An interesting set of ideas. Although it needs to be pointed out that we are in the middle of one of the largest mass extinctions the earth has ever experienced - so your comments about increasing biodiversity are on flimsy ground.

But your comments, if nothing else, point to the odd contradiction at the heart of the whole environmental debate.

The environmentalists, out to defend the planet from the deleterious effects of our seemingly endless capacity to move stuff and change stuff, are in actual fact are principally defending human kind and the way we've evolved socially and economically to depend on certain environmental patterns.

See, we've got very used to the way things are at the moment. We've based our cities, and food production and travel, and transfer of goods on environmental patterns which haven't changed all that much in the last few thousand years. Sure we've had mini ice ages, and mega el ninos to contend with, and these sudden shifts have taken their toll on established civilizations (just ask the Peruvians, Europeans, Icelanders or Pascuenses), but have failed to wipe out human kind as a whole, or made any significant dent in other species.

There have been a number of mass extinction events.

Some have been gradual - such as the one dated to about 360 million years ago - which seems to have been brought about by a series of climatic shift culminating in what is called oceanic anoxia - where a lack of oxygen in the oceans leads to mass extinction of water-dwelling species.

Some have been sudden like the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction which happened about 65 million years ago - wiped out the dinosaurs and gave mammals - and ultimately us, the upper hand.

It looks like we are currently right smack bang in the middle of a mass extinction - largely because the planet is suffering from what can only be described as a human plague. We've got so good at reproducing and surviving into old age that we're eating all the other species, or taking over land they use to live in, or polluting it - or whatever.

Anyway - my fundamental point is this: we, and this lifestyle to which we have grown accustom are the most likely victims of climate change and mass extinctions. If our rainfall patterns shift, ocean currents change, air temperature rises or falls we're going to mess up our own capacity for survival - as well as that of a vast number of other species.

Lots of us will die, lots of them will die - in the long term there will be a reduction in the overall number of species on the planet. But in the grand scheme of things - until the sun runs out of hydrogen and pops - earth and its intriguing capacity to support liquid water and therefore complex life forms, will continue on in the merry way it has been since cyanobacteria first emerged in our primordial soup 3.5 billion years ago.

So really the environmentalists in attempting in some capacity to ensure that we continue to inhabit the planet, should really be thought of as humanists, in the physical rather than the spiritual sense.

Hi

I respond to your points raised in your last entry a little out of order:

Firstly to a your point about entropy:
There is a difference between entropy (the measure of disorder) and complexity although the two concepts are related. The reason why complexity can increase in the environment is because the system is open with respect to energy: The sun keeps supplying Earth with a constant stream of high grade (low entropy) energy, ie: light. As according to the 2nd law of theromdynamics it is actually necessary for entropy to increase for complexity to increase, that is: to do anything useful the high grade energy (light) must degrade by a system to a lower grade (ultimately it degrades to heat-- the lowest grade).

Ok, now for the evolution of the car:
I believe Richard Dawkins himself points out that natural selection applies to the reproduction non-DNA based entities, such as catchy songs or social ideas. He calls these 'memes' I believe (I remember being told sometime ago that he uses this term in his book-- 'The Self Gene', I've never actually read the book though so not 100% sure- I could look it up on the net I suppose.). The car likewise reproduces and is the product of natural selection. Indeed perhaps you could consider it even more valid than a 'meme' since it has a phyical existence unlike a song. The fact that the car relies on human beings to reproduce doesn't detract that from the fact that it is reproducing and is evolving. (Interesting to note is that the modern car has almost no reliance on humans for its direct reproduction-- it nows relies almost exclusively on other 'man-made' machines). A virus provides an example of a 'natural' entity that is accepted to be evolving according to natural selection even though the virus itself does not physically reproduce itself-- instead it relies on the host cell.
You may have noticed that I been describing things as 'entities', I do this because I personally prefer to reserve the words 'life' and 'species' for carbon/DNA based things that evolve according to natural selection.

