Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Has Nature Really Evolved?

There are three types of canines. First, who live on my side of the road. Second, who live on the other side of the road. Third, who die crossing the road.

Canines have inspired me over the years about the sense of purpose, sense of existence, the elemental drive, evolution etc. Strange, but true. Will try to elaborate these one by one below.

En route my office on my bike, I always observe lot of dogs 'just' hanging around.

ABOUT PURPOSE/ SENSE OF EXISTENCE: They seem to roam around with no sense of purpose/ the 'higher' goal in life. They are either making a futile effort of trying to catch their own tail or just chasing each other out of their territory. Is that all they exist for? Are they self-aware? Do they know why they exist?

Life for them seems pretty easy, from OUR POINT OF VIEW. But we would never know their thoughts. Unless we can find some telepathic veterinary doctor or someone like Dr. Doolittle.

ABOUT EVOLUTION: Many dogs get killed in road accidents each year, and those who live on either side of the road, also become familiar with these accidents. My thought is, through evolutionary measures, why don't dogs - who have seen accidents or seen their near ones die - pass on this info through their genes to their successors?

In doing so, the new breed of dogs would get accustomed to urban lifestyles and the reckless driving habits. Thus, they could save a whole bunch of dogs while crossing. They could evolve into someone with an elastic, resilient, strong body - capable of withstanding high-speed impacts. What say? [Food for thought: How did homo erectus become homo sapiens?]

But this led me to thinking about evolution of human beings as well. Every child has to spend the same amount of time in learning things that his/her parents already know, right? We teach him to speak, to sing, to talk, to walk, to drink, to write, etc. Why do we have to do that, if our parents already know it? Why aren't these basic actitivites passed on through their genes to their child?

Won't it save time in training him in those things again? What happened to evolution? Why are we redoing and relearning things? Won't this help every new generation to start learning at a new level? Every generation would 'have' earlier gen's knowledge from their birth. They could start at an altogether new level of research, thinking, learning etc.

I'm unable to comprehend this immediately. But then, a possible solution surfaces: All that is there is in the world is 'material'. It may not exist tomorrow. And so what is the point of knowing something that may not exist tomorrow? And so, may be this info is not passed on to the next gen. Is this THE answer? Seriously, I have no idea.
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I'm trying to find answers to these questions. I ask these to every wise being I meet and I get varied answers. What do you think?

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