Posts Tagged darwinian natural selection
Fractal Evolution and the Human Condition
Posted by admin in Future Concepts on June 18, 2011
Random genetic mutation and natural selection were basic to what became known as Darwinian evolutionary theory. The processes of chance mutation and orderly natural selection appear to be contradictory and this became a matter of concern to Darwin. In his Origin of Species, Darwin wrote; I am in a utterly hopeless muddle. I cannot think that the world, as we see it, is the result of chance; and yet I cannot look at each separate thing as the result of design. The question arose, did nature come about by accident or is it all part of an intelligent universal design?
Darwin did not have access to the mathematics we use today. With access to Fractal Logic, he may well have been able to reconcile the two viewpoints. Fractal geometrical logic is able to deal with the endless complexities of nature that confused Darwinism. Free of Euclidean geometrical linear reasoning, fractal logic can derive order from random complexity.
In Darwin’s time, such enlightenment was not possible. Darwin’s logically incomplete theory of evolution, emphasising a survival of the fittest concept, led to the acceptance of the dictatorial economic and social policies of the Rev. Thomas Malthus. Mathus’ ruthless sentiments became the policies of the East India Company, which employed Charles Darwin.
During the 20th Century they gave rise to the racial and religious structure of the Nazi Third Reich. Darwinian ‘natural selection’, which lent credence to 20th century Fascist leadership and other forms of unethical government.
Up to the 20th century, the thirteen volumes of Euclid’s Elements (circa 300 BCE) were considered to be last word on the subject of ancient Grecian mathematics. However, such mathematics are unable to address the problems of either random genetic mutation or natural selection. Although Euclidean solid geometry (three dimensional structures) to a degree, does emulate the principles of nature, natural shapes do not come in the form of perfect cubes, cones and cylinders.
James Gleick, in his book, Chaos: Making a New Science, inferred that where chaos begins, Euclidean logic becomes incoherent. He wrote; that physicists investigating the laws of nature have always been at a loss to explain the disordered atmosphere and the turbulent ocean.
Eventually, several American and European scientists made the breakthrough. That group comprised of mathematicians, physicists, biologists and chemists, all of whom sought connections between different sorts of irregularities. Gleick pointed out that a new geometrical logic emerged when people such as Benoit Mandelbrot formulated changes to Euclidean thinking. Yet, Mandlebrot himself, was unaware that living systems were influenced by infinite aspects of fractal geometrical logic. For example, Mandlebrot, Einstein, and Bertrand Russell, when developing the mathematics of the 19th century logician Bernard Bolzano, failed to realise the significance of his mathematical proof about, what is called, the strange attractor, now known to link the living process to the property of infinite fractal reality. Read the rest of this entry »