Shattering the PS myth... Greeks ditching their children

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Little John

Post by Little John »

woodburner wrote:
JavaScriptDonkey wrote:The trees that generate oxygen couldn't care less about the animals that convert it back to carbon-dioxide for them. Given sufficient resources and no competition trees will dominate the planet eventually leading to their own destruction.
They couldn't care less, because as far as we know they have no thought process. However to infer that the trees' existence is not dependant on animal inputs would be wrong. A common example is distribution of seeds by birds, and an important point in some cases that the seeds will not germinate unless they have passed through a gut first. Another example is the forests in North America. They would not exist to the extent they do if it were not for the nutrient provided by the salmon which migrate up them to spawn, die, decompose and get absorbed by the trees.

To this extent, though they don't care, the trees have a lot to thank animals for, if only they could.
Indeed so. However, I would go further and argue that if something looks like a duck and quacks like a duck we can, for all operational purposes, regard it as a duck. That is to say, if the eco-system acts as if it is a self regulating coherent system of interdependent sub-components who actions are calibrated to serve both their own narrow interests as well as the interests of the system as a whole because both of those interests are synonymous, then for all operational purposes, that is precisely how we should regard it. Or, to put it even more controversially, if the entire global eco-system acts as if it is a coherent, self-regulating organism, then maybe that's how we should operationally regard it.

However, if we are unable to do that, we must accept that this has profound philosophical implications for organisms such as ourselves since it would logically mean that since we are nothing more than the accumulated actions of individual selfish genes having accumulated phenotype effects in the world (in this case, a human body), these accumulated effects merely give the "illusion" of a coherent, self regulating organism. But, then, we would regard that as nonsense, wouldn't we?

For the record, I happen to think it possibly is an illusion (at any and all levels of life). It's just a very odd kind of illusion though because, speaking as one of those illusions myself, my subjective experience of self-regulatory coherence feels pretty damn real. That being the case, I have no logical reason for not supposing the possibility of that illusion being equally "real" at other levels of living organisation such as an eco-system.

It's at this point that I part company with Dawkins because he basically lacks the courage of his own convictions. He obviously understands that complex eco-systems of interdependent structures eventually and, even, inevitably arise. He has even taken this principle of the evolution of meta-forms and applied it to culture in the form of memetics. Also, he must be aware of it's philosophical implications for any level of life's organisation including the level of organisation commonly known as an organism. He just seems to get intellectually stuck accepting that it could also exist at the level of the eco-system, though he implicitly accepts this with such metaphors as the "oarsmen". He just can't bring himself to explicitly state it as, for example, Lovelock has done with the Gaia hypothesis.

In other words, to be consistent, Dawkins needs to explicitly state that all apparent levels of life's self-regulatory organisation above the atomic level of the gene are, in fact, illusions (including organisms) or he needs to explicitly accept the possibility of such self-regulatory organisation existing at any level of life (including eco-systems).
JavaScriptDonkey
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Post by JavaScriptDonkey »

You've both missed the point.

Yes it is all interconnected but none of the nodes have any interest in the well being of any other node. As WB pointed out trees don't think. Trees will carry on producing as much oxygen as they need to regardless of the needs of other life on the planet.
As far as non-human life is concerned there is only blind self interest.

All life acts the same way - consume to the max and breed to the max. No consideration is given to population or waste. It is only that other life forms have evolved to take advantage of that waste and consume the waste producers that there is a semblance of balance.

But it is an illusion.
There is no greater force carefully balancing the oxygen level of the planet. There is no level that it 'should' be.
There is no god and this isn't the Garden of Eden.
Little John

Post by Little John »

JavaScriptDonkey wrote:You've both missed the point.

Yes it is all interconnected but none of the nodes have any interest in the well being of any other node. As WB pointed out trees don't think. Trees will carry on producing as much oxygen as they need to regardless of the needs of other life on the planet.
As far as non-human life is concerned there is only blind self interest.

All life acts the same way - consume to the max and breed to the max. No consideration is given to population or waste. It is only that other life forms have evolved to take advantage of that waste and consume the waste producers that there is a semblance of balance.

But it is an illusion.
There is no greater force carefully balancing the oxygen level of the planet. There is no level that it 'should' be.
There is no god and this isn't the Garden of Eden.
You've just repeated yourself with without showing any real understanding of or attempt to properly address the points raised in WB's or my posts. Specifically, my last post (note, here, I'm not suggesting you should agree with them, merely properly address them). It would appear you've gone as far as you can on this topic for the moment JSD and I have gone as far as I am prepared to, for the moment, in trying to raise your understanding. I'm sorry for the apparent arrogance in that last remark. No arrogance is intended, I assure you. I'm just saying it as I see it.

