Darwin's Discovery: Design without a Designer

[Mikal]

What a beautiful video! Watching it gave me the same deep stirrings I feel when at five in the morning I look out over an expansive lake and the silence of the moment is pierced by the crying of the lake loons....

In the natural formation of the rock-cliff I spotted around six different formations depicting faces...in one an open cave or dark shadow served as the mouth...I also spotted what seemed a rough depiction of a horse's head....

Thanks for sharing....

Regards Mikal

[leskey]

Where else would I post this, but here?

CLICK

With particular reference to -

"The compilers of Genesis write that as soon as Adam and Eve realized they were naked, they sewed themselves aprons made of leaves from the fig tree, and that the Creator himself made them more durable skin coats before evicting them. But if Dr. Rogers and Dr. Stoneking are correct, humans were naked for a million years before they noticed their state of undress and called for the tailor."

Now, the next question is what engendered consciousness of 'nakedness' in the hairless ape prototypes? Any clues?

[austintorn@aol.com]

AN IDEA WITH NO HAIR

I read something,
But I lost the magazine;
So I will try to reconstruct it…

We were once very furry,
But now have very little hair
On our bodies.

Most animals still have
A lot of hair or fur,
But for the larger beasts
That ever need to cool
A large mass.

It’s warmer now,
So even the naked elephant
Is no longer a Wooly Mammoth.

When eats and treats were abundant,
Our furry ancestors could just
Laze around, not exerting themselves;

But, when forest shrank,
‘We’ had to walk/run
Over long distances
To secure our prey and food,
And so some thick clogged hair
All over would not do so well for us.

Hair was thus selected out,
In conjunction with
The arrival of sweat glands
That could dump
12 liters a day.

We were pink underneath our fur,
This turning to black in the hot regions.

Hair on the head still works
To ward off the direct sun.

Via our new epidermal sweat glands,
We could increase
Our body and brain size
And exert ourselves more.

[Mikal]

Where else would I post this, but here?

CLICK

With particular reference to -

"The compilers of Genesis write that as soon as Adam and Eve realized they were naked, they sewed themselves aprons made of leaves from the fig tree, and that the Creator himself made them more durable skin coats before evicting them. But if Dr. Rogers and Dr. Stoneking are correct, humans were naked for a million years before they noticed their state of undress and called for the tailor."

Now, the next question is what engendered consciousness of 'nakedness' in the hairless ape prototypes? Any clues?

