More rant for the sake of the evolution of this thread: *****toke before reading***** Specialization leads to extinction. Adaptability enables evolution. Example: Bird species A (who I will reffer to as Chuck) flies around a cliff near the beach. Since waves crash on the cliff rocks for millions of years (factor A), the salt water erodes the rock and creates small bowl-like holes filled with water and subsequently little fish (factor B ) e.g.1 / e.g.2 Chuck now has easy and reliable source of food (since the fish are trapped in the holes and keep refilling). Chuck and his family settle around this area permanently. After another million years, the holes created in the rocks become much deeper (factor C) because of the erosion caused by salt water. It´s much harder for Chuck to reach the fish on the bottom of the holes, so he forces it's beak to enter deeper, which prompts the mutation of his beak to become longer (again, a process that takes millions of years). Chuck has specialized his body to obtain food in a certain way. The process repeats itself for another million years and now Chuck´s beak is much longer and heavier than ever. As waves keep crashing on the rocks, Chuck's weight hinders his ability to fly away and eventually dies. The species becomes extinct because it lost it´s capacity to adapt to it's environment. -- Randomness of natural factors (which occur on their own evolutionary branch) contribute to the conditions (good or bad) of other species. Depending their abilty to adapt, they evolve. I guess it can be understood as 'adaptability to randomness for the sake of survival'. Although I must say "randomness" is a concept that we define quite loosely. Specially in this context (evolution theory) *****toke after reading*****
I tend to believe the apparent free will i experience is veridical. In the temporal reality we exist in, all this would imply is that there is a yet to be discovered area of causal influence. Perhaps the mind is independant of the constraints of physical law. We dont have the answers for this yet...