on the cusp

By anders pearson 04 Feb 2001

(the discussion on the no free will post was starting to veer more into evolution so i thought i’d start a new one.)

the first big milestone in evolution was the appearance of protein molecules that could replicate themselves; ie, DNA and the beginnings of life in general. since almost all mutations are harmful or neutral, the initial strands of DNA stayed pretty much the same from one generation to the next. things evolved very slowly for a few billion years until one day, a couple single-cell organisms bumped into each other and discovered sex. BOOM! suddenly, with genetic material getting spliced together left and right, DNA started changing much more quickly, producing exponentially more and more complicated lifeforms. multicellular life was able to evolve and evolution was in overdrive. now we’ve sort of levelled out again; but we’re about due for another huge leap in evolution.

as i see it, there are several looming possibilities for this next leap:

1) genetic engineering; pretty soon we’ll have the ability to go in and build ourselves from the ground up. there’s obviously some potential there.

2) machines; evolution and biology are robust but not very efficient or fast. technology tends to be just the opposite. machines become more like biology; humans become more like machines. either we merge and go on to the next stage of evolution together; or humans become just the stepping stone that was necessary to bring the world into the age of machines.

3) cancer. cancer is just our cells mutating and reproducing out of control. since most mutations are harmful, cancer tends to kill us. but really, what if this is the next step and cancer is just the beginning of it. at the beginning will be a lot of casualties, but otherwise, it’s sort of evolution in fast-forward. (yeah, this one’s a bit of a crackpot idea, but i thought i’d throw it out anyway.)

i’m thinking that a combination of the first two is the most likely. the third may have just been nature’s “fallback plan” if we hadn’t turned out smart enough to build machines.