This is all very pretty and I can see the allure in playing with such ideas but ultimately its all just metaphysics.
Indeed, but ultimately I do not think science is equipped to answer such questions - certainly not a present. Science can describe the mechanics of a process, but to describe a sense of meaning and purpose and life? I do not think science has adequate tools for that as yet.
The attempt by Brian to suggest that natural selection alone does not account for acute symbiosis is plain wrong. It does and has been demonstrated in every case studied. No exceptions where study has been possible. There are of course some uncanny partnerships that have yet to be fully explored but again in every case as the data mounts it is natural selection and natural selection alone that is proven to be the fact.
I think macro evolution is a rarely enough observed phenomena as it is, let alone between highly specialised new symbiotic species!
So far such occurrences as described as via "natural selection", but this I think is done simply out of safe convenience - there are some incredible relationships that seem to defy reason - not least that the "natural selective" process sometimes looks driven by some other unquantifiable force.
I'm not saying that symbiosis itself as a process defies the explanation of natural selection - as much as that some examples become so extreme that natural selection through random chance and mutation within an individual species seems far too limited an explanation.
Here's a great little digression, from the BBC series Planet Earth, about Cordyceps parasitic fungi, that is so specialised that each species of cordyceps attacks only one species of insects - spooky and enchanting:
[youtube]XuKjBIBBAL8[/youtube]
For me it is the more generalised mass trends that provide real territory for the more metaphysical musings. And this is where I branch into Gaia theory. But again this is a more naturalistic idea than one that creates some sentient direction and purpose.
Indeed, the least anthropomorphic way of describing the evolutionary processes of life is that it acts like a complex organic computer program - shaped by environmental stimuli, but ultimately seeking increasing complexity.
Even still, suggesting a program suggests intelligence as well, which again would be beyond the realms of contemporary science to even begin to describe.
All I see in what I read in the above few posts is wishfull thinking, and behind that is this virtually impossible to deny need to make ourselves feel important in the grand scheme of things. Its hard for all of us to escape the urge to seek that comfort.
In all honesty, I see the reverse in what I was suggesting above - traditional human belief systems see humanity as the centre of the universe - that where there is any meaning to existence, it must directly describe the human condition.
However, if we treat life as a general universal program that seeks increasing complexity, then there is absolutely no reason to presume humanity represents either a unique expression of consciousness, let alone a pinnacle.
In fact, the reverse is true - humanity is as expendable as the dinosaurs, because if we are removed from earth's ecosystems, then the niche remains open to be filled by others through the evolutionary process. Additionally, there is every reason to presume this will be the case on other planets (if we allow the discussion to extend as far as that - that complex sentient life on other worlds will be unlikely to look human or even ape like).
Additionally, in accepting life as seeking increasingly complexity, it is clear that humanity cannot claim to represent an end to that cycle when we obviously have so many challenges and flaws - and remain open to the suggestion of other lifeforms (whether we call them spirits or angels, or aliens) that may be more advanced and more complex than ourselves.
Here's another pointer as well - when we study physics, we become aware of the universal laws of thermodynamics - in short they suggest all matter and energy will seek a simpler lower energy state.
And yet life defies this law entirely - rather than seeking simplicity, life seeks complexity.
The most amazing example that comes to mind is the butterfly - as a species, a caterpillar could exist as a single state species. Instead, it consumes enough energy to then form a cocoon - and then liquify it's entire body into a soup. This living soup then rebuilds a completely different body structure, to live in the completely different medium of air through flight, and even feeds on completely different foods. When you really stop to think about it, it's astonishing!
And yet a huge number of beetles and flies go through a similar process, and we take this miracle of apparent chance and randomness so for granted that it's challenging to see the wonder of it.
To suggest it is a random process that has led to metapmorphsis seems almost as extraordinary as the process itself. And yet, we lack the rational tools to be able to describe this process in anything but reductionist or religious terms, neither of which seems to describe the process of life in a rationally honest way.
We are left reaching for inadequate tools to describe a process that is too big for words, and our minds have grown so accustomed to it that we have grown to consider life as not simply ordinary, but even mundane.
2c.
