[BRIEF NOTE] CFTAG Report
Dec. 12th, 2004 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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pauldrye and robertprior were in attendance at this week's Counterfactual Threats Assessment Group meeting, held as always at the Yonge-Wellesley Starbucks starting at 1 o'clock on Sunday.
The discussion began withpauldrye's description of Simon Conway Morris' Life's Solution, a title that by all accounts sounds like a worthwhile if intensive read. Conway's thesis--that there is only a limited number of ways of accomplishing a particular evolutionary goal, and that this goal can be achieved in very similar ways by animals with wildly different origins--is one that, I observed, seems obvious in retrospect. Paul raised the example of eyes, which evolved separately in cephalopods and vertebrates, developing from significantly (skin in the former, nervous-system tissue in the latter), but which are composed of the same proteins. The main proviso to Conway's thesis is that he deals with lifeforms in a single evolutionary system, that of Earth. While he makes what is apparently a plausible case to the effect of the universality of his principles, until we come up against another biosphere of comparable complexity his thesis' verdict may have to be "not proven."
In another, somewhat more depressing, vein, discussion was given to the question of other consciousnesses on Earth. Clearly, homo sapiens sapiens has existed and continues to exist alongside other consciousnesses. Even now, dolphins (among other cetacean species, and including many great apes) can pass the mirror test, while Neandertals proved themselves entirely capable in their Mousterian cultural revolution of competing alongside their siblings in the Homo genus. (The interesting suggestion was raised of Neandertals with a relatively more advanced technological base, which appear to have been a cold-adapted species, managing to survive in the Arctic in the ecological niche of the Inuit and other northern peoples in another history.) The problem, though, is that these other conscious species keep getting slaughtered. Paul argued that one reason it has been so difficult to communicate meaningfully with elephants and sperm whales is that for the past few centuries the largest individuals of both species have been slaughtered, including the elders responsible for passing on culture. Absent these elders, traditional cultures might be non-existent; one might as well try to conduct interreligious dialogue of the greatest theological complexity with child survivors of the Holocaust.
On a less depressing and more amusing note, conspiracy theories--including Dan Brown's in The Da Vinci Code were also discussed at some length. It would be nice, you know, if people came up with conspiracy theories that actually reflected the facts closely. People need to take pride in their work, whatever it is. Our cephalodpod brethren--which, as Charlie Stross notes, now lock up more biomass in their bodies that homo sapiens sapiens does in ours--also constituted a subject of discussion.
As always, the next CFTAG meeting is scheduled for the same time, same place, in one week's time. All are welcome to attend.
UPDATE (5:52 PM) :nhw corrects me on the name of the author of Life's Solution, and I'm the person who made the explicit comparisons with human situations in pauldrye's argument on animal communication, with him raising it only as a possibility.
pauldrye and robertprior were in attendance at this week's Counterfactual Threats Assessment Group meeting, held as always at the Yonge-Wellesley Starbucks starting at 1 o'clock on Sunday.The discussion began with
pauldrye's description of Simon Conway Morris' Life's Solution, a title that by all accounts sounds like a worthwhile if intensive read. Conway's thesis--that there is only a limited number of ways of accomplishing a particular evolutionary goal, and that this goal can be achieved in very similar ways by animals with wildly different origins--is one that, I observed, seems obvious in retrospect. Paul raised the example of eyes, which evolved separately in cephalopods and vertebrates, developing from significantly (skin in the former, nervous-system tissue in the latter), but which are composed of the same proteins. The main proviso to Conway's thesis is that he deals with lifeforms in a single evolutionary system, that of Earth. While he makes what is apparently a plausible case to the effect of the universality of his principles, until we come up against another biosphere of comparable complexity his thesis' verdict may have to be "not proven."In another, somewhat more depressing, vein, discussion was given to the question of other consciousnesses on Earth. Clearly, homo sapiens sapiens has existed and continues to exist alongside other consciousnesses. Even now, dolphins (among other cetacean species, and including many great apes) can pass the mirror test, while Neandertals proved themselves entirely capable in their Mousterian cultural revolution of competing alongside their siblings in the Homo genus. (The interesting suggestion was raised of Neandertals with a relatively more advanced technological base, which appear to have been a cold-adapted species, managing to survive in the Arctic in the ecological niche of the Inuit and other northern peoples in another history.) The problem, though, is that these other conscious species keep getting slaughtered. Paul argued that one reason it has been so difficult to communicate meaningfully with elephants and sperm whales is that for the past few centuries the largest individuals of both species have been slaughtered, including the elders responsible for passing on culture. Absent these elders, traditional cultures might be non-existent; one might as well try to conduct interreligious dialogue of the greatest theological complexity with child survivors of the Holocaust.
On a less depressing and more amusing note, conspiracy theories--including Dan Brown's in The Da Vinci Code were also discussed at some length. It would be nice, you know, if people came up with conspiracy theories that actually reflected the facts closely. People need to take pride in their work, whatever it is. Our cephalodpod brethren--which, as Charlie Stross notes, now lock up more biomass in their bodies that homo sapiens sapiens does in ours--also constituted a subject of discussion.
As always, the next CFTAG meeting is scheduled for the same time, same place, in one week's time. All are welcome to attend.
UPDATE (5:52 PM) :
nhw corrects me on the name of the author of Life's Solution, and I'm the person who made the explicit comparisons with human situations in pauldrye's argument on animal communication, with him raising it only as a possibility.
