Re: differences between chimps and humans

Reading from news:talk.origins,
John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> posted:

Damaeus wrote:
Reading from news:talk.origins,
John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> posted:

Damaeus wrote:
Reading from news:talk.origins,
John Harshman <jharshman.diespamdie@xxxxxxxxxxx> posted:

Damaeus wrote:
Reading from news:talk.origins,
wf3h <wf3h@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> posted:

also in the same issue, michael shermer points out the existence of
ARE's...ancient repetitive elements...parts of the genome which get
repeated in various areas and code for nothing.
They must code for something that he has not discovered. Which at this
point, would be nothing. They must serve some purpose, or they wouldn't
be there.
Why do you make that assumption? Does everything in the world have to
serve a purpose?
Can you think of anything in the ecology that is not useful?
Define "useful". To whom? According to whom?

The context is the ecology and all its processes. If you ask me to define
"useful" in the way you describe, whatever it is would have its benefits
and its detriments making it "useful" overall in both ways, no matter what
happens to the organisms involved. That's why I say everything does serve
a purpose in some way, and you act as if it's wrong to think everything
has a purpose. That was my assumption when you asked "Does everything in
the world have to serve a purpose?"

You haven't defined it. What is "useful overall in both ways"? Every
life form metabolizes. Is that serving a purpose? If so, you seem to
have set the bar very low. Every base pair of DNA takes up space. Is
that serving a purpose?

Yes and yes. So far, everything you've mentioned serves a purpose. Sand
serves a purpose. So does crap. And grass. Yes, everything serves a
purpose. Even genetic sequences that "seem to code for nothing" because
science hasn't "seemed" to have figured out what it's actually used for.

I'll tell you what I mean in the context of DNA. A DNA sequence serves a
purpose if its presence is advantageous to the organism, and its absence
would be detrimental. With that definition, about 90% of your genome
serves no purpose.

And I say that 90% deals with what we look like, specifically, both what
we look like now, and what we have stored as "upgrades" to our own
biological structure. In other words, what we have been through our
evolutionary path is 10% complete. We still have another 90% of our
evolutionary path to complete. How fast will that 90% of "useless" DNA
become available to be put into effect within the human body?

That's why I brought up genetic degeneracy as the genetic traits no longer
useful, and no longer detrimental to the organism, if lost, is dropped
away, and new genetic code from the 90% pool that science says serves no
purpose. It would serve as a list of available genetic upgrades. What
upgrades become available from the unused pool would depend on what was
dropped off, as well as the specific conditions being sensed in the
environment by the animals. What have they been fearing? Where do they
run to hide after feeling fear? In the case of those who can blend in
with their surroundings, like seabed creatures, the organism looks around,
sees the colors and patterns he exists in, and those preferences are
recorded in the organism's genetics as per its preference to hide in that
kind of environment. Chameleons demonstrate on their bodies in a movement
from one kidn of background to another their ability to blend into their
backgrounds without having to go through evolutionary changes first. If
chameleons can change their skin color, we have the ability to change
ours. But our understanding of ourselves is such that it makes that
ability seem impossible.

Why?
Because as I see it, everything /does/ have a purpose.
That's not an answer. That's just repeating the claim.

What am I supposed to do? Make a list of everything known to exist and
detail what purpose it serves? Instead of refuting my claim, why don't
you come up with something you can think of created by nature that serves
no purpose at all?

I can't until I know what your criteria are for "purpose". I would say
that an ebola virus serves no purpose. A rainbow serves no purpose.

It does. It causes reactions in the people who see it, which causes
reactions in their brains which affects their bodies. Rainbows do serve a
purpose. If you believe in the scientifically proven evidence that human
beings need distractions from constant work they don't enjoy doing, by
doing something they DO enjoy, then you must also believe rainbows serve a
purpose when they delight the people who see them.

A mountain on the moon serves no purpose.

