Possibilian and Beyond

Neuroscientist David Eagleman outlines a position that would be quite at home in the DM:

I have no doubt that we will continue to add to the pier of knowledge, appending several new slats in each generation. But we have no guarantee how far we’ll get. There may be some domains beyond the tools of science – perhaps temporarily, perhaps always. We also have to acknowledge that we won’t answer many of the big questions in our brief twinkling of a 21st-century lifetime: even if science can determine the correct answer, we won’t get to enjoy hearing it.

This situation calls for an openness in approaching the big questions of our existence. When there is a lack of meaningful data to weigh in on a problem, good scientists are comfortable holding many possibilities at once, rather than committing to a particular story over others. In light of this, I have found myself surprised by the amount of certainty out there.
[….]

This is why I call myself a “possibilian”. Possibilianism emphasises the active exploration of new, unconsidered notions. A possibilian is comfortable holding multiple ideas in mind and is not driven by the idea of fighting for a single, particular story. The key emphasis of possibilianism is to shine a flashlight around the possibility space. It is a plea not simply for open-mindedness, but for an active exploration of new ideas.

Run of the Mill

From a Standstill

Crimson Sands

Classic Cell Animation

You have probably seen the 3 minutes version, but I just found out that the complete 8 minute version is on youtube:

Also, the narrated version is below the fold:

Front-loading and Convergent Recruitment

The beauty of the front-loading hypothesis is that it unites the two aspects of evolution that are quite friendly to teleology – deep homology and convergence.  As I just explained:

That is, the globin-fold itself is a preadaptation and it is this preadaptative state that restricts possibilities as evolution is much more likely to tap into and exploit this poised, pre-existing state than stumble upon some other possible solution that would be harder to reach.  In other words, a significant factor to convergence can be attributed to deep homology, where ancient ancestral states effectively “constrain” where evolution goes.

[….]

front-loading expects an intrinsic dimension, where deep homology constrains evolution by functioning as a preadaptation.

This logic is all tied to one of the predictions of front-loading:

Bunnah Gets it Right Again

Back in Feb 2009, the hypothesis of front-loading evolution allowed me to raise an unconventional perspective on convergence – perhaps many examples of convergence are a consequence of intrinsic constraints rather than purely environmental factors.

Then in June 2009, I added some more support to this prediction in the form of a mitochondrial protein called Tom40. Then I added a ribosomal protein. Then in Jan 2010, there was more support, this time in the form of prestin. A couple of months later, more support came from the VEGF receptors.  Again and again, examples of convergence were being explained by factors intrinsic to organisms (preadaptations) and not merely the environment and similar selection pressures.

And let’s not forget that last month, I noted yet another striking example of support:

Our brain was in the cards

Brainy Worms: Scientists Uncover Counterpart of Cerebral Cortex in Marine Worms

Our cerebral cortex, or pallium, is a big part of what makes us human: art, literature and science would not exist had this most fascinating part of our brain not emerged in some less intelligent ancestor in prehistoric times. But when did this occur and what were these ancestors? Unexpectedly, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have now discovered a true counterpart of the cerebral cortex in an invertebrate, a marine worm.

[…..]

It has long been clear that, in evolutionary terms, we share our pallium with other vertebrates, but beyond that was mystery. This is because even invertebrates that are clearly related to us — such as the fish-like amphioxus — appear to have no similar brain structures, nothing that points to a shared evolutionary past. But EMBL scientists have now found brain structures related to the vertebrate pallium in a very distant cousin — the marine ragworm Platynereis dumerilii, a relative of the earthworm — which last shared an ancestor with us around 600 million years ago.