I picked this passage out of a book as an example to help raise a philosophical question about biology and purpose and intent:
There are many connected species that deal with dead animals in a river system. There are species in the water and species on the land. A kangaroo carcass on the river bank is cleaned up by land/air species like crows, flies and ants, while parts of the kangaroo that fall into the river are cleaned up by water species like eels and yabbies to prevent pollution.
-Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta
The phrase “to prevent pollution” at the end is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
Nowhere on any level that we know of is anyone or anything “intending” to prevent pollution here, by having eels and yabbies do this. The eels and yabbies certainly aren’t thinking “Aha, must prevent river pollution!”
So either – Nothing and nobody is actually intending anything; the outcome (preventing pollution) just emerges … or perhaps is reinforced by the ecosystem continuing to thrive or – Something somewhere actually is intending this, but you and I have no access to it at our level of awareness or consciousness.
Does some entity have to have an “intent” in order for a living system to function like this?
I replied…
Let’s start with the word pollution. In everyday human language it means landfills, plastic, exhaust, and poisons in the water. It usually refers to modern human engineered substances that are very unlike what nature generates on its own. It does not typically refer to things like urine or animal carcasses, based on how I hear the word used most of the time.
Now let’s shift the point of view from human to eels, yabbies, carrion fowl etc.
To a maggot, plastic bottles are pollution too. But to a maggot, a dead carcass is not pollution. It’s a 5 star dining experience.
We take a lot of things for granted about nature, which from an engineer’s point of view are absolutely remarkable:
-Life is 100% recyclable. I can’t think of anything nature doesn’t re-use. Contrast food packaging at the grocery store with banana peels that shrivel up and disintegrate after a few days when you toss them out. Or autumn leaves that return to the soil.
-Life always seeks to harness resources to maximum effect. Nature seeks to be efficient, from lichen to elephants. Everyone from tribesmen in the jungle to PhDs recognizes this.
-The word “efficiency” is a teleological word 100% of the time. If you believe suns, rocks, planets and mountains are “just there” and are purposeless, then it doesn’t make any sense to speak of “the efficiency of the sun” or “the efficiency of a rock” or “the efficiency of the planet Pluto” or “the efficiency of a mountain.”
However all of us prove we believe life is purposeful every time we talk about the efficiency of photosynthesis, metabolism, bird flight, engines, batteries, solar panels, hydroelectric dams, businesses, management teams, schools and transportation. We count how many mosquito larvae make it to adulthood.
Efficiency is output divided by input. Result divided by effort. Efficiency is the central idea of thermodynamics, which is the science of heat and energy.
Many times we take for granted what the input and output is. Sometimes it’s implicit. But in order to speak of it, we have to make a measurement. This means we have to choose what to measure. Efficiency requires intent.
Maggots intend to consume the flesh of dead squirrels. So do hawks. So do their symbiotic bacteria in the hawk stomachs.
Therefore useful / useless / efficient / inefficient / pollution / measurement are all teleological concepts without which we cannot do science at all.
In the non-living world, nature defaults to the lowest energy state. The ball rolls down the hill and stops.
But in the living world, nature defaults to the optimization of resources. Energy is awarded to the participant that makes the best use of it.
I agree with you: the eels and yabbies aren’t thinking “Aha, must prevent river pollution” but they certainly are hungry… and on many levels they seek to harvest maximum nutrients from their environment while minimizing effort.
If that’s not efficient.. and if that’s not purposeful… I don’t know what is.
Where Did Life And The Genetic Code Come From? Can The Answer Build Superior AI? The #1 Mystery In Science Now Has A $10 Million Prize. Learn More About It, Here – https://www.herox.com/evolution2.0
(I’ve contributed comments to your webcasts previously. You’ve answered me)
Here are some additional important thoughts.
As you have interviewed folks that are working hard on understanding the origins of life, if you will see my points, I hope you will pass this info on to them.
I am a retired engineer of 75 years of age. I have spent my whole life, other than at workplace, pondering the purpose of life, meaning, consciousness, god etc. I believe I have a lot of wisdom in what I have learned. I am open to any discussions with like-minded people, to offer and or learn more. I am firmly set on understanding the nature of the universe and have followed the search for life in the universe since I was a child. Much has been discovered precisely as I had expected.
