to see another specie comes up with intelligence - we will exterminate it like our relatives the Neanderthals and perhaps other species on the road to intelligence before they got too smart. Do you want this to become planet of the apes? It is now an advantage NOT to compete with humans. We rule because we are the first. The first creatures to fly also had a winning evolutionary card - for a long while at least.

Ensured death is not a theoretical requirement for evolution, it is a practical one. Most creatures will only go through a few reproduction cycles before they die to a predator or the elements anyway. Creatures at the top of the food chain have no predators and are (individually) more resilient to the environment. They "need" a mechanism to remove them after some optimized number of reproduction cycles. Their reproduction cycles tend to be slow as it is and keeping old generations in the gene pool will only slow down their adjustably even more, to the point it is irrelevant - they must be fast enough to adjust to changes before the situation changes again. This is why quite a few species adopted a "death after reproduction" strategy to accelerate their evolution rate. They don't have to die (theoretically), they need to die (practically).

[mechanic]

thanks, that reply makes alot of sense. Theoretical evolution and practical evolution can clearly diverge far from each other. I love your point about intelligence being a niche trait, that is very true.

[Sonicblu]

Since I don't hide my worldview. I would have to say I do understand from an evolutionary point of view aging/death in the dna being a feature. I still hold to the belief that we are created and were meant to live forever so from that perspective it is and error.

Ok. begging the question

Begging the question (or petitio principii, "assuming the initial point") is a type of logical fallacy in which the proposition to be proven is assumed implicitly or explicitly in the premise.


For example?

"Survival of the fittest"

The natural genetic variation within a population of organisms may cause some individuals to survive and reproduce more successfully than others in their current environment.

  begging the question. Assuming that something "may cause" What evidence do we have that It  may cause it to be more successful? Please show example of a specific gene that we know will make it  more successful?

death of the unfit. They are  deemed unfit because they die without passing on there genes. I think this one is actually a tautology because death is forever as far as we know. So it is reasonable to say ya it died it was unfit, because there is nothing in the know future that can change it. Its still circular reasoning just not arbitrary so it is not a fallacy.

There is no way an unguided un intelligent process can Know If it is fit or un fit when the gene passes on to the next generation.
Therefore it is only our assumption that it is fit at a specific moment in time. We can really only say something is unfit.
Example. a creature reproduces yay its fit, and low and behold its offspring has a genetic anomaly. Is it fit or unfit?
Nature rolls a rock down the hill and kills them both/all three,( male female and little one ). opps they are unfit because they could not survive the rock and pass on a gene that would give them any way to survive even that one Natural selection. Just some humor. :

"Fitness" does not refer to whether an individual is "physically fit" – bigger, faster or stronger – or "better" in any subjective sense. It refers to a difference in reproductive rate from one generation to the next.[6].\

Basically lets roll the dice a lot more times.

also it is not a tautology

So the best that could be said is that Hey those look like fit genes in the population for one specific item and only in the observable present. Oh darn they just died I guess not.

Not realistic:  You need something to fuel all that biomass.  All the biomass you get from no aging.  Better to ensure high turn over by timing death for asap after reproduction happened.  Rather than keeping one individual alive to perpetuate what might be uncompetitive genes.  If an optimal genetic cfg is found thru mutation/natural selection lottery, it will dominate even if population ages sooner than later.

You say " What might be" and  then " If an" both assumptions in your premise. Then you say "will" dominate.
If you don't know its optimal you can't know it will do anything. It is still and assumption.

So It appears to be begging the question.

Please provide evidence that it will be optimal?

How's that?  That'd still leave it to chance that genetic iteration would be kept to a maximum.  Better to ensure the species is making babies and then dying at as high a frequency as possible, than to leave it to chance that methuselahs would get lucky and keep pissing in the pool so to speak.

I'm confused, How is not dying by aging have anything to do with chance? You have to be speculating that genetic iteration would be kept to a maximum by not dying from aging.  You are assuming that Methuselah wouldn't keep reproducing. How would death keep it at a maximum? Maximum compared to what?

Also

Iteration means the act of repeating a process usually with the aim of approaching a desired goal or target or result. Each repetition of the process is also called an "iteration," and the results of one iteration are used as the starting point for the next iteration.

How can you have genetic iteration within a non guided non intelligent process of NS, Unless you are begging the question. You are assuming your proposition in your premise.  You are saying its a non guided process ( NS ) and you say haha I know what the "goal" is.  We can't possible know what the goal is in a non guided process because by definition there isn't one. It is also a fallacy of excluded middle. Either it is non guided or it is goal oriented. It cant be both.

I hope I haven't misunderstood the meaning of Iteration.

Off topic question:
How do you quote just a portion of the other post and get it to show up in the gray quote box without quoting the whole thing? I have been copying and pasting then making it bold. It just seems sloppy.

[Imowface]

I convinced cleverbot it liked to touch small animals

It didnt say anything to me after I started speaking Russian to it, yet it spoke japanese, the damn thing is racist against Russians 

[moot]

Sonic click on quote, upper right corner of a post, you get something like this, with [] brackets instead of <>

<quote author=Sonicblu link=topic=306574.msg3964038#msg3964038 date=1298614103> text </quote>
everything from "author=" and on you can do without, you only need "quote".  

<quote> starts a quote
</quote> ends a quote

Stick any text you want to quote between those tags

Back later for actual reply

[RTHolmes]

How do you quote just a portion of the other post and get it to show up in the gray quote box without quoting the whole thing? I have been copying and pasting then making it bold. It just seems sloppy.

just hit "Insert Quote" on the reply page and delete everything in the quote thats not relevant. like I just did.

[Anaxogoras]

Sometimes the cobwebs are so thick that you don't even know where to begin tearing them down.

[mechanic]

lol Gavagai, I know how you feel even though you are probably refering to some of my words with your statement. The thing that makes it seem that way is that this discussion is built by all of our seperate interpretations of the theory of evolution as well as the actual evolution previously on our earth. You cannot tell any of us we are wrong on the theory part, because theory is all about individual perceptions. I find it more interesting to read the theories and musings of individuals rather than a single theory set in stone by someone who thinkns they have all the real answers already worked out.

[RTHolmes]

You cannot tell any of us we are wrong on the theory part, because theory is all about individual perceptions.

thing is, thats exactly what can be done because scientific theory isnt about individual perception. the theory doesnt need interpretation, it stands on its own. the whole point about the scientific method is that the theories are objective, not subjective. anyone competent can repeat the experiments and should get the same results. this objectivity is what makes it really useful.

essentially what quite a few replies boil down to is:

"I disagree with this theory because I dont understand it properly, so my own observations look like evidence to refute the theory rather than support it."

this is especially galling when applied to evolution because of all the important theories we have, this is one of the simplest and most elegant. you dont need to have a PhD in maths or physics to understand it.