Is it, though? I mean, what makes it more remarkable and incredible than, say, the Krebs cycle?
That is pretty incredible too. Doesn’t it make you stand back in awe of it all sometimes?
Absolutely. Every aspect of the universe will fill you with awe if you consider it long enough.
Yep. And understanding the natural causes which produced an awe inspiring phenomenon makes it all that much richer.
we can take this to the extreme: what if some creature will evolve an “image” of the mona lisa?
That would be puzzling. As far as I know, this has not happened.
It happened once, but only on canvas…(and that one was intelligently designed…)
Faizal Ali showed us a neat genetic algorithm program back in post 42 capable of evolving mimicry. One of the examples you can try for yourself is the Mona Lisa. In a few thousand iterations the GA will evolve a remarkable similarity just through its simple iterative rules.
Grow Your Own Picture: Genetic Algorithm
Try it and watch Mona evolve in real time.
ETA: Corrected post reference number
Correction, that was @Dan_Eastwood . AKA Super Dan. Shown on the right, below:
Er, go look at post 41 in this thread.
ETA: My bad, it was post 42 by FA. Post 41 was by me.
Very cool program @Faizal_Ali @Timothy_Horton. After just a few minutes, I’ve got an abstract version of her anyhow:
What’s interesting to me is I can immediately identify that picture, even though there is virtually no detail. Crazy
da Vinci meets Picasso.
Which illustrates that, in the case of biological mimicry, the camouflage does not have to be all that detailed to be convincing. That provides the pathway by which the more striking examples can arise incrementally.
Sure, but then you could just say that evolution is that which is unknowingly doing the “action of creating an image of an actual thing”.
This is a very excellent point.
maybe. but i think that even in such a case we can explain it by mutations+natural selection .
indeed. but isnt that program the result of design in the first place?
To what extent might you consider evolution itself to be a divinely devised instrument, or principle, of the kaleidoscope of life?
Third law.
To come full circle, this is what I was referring to originally. This was the nuance that I was trying to articulate, but failed. Evolution is that which is unknowingly doing the action of creating an image of the actual thing.
That’s exactly the distinction I was trying to make between a purposefully created image, and an evolution-created image!!!