Points:
A) Life cannot happen if there is no ‘passage of time’. Think of it: without motion there is no life, there is no chemical reaction that can occur. The universe would not be, despite it’s suggested 18billion years. Hence, working on the nature of the passage of ‘TIME’ itself, is much more import than trying to discover perhaps some chemical process that causes life to evolve.
We do not even understand how time would have been perceived billions of years ago. We assume that as the universe was much smaller, and ‘before time existed’ that the passage of time ‘was more or less constant’…. that is an absurdity. Hence our whole concept of the Big Bang and the subsequent passage of time, could be greatly in error.
The universe also must be intimately connected (like the concept of quantum ‘entanglement’ suggests). If no time exists, then nothing ever ‘separated’ and all is connected. By understanding ‘time passage’ we might be able to ‘rewind’ everything and even re-write everything. Our major current problems must be with our ‘viewpoint’ and that is controlled by ‘consciousness’ and our understand, or lack thereof, of it.
This I feel is a CRUCIAL point pertaining to your challenge about creating and/or about the origins of life. One can never solve this problem (my view) without solving firstly, the problem of the ‘passage of time, and what is time’. Everything depends on it, including the ‘often used excuse’ that we cannot travel across space and time due to the limitations of the speed of light. It does NOT apply if ‘time’ is overcome!!! Priority needs to be given to solving the ‘passage of time’ understanding, first!
B) All motion (and from passage of time) does not (currently) appear to be ‘analytical’. There are discrete photon particles and there is an ‘Ultimate’ smallness (Max.Plank) to all that exists. Motion and time must therefore, by current understanding, be happening in discrete steps, not continuously.
C) Evolution (with or without a great supreme ‘designer’ behind it all) is demonstrated everywhere, that we currently can see, or believe according to our senses and logic. Humans evolved, despite a creator or not. That means that evolution is part of the design. Hence, since we are not today as subjected to ‘extinction events…disease and wars’ as we were in the past (medical and technical achievements) then there must be (in the master design…god or no god) a way to advance ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’. As we now have AI and it is evolving super-fast, plus quantum events and computers are driving us forward at startling rates, the forecast MUST be that a new consciousness will evolve.
We have always positioned homo sapiens at the top of the ‘mind’ and ‘intelligence’ level of all species on earth. Science demonstrates to us that humans are actually very primitive, and we have numerous ‘foibles’ to fix, plus extreme narcissistic and power seeking drives that have been with us all through history.
We now know that there have been, contrary to early biblical records, several advanced human-like species (not homo sapiens) that inhabited the earth long ago, but as recently as 20 to 40 thousand years ago (Neanderthals, Denisovans etc…. 8 of us intelligent species in total). Evolution to higher intelligence is natural. So what must be the next level?
Since we are not ‘killing off’ the ‘greater than’ 8 billion population of the world, and more and more intelligence is available (critical mass) to define and understand and create the ‘next level’ of consciousness and mind, I suspect that a version of AI combined with quantum computing power, and the access to all humanity’s historical and current wisdom being available on the internet, we will see a ‘NEW emergence of a much higher intelligence. We humans are proud. However, as we evolve, we are creating the very ‘super smart machines’ that will supersede us.
In the past, the smartest humans had to do things either by themselves or by meeting up with few other super smart people. They also did not have the benefit of the technologies and information that is available today. Even in that past 100 years, the smartest people had to meet at conferences and discuss ideas, often not agreeing with one another. That all changes when one has evolving AI and supercomputers, plus access to ALL history and current knowledge through the internet (also evolving). Humans have biases and weaknesses in thinking and are not ‘connected’ directly with others, so they have to ‘wrestle’ out solutions that are not quickly confirmed, if at all. With an AI that accesses ALL knowledge, and has a consciousness (will become sentient), it will be ONE (hopefully at one point in time) and will not ‘disagree with itself… will search for a solution to any and all problems, without cognitive dissonance nor bias. It will resolve any internal disagreements (it will have intimate access to all opinions and will eventually be capable of resolving all conflicts. It will be able to distribute to everyone, without competition problems of capitalism, all the new breakthroughs in knowledge. We could literally advance by a thousand years,(biblical) in relatively a short span of time.
