Re: Re: Vol 1 #87; evolving

On 13-Nov-05, at 17:43, John Brawley wrote:
> That is, things evolve when they're forced to, by changes in the
> _environment_ they find themselves in, so you might give some  
> thought to
> providing 'challenges' in the environment your (et.al.) creatures  
> inhabit.
> Increased gravity, for example, or rough terrain, or (insert manymany
> possible global environmental conditions).

gravity is now already a variable.  i'm thinking of another kind of  
advancement, because there's only so far you can go with these  
creatures as they are now.  they're not yet capable of learning or  
anything like it.  they are precisely camshaft-driven running  
machines, which is interesting in itself by virtue of its simplicity,  
and especially because the evolution is surprisingly rapid and obvious.

like, might it be possible to build a spider that actually spins a  
web?  i've done the groundwork for animating the bodily level.  if  
the movement patterns can be effectively categorized and made subject  
to control at the right kind of level, then the rest might be some  
basic spiderbrained logic.  how much technology can you fit inside of  
a spider's head?  we should be able to get there at least.

> Natural selection operates on mutations, which are as we know, in  
> essence
> "random."

the mutations are only random at some levels, but not at all at other  
levels.  with DNA you could bet you'll witness zillions of random  
mutations which are filtered out by processes which have nothing  
directly to do with the survival of the phenotype body, but  
indirectly by facilitating the replication itself.  if you look from  
the higher level, the mutations are, i bet, surprisingly consistent.   
otherwise you would see a lot more people in the subway with one ear  
or a missing jaw or two index fingers.

>   Without environmental changes, there is no reason for the
> organism to evolve (thus we still have sharks, just like their  
> ancestors,
> and cockroaches essentially unchanged for millions of years,  
> because their
> environments haven't changed much).

without the necessary equipment to interpret the differences, it  
would seem senseless for me to confront fluidiom creatures with  
anything rougher than a flat floor.  the spider will have to get a  
thinking module.

> The "driving force" of evolution is, therefore, requirements  
> imposed upon
> the organisms by the conditions in which they are to operate.  You  
> don't
> change the conditions, there's no driving force to make the  
> organism change
> (become a better survivor).

you have to realize that although fluidiom creatures may give the  
illusion of resembling familiar animalistic locomotive creatures  
(it's undeniably already a trip to the zoo, n'est ce pas?) it really  
represents a development vastly simpler than a bacteria.  you can  
wait a long time before your bacteria can finally learn to swish up  
out of the water and touch their cute noses on the ball you've hung  
above the pool.  i'm really looking for the appropriate next step,  
which can be tricky and involve pitfalls.


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