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> from a society rather than being a single evolved entity Evolution happens to populations, not entities. I think this is one assumption that's pretty firmly
by gilmore606 5y ago
> from a society rather than being a single evolved entity
Evolution happens to populations, not entities. I think this is one assumption that's pretty firmly grounded.
- wheels 5y agoIt does here; there's nothing that guarantees that it would elsewhere. Taking our biology as a starting point, imagine that red blood cells reproduced independently, and could compete and be upgraded within the organism with no loss of consciousness. There are a bajillion other mechanisms the same thing could happen.
- gilmore606 5y agoYou mean if blood cells were selected by the environment, and thus experienced evolution within their population? I cannot see how 'evolution' is a concept that makes sense outside of populations, is what I'm saying, so I don't think we have any plausible mechanisms whereby complex lifeforms can exist without this process. So I'd rank the epistemic status of "single lifeform that evolved outside of any population of similar" about equal with Russell's teapot.
- wheels 5y agoTo some extent, yes, I could imagine external intelligence arising in something that approximates a colony rather than a single organism. There are a bunch of (much simpler) examples of that on Earth. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(biology) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colony_(biology) It's not a giant stretch from that to imagine evolution happening within the components of the colony.