Here is a little hypothetical history of the invention of the cart-
Trogg Wheelie was a caveman log hauler. It was his job to move a set quota of logs everyday. He was very frustrated about the amount of time that he had to work, he felt that he needed more recreation time. His method of moving the logs was to carry one end and let the loose end drag. He tried rolling a log on top of short think circular logs. He noted that although this allows you to move the log itself faster and with less effort unfortunately the time it takes to restore the rollers that roll out the back-end to front removes any advantage that the rollers give. After thinking about this for a while he realises that the real problem is that the rollers move with-respect-to the transported log, so he reasons that if only he could maintain the rollers at the same position relative to the log he wouldn't have to keep restoring them back to the front.
At first he tries to loosely strap a roller to the end of the log, this sort of works but the strap causes too much friction and the roller doesn't roll well. More deep thought leads him to think that if he cut a roller into two thin circular discs and drilled holes in their centres he could poke each end of a thin pole through the holes and then lash the pole perpendicular to the transported log then the dics would rotate around the pole and the pole would stay fixed relative to the log.
He builds this machine, the discs he eponymously names 'wheelies' and the pole is named an 'axle'. He tests out the machine and finds that it works almost exactly has he expected -- he can carry one end and let the other be carried by the wheelies. Thus he calls it a '1/2 Carry And 1/2 Rolled Transporter' machine-- this name is later shorted to 1/2 CART. It more than halves the amount of time it takes to do his quota leaving him plenty of time for other activities. The other haulers soon catch onto the fact that he has more spare time than them so they decided to find out why. After seeing his 1/2 cart, they build themselves each one thus giving themselves more rest time like Trogg.
After a while Trogg becomes frustrated with physical effort his work takes so he designs a way to lighten the load. He reasons that if he put another 1/2 CART at the front end he wouldn't have to carry the log at all. He implements his idea and finds that it works as planned. This new machine he calls a 'Double 1/2 CART'--soon shortened to CART. He colleagues noticed that recently Trogg is never exhausted at the end of the day like they are. So they observe how Trogg works-- after seeing his CART they all build one. Skipping forward a few millennia we notice that his CART has evolved into the modern car, truck, etc. ---------------------------

In this story we find that the cart has evolved because the environment is 'selecting' useful adaptions such as the change from strapping on a roller to using axle and wheels. The cart itself is also reproducing. It should also be noted that complexity is increasing. But the big question is whether the changes were really random adaptions or were they designed?

This leads to the next issue- Complexity and Emergence:
Well instead of me trying to explain emergence I will leave it to this wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence.
Here is another good read which further clarifies weak and strong emergence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong_emergence.
So in summary we can say that emergence basically means that when a system gains a certain level of complexity the system may gain extra properties/behaviours that the component parts don't have. In the case of strong emergence these new properties/behaviours cannot be explained by breaking down the system into it components and examing the components in isolation: concisely, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. (Many physicists deny strong emergence.)

Emergence can cause a heirachy/tree of emergent levels, each new level more complex than the previous ancestor levels. A higher level has access to concepts/properties from lower levels but it is meaningless to use new emergent properties of a high level to explain a lower level -- eg: we can describe cells in terms of atoms and atomic forces but cannot use natural selection to describe atoms.
Eg: for cellular life forms: base fundamental particles level --> nuclei --> atoms and compounds : emerged properties include colour, chemical bond strengths, etc. these are calculable from the properties of nuclei and electrons so are definitely not strongly emergent --> organelles : natural selection first appears at this stage --> cells --> cellular tissue and simple multicell organisms : some emergent properties include the assembly of slime mould plasmodia to self assemble --> complex multicell orgainsms ---> ecology : many emergence properties, this is the level where emergence in nature is often studied --> animal intelligence --> mammalian (and possibly some cephalapod) high intelligence --> consciousness : consciousness is frequently given as an example of strong emergence, although many others insist it is actually weak.

So to answer the natural selection v's designed question: it turns out that the cart is both random adaptions as well as designed. At the level of particles the evolution of the cart is a totally random event. At the level of ecology the cart evolves according to natural selection. Lastly at the level of consciousness the cart is 'designed'. All three statements are perfectly correct as long as their statement is made with respect to the appropriate emergent level.

When operating at the level of intelligence empirical scientific statements such as 'some animals can count', 'human have the ability to imagine possible future events and forward plan' or 'the environment increases in complexity over time' are meaningful. It is also meaningful to say incorrect statements such as 'humans are the only animal that use tools'.
When operating at the level of consciousness, such statements as 'it is good to stop violence against women', 'it is good to give equal rights to all', or even 'it is good strive to increase complexity' are meaningful. As well the statement 'it is not good to give equal right to all' is also meaningful.
All these statements are meaningless at the level of sub-atomic particles or even the level of natural selection.

Lastly we ask, is there anything above consciousness? Well we can't be sure because consciousness is our highest level of emergence and a lower level of emergence has no upward access to a higher level. While we cannot know for sure about any other higher level, we can speculate is that if an entity (vastly) more complex than our brain evolves than it is possible (likely?) that a new level of emergence will eventually result. It looks like (to us) that modern technology (especially computers/internet) is currently the most likely candidate to first achieve such a level on Earth -- if such a level exists.

(As an aside: I have met a few mystic-hippie-newage sorts that tell me that they operate on a level of consciousness higher than mine. Personally I don't believe them :) )

Thanks for letting me discuss this

Quagga

PS: by-the-way: it is not hard to increase complexity. Infact most things that you do in day-to-day life increase complexity, such as commenting on this blog: commenting on this blog increases internet traffic, increases internet traffic causes to internet to evolve in complexity eg: more servers and communication systems are required to be installed to keep up with the increased traffic.