Transcript Ecological feedback drives the evolution of ideas and living things

Ecological feedback drives the
evolution of ideas and living things,
which carry them
Richard (Rick) Weisburd
University of Tsukuba
Ideas for exploration
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What is an idea?
Are ideas unique to humans?
Are ideas unique to living organisms?
Is the number of possible ideas finite?
Are static ideas qualitatively different than
– Interactive ones?
– Communicated ones?
• Should we map ideas?
What is an idea?
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Not defined in edition 1.2 of the
UNESCO/IUBS/EUBIOS Bioethics
Dictionary
Rick’s proposed definition:
1. A unit of information that represents an
experience, feeling, or memory of perception of
things physical or abstract, sensed or intuited,
real or imagined.
2. A result of processing such units of information,
alone or in combination with others.
Are ideas unique to humans?
• Human mind – commonly considered the
home of human ideas
– A powerful idea generating and processing tool
that has facilitated human survival
• Perception and response to the environment
is a powerful adaptive character present in
most, if not all, living organisms.
• Conclusion: ideas are present in most or all
living organisms
Non-human primate cultures
• Even with a more restrictive definition of
ideas, ideas are not restricted to humans
• E.g. chimpanzees and orangutans have
culture
Are ideas unique to living organisms?
• Rocks are made of minerals
• Crystals – some minerals form simple,
geometrically perfect, repeating organizational
structures on both the molecular and macroscopic
levels
Memory in rocks
• Structure and mineral composition of rock tells
us about the environments those rocks
experienced during their evolution
• Sedimentary rocks contain information about
the environment in which they were deposited
– isotopic composition of remains of mineral parts
created by ancient organisms teaches us about the
temperature of the environments in which those
organisms lived
Is the number of possible ideas finite?
• Don't the nucleic acids in living organisms
represent evolutionary ideas?
• DNA has 4 bases: adenine, guanine,
cytosine, and thymidine
• How many possible combinations of these 4
letters exist?
Exponential increase in sequence combinations
y=4x
10, 106
20, 1012
30, 1018
1200
possible combinations
1000
800
600
400
200
0
1
2
3
sequence length, # of bases
4
5
Number of possible ideas
• Infinite? Only if the number of unique
bases, the sequence length, or the number of
sequences is infinite.
• Humongous!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Idea quality
• DNA contains information, but this
information has further potential only in the
context of a system to translate and express
this information
• Processing of ideas can make them
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Physical
Transformative
Powerful
Enduring
Useful ideas
• Red squirrels (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus)
bite sugar maples, let the oozing sap dry,
and then return to eat the maple sugar
• Pollination
Ecological ideas
• Nature contains a vast multitude of ideas that
are potentially useful to humans
• Each organism and ecological relationship
represents a book in the library of life.
– Most of these books are unknown and unread by
humans
• Humans, though members of the quaternary
biota, are causing the 6th known mass
extinction event. We are burning the library!
Conclusions
• The number of possible ideas seems to be
– Incomprehensibly vast, but finite
• Not all ideas are equal. Processing of ideas
endows them with
– Relevance to life
– Longevity
– Elegance and beauty
• The Earth contains an incomprensibly vast store of
ideas (wisdom) of particular value and importance
to humans.
• Should we map ideas or put out the fire with
which we are burning them?