bio evolution, light, sound and aroma

The others here have dealt very well with your question on "how" evolution "knew" some "whatever" was out there. It didn't.But to take a different tack in re senses.Light impacts a cell. That means energy touches the cell membrane.Smell and taste are the same mechanism operating in somewhat different modes. Still molecules touch the cells.Sound is vibration. Vibration touches the cell.If you understand why/how random mutation together with selection works it is not difficult to assume changes in the cell wall or within the cell structure that would become sensitive to these impacts from the environment. Once any type of sensitivity (meaning reacting to this outside stimulus) developed those same operations of random mutation and selection would build upon those reactions. Sometimes for the better (discerning shade from full light, discerning helpful chemicals in the surrounding area, etc) sometimes not so good (reacting to light changes as in movement of something out there by moving toward it and getting eaten, discerning certain bad chemicals but not reacting or not quickly enough to get away). Those reactions that did not kill the cell were inherited by the next generation of cells a few of which may have developed even greater sensitivity to the stimuli. Over a few tens of thousands of generations the resultant population of organisms may well have developed what we would recognize as rudimentary sight, smell/taste and/or hearing.BTW, you do realize that Paul's stricture against hollow and deceptive philosophies was not a warning against factual knowledge (like science) but was a warning against the extreme fundamentalist judaism and the new emerging gnosticism of his time? I hope you are not one of those who takes such warnings out of context to rail against what you might see as unpopular realities that conflict with your favorite religious myths.

Well, lets see.

quote:

---

If you understand why/how random mutation together with selection works it is not difficult to assume changes in the cell wall or within the cell structure that would become sensitive to these impacts from the environment.

---

As has been said, this "how could it know ..." part is a personification of a process that has no capacity to know or care. It just is.Second, if anything in the environment impacts the cells in anyway whatsoever there is an opportunity, taken or not, for some random mutation to occur that might make use of such a thing. It does not have to know it is there prior to the mutation or even that the new capability is there, yet. In fact, the cell has no capacity to know. It is just there. If there is a benefit to the new response to stimuli then, maybe, more babies are made. If the response to the stimuli is detrimental then, maybe, fewer babies are made.And, as I said, once a response to stimuli is there then this can lead to alterations (note I did not say improvements) of the response by other mutations taking place. And, again, if these alterations are good then more babies. If bad then less babies.Assume we have a million cells in a colony somewhere. Because of the way they separate from their progenitor cells mutations are introduced. Some of these mutations, not all, cause some cells to respond to light (pick a response - I don't care). This cell responds in this way, that cell responds in a different way and others in other ways since they have different mutations as initiators and some respond in quite similar ways but have different mutations as the initiator. The responses that are beneficial help its cells be progenitor to more daughter cells passing on the new responses. And that cycle repeats and repeats again introducing, without knowing or caring, other mutations that alter in some ways this panoply of inherited response mechanisms and the more or less babies and the recycle yet again generation after generation.If you have no respect for time and the number of different but parallel trials being implemented then you can never hope to appreciate the enormous complexity such miniscule incremental changes can ultimately create tens of thousands of generations from now.As for your first question, what would seem to you to be the bigger question: We have some limited ideas, but nothing even close to certain, how the chemistry of self-replicating inheritable molecules came to be. There are some 4 or 5 different hypotheses, each one somewhat different yet somewhat similar, on how the processes developed. However, at this point no one knows. Not even you.But, once the process started then the same mechanism I described above (evolution) generated the various cell organizations and everything else.

Didn't see this earlier. Maybe we can change this.I understand what you are going through. You leave one question and get 6 responses. You respond to one or two and get 5 more responses to each new one. It snowballs and gets confusing and frustrating.I see you have left 4 posts and gotten 21 responses. That can be a bit hard to take.Nothing in the Constitution or bylaws of the universe says you have to respond to everything. You're a nice person and feel you owe a response to each message you get. Don't be so nice.Once you have read a few responses pick one or two and respond to them only. You can even pick on one or two folks and correspond with them exclusively for a while. Just ignore the jumble of posts from everyone else and be selective. It will save you some time and a lot of sanity.Don't be concerned about making the ones you ignore upset. We all have been there, understand what and why you would do this, and since we are all (mostly anyway) adults here we, the ignored ones, will get over it or go cry somewhere private or something.And besides, that would be a whole lot better than to lose you.Give it a try.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

