Re: From AAT to Wittgenstein? Skip it!
Gerrit Hanenburg (ghanenbu@inter.nl.net)
Sun, 29 Oct 1995 13:12:04 GMT
hubey@pegasus.montclair.edu (H. M. Hubey) wrote:
>>Evolve and devolve are just cumulative change. Easy.
>They have to do with direction of complexity and not with
>cumulative change per se.
But in biological evolution there is both increase and decrease of
complexity depending on where you look.You can hardly call the reduction of
the number of digits or jawbones in tetrapods an increase in complexity.
Why favor one over the other and call it *the* direction of evolution?Is it
not because we are more impressed by increase than by decrease of
complexity?
>Besides, I can say, for sure it will happen, and be convinced
>of it, and offer evidence but whether I can convince anyone
>is a function of their knowledge level.
Or your credibility?
>It's a tendency since we are just one possible instantiation of
>intelligent beings possible on some specific planet. Whether all
>intelligent life on every planet will look like us is debatable
>but will probably have many of our attributes.
Well,I guess we'll have to wait for an answer until the cosmic telephone of
SETI rings.So far we didn't hear much from "the third kind".
>>"evolution toward this end...",sounds like teleological determination a la
>>Teilhard de Chardin.
>So it seems to those who cannot entertain other types of models
>in their minds.
I'm eager to learn.Maybe you can *explain* to me why your "model" of
unidirectional evolution is not just a modified form of orthogenesis.
Gerrit.
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