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> Species must consist of "individuals" who join in pairs Where did you get pairs from? If the Pikachus reproduced by binary fission (splitting in half and th
by tbabb 7y ago
> Species must consist of "individuals" who join in pairs
Where did you get pairs from? If the Pikachus reproduced by binary fission (splitting in half and then growing a new half, like cells do), or had 18 genders, they would still evolve. They only have to make copies. Doesn't matter how.
> No, they're all created by the mad scientist but can think, reason, communicate, teach, interact, invent
If they can't reproduce (and/or aren't made of stuff that can reproduce), I would say complexity of behavior is irrelevant.
For example, the identical iPads coming off the factory line are still technology, whether they are loaded with simple software or complex software. The complexity could go all the way up to AI, but they would still be technology.
Note that we are used to "intelligent" meaning "alive", because the only intelligent thing we know of at this point in history (us) is alive. But I think it is perfectly valid to suppose that non-living things could be intelligent or even conscious.
> So if an iPad [...] created a new, slightly different iPad, would they be considered alive?
Yes, under those conditions they would certainly start evolving, and I think that's a perfectly reasonable line to draw between technology and life. In this new example, the "phenotype" of the iPads would change in a self-sustaining way, emergently, independent of any design or intent.
- Razengan 7y agoAlright: An individual of an species has to initiate the production of another individual of that species, and the new individual must have some differences from the preceding individual. Do I have it correct?
- tbabb 7y agoYes, but it's not everything. You've got two and a half of the original four criteria there: > An individual of an species has to initiate the production of another individual ️^ reproduction > of the same species It depends on what you're defining to be "the same species", but if we take that to mean "shares traits with the original", then that's "inheritance". > new individual must have some differences ^️ mutation The one you're missing is "selection"— that the future success at copying depends on the traits you inherited. If you have variable traits, but they don't at least indirectly result in either more or fewer copies, then there is no cause for some traits to become more prevalent than others in the population and evolution won't occur. You'll just get a jumble of random traits without any trend toward fitness (aka more efficient copying). It is a fact of nature/mathematics that those four rules are necessary and sufficient for evolution to occur. If you set them up, evolution will happen, guaranteed. Those rules constitute an algorithm, carried out by the laws of nature on the substrate of physical matter, whose result is evolution— a trend toward increasing reproductive fitness.