Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

ok let us not get bogged down in semantics... when i said bacteria, you can think of that as "any" single cell lifeform or "starter culture" lifeform.

I gave up on this crap on page 2.

Journeyman. If you are really interested in discussing evolution and not just Trolling here perhaps you should go to a site where there are experts in evolution who would be able to answer you questions, complete with references to the appropriate papers.

Trying get authorative answers on an aquaponics site is like asking for medical advice on a site dedicated to rocket science. Yes you will get opinions but they will be largely uninformed. True there are some very intelligent people contributing to this site but it is impossible to determine their current knowledge on evolution and thus their answers should only be treated as opinions and not fact.

Prove me wrong and that you are just not trolling by taking this discussion off this forum and onto a forum that discusses either evolution or creationism.

So much aggro.

It must be nice to pigeonhole people so that you KNOW only people on an Evolution site are worth talking to on the subject.

Who said I only want 'Authoritative' responses? (The desire fot which is probably more tellng than you might have wanted to reveal in public as is your dismissal out of hand of all those who have contributed so well)

One of the joys of online participation is being able to talk to people - if we knly ever get our opinions from Authority and Experts, why bother learning anything?

There's always going to be someone willing to tell you what to think because (as they will also assure you) they know better than you.

Acolyte's luvverly phone on Tapatalk

"The brain itself is another issue, and there are many such - the brain in humans gives us an unbeatable (so far) advantage, but only AFTER you have it. Evolution is a process whereby resources must be efficiently distributed to maximise survival and breeding opportunity."

It's a matter of perspective, I say. Truly, one can question the assumed advantage that a human brain supposed to give. Although all humans have a brain, only few seem to have some advantage of it. And considering the efficient use of resources, I must come to the conclusion that such is not the case with the human brain and so the survival and breeding opportunities are for the largest part missed. Ergo, creation and evolution should be considered as another poor attempt of using the human brain to understand the world around us. I stick to pure randomness of events that have no meaning in a longer time span than a human's life.

I farted and it turned into a politician, is this evolution

Definitely Devolution. You can burn a fart and boil water or cook a meal; nobody has ever found a use for a politician, burned or otherwise.

I find the randomness idea to lack any real meaning. It appears clear there is meaning to life, other than just our desire for it. One has only to astral travel to realise bodies aren't the whole story and as soon as that realisation sinks in there is an immediate issue with the orthodox ideas about the universe.

Creation fails the regression test - eventually the questions come back to "well, he just did it that way" which isn't particularly enlightening or useful, especially when you take a clear eye to the 'he' they are talking about.

Evolution has its own set of problems as listed earlier; I note so far the only attempt to counter the issues I have brought in has been about the details of bases and replication. The issues of just how any mutation might sit waiting for conducive conditions, just how a 'mutation' can occur without changing 2 bases simultaneously (or otherwise breaking the genome and not getting passed along anyway) and how all-or-nothing changes can get implemented in gradual fashion have not really been addressed.

And yet the facts are, life began almost as soon as there was a stable planet for it to live on. The evidence says it sat around doing not much pof anything for about 3.8 billion years or so then suddenly, in the last 600my or so, almost every life form we have ever heard of has come into being, existed and vanished just in time to make room for mammals and, in the most recent blink of a Gaian eye, us.

I did stats at school and I've gotta say, that story doesn't FEEL right. That's way too many right moves across way too many species... and Venter's info suggests we cannot lay it to the door of a process that finally found a useful mechanism - there are just too many different gene families - the process appears to have been invented again and again and again and again...

Meaning to life? Fail to see any meaning so far and hope I'll never find it. Maybe you should ask your cat or dog, or...one of the tilapia in your IBC what the meaning to life is according to their philosophy. Whoever started that threat thousands of years ago had a great sense of humor and understanding into the human psyche. "Let's keep them busy with a trivial question for the next 30,000 years and laugh our buts off."

What orthodox ideas about the universe you're referring to? And to which universe are those ideas related?

You seem to be viewing evolutionary history like a snapshot.. or series of snapshots....

Life wasn't static for billions of years.... it was always.. even if (relatively) gradually changing.... within the confines of the instability of the planet through that time...

The pace of evolution quickened... with more favourable conditions... in what to us... might seem a relative blink of an eye....

But in the same period... the climatic, atmospheric... geographical and chemical makeup.. of the planet under went considerable changes... some in (relatively) extraordinary short time spans....

If we were to look down on a rain forest and take a snapshot.... we'd see the predominant... oldest, dominant trees...

Even if we time lapse photographed the forest over 500 - 1000 years.... would we observe the birth, and growth of the largest tree...

Would we even notice the birth of the thousands upon thousands of seedlings, even young trees.. or even semi mature trees... that overtime... with climatic... or natural events.... flourished for a while... but died... and never showed up on our eventual snap shot.... or even in the scheme of the time lapse of history... just weren't significant enough to be seen... or perhaps even leave a traceable imprint....

