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Evolution regularly ends up in local optima that it struggles to get out from. Species go extinct all the time when there's no evolutionary path that solves it

Evolution regularly ends up in local optima that it struggles to get out from. Species go extinct all the time when there's no evolutionary path that solves its problems.

deleted 2y ago
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zb3 2y ago
I didn't mean to say that evolution avoids local optima, but I wantend to say that it doesn't have to get "trapped", in the sense that it was able to produce such complex organisms as humans..
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  Right, but it could well be that there is some other greatly superior organization of life toward which there exists no evolutionary path.
- gizmo 2y ago
  Because of the incremental nature (it can't think moves ahead) only a tiny percentage of all viable life forms can be produced by evolutionary processes. Species forged by their ruthless struggle for survival. Maybe humanity will be the first species to escape evolutionary constraints, but maybe humanity is like the many other species that burn brightly but briefly. The universe seems to be cold and empty and devoid of life. Perhaps evolution is very good at producing cockroaches and not that good at creating intelligent life.
magicalhippo 2y ago
And on the flip side, a sufficient abundance of resources and/or lack of predators mean non-optimal species can procreate, and thus find other local optima.
- marginalia_nu 2y ago
  In terms of evolution, the fitness of a species is defined by its ability to reproduce. In the circumstances you describe, selection pressure exists for the species that can reproduce the fastest. Predators or resource constraints are not a requirement for evolution.
  - magicalhippo 2y ago
    > In the circumstances you describe, selection pressure exists for the species that can reproduce the fastest. My point was there's no pressure without constraints. A faster-reproducing species will only apply a pressure if starts exhausting a resource or similar.

Evolution regularly ends up in local optima that it struggles to get out from. Species go extinct all the time when there's no evolutionary path that solves its problems.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

zb3 2y ago

I didn't mean to say that evolution avoids local optima, but I wantend to say that it doesn't have to get "trapped", in the sense that it was able to produce such complex organisms as humans..

marginalia_nu 2y ago
Right, but it could well be that there is some other greatly superior organization of life toward which there exists no evolutionary path.
gizmo 2y ago
Because of the incremental nature (it can't think moves ahead) only a tiny percentage of all viable life forms can be produced by evolutionary processes. Species forged by their ruthless struggle for survival. Maybe humanity will be the first species to escape evolutionary constraints, but maybe humanity is like the many other species that burn brightly but briefly. The universe seems to be cold and empty and devoid of life. Perhaps evolution is very good at producing cockroaches and not that good at creating intelligent life.

magicalhippo 2y ago

And on the flip side, a sufficient abundance of resources and/or lack of predators mean non-optimal species can procreate, and thus find other local optima.

marginalia_nu 2y ago
In terms of evolution, the fitness of a species is defined by its ability to reproduce. In the circumstances you describe, selection pressure exists for the species that can reproduce the fastest. Predators or resource constraints are not a requirement for evolution.
- magicalhippo 2y ago
  > In the circumstances you describe, selection pressure exists for the species that can reproduce the fastest. My point was there's no pressure without constraints. A faster-reproducing species will only apply a pressure if starts exhausting a resource or similar.