I'm going to leave you with a question that I would like you to seriously think about JSD. Do your liver cells "care" about the fact your brain needs clean blood to function correctly? Remember that, despite many genes having multiple functions, your liver is at least partially the product of a long chain of biological events leading back to certain genes that code only for liver function and these are genetically distinct from genes that code only for brain anatomy and function. Why should these distinct genes "care" about the well being of the phenotypic product of other genes? And even if they don't "care" does it make any sense to not at least operationally work on the principle that they have evolved to act as if they do because, in doing so, there is a benefit to each of their "selfish" interests.

If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck........
Last edited by Little John on 30 Jun 2013, 13:59, edited 5 times in total.
woodburner
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Post by woodburner »

Life isn't a convoluted matrix of intertwined mutual support mechanisms.
This is the thinking of self interested greedy humans. For the most part the world's ecosystem is just that. Another example, big fish such as gropers, sharks, rays and many others spend their time eating smaller fish. However, they don't eat the smaller fish when they meet up at their underwater cleaning station.

There are complex controls at work to maintain the balance. Whether you agree or not.
To become an extremist, hang around with people you agree with. Cass Sunstein
JavaScriptDonkey
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Post by JavaScriptDonkey »

stevecook172001 wrote:It would appear you've gone as far as you can on this topic
I was thinking the same thing about you. Sometimes I feel like I'm speaking a different language. People often have a hard time grasping ideas that are blindingly obvious to me and I end up having to describe the taste of orange.
I'm going to leave you with a question that I would like you to seriously think about JSD. Do your liver cells "care" ........

No, no, no. no, no, no. You've completely failed to grasp the essence of this and have instead started down the blind alley of anthropomorphising life processes.

All evolutionary interconnections are the result of chance and are all more or less temporary.

Remember the Brazil nut tree?

Do you know how a tree became utterly dependant on a mammal to re-produce? Have you thought about what happened to the ancestors of tree and mammal? Understand that the tough shell is a random genetic mutation that just happen to survive to dominance because those without the mutation died. The mammal certainly (d)evolved from a rodent with less specialised teeth - another happy random mutation.

These mutations happen in every generation of every species. Sometimes the environment changes and previously unimportant mutations become life saving. This random genetic mutation is the basis of your balance.
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Post by JavaScriptDonkey »

woodburner wrote:This is the thinking of self interested greedy humans.
Whereas imaging Gaia controlling all her creatures in a complex dance of life for the benefit of all is the product of a delusional mind raised on Disney and Blyton.
For the most part the world's ecosystem is just that. Another example, big fish such as gropers, sharks, rays and many others spend their time eating smaller fish. However, they don't eat the smaller fish when they meet up at their underwater cleaning station.
Because they have finished eating and are now full. The smaller fish just happen to have whatever gene controls the ability to smell when a shark is hungry and when it's not.

What you are not seeing are the cleaner fish that mutated and lost the ability to get that choice right. You don't see them because they have been eaten.
There are complex controls at work to maintain the balance. Whether you agree or not.
There are complex processes at work but the only controls are the limits to growth. Overshoot and die off are universal constants.
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PaulS
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Post by PaulS »

There are some counter-examples to your proposition: wolves, for example, limit their own procreation to the alpha pair and do not allow (usually) sub-alphas to procreate. The same applies to other species, often those with no natural predators.

It does not however apply to humans, as we are all witnessing. Perhaps because humans have only very recently become predator-free and thus have not yet adjusted biologically.
What a shame, seemed quite promising, this human species.
Check out www.TransitionNC.org & www.CottageFarmOrganics.co.uk
Little John

Post by Little John »

re-edited...see next available post....
Last edited by Little John on 01 Jul 2013, 18:51, edited 5 times in total.
JavaScriptDonkey
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Post by JavaScriptDonkey »

