[extropy-chat] Singularity Drugs

[Samantha Atkins]

On Apr 15, 2006, at 9:38 AM, Jef Allbright wrote:

> 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.
>

Careful on context.  This comment doesn't seem to be within it.

- samantha