Fossils Bridge Gap in African Mammal Evolution

Reuters to My Yahoo! ^ | Wed Dec 3, 2003 | Patricia Reaney

[Pharmboy]

LONDON (Reuters) - Fossils discovered in Ethiopia's highlands are a missing piece in the puzzle of how African mammals evolved, a team of international scientists said on Wednesday.

Little is known about what happened to mammals between 24 million to 32 million years ago, when Africa and Arabia were still joined together in a single continent.

But the remains of ancestors of modern-day elephants and other animals, unearthed by the team of U.S. and Ethiopian scientists 27 million years on, provide some answers.

"We show that some of these very primitive forms continue to live through the missing years, and then during that period as well, some new forms evolved -- these would be the ancestors of modern elephants," said Dr John Kappelman, who headed the team.

The find included several types of proboscideans, distant relatives of elephants, and fossils from the arsinoithere, a rhinoceros-like creature that had two huge bony horns on its snout and was about 7 feet high at the shoulder.

"It continues to amaze me that we don't have more from this interval of time. We are talking about an enormous continent," said Kappelman, who is based at the University of Texas at Austin.

Scientists had thought arsinoithere had disappeared much earlier but the discovery showed it managed to survive through the missing years. The fossils from the new species found in Ethiopia are the largest, and at 27 million years old, the youngest discovered so far.

"If this animal was still alive today it would be the central attraction at the zoo," Tab Rasmussen, a paleontologist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri who worked on the project, said in a statement.

Many of the major fossil finds in Ethiopia are from the Rift Valley. But Kappelman and colleagues in the United States and at Ethiopia's National Science Foundation (news - web sites) and Addis Ababa University concentrated on a different area in the northwestern part of the country.

Using high-resolution satellite images to scour a remote area where others had not looked before, his team found the remains in sedimentary rocks about 6,600 feet above sea level.

[Right Wing Professor]

An algorithm is NOT a program.....

It is when you implement it on a computer...Actually, an algorithm is a program, defining a program in the broadest sense.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your post!

I think any definition of life, no matter how carefully considered, will contain some arbitrary elements.

I do hope that whatever elements apply are carefully construed, since ambiguity can lead to miscommunication.

[Elsie]

Because they change a random sequence of bits on a hard disk to a specific sequence.

huh?

How can RANDOM be SPECIFIC?

[Elsie]

Nope.

It might be the END PRODUCT of a program, but not the PROGRAM itself.

The algorhtim can be implemented in various languages, all different, but the OUTCOME can be the same.

[Right Wing Professor]

It might be the END PRODUCT of a program, but not the PROGRAM itself.

American Heritage Dictionary, New College Edition, 1976

Algorithm (N) Any mechanical or recursive computational procedure

Program (among other definitions) A procedure for solving a problem...

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for your excellent post!

I'm reading an excellent book that appears to be trying for just such a synthesis (i.e., between quantum mechanics and classical physics): Lynne McTaggert's The Field (2003).

Hmmm… looks like I have yet another book to add to my reading list! One of the best illustrations of the need for such a new physics was stated by Penrose (as I recall) in an observation paradox dealing with non-locality. In the example, he said we should consider the split photons to be measured being on the earth and the moon and both being measured simultaneously, determining the other.

I am anxious to read the Pannenberg book to dig further into his position that quantum mechanics “does not abstract from time.” Of a necessity that would mean that quantum mechanics also does not abstract from space. Both issues are in the domain of my favorite topic, geometric physics. Very interesting indeed...

Which brings me to the allegation that a computer virus can be considered "alive" on the Pannenberg/Bauer criteria of life. The computer virus must somehow be aware of a future in order to qualify as a life form. This would have to be programmed into it, assuming this were possible to do; where for human beings, the time sense is completely "natural."

Actually, I don’t believe it is particularly difficult to program for exigencies. Chess programs already do this sort of thing. OTOH, it may not be adequate to have a definition for life which equates the artificial with the natural form of life. In most contexts, it is the natural form that draws the most interest. But as A.I. continues, there will be claims that ought to be held to certain benchmarks, IMHO.

Only human beings among earthly life forms appear to be aware of a future, and to consciously relate to it. Are brains aware of the future? If so, by means of what mechanism?

Animal behavior, Pannenberg notes, is pointed torward the future of the organism, but in a manner that is not necessarily self-aware. Human consciousness is self-aware; and human life is consciously directed toward a future, supported by the free actions (free will) of human beings. Animals have to settle for basic drives, instincts -- the information set specifying the individual organism -- which basically direct them toward their future in time and that of their species without the necessity of self-aware consciousness. This is the absolutely critical difference between humans and the higher animals. A computer virus would appear as not qualifying as a living organism -- unless somehow the virus could become either sensitively aware (i.e., self-aware) of "future," or effectively "controlled" by it, such that it could preserve itself and its species.

