Hello Peter, Maggie and everyone
>>Glove:
>>
>>I have been pondering your question and I am unsure that any social
>>evolution, as we know it, would take place in a biologically "stable"
>>population. It too would have to be "programmed", would it not? (is that
>>what you mean by "pyscho-social evolution"?) What drives social evolution?
>>Its the biological diversity. If that is eliminated by genetically
altering
>>Dynamic Quality "into", in essence locking it out of, the biological
level,
>>there will be nothing to drive the social or intellect levels either. That
>>culture would end up in a Brave New World type scenario, don't you think?
>>
>
>Pete:
>
>This is a really interesting question. Educationalists would probably
>argue that the passing on of accumulated knowledge from one generation
>to the next might be at least equally important. That started way back
>when the only means was the 'oral tradition' of myth and legend,
>accelerated when monks and others started to write it down and took a
>quantum leap forward with the invention of the printing press. Now we
>have the digital computer and the Internet ! The important factor,
>however, is that this knowledge is re-interpreted and added to (except
>in periods of *stasis* like the 'dark ages ). Sooner or later new
>patterns of thinking are needed to cope with novel concepts and these
>bring about changes in idea-systems.
>
>So imagine an individual being able to teach their own clone. Would this
>tend to promote new ideas and moral mutation or reinforce value rigidity
>and eliminate the chance of radical new attitudes ? The more I think
>about it the more I agree that dynamism at the biological level is
>essential.
Maggie:
Within biological diversity, new meta-biological balance points are
formed, and the combinations, if they are valued and repeated, become new
patterns. And here we get the joining, group aspect of the social level.
It seems to me that these particular balance points within certain
combinations of biological patterns are points in which randomness can
occur.
Randomness could have occurred before the combining, but as a biological
entity, the
structure wouldn't have allowed it. The entity would have become
less valuable or died. It wouldn't have been repeated or maintained.
Glove:
I was offering my opinion on the basis of an entire culture of clones and
not just individual clones among us normal people. In my opinion, clones
could very well adapt to our society and fit right in. But without Dynamic
interaction with the biological diversity our society offers, no social
growth would be possible. And if the entire culture consisted of nothing but
cloned individuals, then I am unsure that social memes would develop at all,
but rather they would have to be programmed into the society as it grew and
different needs became apparent.
Yes, I agree this is a very intriguing question when you start delving into
it. Maggie's comments remind me of the myth of Antlantis speaking of what
could only be termed as genetically engineered mutants of part human and
part animal creations. What if we could insert human genes into animals and
harvest their organs for use in transplants, but the only way this will work
is to approach the threshold between the species. Do we have the right to
create a race of "pig-men" (Ken might also be interested in the twist of
their penises) for such a purpose? Obviously that would be a high value
situation for all the sick people waiting for available organs. But how
human is human?
The myth of Antlantis implies disaster fell upon its people on account of
the degradation of morals. In fact many ancient myths from all over the
world deal with previous "worlds" before our own which were destroyed when
the inhabitants disregarded the moral structure of the universe. To my mind,
this has very obvious connotations with the Metaphysics of Quality as a
value-based way of assessing the universe around us.
By attempting control the randomness of the biological level, are we heading
down a dead-end path to extinction as a species?
>
>>I am struggling with this notion of life. I just read where a team of
>>scientists have been given the go ahead to construct a living bacteria. My
>>question: where does the "life" come from? Do they just put all the parts
>>together and the bacteria starts living? Do they need to act like Dr.
>>Frankenstein and shock the bacteria to life? I really need to read up on
>>this more, but if anyone has any answers I would love to read them.
>
Peter:
>From the little I have picked up ( good old BBC again ! ) it seems more
>a case of knocking out more and more genes from an already extremely
>primitive cross between a bacterium and a fungus (only a few hundred
>genes ) and seeing if the cut-down version can survive.
>
>The cloning techniques do seem to require an electric shock to start
>cell division. Reminds me of the theory that the primordial soup of
>chemicals gave rise to the first long chain carbon based molecule
>capable of replication as a result of a lightning strike ( and so
>raising patterns of value from an inorganic to a biological state ).
Glove:
I see. All I read was a small article in the newspaper buried in the back
section, and it implied the bacteria would be totally artifical. Obviously
the author of the article must have misinterpreted the research being done,
either for journalistic sensationalism or simply not understanding the
process. Thanks!
Best wishes to all,
glove
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