QUOTE BY BIOLOGIST JEREMY GRIFFITH


TO reiterate an important point, genetic refinement is an integrative process, not a divisive one as science has had to evasively maintain. Having grown up in an evasive, mechanistic world we are not used to thinking unevasively, but when we do we will see that as an integrative tool, genetic refinement has certain limitations: for example it normally cannot develop unconditional selflessness among large animals. If an animal were to be born with a genetic inclination to give its life to protect the others in its group for example, that trait would eliminate itself when the animal gave its life (since naturally the animal would lose the opportunity to reproduce). Unconditionally selfless traits are self-eliminating, and don't tend to carry on in the species.
Not being able to develop unconditional selflessness or love inhibits the integrative process, because love is the essence of integration. The essential ingredient of integration or order is that the individuals or parts consider the welfare of the group or whole above their own welfare.
Unconditional selflessness is what makes the human body work so well. Every cell in our body has submerged its individuality to the needs and functioning of the larger system, which is our body. Put simply, selfishness is divisive while selflessness is integrative. Selflessness or love is the theme of integration or Development. It is the ideal state.
The problem for the development of order of matter (or 'God' if we like to personify Development), was how to generate unconditional selflessness among large animals, given this genetic barrier against it. The solution was 'love-indoctrination', a remarkable process that produced the first fully integrated species society or group of large animals. The genus in which this occurred was our immediate predecessor, Childman Australopithecus. In producing this integration in our forebears, love-indoctrination gave us our conscience and, fortuitously, liberated conscious thought in us.
To explain the process of love-indoctrination: while unconditional selflessness or altruistic behavior normally cannot be developed genetically in large animals, some of their behavior appears to be altruistic. For example a female appears to be behaving altruistically when, as sometimes happens, she loses her life protecting her young. In fact the 'sacrifice' is not selfless but selfish. Since the offspring carries her genes, the mother's protective maternalistic genes are ensuring their own perpetuation when she protects the offspring. Genetic traits have to be selfish if they are to carry on in the species. (As stated, this is simply one of genetic refinement's integrative limitations—it does not indicate that the meaning of existence is to be selfish as the evasive theory of sociobiology teaches.)
Importantly, while maternalism is genetically selfish behavior, in appearance it is selfless behavior. A mother gives her offspring nourishment, protection and shelter for apparently nothing in return. It was the appearance of selfless behavior that gave Development the opportunity to generate unconditional selflessness.
A brain is an observer of its world. To the brain of an infant its mother's maternalism appears to be selfless behavior. This means that while an infant is being nurtured its brain is being taught that the way to treat others is selflessly or lovingly. Further, the longer the infancy the more thorough that training will be. If selflessness is taught sufficiently well in infancy, the adult will behave selflessly.
The 'trick' to love-indoctrination is that while maternalism is genetically selfish it trains the infant brain in selflessness. The longer the infancy and the more thorough the training, the more the species will practice selflessness or love or cooperation as adults, and the more integrative groups of that species will appear. After a while the processes of ‘genes following the brain’ will (as will be explained) reinforce this process and make love an instinctive expectation.
To produce unconditional selflessness and with it integration, all Development needed was a species in which infancy could be prolonged. In most species infancy has to be kept as brief as possible because of the infant's extreme vulnerability to predators. Zebras for example have to be capable of independent flight almost as soon as they are born, which gives little opportunity for them to be trained in selflessness.
Development had to 'find' a species that was capable of looking after the helpless infant. The successful candidates were the primates. Already semi-upright from having lived in trees where they swung from branch to branch, their arms were partially freed from walking and thus available to hold a helpless infant—the critical factor in developing unconditionally selfless behavior. (Marsupials can support extended infancy but the pouch is like an external womb, allowing little behavioral interaction between mother and infant. It's the 'selfless' treatment that trains the infant in selflessness or love. Also marsupials have to spend most of their time grazing. There is relatively little time for social interaction between mother and infant and thus training in love.)
With the facility in primates to care for the infant, all that remained was to select for a longer infancy and more maternal mothers and integration would develop. Maternalism became much more than mothers protecting their young, it became a case of mothers actively loving them. Significantly, we talk of 'motherly love', not 'motherly protection'.
Of course, ideal nursery conditions were also required—ample food, comfortable conditions and security from external threats—to allow the loving of infants to take place. Infants are extremely helpless and vulnerable, as anyone who has held a baby in their arms will be aware, which means it is difficult enough just to look after them. However, it wasn't sufficient just to look after them, they had to be loved. While extending infancy was 'all' that was needed to develop love-indoctrination it was an extremely 'difficult' development even for primates. The nursery conditions had to be absolutely ideal. As well, we have to remember that delaying maturity, as love-indoctrination does, postpones the addition of the new generations that are so vital for the maintenance of species which are limited mostly to single-offspring births. New generations ensure variety. We can see that developing love-indoctrination was not easy which, incidentally, is why many primate species remain stranded in infancy, unable to progress to childhood. Only one part of our ape ancestors' probable range appears to have provided sufficiently luxurious conditions for love-indoctrination to develop—the aptly described 'Cradle of Mankind'—the Rift Valley of Africa.

The difficulty was in getting development to occur, not in making it instinctive because that was automatic. If it were not for the ability of genetically selfish maternalism to train infants in selflessness, selflessness would not have occurred to be reinforced genetically because selflessness is a self-eliminating trait.
Importantly, the training in selflessness or love was only an orientation, not an understanding. The infant was being 'brain-washed' with love. It was being love-indoctrinated. This perfect instinctive orientation to integration, now much repressed by our upset, is what we refer to as our conscience. Our conscience is that part of our instinctive self or soul that is concerned with how we behave—it's our moral sense.

Regards Mikal

[Profpat]

As I have pointed out on a number of occasions Darwin himself believed in Intelligent Design. Therefore Greg the title of your thread is WRONG and should be titled DARWIN'S DISCOVERY: DESIGN WITH GOD AS DESIGNER.