stevecook172001 wrote:[Of course it's's all based on bleeding random mutation JSD. Did you really think I needed telling that.
Perhaps not but you don't seem to understand what it means. That simple knowledge should scream at you about the constant change in progress. The history of extinction (over 99% of all evolved species) should tell you about the relative importance of any one species.
However, the extent to which new forms proliferate is very much dependant on restraining factors within the existing eco-system as well as within the non-organic environment.
So that's you agreeing that species consume resource and breed to the max and to whatever limits are extant.
#And the thing to remember about the restrictions originiating from the rest of the eco-system is that they are dynamic.
That's just another way of saying that change is constant which is in direct opposition to the magic balance theory.
Thus, under such conditions, random mutation that operate within those eco-system restrictions or, even, sustain them will tend to be naturally selected.
There is no 'tend' about it Steve. Species that run out of resources die and those that are left do their best to utilise all the resources for themselves.
No creator, no designer, no intention of any kind required so you really can stop with the aunt sally of accusing those who do not subscribe to your simplistic reading of Darwinism as being fluffy tree huggers.
This is not simplistic Darwinism. This is fundamental Darwinism. Darwin was as much fascinated by extinction as by natural selection. He had a regrettable instinct to ascribe extinct species as more primitive but that reflects the society as much as anything else.
Such interconnected, mutually supportive structures are an inevitable consequence of Darwinian selection pressures in a complex eco-system.
No they are not mutually supportive. They are in competition for limited resources. Species may rely on each for survival but that will not stop them competing for the same resource.
None of this is even that contentious in the field of evolutionary biology JSD and, to the extent that it is, it is certainly not on the basis of your schoolboy understanding of evolution.
Ahh, insults. Now I know you're on thin ice :-)
This is now reasonably mainstream research and was, at least partially, what my degree was about.
Quote me then.
JavaScriptDonkey
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Post by JavaScriptDonkey »

PaulS wrote:There are some counter-examples to your proposition: wolves, for example, limit their own procreation to the alpha pair and do not allow (usually) sub-alphas to procreate. The same applies to other species, often those with no natural predators.

It does not however apply to humans, as we are all witnessing. Perhaps because humans have only very recently become predator-free and thus have not yet adjusted biologically.
Wolves are a very interesting example. You could almost view their pack behaviour as indicating that the pack itself is the unit of life rather than the individual. Almost hive like. Certainly seeing them cooperate in a hunt is a thing of beauty.

I very much agree to with your comment about our species mostly lacking predators. We are free to barge as far in to over shoot with out limits as our resource can carry us.

And we know what is happening to those resources.
Little John

Post by Little John »

JavaScriptDonkey wrote:
stevecook172001 wrote:[Of course it's's all based on bleeding random mutation JSD. Did you really think I needed telling that.
Perhaps not but you don't seem to understand what it means. That simple knowledge should scream at you about the constant change in progress. The history of extinction (over 99% of all evolved species) should tell you about the relative importance of any one species.
However, the extent to which new forms proliferate is very much dependant on restraining factors within the existing eco-system as well as within the non-organic environment.
So that's you agreeing that species consume resource and breed to the max and to whatever limits are extant.
#And the thing to remember about the restrictions originiating from the rest of the eco-system is that they are dynamic.
That's just another way of saying that change is constant which is in direct opposition to the magic balance theory.
Thus, under such conditions, random mutation that operate within those eco-system restrictions or, even, sustain them will tend to be naturally selected.
There is no 'tend' about it Steve. Species that run out of resources die and those that are left do their best to utilise all the resources for themselves.
No creator, no designer, no intention of any kind required so you really can stop with the aunt sally of accusing those who do not subscribe to your simplistic reading of Darwinism as being fluffy tree huggers.
This is not simplistic Darwinism. This is fundamental Darwinism. Darwin was as much fascinated by extinction as by natural selection. He had a regrettable instinct to ascribe extinct species as more primitive but that reflects the society as much as anything else.
Such interconnected, mutually supportive structures are an inevitable consequence of Darwinian selection pressures in a complex eco-system.
No they are not mutually supportive. They are in competition for limited resources. Species may rely on each for survival but that will not stop them competing for the same resource.
None of this is even that contentious in the field of evolutionary biology JSD and, to the extent that it is, it is certainly not on the basis of your schoolboy understanding of evolution.
Ahh, insults. Now I know you're on thin ice :-)
This is now reasonably mainstream research and was, at least partially, what my degree was about.
Quote me then.
JSD. Apologies for the insult. It was born of frustration. I actually went back and significantly edited and expanded that post (in the absence of knowing about your response) and I urge you to re-read it.

I've included the edited post below:

Of course it''s all based on bleeding random mutation JSD. Did you really think I needed telling that. Of course such random genetic mutation provides the fuel for new forms. However, during the eon's long periods of ecological equilibrium that lie between violent punctuation events, the extent to which different forms proliferate is very much dependant on restraining factors within the existing eco-system as well as within the non-organic environment. And the thing to remember about the restrictions originating from the rest of the eco-system is that they are dynamic. Thus, under such conditions, random mutations that occur within those eco-system restrictions that sustain or even support them will tend to be naturally selected. Such interconnected, mutually-supportive structures are an inevitable consequence of Darwinian selection pressures in a complex eco-system. No creator, no designer, no intention of any kind required so you really must stop now with the aunt sally accusations of those who do not subscribe to your hopelessly simplistic reading of Darwinism as being fluffy, anthropomorphising tree huggers.

