Skitto

Let's skip the formalities, we know what they are. Is it possible for the next human evolutionary jump to be mental?

Will my son have an aptitude for levitation?

But what I want to know is if it is practically possible for a human to learn one of these psi-powers (so-called by meta-scientists) under the pretense of survival? Could I, for instance, come to a mentality that sees no logical problem with levitation, and if my mind sees flight or levitation as being the natural extension of walking, could it not just do it? No practice involved, just step into the air a few feet at a time?

Of course a person would have to have an openminded threshold above that of, say, the Rainman... or not, no one has even researched it!

__________________
Yeah, well, you're just that awesome, I guess. It's not like I guessed so anyways.

telekinetic

I'm not sure being sufficiently openminded is the key to defeating gravity. This isn't the matrix.

unless it is. In which case, you're probably right.

__________________
twisted no more

Baraka_Guru

I think the best you'll get will be tied to mental powers we know we are capable of. Think of the autistic spectrum and the savant syndrome, like Rain Man you mentioned. In that case, he had deep memory (e.g. perfect recall/photographic memory) but he didn't have a broad enough capacity to know how to do anything with it. Some call certain cases of autism "severe intelligence" because it is quite powerful but not very amenable.

The problem, of course, is that these states are flawed. Will we have more people with the brain capacity closer to that of Einstein or Da Vinci? Perhaps. But what you are wondering--will we have more powerful mental capacities in general--could take generations before we would even see a difference. It would be an evolutionary development. Do we have, on average, a higher capacity for intelligence than we did 4,000 years ago? I don't know. It's an interesting question.

So...no autolevitation, but perhaps a much higher mental capacity to develop and use technology that's pretty damn close.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Zeraph

Why assume levitation is mental? ...if its even possible at all. The energy must come from somewhere, and so far we have not found anything remotely linked to being able to levitate that would be tied to the human body. Of course we know very little and could easily discover something in the future. For all we know though we may find some biological way to levitate.

If we're speaking specifically of evolution as we know it and not using the word in a more colloquial way then we'd need a pressure...an adversity to evolve the need for levitation or something like it. Something in our environment would need to drastically change to make levitation key to survival.

Hopefully though we'll go all mad scientist and develop powers on our own and create our own artificial evolutionary pressures...Cause evolution as we know it takes a long, loooong time.

robot_parade

The kinds of things you're talking about don't have any plausible method of action - it's not a matter of our brains or bodies evolving to be able to do something. To get what you want, we either need to be wrong about large parts of physics, or at least unaware of some pretty significant stuff. It's not like, for instance, flying, or breathing underwater - it's at least conceivable that human beings could evolve into something that flies, or has gills, albeit pretty unlikely.

Another point, Evilution takes a *long* time. Millions of years. For us to evolve into something that flies would take just as long. Not counting genetic engineering or something.

On the other hand, selecting for existing traits can be a lot faster. Lots of examples of this sort of thing already - most domesticated animals and plants show major signs of this sort of selection.

Jetée

Doesn't evolution spark from necessity for a species to survive, and the subsequent inherent adaptations an organism would develop to garner a foothold in its remodeled environment?


For the past several thousand years, humanity as a species has reached a general plateau of equilibrium in regards as to how we exist in nature. We have been the top of the food chain for a long while, and no real predators threaten us if we have the proper tools at our disposal. Furthermore, if something is out of order, we can quickly adapt using our intellect and ability to harness/produce technology to shift the surroundings to better suit our comfort and needs. As a result, we have no real impetus to evolve anytime soon because of how we have developed a unique cocoon of comfort and craftiness around us. Unless we were to see a new catalyst and be exposed to it for a considerable period of time, say a potentially widespread fatal disease we could not avoid, or perhaps increased contact with foreign wildlife, it wouldn't really trigger within us to devise a new biological need to counteract the affront.


I say the best hope of us evloving in some discernable way within the next few centuries is to increase our exposure to venomous critters, as in the inhabitants of Australia, for example, and in our frequent encounters with them, we may delevop in our children an overall immunity to the venom in which once claimed the ancestors. That would mean a greater percentage of deaths now, but for the future, it may prove a benefit. I think the last kind-of evolution I've heard humans adapting to is our tolerance to cow's milk. 550 years ago, it was perhaps only 8% of the European population that could withstand it without getting sick, but with time, and of course technological advancement (think pasteurization), the percentage of humans who can hold it down is perhaps around 58-74%.


What I'd hope for in terms of the debate is akin to that detailed above: to further unlock hidden recesses of the mind, and to better utilize our thinking power, memory rention, recognition skills, all that jazz. There has to be reasonable basis for "psychokinetics" if they keep portaying it in film and video games, right?

