if evolution really were real

[stu pitaus]

we would all have eyes that could zoom in and out like at super lengths like one of those extra professional camera lenses.

i also think we should have a third, inner eye lid, like a dog. why dont we get that?

***edited an extra comma in. i think it looks much better with it. dont you?

[jukka]

i would like to have a hidden eye at the back of my head so nobody could do fraky faces when standing behind me(without i recognize them).

[Annefrankingmachine]

I think this is such a great thread subject i really do. Jukka....I've always been facinated by the possibility of hidden eyes in the backs of heads...i tell you i could've done with one of those a few years back!!!....but this really is keeping me on line at the moment....keep on posting everyone. Great fun!!!

[phil]

muhahah

[tsr_tomas]

i know i´ve seen movies or a movie with the man having a eye in the back if hes head... does anyone have or know a movie about this ?
(i´m not talking about a documentry, a normal movie).

[jukka]

Originally posted by tsr_tomas
(i´m not talking about a documentry, a normal movie).
lol lol

hehehe.....tomas, i don't think there excist a documentary about a human with an eye at the back of his head !!
i don't think there was ever a human who had this !

[tsr_tomas]

jukka: fictiondocumentrys still excist, don´t they ?

but i see your point sir !
hehehehheee.

[jukka]

Originally posted by tsr_tomas
jukka: fictiondocumentrys still excist, don´t they ?

but i see your point sir !
hehehehheee.

sure they excist........and some of them are cool :)

btw i am petty sure i have seen a movie with a three eye human (one at his back)...but i can't remember lol

[tsr_tomas]

same here. same here.

people, help us out now !

[Mirsha]

Originally posted by tsr_tomas
i know i´ve seen movies or a movie with the man having a eye in the back if hes head... does anyone have or know a movie about this ?
(i´m not talking about a documentry, a normal movie).
There is an an episode of the Outer Limits which featured this, some guy with nano bots which just started to evolve him on the fly as they noticed limitations in the human body.

[tsr_tomas]

mirsha: the old or new version of outer limits... think i´ve seen all the black and whites, but i havn´t seen the coloerd version from the 80´s... but i´m pretty updated on the 90´s version... hmmmm. got to think *thinking* hmmm, most watch more outer limits i guess...

thanx for the tip mirsha.

[invisibleplanet]

bradbury's illustrated man has eyes in his hands....

[grobelaar]

I sometimes wonder if human evolution has over-specialised in our vision capacity... Its like its worked out that its the most important sense for reacting to immediate danger and consequently we rely on it too much to the detriment of the other senses... perhaps even entirely blotting out 6th or even 7th senses that we now know nothing about.

Using dogs example, a lot is made about their poorer visual capabilities and it would be easy to say that their perception is a lot simpler than ours - but they have fantastic sense of smell and hearing - what if they're perceptions plug the info they get into their overall perceived universe - so while they may see in black and white - what if they can smells textures or hear spacial properties...

[Mirsha]

Then you get stuff like pandas. Carnivores which have evolved too slow to catch any prey so are forced to eat bamboo which their stomachs can't process easily so they are required to spend all their day eating it.

[tsr_tomas]

mirsha: that would be so sweeeet.

[grobelaar]

I quite like the creationists new theory of intelligent design...

They've divorced the religion bit, which was always clouding their argument and simply stated that perhaps their is or was an intelligent creator - who, what or when that creator is or was is another matter...

I still believe in the genetics and evolution bit too - but working in the artificial reality business (computer games) the abscence of the 'missing links' is quite signficant.

I know from creating a simulated world, if you want to populate it with thousands of different creatures or entities - what do you do - sit their make a thousand individual types of agent - fuck that no way far too much work - no much better to make a dozen or so different broad types of agents and then create variants of these types to make the individual species.

But lets just say our CREATOR is even lazier and hates making clay animals - so all does is throw in some genetic algorithms so the variants make themselves...

[stu pitaus]

grob, as example, it is fact that someone born blind uses the portion of the brain reserved for sight for the other senses, mainly hearing. the older you get though, and sight is lost, your brain has already allocated visual information there and it is not as accessable for storing/working other senses. out of sight out of mind.

[grobelaar]

Originally posted by stu pitaus
grob, as example, it is fact that someone born blind uses the portion of the brain reserved for sight for the other senses, mainly hearing. the older you get though, and sight is lost, your brain has already allocated visual information there and it is not as accessable for storing/working other senses. out of sight out of mind.

...and the significance of this is???