Of course the tree did not "know" what the rodent needed, of course the rodent did not "know" what the tree needed. But, over considerable eons of time time and in an ever more complex eco-system, such inter-connected and inter-supportive relationships build up nonetheless. Which is precisely why I have made the endless point about how this should all be viewed "as if" it implies motives when in fact, life has no motive at all.

I repeat, life is not loving, life is not kind, life is not caring, life is not even selfish or cruel. Life is non of these human constructs. Life just is and it evolves according to what best fits a given environment. If a given genetic mutation causes a phenotyopic expression that takes the form of causing the organism to stand on its head and stick it's thumb up its arse, you can bet that if such a behaviour causes its reproductive success to rise it will increase in frequency. If, on the other hand, reproductive success is best served in another environment by ripping out the throat of the guy stood next to you, you can bet this will be the dominant form in short order. In other words, life has no "preference" for one strategy over another. Indeed it has no preferences of any kind. To repeat, it just is. In an environment where the rest of the eco system will punish a given phenotype, you can bet that the alternatives will proliferate. Even if (and this is extremely important to understand) those alternative forms have less potential to proliferate than another form. This is because the other form never gets off the ground and so the strategy that is eventually the dominant one is always only ever the optimal one given all of the eco-system constraints I mentioned.

None of this is even that contentious in the field of evolutionary biology JSD and, to the extent that it is, it is certainly not on the basis of your limited understanding of evolution. This is now reasonably mainstream research and was, at least partially, what my degree was about. Finally, you have singularly failed to address a single aspect of the question posed to you. It would appear that this is because you have failed to understand the question as indicated by the fact you seem to think it is evidence of anthropomorphism when in fact it is evidence of the complete opposite.

I'm going to spell this out from the gene up so there can be no misunderstanding:

The fundamental unit of replication is the gene

Genes have effects in the world known as phenotype effects. From now on, I will refer to them as genotype and phenotype respectively.

Genes are not selected directly, but indirectly according to the replicatory success of the phenotype they have created.

Ultimately, the bottleneck through which nearly all genes must pass is that of sexual selection, otherwise known as meiosis. They must pass through this bottleneck in order to lever themselves into a successive generation of phenotype that will hold them in safe storage until the next bottleneck.

However, only very few genes are actually involved in the business of creating specific phenotypic effects that directly control the process of meiosis. To that extent, most genes must hitch a ride during meiosis. Straight away, it can be seen that any gene that hinders the actions of meiosis controlling genes is going to be severely punished. The way this happens is pretty simple. If a "bad" gene acts in such a way as to compromise meiosis, it will perish along with all of the copies of the "good" genes. However genes exist as copies in many phenotypes and so whilst the good genes may occasionally find themselves in "bad company", each time they do not they get to go forwards through the bottleneck into the next generation. Over time, the "bad" genes get weeded out.

Now the thing to remember here is that the bad genes were not really "bad". They were just doing what genes do. That is to say, they were randomly mutating and those mutations that cause them to proliferate will be become more frequent. It's as simple as that. In the case of these genes not directly involved in coding for controlling the process of meiosis only those that act to "support" the meiotic process will prosper themselves

The next thing to understand about genes is their phenotype effects are whatever effects in the world that exist as a function of their influence and whose existence has an impact on their future replication success. To that extent, it is an entirely arbitrary distinction to assume all phenotypic effects are limited to the specific physicality of the organism that has been directly grown by the genes' instruction. Such phenotypic effects can, in fact, extend far out into the world beyond the mere immediate physical cell walls of the organism. For example, a termite mound is as much a phenotypic effect of termite genes as are the termites themselves. Also, it might be best to think of the termites in a termite mound a single meta-organism because all of the termites are basically clones. If we want to get more strange, then take a look at cuckoo chicks. They have a gaping red mouth that the host parents find irresistible. Consequently, they feed the cuckoo chick far more than their own chicks. Thus, for the period that the chick is in their nest, their behaviour is at least partially an extended phenotypic effect of the cuckoo genes.