In his autobiography written in 1876 he recalled that at the time of writing the On the Origin of Species the conclusion was strong in his mind of the existence of God due to "the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man; and I deserve to be called a Theist."[62]

Best,

Pat

P.S. From Wiki boldness added

[labelwench]

Now, the next question is what engendered consciousness of 'nakedness' in the hairless ape prototypes?

Originally posted by Leskey

That is an interesting question, given that prior to such consciousness, 'naked' was our natural state, and there are some who are still comfortable with such, though society now has strong guidelines in regard to the degree of nudity that is acceptable, and such is highly variable among cultures.

That we first chose to cover ourselves, would seem to be in response to two things; firstly, a need to regulate our body temperature, in response to circumstantial and environmental concerns, which would be the elements, parasites, terrain features and the like.Secondly, we must already have observed the benefit of covering and discovered how to fashion a 'second skin' for ourselves, utilizing the skin of animals harvested for food, or woven fibers from plants,etc.

My thoughts would be that the development of body coverings began as a practical adaptation to the environment, as would have been our loss of body hair and change of skin pigmentation.

The concept of 'nakedness' seems tied to the development of culture and language, and a diversity of tolerance for nudity is reflected by the different cultures.

The theme of continuity through propagation would seemingly tie the development of culture to mate selection.

The consciousness of nakedness could likewise be viewed as an awareness of the physical attractiveness of potential mates, and the subsequent behavior of clothing and adornment, our cultural means of harnessing the power of procreation, and building whole cultures around this miracle, which we now better understand, yet cannot replicate, as in nature.

Consciousness. I suspect we have always had it, and that our ability to express same has but evolved with us. Interesting that many persons think disparagingly of the Neanderthal and others among our ancient lineage, when compared to Homo Sapiens. I wonder why this antipathy, given that we certainly have our primitive moments, yet, despite our veneer of civilization.

[melanie]

''' The witness is both unreal and real.
The last remnant of the illusion, the first touch of the real.
To say: I am only the witness is both false and true, false because of the 'I am', true because of the witness.
It is better to say: 'there is witnessing'.
The moment you say 'I am', the entire universe comes into being along with it's creator.

There is no 'I' apart from the body or the world.
The three appear and disappear together.
At the root is the sense 'I am'. Go beyond it.
The idea 'I-am-not-body' is merely an antidote to the idea 'I- am-the-body', which is false.
What is that 'I am'? Unless you know yourself, what else can you know? '''

[leskey]

Hi, Greg.

The announcement this week regarding the creation of the first artifical life form CLICK, only serves to reinforce my belief that nature has already been performing this conjuring trick a lot longer...we've just now arrived at the point where the time required has been accelerated.

Whatever your thinking/beliefs, the following thoughtfully written, thought-provoking essay seems timely (I hope you don't mind it being deposited in your thread, Greg): CLICK

More than once and to varying degrees, it's been necessary for me to 'bootstrap' my brain function. So it's easy to understand how hardwired certain unconscious functions become. I have to agree with this statement:

"Our individual fleeting consciousness (+ nonconsciousness) exists only because of the body from which it arises and from which it dissolves at the time of bodily demise."

During a near death experience, I was acutely self-aware. The 'place' I was prevented from entering was what can only be described as a body of light...as with the physical body, the whole was a composite of multitudes. My desire to be a part of it was denied - I'd never understood why, until now...

With thanks to Austin, Bev, Greg and Melanie who each in their own way have taught me a great deal.

[Profpat]

the creation of the first artifical life form

That's a lot of hype leskey.

What they did was come up with a programable DNA molecule by using existing DNA, Cells 4 complex chemicals, a computer Etc.

A far cry from CREATING ARTIFICIAL LIFE. More like altering existing life.

P.S. It is an achievement, albeit rather dubious.

P.P.S. I like your avatar.

[Profpat]

BTW; I never had a NDE but I did have an OBE. In that there was no longer Pat, he was like a snake skin that was discarded. But there was a profound AWARENESS of I AM. It was completely black, except for a tiny, tiny, tiny white light in the distance. The awareness I had was that all is illusion, and we create are own reality. Suddenly the Awareness was being erased and scared I quickly came back to my physical body. Later I read i should have lost even awareness to see ALL. That's ok I'm happy being dumb. Thinking about it later, and I think that little tiny light was our entire universe surrounded by the Void.