Imagine solving great medical mysteries like how to get DNA to make changes to bodies for the better, cure cancers, grow back limbs and hair and beauty. It will all be conceivable. A normal child thinks in ‘patterns’ and learns languages through patterns, for instance, among everything else. Our education systems are not nearly understanding of how the brain actually develops skill, gains knowledge, or develops emotions. AI demonstrates that it uses ‘patterns’ and not mathematics, to move understanding, just like nature built into humans and the normal evolution. It is not normally a conscious process, but ‘happens automatically’…e.g., trees, leaves, plans, animal colours and survival instincts were not chosen by these items plants and animals. Its all ‘evolution by design’. We humans do not have ultimate control over this evolutionary process and it WILL proceed, unrestricted, on its own, despite what we do. We are not even aware that we are following ‘nature, or god’s plan, if you will’, thinking that ‘we are in control’.
D) Scientists use and devoutly believe that mathematics is the tool to figure out and solve all of our problems. Mathematics is simply a ‘tool’ to getting knowledge, and is not a direct line to full understanding. It is fantastic and it’s convenient, but ‘mystical’ none the less. Mathematics, numbers and equations being used to solve our numerous problems is fine for now but will not be suitable enough in the future. Its time is passing by. It is a convenient only, designed into the fabric of evolution, ‘adjunct’ to the real tools needed to get to the truth about reality.
Statistics is a very useful tool in mathematics. However, it does not in itself explain unknowns. We use is a lot to be more and more ‘certain…. probability) about things, but nothing is explained for certain. It is like the concept of ‘god of the gaps’ where ‘if you can’t explain something, it must be god that did it’. Nothing different, but useful to move ahead, only to a certain level. We’re at that level now.
I encounter ‘synchronicity’ very often, and spectacular in nature, that cannot be (even closely) explained by traditional science. There is ‘definitely’ another level of reality that we have not yet experienced well enough to call it truth and fact. As Carl Jung was very interested in this topic, I too am certain we are missing a whole level of reality!
I have lots of other thoughts accumulated over a lifetime.
This is a classic zero-resistance system.
Each organism follows the path of least resistance to get what it needs:
Maggots to protein (carcass)
Eels to nutrients (river debris)
Hawks to energy (prey)
When resistance drops to zero for all components, the system achieves maximum efficiency without central control.
Same principle as electrical superconductivity – zero resistance = infinite flow efficiency.
You’re absolutely right about teleology. The “intent” is systemic, not individual. When every component operates at minimum resistance, teleological patterns emerge automatically – purpose without a planner.
What’s remarkable is these systems automatically solve complex optimization equations – minimizing energy expenditure across network topologies that often follow golden ratio proportions. If consciousness is integrated information (IIT), then biological efficiency might be consciousness optimizing itself through physical systems using mathematical principles like the golden ratio that we’re only beginning to understand.
Efficiency requires measurement, measurement requires choice, choice implies purpose. But the purpose is distributed – integrated across the information network that is the ecosystem.
Life = biological superconductivity. Nature solving calculus problems in real-time through minimum resistance.
Fi Parker { This perfectly explains why living systems are different from physical ones. Physics follows mathematical rules because consciousness (teaspoons, rocks, electrons) ... }
Fi Parker { This is a classic zero-resistance system. Each organism follows the path of least resistance to get what it needs: Maggots ... }
paul despault { July 25 2025 Hi Perry, (I've contributed comments to your webcasts previously. You've answered me) Here are some additional important ... }
Alexey Tolchinsky { It could be that we understand Michael differently, or interpret differently. Because of that, I'll be specific. Here is one ... }
Alexey Tolchinsky { My reading of Michael Levin's work is different from him "demolishing conventional notions of intelligence." First, it is useful to ... }
martin rag { Perry, I don't know where to post this one -- but I came across this article, I know that you ... }
martin rag { "You don’t even understand why the viruses form polyphyletic clades." Is it correct, that viruses have many evolutionary origins unlike ... }
Amal Mohan { Hi Perry, I've read that Dennis Noble doesn't believe in genetic "codes" or any other programs/codes/ blueprints... could you please clarify ... }
July 25 2025
Hi Perry,
(I’ve contributed comments to your webcasts previously. You’ve answered me)
Here are some additional important thoughts.