The basic point here is that phenotypic effects of genes are all over the place. Sometimes they are very simple and direct as in the case of bacteria or, more controversially, viruses (some argue that viruses are not actually alive, though I do not subscribe to this view). Sometimes they are complicated and rely on a collaboration between many genes in a collective endeavour to lever themselves down through the generations in giant lumbering survival machines they have built around themselves. These survival machines are more commonly known as organisms. However, phenotypic effects can also occur at a distance from the genes deep in to the environment, both the organic and non organic. Obviously, as well as collaborations, genes compete with other genes, both as individual entities and also as collaborative entities. And remember, selection acts on phenotypes, in the first instance. It is only indirectly that genes are selected. Phenotypes are nearly always compound entities that are the result of genetic collaboration (the organism being the most blindingly obvious example). Thus, when selection occurs, it is nearly always of gene complexes (as expressed in a multicellular or, even, extended phenotype of multi-gene origin) and rarely of individual genes.

The central problem with your simplistic view of endless competition is that it cannot even explain the existence of organisms without pulling out of a hat an arbitrary cut-off point at which genes may collaborate in the form of compound phenotypic effects only up to and including an individual organism, but no further. However, we already know that genes have extended phenotypic effects that can be both diffuse and remote.

Life, as soon as it reaches any level of complexity above the most simple replicator inevitably involves genetic collaboration. Genes don't collaborate because they "want" to, though. They collaborate because those mutations that are collaborative tend to be more successful. As a consequence of all of the above, there is simply no logical reason why we should not expect to see such collaborative phenotypic structures at all levels of life


I am not denying the principles of Darwinian selection. I am doing precisely the opposite. I am saying that such principles apply wherever there exists phenotypic entities (singular, extended, compound or otherwise) of sufficient coherence to be subject to selection pressures and that those selection pressures can select for collaborative as well as competitive structures.
Last edited by Little John on 01 Jul 2013, 19:01, edited 4 times in total.
Standuble

Post by Standuble »

Having too many children is only disadvantageous because of low infant mortality rates and that is not something a good economy or industrial civilisation is guaranteed to allow to occur. Your civilisation could survive intact but many children and adults would die young if it became too expensive to have a national healthcare service and associated injections (with privatisation and vaccines becoming ineffective due to bacteria mutation.) Also if you can no longer afford to give foreign aid those nations could slide into the gutter also. Fewer people survive to old age and the elderly will die off quicker and the LEDC population model will begin to take over the MEDC one within decades if not years.
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jonny2mad
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Re: Shattering the PS myth... Greeks ditching their children

Post by jonny2mad »

Lord Beria3 wrote:One of the most insidious myths promoted by some on this forum is that in the future having more children will be an advantage rather than a disdvantage as the advanced industrial economy gradually collapses in the coming decades.

Middle-class jobs will disappear, sending millions into poverty and according to this myth, having lots of children will be a good thing (from a financial-material perspective).

In reality, we don't live in the 16th century and until industrialised civilisation finally dies off, having lots of children will be a disadvantage.

Greece is the most advanced case of this slow eating away of the advanced economy (the future indeed of the West I would argue) and trends there are certainly going to appear in the UK and other countries in the coming decades.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... tarve.html

The financial meltdown in Greece has caused pain and suffering throughout the country. But in a nation where the idea of family is central to everyday life, its youngest citizens are bearing some of the heaviest burdens of the crisis.

Scores of children have been put in orphanages and care homes for economic reasons; one charity said 80 of the 100 children in its residential centres were there because their families can no longer provide for them.

Ten per cent of Greek children are said to be at risk of hunger. Teachers talk of cancelling PE lessons because children are underfed and of seeing pupils pick through bins for food.

At the Zanneio Child Care Institution, I was proffered a piece of cake by nine-year-old Nicolas Eleftheriadou. When I asked him how he was, he replied with a shy grin: ‘I’m as tough as a walnut.’

His parents, Olga and Alexandros, had arrived to take their three oldest children home for the weekend; the children attend the unit from Monday to Friday. The friendly couple both lost jobs in catering two years ago; he delivered pizzas, she worked in a sandwich shop.
Of course, the counter argument will be that having children is not a issue of money. Easy to say until you can't afford to feed them!
Well even by dumping kids in a orphanage the kids still get to live, those parents genetic line goes into the future, because like the cookoo others will look after their offspring.

This reminds me of the Somalia guy with 7 children I worked with in the uk, laughing about the British aid worker couple who got him to the uk and how they were not having kids for the sake of the planet.

Now those British aid workers should in my opinion have had children and competed for resources with everyone else on the planet, but instead ended up the human version of the cookoo's victim
"What causes more suffering in the world than the stupidity of the compassionate?"Friedrich Nietzsche

optimism is cowardice oswald spengler
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