Would we see the vast "undergrowth"... of natures multiple attempts at life and change...

You seem to argue on the one hand... that there's insufficient "statistical" chance... over a vast time scale...

Yet on the other hand... cite Ventor.. who suggests a myriad of re-combinational possibilites....

Then dismiss the statistical probability.. that a few... over a vast time span... might not be advantageous enough to become the "dominant" norm.... the forest as we see it now...

While the vast majority of the possible re-combinations... whether potentially advantageous, or not.... were consigned to history... due to climatic or other natural events... and passed un-noticed by us... or even remain untraceable....

I struggle to see your point... or if it's not summarised above... just what your point is...

Me too!

The problem is, (one of them) you can't have it both ways. Either there is a continuous change or there isn't. The evidence AND the theory says there isn't, which is why Punctuated Equilibrium (PE) gets a run. The constantly evolving landscape doesn't fit the evidence.

What they have done is try to match the evidence to ELE's and come up with a close but not perfect fit. Given the lengths of time involved, most proponents of PE consider there is a link between the ELE's and the various explosions of life. This has led, among other things, to an hypothesis of Nemesis, and contributed indirectly to some assorted craziness by people who have trouble understanding the basics of a spherical Earth with their Nibiru and Planet X ideas.

But even by the orthodox views, it has been a rapid start and then a long slow development without much change across most of the time there has been an Earth. 1.8by of prokaryotes before eukaryotes came along, then another 1by or so before we get the first multicellular life - not exactly setting any speed records here...

But in 600my we've gone from little wormy things to our modern world, and that includes entire kingdoms which reigned for far longer than there has been anything resembling man around.

It is just barely conceivable that it could happen if we have the Tree analogy and accept all the things I have been questioning as gospel in spite of the problems but Venter's new view of the world opens a whole new spectrum of possibility simply because it shows the Tree is NOT a good analogy.

It is not me who is using the snapshot view, but standard Science. They take all this and divide it all up - Biologists hardly even talk the same language as Geneticists and speak a wildly different tongue to archaeologists or Geologists. The history of Earth is viewed as a separate thing to life itself, because life is seen as an incidental accident. Once you accept that view, their attitude follows logically - if life is an accident then life cannot have anything to do with purpose and so 'Meaning of Life' becomes simply a Monty Python movie.

But I don't think we CAN separate life from the game it is playing, or rather, from the field the game is being played on.

Because there is more than just archaeology going on.

The Universe is, as best we can tell, not here. At least some of the time, depending on which theory you view as likely. When you get right down to it, at the centre of all things, there is nothing. At the heart of a proton or electron, when you get small enough, there is nothing there, not even energy.

The Universe appears more and more to be a hologram, a 3D image appearing from a source that is not 3D - we are like Neo, living inside a simulation that seems to us to be a real world.

All of this HAS to affect the basics of the Universe and so the basics of Earth.

There appear to be only 2 things in existence - the Universe and Consciousness. While we are exploring all the Universe, nobody has yet come up with a decent explanation of Consciousness nor of how it might come to be.

I think Consciousness is intimately connected to us being here at all. And I think to try to work out how we came to be here without considering Consciousness is like trying to work out how a computer works without considering electricity.

Does consciousness really exist.... or is it just that we as a "conscious" being... construct our consciousness around us.... because we can think...

Do we give meaning to our "reality"... because we can attempt to rationalise it... or do we actually create it?

Does a snail worry about the existence... or initial creation of the universe??

And how do we know whether or not a snail is conscious... or to what degree.... by measurement against our own consciousness... and how we think??

We think... therefore... we are???

And if we accept statistical probability.... how can we assume that amongst the vastness of the universe.... that other conscious beings... may not have evolved somewhere else.... perhaps even to a higher level of evolution than ourselves...

Or do we assume our own uniqueness... and superiority... in an attempt to place ourselves on a level with the god concept that we create...

I don't think evolutionary theory suggests that "continuous change" isn't/doesn't happen... at all.... quite the opposite....

I think what worries you is that we can't necessarily observe... or even find... the evidence of the small incremental steps... successful, or particularly those that weren't..... over the eons....

The canvas upon which such incremental changes have occurred... the undergrowth..... is obscured by the trees.... and the evidence often long since buried....

As you say... there is evidence to support.. the major evolutionary changes.. that are/were tied to cataclysmic changes to planetary environment... extinction level events.... or even climatic events...

But they are relatively easily observed... the "daily" small changes... viewed over the centuries/millenia of time... are much harder to see.... or evidence...

P.S... just what is your (distilled) view of Ventor's theory... (I admit I probably haven't read enough)....