I think if pressed most neuro-scientists would admit to knowing very few facts and to actually having a lot of theories. Obviously a book of crackpot theories doesn't sound very convincing - so for Joe public will just tell them that it's fact - that is until one of them gets damaged in an interesting way in a car crash or summink and then that person is a neurologist's bestest friend in the whole wide world... oh ho let me poke you with my nunber 4 laser - ooh look pretty patterns on the computer screen I must have been right all long - oh except that bit doesn't add up - oh well, hmm let me see I'll invent another theory for that bit tomorrow - as long as it all sonnd convincing in my big lecture and on the TV it'll be fine...

[emef]

hey , where can i get the "book of crackpot theories"
sounds like a good read:)

[Mirsha]

They did some test on amnesiacs where they were asked to perform some task multiple times and their times recorded. The more they did the task the better the time they got as they learned how to perform it better and better and refine their own personal techniques.

Months later when all of them had forgotton the task they were brought back in and assigned the same task and their times once again recorded. This time their initial times were actually much faster than their very first attempts months earlier though still off their own personal bests.

[grobelaar]

Originally posted by emef
hey , where can i get the "book of crackpot theories"
sounds like a good read:)

2nd Hand Bookshops are the best...

I nicked this series of four books from school, they were called...

UFOs and Extra-Terrestials by Yves Naud... they all nicely leatherbound and everything

It's just four volumes of the most hilarious nonsense - this guy basically starts at one end human history and work his way to the other, explaining away every single incident as being the 'doings' of extra-terrestials...

One theory he has is that the moon is in a very slight decaying orbit around the earth - now as it gets closer the moon actually lessons the gravitational field of the earth, thus making us lighter and release some pressure on our brains - so we can use more of them and be more intelligent - of course eventually the moon crashes into the earth wiping out all life - so we are stuck in a cosmic race to escape the planet before the moon hits us - he reckons this has happened before, wiping out previous civilisations... :! :D :illin:

[MUX]

well... a think this century was a big jump, that evolution couldnt handle.. in such a short time...
like, coming from monkey's we all had tails as human.. but were useless to us, but kinda stopped growing or fell off..

a natural viagra wouldnt sound so bad.. damn thing got a mind of it's own... tsk tsk :)

[bobsfantasy]

are you talking about the transition in the west away from an industrial age, perchance?

(i'm obviously trying hard not to discuss/think about your penis at this stage, of the conversation, MUX lol)

[MUX]

stop flirting mr.fantasy

http://munkt0n.dyndns.org/b3ta/crap/pipe.jpg
or then again , arent we all just speakin monkees

[gunjack]

Originally posted by MUX
a natural viagra wouldnt sound so bad.. damn thing got a mind of it's own... tsk tsk :)


http://www.geoffdavis.com/pics/Flamage/j5input.jpg

[Sheridan]

one thing that I wish we had the ability to do is to hear a broader range of frequencies. normal human hearing ranges from 20Hz -20,000Hz. but I wish we could hear lower and higher. imagine the kind of techno tracks that you could make with some ultra low frequencies and super high ones as well. I think it would be fairly interesting.

[Mirsha]

Only left handed people are in their right mind.

[Sheridan]

haha. I am left handed!!

[wheezer]

I want some multi-petabyte storage cube where my hippocampus is now.

Other than that, evolution theory fascinates me - that "intelligent design" theory sounds quite flawed in my ears, since the main weakness of evolution theory is the lack of fossils/creatures to document important milestone developments, such as the transition from reptile to bird - sure, there's the archeopterix, but that thing had fully-developed feathers as well, hard to believe that feathers would pop up in a single mutation...

[invisibleplanet]

another master of the bleedin' obvious statement from me, folks!
this thread has become a topic of coversation for our sunday morning :)
as i understood it, physical mutation/evolution comes out of a need for a biological upgrade/solution to an environmental pressure..so lizards who needed to leap through the air in order to obtain food/escape predators, will have eventually developed feathers through the process of mating with others of it's species who were successful also, and i guess this process developed over generations.
it's the 'old' mutate and survive adage


behavioural evolution seems to be more complicated, - i found these two articles interesting:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/831819/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/807641/posts

[Sheridan]

I just want to know what purpose the human apendix served. and since it doesn't do anything now why haven't people been born without it?

[amble]

the apendix surely is an invention of medical industry. maybe it's even a hoax only, i havn't seen one myself.

[wheezer]

http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs2002/0718appendix.asp

[dirtyho]

appendix is an old (in evolutionary terms) organ for digesting grass or other such vegetable matter with a lot of cellulose. We don't use it anymore.

[dirtyho]

Having read the above link - I take it back!

[wheezer]

hehe dirtyho, that's the exact reason why I posted it - I had believed for years that the appendix was meant for digesting seeds and the like, and thus not of any crucial value to humans anymore... but this is not the case! there is still a lot of heated discussion concerning the appendix going on to this very day...

[Basic 2: The Revenge]

I seen one at the end of a book once

[Sheridan]

oh that basic!

thanks for the link wheezer.