---------- Post added at 12:13 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:04 AM ----------

To distract from all the words and scenarios I offered above, some suppostion:

__________________
As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world (that is the myth of the Atomic Age) as in being able to remake ourselves.

—Mohandas K. Gandhi

DaniGirl

All I know is that evolution is necessary for are survival. But who really knows what humans are capable of. I don't think we can ever levitate, but that would be awesome!!

inBOIL

Evolution doesn't direct the development of new adaptations, it only selects for existing adaptations that confer a benefit. Furthermore, an organism will not evolve, only populations evolve.

As it relates to the OP, for humans to evolve these powerful mental capabilities, some precursor ability would have to already exist, and it would have to be selected for. If the strength of that precursor is small, it would take very strong selective pressure to get it to spread through the population. It would be difficult to engineer such pressure without knowing anything about the precursor. Of course this all assumes that such powers are possible, and as yet there is no solid evidence suggesting that they are.

__________________
And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

Wrexify

Don't we only use something like 10% of our brain capacity at full load? I've always wondered what it would be like if we were able to "unlock" them and get closer to 100% activity. Maybe not superpowers, but perhaps we'd all be a little more like savants without the loss of social/communication skills.

I've actually honed my brain to be so powerful that anything I think about will spontaneously combust. Wow, my brain sure is great... Oh shi-

__________________
"Nitwit! Oddment! Blubber! Tweak!"

telekinetic

No, we use all of it. Possibly not at full efficiency, but the 10% figure is wildly outdated.

__________________
twisted no more

Zeraph

Actually it selects for mutations which happen spontaneously. Otherwise we would have never evolved into humans if it only ever selects current adaptive qualities. It's just the mutations are usually worse than better, and getting the right bunch of mutations to make a significant difference in an animal takes quite few tries.

Xerxys

I was also of the thought that evolution doesn't make you what you are today ... as in you live because you are simple and you survived everything else. Not because you are made that way. Otherwise, natural selection wuld appear to be biased somewhat ...

That said, if abilities are necessary for survival, and they are indeed impossible, we'll at some point be extinct. If they are possible, we'll definitely develop them and repopulate accordingly.

This brings me to another theory ... I don't think abilities are indeed possible. Because if they were, we wouldn't have developed into the homo-sapien figure that is physically required to grasp tools and use it's surroundings to fend for itself. Abilities like flying would mean legs are useless, telekinesis negates hands ... mind control means we don't need anything besides a mouth and stomach ... etc etc

Zeraph

I agree 100% if we're talking purely biologically. However, I believe in some sort of spiritualism. And one day we may collectively, in a Jungian spiritual way I mean, decide that "powers" or what have you are real and then develop them. It also may be that biology somehow precedes spiritualism and that developing further biologically will develop us further spiritually.

By spirituality I just mean supernatural really, doesn't have to specifically have anything to do with Christianity or Buddhism. But its possible we're on the verge of fully developing into a supernatural sense. Where our minds go beyond the law of physics. Never know.

inBOIL

True, and those mutations are random, and not influenced by what an organism "needs". If an adaptation is useful or necessary, and the mutation that leads to it is possible, there is still no guarantee that the mutation will arise in the first place.

__________________
And you believe Bush and the liberals and divorced parents and gays and blacks and the Christian right and fossil fuels and Xbox are all to blame, meanwhile you yourselves create an ad where your kid hits you in the head with a baseball and you don't understand the message that the problem is you.

Jozrael

Wait, this isn't Tilted Nonsense?

Xerxys

OK, this has really been buggin me ... just HOW could these powers be possible? Human beings (living creatures really) have only ever managed to manipulate energies ... and only two energies for that matter, sound and light. As I think about it, humans are only capable of manipulating sound. The rest, our eyes and ears, only process these energies.

We just recently broke the "wave" phenomena ... i.e. transmissions. And we did that artificially. We did that by manipulating electrical signals.

Can someone explain to me how the brain (nerves) work please. If the nerves actually USE electricity, that is fire electrical signals in order to communicate with each other, then it is possible to arrange them to look something like a transistor.

Zeraph

They do fire electricity. We also (all living things do) create our own electromagnetic field. So you can add those two things that we can create/manipulate. And in a general sense you can add biochemical reactions...that opens up *a lot* of possibilities.

Also, as far as what is currently possible (for certain), it is more useful to look at all living things and what they can do, since technically we could develop (eventually) anything another living thing that has ever existed has evolved. There are many impressive abilities out there, whole other senses, the ability to produce electricity on a large scale (ala electric eels), being able to sense electromagnetic fields (birds, sharks), etc.

