Ming the Mechanic: Evolutionary Triggers

Ming the Mechanic:
Evolutionary Triggers
The NewsLog of Flemming Funch

Evolutionary Triggers

2004-09-20 23:59
11 comments

by Flemming Funch

Strange, there's only two pages of matches right now in Google on the term "Evolutionary Triggers". I didn't think it was such a well-kept secret. Anyway, it is a term that appears in evolutionary biology, like here talking about the surprising explosion in complex lifeforms in the Cambrian era, a little more than 500 million years ago:

The appearance of such a large range of body plans and life strategies at the base of the Cambrian in an apparently short space of geological time has intrigued palaeontologists for many years. There is still a great deal of speculation as to what caused or triggered the metazoan 'explosion', and why it happened when it did after 3 billion years of potential evolutionary time. It seems obvious that something must have changed or reached a critical level favorable for the building of large, complex bodies and the construction of hard skeletal material. The theories of what such evolutionary triggers may have been can be split into extrinsic or external environment factors, and intrinsic or internal biotic factors.

So, something happens which maybe breaks a previous equilibrium, and suddenly it becomes advantageous for new things to develop. Of course something needs to be present in the first place which is capable of evolving. But then a trigger event or circumstance might inspire or influence it into suddenly evolving a whole lot.

I'm not sure if it is an idea that is necessarily popular with the kind of evolutionary biologists who believe that evolution is blind and random. But I don't really care. What I find most fascinating is the use of the meme in systems in general, including human systems.

I've noticed it time and again with people. If we're stuck in the same familiar routine, in the same familiar circumstances, in the same self-consistent worldview, we have a hard time changing. But if we're pulled out of those circumstances, or something drastically changes around us, or something goes over a threshold, change is suddenly much easier. And that is often what at first glance seems unpleasant circumstances that facilitate it. We get thrown out on deep water, or our world falls apart, and suddenly we might discover that we can change quickly, and sometimes for the much better. But we wouldn't have chosen it consciously from within our familiar old frame of reference. It takes a trigger. Sometimes that's somebody yelling at us. Sometimes it is a wise person who doesn't buy into our worldview who knows exactly where to put their finger. Sometimes it is something unexpectedly wonderful that happens that shakes us out of our skull.

Some systems thinking stuff from a page by Paul Herbig:

Systems evolve when they reach a sufficient level of complexity, have flexible feedbacks between their components, are exposed to a sufficiently rich and constant energy flow, and when their normal functioning is disturbed. ( Laszlo 1985)

It is this factor of disturbance that is the evolutionary trigger for systems. If it is below the critical level, the systems normal feedback buffers it out and a return to stability with no evolutionary change occurring. If it surpasses the critical level, the feedback cycles are disrupted and the previous system vanishes and decomposes to more strongly bound components to another stable level. But just at that critical level, it is moved out of normal flow to another level. When that critical level is reached, a freedom of choice occurs, a bifurcation, and a new system diverges from the old.

The evolutionary change I'd be most interested in would be some rapid positive changes in the collective consciousness of humankind. You know, the kind of changes that might make us suddenly realize we can live in peace and work together and have a great time at it. The kind of change that would henceforth make it impossible for a few misguided wackos to mess things up globally. Because the rest of us would actually be working together. Doing what is needed, what we're inspired to do, what is fun to do, and what works.

Could happen. Not terribly utopian either. Incremental change isn't going very well. The world, however off kilter it is, is trying hard to continue on the course it is on, and will tend to resist reasonable gradual attempts of changing it. There's just too much invested in the status quo, and so many reasons why it can't be any different. What is needed is a whack that is hard enough that it knocks us into a different space, where we actually notice we have the freedom to choose something different. Hopefully it can be a whack that isn't too devastating. It could very well be something obviously wonderful. No reason it shouldn't be. But it has to be a trigger that tips a lot of scales, and makes it impossible to remain the same.

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11 comments

21 Sep 2004 @ 01:00 by swanny : 9/11 2001
It may be then that the impedus or straw that broke that camels
back may well stem from the 9/11 ??? well can we still call it an
event or has it been solemized into a kind of metaphor.....
It is funny about 9/11 ...... it is akin to the Kenndy Assasination in
the mythology that seems to be developing around it..... as a kind of
rallying cry for ????? thats the problem...... it is a pointless kind of
call to insanity..... or so thus maybe the insanity takes place to
ascend to a new sanity hmmmm
These shots heard around the world are revalent in human terms
but many say the terrorist threat is minor in comparison to the
impending weather changes.... now that is scary for them to actually
come around now to admiting that..... a portent perhaps or
okay we have to come back to truth somehow.....
to reality......
What is the truth and reality admist the gloss and spin.
It seems truth and its revelance and importance is lost
at such times.....
But there must be some "basis" for truth....
What says you Ming on Truth?

swanny

21 Sep 2004 @ 01:52 by ming : Straws
For a few days it seemed like 9/11 was going to be it. "We are all americans now". An outpouring of sympathy and solidarity. A unifying of the world by showing how vulnerable and human we all are.

