[extropy-chat] Singularity Drugs

[Jef Allbright]

On 4/15/06, John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:
> Russell Wallace Wrote:
>
> > My guess is that no simple chemical tweak will confer large
> > benefits to most people without corresponding disadvantages,
> > simply because if such were easily had, evolution would
> > probably have already found it.
>
> Not necessarily because an entire galaxy of solutions are unavailable to
> evolution, but not to intelligence. Every large change evolution makes
> consists of lots of small changes, and every single one of those small
> changes must confer an IMMEDIATE advantage to the organism; evolution just
> doesn't understand the concept of one step backward two steps forward.
> Imagine if you had to turn a prop airplane engine into a jet with a million
> tiny changes and ever change must improve the performance of the engine, and
> you had to make the changes while the engine was running. It just couldn't
> be done. That's probably why evolution was never able to come up with some
> apparently simple things, like a macroscopic body part that could move in
> 360 degrees.

John -

I agree with your statements within the (biological) context in which
they were intended, but it seems clear to me that in the bigger
picture, evolution has been responsible for every "invention" you can
name.

- Jef