In summary there is way more out there than we might normally think...still nothing to suggest our bodies would be able to create enough energy to do similar things to "spirit powers" though but the possibility already exists(the electromagnetic force can actually can levitate living beings, its just requires a crazy amount of energy, we've done it in labs, but only on insect sized animals).

Xerxys

Huh, I'm investing waay more time in this thread than I should be. OK, electricity is what everything runs on eh? Let's take eels ...

Eels have cells that are arranged like "cells", like a lithium ion battery is arranged in a grid format ... to maximize output and effectively synchronize signals, meaning it creates electricity at will. A parallel arrangement such as those found in apartment buildings or the lines that link city lights.

Human beings need some sort of insulation in order to do this. Our structure is far too complex in order to harness any high amouonts of voltage. That's out of the question for humans. We can't create enough energy to sustain abilities.

If we can, then I venture to think we would be capable of more than one ability at a time per person.

Zeraph

hence the "eventually" key word. I meant in a theoretical, millions of years, kind of way.

Xerxys

^^ I don't quite think it has to be so long after now. I mean, we just need to unlock the genetics code. If we can "teach" cells to "grow" into transistors, then we have half the work done. Now growing a circuit board is gonna be diffucult.

Zeraph

Indeed, but then, me personally anyway, I wouldn't call it evolution anymore. We should create a new name for making ourselves different through advanced tech. Maybe, techolution

Skitto

Dumb, 2/10 Zeraph.

It's just the soul's intention to keep a body functional, survival of the fittest finds what fits it best.
Think of those crazy things in the deep ocean. Different needs, different situation, and voila! Creatures that work down there look like aliens to us!

__________________
Yeah, well, you're just that awesome, I guess. It's not like I guessed so anyways.

MSD

That's not how evolution works. Traits are not developed in response to threats, organisms that are less suited to dealing with those threats die off. For Australians to evolve venom immunity, either random mutation or genetic engineering would have to introduce a gene that confers immunity to that poison, either by coding a protein that destroys it and is harmless to the body, or that restructures the nervous or cardiovascular system in such a way that it is unaffected by the venom. Then, the fatality rate among those not immune has to grow to the point that non-immune people are not able to survive to sexual maturity and reproduce. There's no reason to expect that to happen because most individuals survive long enough to reproduce without dying from venomous animal bites.
It doesn't work that way. Roughly 10% of neurons are firing at any time and that statistic got warped into a ridiculous myth. There is no part of the brain that goes unused.

Skitto

What I wanna know is how do people know that DNA molecules don't have any intelligence if they do all this all by themselves. Assuming they do, then intelligence can logically be broken into lower levels, all the way through molecules, single atoms, particles, waves, and energy itself. Then if this is so, and karma and energy is everywhere and responds to all stimulus, then it can be proven, fairly easily, and tested individually. A simple experiment is in making tea, and focusing good thoughts and feelings on the cup, and comparing it to separate, identical cups made by someone having a bad day or something.

This faculty of the universe's response to sentient stimulus can easily be adopted by humans, then!

We CAN fly, we just don't accept these simple ideas as readily because of our upbringing, our culture, and all that. A person conditioned all their life to believe that God is ultimate and universal, as well as gravity, time, money in most cases, won't even try or even care. I'm trying to recall my conditioning and make my own decisions about how the world works, and I've done some pretty cool stuff, "voila!", like that!

__________________
Yeah, well, you're just that awesome, I guess. It's not like I guessed so anyways.

MSD

Yes, you can get in a plane or helicopter and fly. You cannot simply levitate because it would violate conservation of mass and energy.
Cool stuff such as?

Xerxys

They don't.

Intelligence is not the ability to grow into something. What said molecules do is simply react to reactions. Plain old chemical reactions. A roach is not a molecule, per say, but it is intelligent in that it runs away from danger. That's not a reaction, it's a response. If molecules were intelligent all we had to do was think really hard about George Clooney and voila, I just killed the bastard.

Zeraph

Is that not all that we are then?

Willravel

No.

Xerxys

*I* (individually that is) am driven solely by the various chemical reactions within me. But no, we are not simply one huge molecule reacting to stimuli.

MSD

We are the product of a whole bunch of chemical reactions that started billions of years ago with molecules that, by chance, formed in such a way as to cause them to replicate (I think this is the current forerunner among theories of how life started.) Eventually, these molecules developed into forms that chained together, and the rest is history. That's all we are, a collection of substances put together by self-replicating molecules through a series of chemical reactions. We're very complex lumps of stuff and the reactions that keep us going been refined my natural selection for billions of years, but in the end we're just organic materials.