A couple of days after 9/11 there was a national day of prayer in the US. On every street corner there were people standing, solemnly holding candles. Me too. And suddenly it stuck me how it really only was about half the people who felt like that. The other half were driving by in 4x4s with flags out the window, yelling for war.

Of course one never knows how the sequence of events plays out in the longer run. Maybe in the longer run it ends up working differently. But I don't think that is it.

How we feel seems more important than what exactly the truth is. Something can happen that makes us suddenly all feel something that is more constructive.

What 9/11 brought up was unfortunately too dark and messy, so it took us into a dark dwindling spiral. Something else will probably takes us out of it. I just don't know what it will be.

21 Sep 2004 @ 02:48 by swanny : Interesting Line
"How we feel seems more important than what exactly the truth is."

Thats a very telling statement yet it in itself is a truth.....
I've discovered people don't really want the truth either because
its rather boring or because its to distrubing...
So they seem to prefer sort of homogenized lie
Hmm I think it was MD Scott Peck who wrote a book
sort of about that called "The People of the Lie".or something
He also wrote one called "The Road (or Path?) Less Taken
Interesting man actually a psychiatrist I think.....
The only Shrink I know who dared to bring "GRACE" into the
discussion and literature
So thanks for your take .....

21 Sep 2004 @ 17:28 by FreedomBuilder @68.3.7.187 : Truth, or Honesty??
From {link:http://www.neo-tech.com/pax-b1/c2.php|Pax Neo-Tech}:

"As detailed in Pax Neo-Tech and throughout the Neo-Tech literature, honesty not truth is the hallmark of conscious reality, valid knowledge, and universal morality. Truth is a closed-circle, fixed static that more often than not is used for dishonest manipulations. Honesty is an open-ended, flowing process that by definition is always honest. Honesty is the process for building valid knowledge and creating limitless human values."

21 Sep 2004 @ 18:29 by qmal : Design some evolutional triggers
I have heard of this out burst of life during the Precambrian Era, I think there have been a wide variety of environmental influences, both of measured and some still unknown. I have been wondering about the sun s influence on genetic evolutional development and mutation. I watch the sun often with the data provided by satellite. It occurred to me over the last several years that some sun spots and flares get very large in proportion and will send out extremely large amounts of solar wind and other types of radiation, such as X-ray, gamma ray and possibly some unknowns. Radiation irregularities may well contribute evolutional development and trigger, as far as intrinsic evolutionary effects. So, I think during super flares that the Earth receives quite a massive dose of radiation that is 100 to 1000 times normal daily levels. These high levels of would have a mutating effect on genetics planet wide. Perhaps some sort of an event like this caused the apparent explosion of life form in the Precambrian Era. The ice age thing makes more sense though. Sort of a solar influenced genetic random event generator or eliminator. I think it's a good format, your approach to analyze human cultural evolution by examining analysis from patterns in natural evolution history. Our thinking and apparent cultural evolution and patterns of which, may well have similar attributes of these natural evolutional patterns. I like to think that since the planet is indeed reaching critical mass on a number of different problems that it is likely that a number of people sense it. And because they sense it there are more brains thinking about it, so it would have the effect that we are primed for an intrinsic effect type of change due to extrinsic event and observation of such. We are ready for widespread conscious change or metanoia. People are tuned in and looking for change. So the theory that when critical mass is reached the affected will flow toward a new system is probably very correct, especially when they are prepared for it and a trigger effect is in occurrence. I guess the trick is figuring what the trigger is, and then constructing a positive one. I also think the positive ones if they were to be no known, are more apt to have positive effects then say the negative triggers. As you say it isn't as simple as just delivering a message with for the world as the world is already heading uncertain direction and with plenty of momentum. And at this point it would probably be safe to assume that any of the existing forms of government, religion, and other types of brainware are probably not going to yield to this purpose of the reunification and direction of life and its future here. I was hoping that the discovery of intelligence signal from space would have more effect than it did. I believe the story was suppressed a good bit. Of course it may not mean that much to the average human. Something that would equalize the playing field so to speak is what's needed. It would be nice if we could just be saved by aliens or entities as the case maybe. Like if the human race had a mass alien contact and we were delivered some type of technology that equalized the playing field. One of your top five solutions Ming :). I don't have my hopes up on that at all. But it would be nice. The fact that a signal was discovered puts that possibility in a little better position. Of course alien contact or a new technology may very well create more problems than we had. They might not be friendly or such technology might morph into something negative. I think that if a little pressure is applied in the right places on a spinning disk, its axis of rotation can be significantly altered. Still more pressure and the gyrations can be altered into in stability. So figure in and out, which various systems in motion need alteration to produce cascading alterations in all systems and that would be positive nature of change. I guess that people here are far along and these ideas of planed change. . . The monetary system, ideological systems, religious system, ecological and other natural systems. It has to be something that binds everybody together without looking back kind of thing. Without worrying about the way it was because the way we're going looks so much better and things are already better. Negative events such as 911 attract the need for positive events for people to feel things are staying in the norm but actually produce more negative events. So negative events as evolutionary triggers will probably just put us progressively into worse world situation. A series of small positive events in the right places may do a lot to larger systems in motion and affecting world direction today. People want to hear some positive stuff. All the negative stuff that's happening continues to increase personal stress levels all over the planet. So I think people are quite ready for such a change. Something that will affect people's awareness of global situation and direction, making it easy to understand, and obvious as to direction to pick. Unveiling truth, surpassing current media, and transcends all the current divisional power structures. Some new universal binding brainware in a new medium that is open, encompassing and is better than the brainware in use now. So I believe in the combination of positive pressure derangement of current functioning systems of sustainment, coupled with mass delivery of newly arranged brainware could possibly set things off in a positive direction. I hope.

