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Author Topic:   How is Natural selection a mechanism?
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1503 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


(1)
Message 141 of 191 (816303)
08-02-2017 3:07 PM
Reply to: Message 125 by AndrewPD
07-29-2017 12:17 PM


quote:
"The essential questions being: Why do organisms create increasingly bizarre and incredibly elaborate schemes to reproduce?
Why do things attempt to survive? Why do genes have a survival motive?
Why the need for survival at all? (Including what does actually survive?)"
Why is there something rather than nothing?
Because if the opposite were the status quo there would be no question.
imo the universe exist because it wants to. life exist because it wants to exist. Living things go through all they do to carry on existence because that is what living things do. Well am I guilty of anthropomorphizing the universe? Where is the line in a continuum?
I get a chuckle out of people who go around saying things like:
We are nothing more than a collection of molecules that make up a organic machine that has a complex processor called the brain that gives us the illusion that we are special and have choices.
We are no more important than a bacterium on the surface of a piece of shit. Every emotion and feeling we have is nothing more than biomechanics and chemistry.
While all this may be true it harshes my buzz.

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
 Message 125 by AndrewPD, posted 07-29-2017 12:17 PM AndrewPD has not replied

  
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1503 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


(1)
Message 150 of 191 (816360)
08-03-2017 10:46 AM
Reply to: Message 149 by Tanypteryx
08-03-2017 12:23 AM


Inception
Interesting subject Tanypteryx,
My take on this is that most of the sensory information that is being processed is running in the back ground. Like on some 3rd of 4th tier.
The brain seems to filter all sorts of shit it doesn't think is necessary to pay attention to. Which is why we can navigate our way to work and practically not remember the drive. Your in the zone so to speak. Zen driving.
When I was learning to drive my school driving instructor told me that a when you are a good driver your passengers will not remember your commute. But if you suck as a driver you they will remember every close call, jamming their foot on a imaginary brake etc.. ha ha.
It is the part of the brain that is responsible for taking the steering wheel in cases of perceived emergency where consciousness lives. The thinker behind the thought. The one who must react NOW.
Much of our other decisions are mediated through our subconscious, endocrine system and biome. We can of course override their decisions but for the most part they just convince us it was OUR decision in the first place.
Brain experiments have borne out that some decisions we think we are consciously making are already a second or so prior, generated and implemented in our subconscious. "Inception" anyone? The thinker behind the thought may just be a puppet. Frighting thought to be sure.
Oh I by pass any angst created by this thought by just saying its all a symbiotic relationship that make me, ME.

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
 Message 149 by Tanypteryx, posted 08-03-2017 12:23 AM Tanypteryx has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 152 by Tanypteryx, posted 08-03-2017 11:44 AM 1.61803 has replied
 Message 154 by RAZD, posted 08-03-2017 2:44 PM 1.61803 has not replied

  
1.61803
Member (Idle past 1503 days)
Posts: 2928
From: Lone Star State USA
Joined: 02-19-2004


(1)
Message 153 of 191 (816373)
08-03-2017 12:38 PM
Reply to: Message 152 by Tanypteryx
08-03-2017 11:44 AM


Re: Inception
quote:
Do they have any control of our decisions?
Absolutely. Do Gut Bacteria Rule Our Minds? | UC San Francisco
And lets not forget about the Fungi that turns a species of ant into a zombie.

"You were not there for the beginning. You will not be there for the end. Your knowledge of what is going on can only be superficial and relative" William S. Burroughs

This message is a reply to:
 Message 152 by Tanypteryx, posted 08-03-2017 11:44 AM Tanypteryx has seen this message but not replied

  
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