So what you are saying is that any new developments from X already existed within the parameter space of all possible developments from X.Becoming a butterfly does not exist within the parameter space of a future Mt. Everest, but becoming a weathered worn-down hill in some far off future landscape is within that parameter space.Further, emergent properties are those unique properties that exist within the parameter space of developments, whether they actually emerge or not, from combinations of simpler objects or systems. At one time in our lack of knowledge we presumed this to be true since we were unable to relate the composite objects to the resultant properties. That is no longer the case. We very well can explain some emergent properties from the complex and sometimes chaotic interplay of their constituent parts. Modeling of weather systems is one excellent example. This does not mean that we can always foretell what properties will emerge from some specified combinations. Nor are we able to presently digest the more complex occurrences but with further knowledge modeling the more complex properties is not beyond our capacity. There is nothing magic about emergent properties. Their explanations are only a matter of enough knowledge. Brains, especially the human brain, are some of the most complex systems that we know of in our universe. I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it and it may take a more advanced theory than Quantum Field Theory to explain but it will happen. When dealing with a chemical soup and the complex interplay of atoms and thermodynamics there exits, indeed, an enormous parameter space of possible developments (or dispositions, if you like) several of which would be small primitive self-replicating molecular chains. Edited by AZPaul3, : tense and title

We cannot reduce things to a starting point because that starting point has potential?You stringing these words together thinking they actually mean something. What a crock-o-crap.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

Wow. Your level of ignorance about something you fight so vehemently against is staggering. You really know nothing about evolutionary processes, selection and reproductive differential, do you.The genes did not have to "magic up" anything. Imbecilic.Let's start with a simple fact. You do know that not all humans have the same arm length, right? You do know that there are natural differences in length person to person and generation to generation, yes? These are caused by differences in genes, right? These differences came about because of changes (mutations) to genes, yes? This isn't some great surprise for you, is it?Do you think that all bears have the same fur tone?Do you doubt that the lighter and thicker the bears fur the better it can hunt and survive and have more babies in the successively snowier environments as a population of bears migrated slowly over generations into more northern areas?Can you understand that over many generations the lighter/thicker trait becomes more and more prevalent in the population and the darker/thinner furs don't get reproduced so often?Do you have some logical reason why, after very many generations of this moving so far north, the major population fur trait could not be very thick and very white?After thousands of generations, voooiiilllaaa!, we have the slow natural development of polar bears. Evolution.Do you really think that evolution says some brown bears walked into the Arctic Circle and POOF became white?You really have no idea how this thing works, do you. Not a clue.Edited by AZPaul3, : No reason given.

And that point shows up your total lack of knowledge of the mechanisms involved.The genes do not "create such a specific, valuable, environment-matching adaptation ...". The environment culls through the attributes already existing in the population. Those variations of an attribute (those genes, those mutations, changes, of past genes) that fit better in this specific environment thrive more, have more babies than the others and spread in the population over the generations. It's called natural selection.This points up the problem to which you are so blind. You do not understand the mechanisms, their effects on a population and most of all their results over time. As a consequence the stones you think you are throwing at "evolution" are only thin air. You have nothing but your own made up straw men to fight against and you look more than just foolish. You fight but you do not know your enemy. It's imbecilic. Does it really? I hope you are not limiting "consciousness" to humans, then, because dogs feel pain don't they? So do fish. So do clams.The mechanism is not "pain" but "reaction to strong dangerous stimuli". Almost all life exhibits this phenomenon. I can not say a plant experiences pain as we perceive it but some do react to harmful stimuli and thus "recognize" or "feel" the dangerous stimuli on some level. In mammals such a stimulus is perceived in the brain as pain. Good god, man. Do you not read your own writing?" ... die young because of severe bodily injury that is undetected."If this reaction had not developed (evolved) in a population they would soon go extinct wouldn't they.Again, you have it basackward. Pain did not already exist so we adopted its use, rather, these reactions evolved as signals of danger to the organism without which it would die. Those that inherited the reactions lived. Perception of pain is just one of a multitude of responses to stimuli that evolved in life systems all based on the same evolutionary mechanism - chemical response to stimuli. Because without its development populations become extinct.That is the strongest possible "... causal bio-physical explanation".But in your ignorant search for magic you are blind to the reality and power of evolution in such mechanisms.Edited by AZPaul3, : cuzEdited by AZPaul3, : more cuz

You are quite right. We cannot know ... either way.Now the situation is that we can describe and model the universe without any consideration of some super unknowable design or its supposed god and very successfully discern the mechanisms and predict some phenomena.Since there is no way to know if there was a god or that it designed this thing, coupled with the evidence of human history that gods and religions appear to be the concepts and conjures of man, on what basis should we entertain a god concept at all? It just adds needless complexity and offers no enhancement to knowledge. The concept is quite worthless.