21 Sep 2004 @ 20:14 by ming : Honesty
Yes, honesty is probably a better and more workable truth to seek than the Truth that assumes that things are one absolute way that can be pinpointed with certainty. Most Truths have so far largely served as a way of manipulating the masses. Something to hide behind, and to use to control. Whereas the honesty of being so vulnerable as to be willing to share what I see and think and experience right now - that is a quite different matter.

21 Sep 2004 @ 20:23 by ming : Positive Triggers
A devastating nuclear blast with millions of dead in a major western city might do the trick. But certainly not the kind of thing I would hope for in any way. And it might have the opposite effect, and instead spell the end of the human race. Much better with a positive one.

We hardly seem smart enough yet to actually understand something like evolutionary triggers. We can understand that they're there, but would be hard pressed to estimate what they'll do. Oh, if it is a matter of certain chemical changes, we can make qualified guesses. But really hard when it is big and sudden changes.

Alien contact would be a good candidate. But, yes, it would have to be the right kind of folks we'd run into.

22 Sep 2004 @ 23:01 by ming : Evolutionary Tension
Yeah, it is that gap, or that tension, that shows quite firmly that something will happen. Shifts are inevitable. So much have changed, but yet it is kept mostly the same. Change can't be kept down forever. Deep fine-grained connectivity is being established, and many more authentic voices are talking, but the political and corporate powers just bet on better advertising and bigger guns. The more they clamp down, the more certain it is that it won't be any gradual well-planned evolution. It will be an explosion. An explosion of concerted creativity, both diverse and connected. And more than that - the evolution of something truly new and unexpected that will make the old organizational methods seem like blind, dumb and waddling one-celled organisms.

23 Sep 2004 @ 19:45 by qmal : Evolutionary wave
Yes sir, sure if it was left up to me I would certainly botch it and in no way am qualified to drive, completely not licensable. How it might sound far fetched, even unfathomable I dont think its that far off beat. We are all, already playing G in so many ways. However taking a look at the data of a number of things; such as the fingers perched over the buttons and that arsenal in orbit, the tremendously fast spread of certain diseases, firery economy out there. I feel that being an evolutionary triggers architect is not that big a deal, there are a lot of bigger powers out there doing just that. As individuals or small collective group the responsibility thing seems,.. well not of measurable equivalent. Positive triggers Sure some of these triggers might incur bad things even if positive effect was intended, some people could fall off the scale, but the other triggers out there already in place are downright dangerous. Trying anything is probably better than nothing, trying and educated anything is probably better and the little closer to the mark then not. Trying it out in the open with a consensus would mean, you don't have to hide (well I hope not) and understanding increases exponentially from the input of many a brain as well. I agree with you it might be as simple as riding natures wave where just slightly guiding the existing currents. A swift part of paddle on the right side of the boat may just do the trick. Let nature drive, just navigate a little. So then learn to ride the waves. Sure none of this is easy, Are the alternatives worse? Any kind of understanding of determinism via event is really quite impossible to predict by exactly. Driving when you can not see generally means you'll hit something sooner or later, but if your vehicle is heavy and stout it will probably keep moving in a forward direction. S U V philosophy of kinetics. But not holding onto the wheel well you know what happens next. Some of the various triggers already in place their deterrent effect or what ever yield a future that is also quite an incalculable. Say it the effect of a limited nuclear war 5 warheads, or a major nuclear war say 50. Of course I'm not talking about the large negative stuff like a nuclear exchange, complete economic collapse, inextinguishable disease or such. I'm Thinking a much smaller scale and positive in nature, say like an organized delivery system to carry some of the things already designed here, at the right moment, in a format that is palatable by an average one. Possibly a way to monitor and scale in such a moment of delivery. Well I would not know where to begin exactly. A large machine like a V-8 is skipping on two cylinders, seal a vacuum leak, adjust the timing a few degrees, then the mixture and all of a sudden you have a hundred more horsepower and things are back in tune. Ha ha things all are a bit more complex than that in this arena. I think Ming, you are well underway to being an evolutionary triggers designer or are one already.. In fact you people and many others may have already pulled the triggers. Positive evolutionary triggers may not be such a fast thing, as say some of the negative stuff like nuclear exchange. When looking at the Precambrian Era explosion of life and any thing in geologic time it's hard to determine what the trigger was and how long it took to yield the observable changes. So some of the things you and other people are designing and doing here could well be those triggers. Perhaps its a wave thats already moving that is spreading fast now around the globe at first in mind then mediums and onto actions. Many things going on here seem like they could be that. I think activities like Peace clock are advantageous primer for mass message delivery, and direct effect as well. If whole human race could focus on one thing for even a short time people are a lot closer to mass attention, learning and building mental energy masses, almost any thing would be, could be possible. Other possible tool sources might be in the open source thing or bringing technology to the Third World. You have advanced that wave a good bit I think.