Except that it causes a reaction in the people who look at it through
telescopes. What you're doing is taking humans out of the picture
completely as experiencers of their own environment, and the effects that
EXPERIENCE has on a person's genetic expression. Take the children of
today. When I went to school, I never saw kids like the ones that are out
today. Kids today are cuter, physically, than the kids I see looking back
in the old yearbooks. I see genetic evolution taking place just by
looking back through actual photos of people. You see it more than just
their anthropological traits, but in their expressions. In older
yearbooks, you can see the teachers bursting with pride at what they were
doing, while in more recent ones, they just look like every day folks you
see on the street anywhere you go. What you see going on behind the faces
of our ancestors is where you find evolution.

Remember how stern those really OLD photos are, with the crumbling edges
and the Victorian-looking woman in the middle with the dress up to her
chin? I think those are just as much evolutionary markers as the kinds of
expressions you see in humans today in photographs and in person.

Actually, I would say that almost nothing serves a purpose,
because purpose is something human beings assign to objects, not
something that exists objectively in the world.

Unless if you remove humans, grass still serves a purpose for cows. And
cow crap serves a purpose for grass, making the grass even greener the
next time the cow comes around to eat more.

You really, really have no idea what you're talking about.

And you act as if you understand junk DNA completely, when even science
admits it doesn't understand all that well what it's there for.

Actually, science is pretty sure it's not there for anything. I don't
understand it completely, but I understand it well enough for that.

You know..that's exactly the view I have of immortality as it relates to
what you know about biology. I know enough about immortality to know it's
there. I don't understand it completely, but I understand it well enough
for that. So that grey area outside "pretty sure" is "probably where" you
will find immortality in waiting. That part you don't understand
completely would be filled in by exploring the idea of immortality by
tying it in with junk DNA in any way you can think of that you could
envision immortality happening. Try imagining that you actually DO want
to live forever in some state of utopian perfection that allows everyone
to live a fantasy of no violence at all, even if you don't believe it's
possible. Try that, just to give yourself a gloriously beautiful view of
immortality that would make you want it, then use that as an inspiration
to find some way to make eternal life fit in with what you can make sense
of concerning junk DNA, with the supposition that it actually does have a
purpose, of course, since we are looking for immortality...even an
immortality that allows you to die if you want so you can just poof up
somewhere in a new body instead of having to grow a whole new one from an
infant.

But it's really hard arguing with a person whose idea of evidence is
whatever thought happens to come into his head.

I just talk about what I experience, like the popping sensations in my
head, which someone else collaborated, (Subject: Comparison of a Human
Brain with a Bird Brain) proving that it is possible to feel these things,
and the other person seems to have more respect than I do.

I really don't care about the popping sensation in your head.

I know. Of course, that this is one of the most frequent manifestations
of my proof of what I'm saying seems lost to you. I've never had popping
sensations in my head before. This has only been happening in the last
six months or so, and as days go by, I hear the popping more frequently
and with more sense of a "pattern" in them.

We were talking about things you don't experience, like junk DNA
being a zip file. Focus here.

I used "zip file" as a symbolism for future evolutionary options. I just
wanted to present it as "compressed" since inflated, we'd already be
immortal.

Damaeus

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: differences between chimps and humans
    ... They must serve some purpose, ... serves a purpose. ... whatever thought happens to come into his head. ... I really don't care about the popping sensation in your head. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Can Categories be used with rules to sort to folders?
    ... >> dozens upon dozen of addresses. ... >> individual volunteers and business partners running as ... I'm unclear what purpose it serves ... >> seem to serve any purpose in the rules area. ...
    (microsoft.public.outlook)
  • Re: differences between chimps and humans
    ... They must serve some purpose, ... I'll tell you what I mean in the context of DNA. ... A DNA sequence serves a purpose if its presence is advantageous to the organism, and its absence would be detrimental. ...
    (talk.origins)
  • Re: Can Categories be used with rules to sort to folders?
    ... > dozens upon dozen of addresses. ... > individual volunteers and business partners running as ... I'm unclear what purpose it serves ... > seem to serve any purpose in the rules area. ...
    (microsoft.public.outlook)
  • Re: Civil unions for everyone?
    ... Keith F. Lynch wrote: ... to immortality -- it always turns out to be a really bad idea. ... Presumably the purpose of such stories was to console the reader for ...
    (rec.arts.sf.fandom)