It seems to me there are two different questions here – the first being “What is Life?” and the other, “What is Mind?” Self-awareness and reasoning are properties I associate with the mind (consciousness, spirit, soul) and not the status of being alive. Plants, for instance, may be considered alive but would not necessarily be mindful. Defining the cut, however, will be quite challenging!

[Right Wing Professor]

Trying reading for comprehenison.

[Ahban]

whew! after reviewing the last 30 posts or so of the thread, it has moved so far away from what I was talking about that I am reluctant to jump back in. Maybe after a weekends rest there will be another time.

[Alamo-Girl]

Let me note once again that Pinker does not acknowledge that strong determinism leads to the absence of free will.

Indeed. And may I counter with js1138's see-saw of determinism beginning at post 804!

[Alamo-Girl]

To drop a quick logic bomb here, any process, pattern, or thing that can be measured or discerned (like emotions) is expressible ex machina by definition, and Solomonoff induction provides the mechanism by which any such model can be created. To put it another way, there is no measurable property of the human system that is not reducible to finite state machinery.

How would you know, tortoise?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the high fives all around!

[Alamo-Girl]

I always thought the lottery was a tax on ignorant and undereducated people. Strange that the democrats would want to place a tax burden on the very people they claim to be helping. Or not so strange...

I would think "not so strange" - because the Democrats benefit only when their constituents think of themselves as victims.

[Right Wing Professor]

You are conflating deteminism with predictability. Many phenomena evolve deterministically (as far as we know) without being computable or predictable. They may either be too complex to compute, or they may be chaotic. js1138 said (and I agree) 'The inability precisely to predict the future is at the core of what we perceive as free will'.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for the ping to your post!

By saying the above, you merely confirm my observation, js1138. Which is that all living creatures display adaptive learning mechanisms that make life-essential "bets about the future" -- regardless of whether the organism is self-aware ("fully conscious") or not. Even amoebae seem to have the capability "to learn." Does a computer virus?

Indeed, natural living organisms make life-essential "bets about the future." Seems to me the biggest difference is cause (natural v artificial) and perhaps, autonomy. The computer virus may not be self-programming, i.e. the ability for self-organizing complexity must be programmed into it artificially.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

'The inability precisely to predict the future is at the core of what we perceive as free will'.

The key word in that sentence is "perceive".

Everything we think we know is limited by our aspect in the "lofty structure of all that there is" (as Einstein called it.)

On the one hand, the materialist may say that something appears to be random or unpredictable - but on the other that "the mind is what the brain does" and all physicality abides by physical laws from the beginning over a timeline.

All of this is perception based on a 4D aspect with a single time dimension. IOW, the aspect itself is but a choice of coordinates.

[Right Wing Professor]

Even amoebae seem to have the capability "to learn."

I'm not aware of this research. AFAIK, the most primitive animals to show learning are nematodes. But even if it were true, amoebae are considerably more complex than, say, bacteria, which are alive and which certainly don't learn.

[Prodigal Son]

Mark of human feet. Let me just start by saying "I like your name". It's cool, man. 30 Brownie points for creativity.

Anyway... My question is- what do expect to gain from this discussion?

Do you expect to win?

Define victory...

Hey, it's just me. Ignore all these heathens for a minute. I'm really curious.

[Alamo-Girl]

Er, if I may interject...

But even if it were true, amoebae are considerably more complex than, say, bacteria, which are alive and which certainly don't learn.

Doesn't the theory of evolution require that the bacteria learn to adapt to its environment? Isn't that why we have drug-resistant strains today? And wouldn't learning be necessary to explain the low mutability of regulatory control genes along the evolution timeline?

[Prodigal Son]

Well, that would be= "what do you expect..."

Obviously, you have not a lot to fear from answering me. I am a mental midget.

Seriously, though. What's your goal?

[Right Wing Professor]

The key word in that sentence is "perceive".

I agree. Our concept of free will is very much a result of our culture. A Muslim will say 'what is written is written' and has a much more circumscribed view of free will than a Westerner. Ditto a Confucian. Dennett argues that the human sense of having free choice may have evolved, since people who feel they can do something to change their environment will act and survive, while the fatalists will lie down and die. This might also pertain to societies; is one of the reasons America has prospered whereas China spent long centuries in stasis and the Muslim world is in chaos, the fact that most Americans deeply believe they are in control of their destiny?