Still it's quite stimulating to think about it. And what to do next. So thanks. That Paul Herbig stuff was excellent. Burning man is so cool too. :) I have always wanted to go.

4 Nov 2004 @ 03:41 by grandma218 : Evolutionary Triggers
I couldnt agree more and frankly from personal evolutionary experience. A number of things, in fact happened to devastate me. In a path toward one awareness and another, it suddenly occurred to me that our humanity is in the states of mind referred to here in Evolutionary Triggers. We are overly influenced by the status quo and to such subtle supplanting of an innate capability to be otherwise. The awareness of that stigmatization, however, was not sudden. Rather it was gradual over decades of observing what is going on. The breakthrough was very recent and informed me to do all that I can about the advanced civilization. In this context, options, choices become about the very survival of our species are the most important to consider.

Our humanity is driven by emulations, to emulate others and replicate any conceivable value that seems powerful and influencial. Few of us realize there really is no model on Earth, in our world, our histories of the innocent state of mind as it pertains to the advanced civilization which is of no admixture of harm. While this may seem common place, knowledge that weve chosen to ignore, the truth of it is we originate in the conceptuality of the advanced civilization by imagining something so very different from anything weve ever known or have been told is okay to imagine.

In that context is a vividly intelligent being that one you and I have always thought belonged in heaven, as but one example. But it is the being within to whom the wisest Mind of Universe communicates urging intellect to not only consciously participate in our evolution, but also, to acknowledge conceptual systems that were unknown to the earlier evolutionary stages. Whether this was as recent as the last decade or millions of years ago, when a conceptuality becomes aware thus, imagination works independently of time.

The evolutionary mind conceives thought in a conjunction with great minds. For example, had I not known about Buckminster Fullers Synergetic geometry, which I feel is closely akin to the evolving minds consciousness of the advanced civilization, I could not have found anything in our world even close to the conceptuality. I would have remained disturbed about the loss of something to which no name had been given. Nor was that disturbance identified as some degree of the predatory mind set. As it turns our evolution and predatory other seem to be in a conjugating process.

Awareness of the advanced civilization requires me to cultivate thoughts away from the predator and toward that objective. I must do so at my level of thought and language as it occurs to me to use my talents, intellect, personality, whatever this might be which may not appeal to the world in general, the one we have been trained to think means more than who we are individually in Universe. This is the world which has no idea we are in Universe forever and able to consciously participate in our evolution.

Knowing that we are in Universe forever is relevant to progressions toward the advanced civilization. Even writing about it is so much easier than ever before when the various and metaphorical displacements simply bothered me. I use to stumble over the words to explain something, something, something, finding very little agreement about my perspective because others too did not know what I was trying to learn as an escape so that I could clearly say it.

25 Nov 2005 @ 16:13 by jonah @203.206.115.209 : vairiation within speci
ming apparently it takes only a 25 degree shift note re darwins finches the variaty that filled all available nitches to survive ,,,yet ,,all finches
not one dove or hawk ...yet they looked different ..vairiation within a species can have more difference than a completly different unrelated species phenotypically ..if scielence was doing what people thought..we would not still have 87 percent of people believing the missing link ...show me the dna

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