Because, from what I have read... I can't see what he's actually saying ... that necessarily matches the interpretation that you put forward...

Do you have any links....

Indeed, Rupert, we assume too much and know too little. Proofing my point of inefficient use of resources with our brains and thus little chance for survival in time, unless.....

Observation leads to knowledge and contemplation to wisdom. Interaction activates the ego which blurs clear observation. Seeing where this thread coming from and it's present subject proofs the point.

There are enough decent explanations of consciousness but you might of missed them, JM. One of them is awareness. In Zen they have excellent training to develop it. I'm not talking about the popular sit-ins that are confused with it, headed by some phony 'master'. True Zen training is hard and when started never stops.

By looking for the tiniest details, one easily looses sight of the big picture and gets lost. And oh man, are we lost!

There is nothing wrong, in my view, with people like us exploring such things. Science does not advance through groups although the technology that comes from it might be assisted by an action group. But Consensus has not brought us a single item of new data and from its track record, has covered up many actual facts so as to present a united front for a variety of purposes.

Entire fields of Science have been corrupted in this way, where 'consensus' views are used to stifle research and dissent. It is quite likely Einstein's Relativity is wrong, and that SpaceTime is NOT like a rubber sheet that stretches according to mass - and I say this after several decades spent trying to come to grips with what it all meant.

Relativity (either of them) work only because 2 other areas of knowledge were suppressed. Oliver Heaviside stripped almost all of James Clerk Maxwell's work on electromagnetism from the published version, removing the 4D basis and also the quaternion math he invented to describe EM forces. While work is not being carried out on the implications of Maxwell's real work, opening possibilities of resolving the gravity paradox among other things, Consensus Science restricts the developments because Relativity is not compatible with such a Universe.

Another 'consensus' squashing was the work of Micelson and Morley in their attempts to prove an aether. MIT (of Cold Fusion infamy) laid the groundwork for their later perfidy against Pons and Fleischmann by proclaiming to the world how Michelson-Morley failed to show and aether - a direct lie. the M-M experiments were carried out by others later with even better results, but the damage was done - Relativity was 'IN' and the aether therefore must be 'OUT' because Relativity cannot exist in a Universe with an active aether.

So instead we have a never-ending stream of particles being invented to make up for a dead substrate and discrete and uncommunicative particles required by Relativity. We have to invent 'magic' to make our theory of origin match what we see out there.

So, when I see similar patterns in the works on Evolution, I can't help but wonder what we are missing. And it seems to me we need to stop compartmentalising our views and start wondering just how other fields might influence the ones we are looking at.

As an example, one of the key problems with ANYTHING to do with cells or life (and so affecting Evolution ideas) is that all cells, no exceptions, are response mechanisms. Ask a biologist. A cell works by responding to an outside signal. One such are the molecules floating around in our body,

Most people think of DNA as the analogue to a brain, directing the activity of the cell. It just ain't so - DNA is a static blueprint, consulted on a regular basis to construct proteins to allow work to be done. If there is anything like a 'brain' to the cell it is the membrane - that is where the decision is made to allow or not allow the input to affect the cell. In some cases this means the iput causes a reaction from the membrane and in others the membrane opens to let the input into the cell. (which is what viruses like to do so they can get access to the mitochondria to reproduce)

How is this a problem?

That is how ALL cells operate. All of them. So the question is, where do the originating inputs come from?

Many of them come from other cells, products of processes producing signals to get work done around the body. But it's the God issue all over again - eventually when you trace it back, there has to be an origin, an initial trigger to set the first cell working. And in our 'consensus' view of humans, we are all just cells. Our behaviour is seen as all to do with a physical brain, and yet brain cells are just like the others - they react to an external input.

So, if our view of how bodies work cannot even explain how we can initiate an arm movement, how likely do you think it is they have Evolution nailed down?

THAT is why I raise questions about the process that can mimic the eye of the exact predator that will stop a bird from attacking a butterfly. That is why I raise doubts about how Evolution might work and why I mentioned the blackbirds in Holland and the problems with the genetic 'tick' they use to tell us with such certainty just when things happened. It is why I mentioned astral travel earleir - once you have experienced it, consciously, it changes your view of reality.

My point is manifold, I guess - we cannot know about Evolution by isolating it and trying to posit a static view of the process. We are as entitled as anyone to discuss such things, maybe more so than the 'Scientists' who blind themselves with consensus views imposed by force on their field. I think there is a meaning to the Universe and life, and I think (with less evidence) that meaning is WHY we are here. And that statement is about as close as I care to get to beliefs.


@Rupert - I have zero problems with us not being unique. All of what I say can be extended out to other 'beings' and/or races that might exist. It is Consciousness itself that I am talking about, not just human consciousness.

Oh, and BTW, I do have some conclusions/thoughts about answers to all this. I'm not just agent provocateur here...