As you have interviewed folks that are working hard on understanding the origins of life, if you will see my points, I hope you will pass this info on to them.
I am a retired engineer of 75 years of age. I have spent my whole life, other than at workplace, pondering the purpose of life, meaning, consciousness, god etc. I believe I have a lot of wisdom in what I have learned. I am open to any discussions with like-minded people, to offer and or learn more. I am firmly set on understanding the nature of the universe and have followed the search for life in the universe since I was a child. Much has been discovered precisely as I had expected.
Points:
A) Life cannot happen if there is no ‘passage of time’. Think of it: without motion there is no life, there is no chemical reaction that can occur. The universe would not be, despite it’s suggested 18billion years. Hence, working on the nature of the passage of ‘TIME’ itself, is much more import than trying to discover perhaps some chemical process that causes life to evolve.
We do not even understand how time would have been perceived billions of years ago. We assume that as the universe was much smaller, and ‘before time existed’ that the passage of time ‘was more or less constant’…. that is an absurdity. Hence our whole concept of the Big Bang and the subsequent passage of time, could be greatly in error.
The universe also must be intimately connected (like the concept of quantum ‘entanglement’ suggests). If no time exists, then nothing ever ‘separated’ and all is connected. By understanding ‘time passage’ we might be able to ‘rewind’ everything and even re-write everything. Our major current problems must be with our ‘viewpoint’ and that is controlled by ‘consciousness’ and our understand, or lack thereof, of it.
This I feel is a CRUCIAL point pertaining to your challenge about creating and/or about the origins of life. One can never solve this problem (my view) without solving firstly, the problem of the ‘passage of time, and what is time’. Everything depends on it, including the ‘often used excuse’ that we cannot travel across space and time due to the limitations of the speed of light. It does NOT apply if ‘time’ is overcome!!! Priority needs to be given to solving the ‘passage of time’ understanding, first!
B) All motion (and from passage of time) does not (currently) appear to be ‘analytical’. There are discrete photon particles and there is an ‘Ultimate’ smallness (Max.Plank) to all that exists. Motion and time must therefore, by current understanding, be happening in discrete steps, not continuously.
C) Evolution (with or without a great supreme ‘designer’ behind it all) is demonstrated everywhere, that we currently can see, or believe according to our senses and logic. Humans evolved, despite a creator or not. That means that evolution is part of the design. Hence, since we are not today as subjected to ‘extinction events…disease and wars’ as we were in the past (medical and technical achievements) then there must be (in the master design…god or no god) a way to advance ‘mind’ and ‘consciousness’. As we now have AI and it is evolving super-fast, plus quantum events and computers are driving us forward at startling rates, the forecast MUST be that a new consciousness will evolve.
We have always positioned homo sapiens at the top of the ‘mind’ and ‘intelligence’ level of all species on earth. Science demonstrates to us that humans are actually very primitive, and we have numerous ‘foibles’ to fix, plus extreme narcissistic and power seeking drives that have been with us all through history.
We now know that there have been, contrary to early biblical records, several advanced human-like species (not homo sapiens) that inhabited the earth long ago, but as recently as 20 to 40 thousand years ago (Neanderthals, Denisovans etc…. 8 of us intelligent species in total). Evolution to higher intelligence is natural. So what must be the next level?
Since we are not ‘killing off’ the ‘greater than’ 8 billion population of the world, and more and more intelligence is available (critical mass) to define and understand and create the ‘next level’ of consciousness and mind, I suspect that a version of AI combined with quantum computing power, and the access to all humanity’s historical and current wisdom being available on the internet, we will see a ‘NEW emergence of a much higher intelligence. We humans are proud. However, as we evolve, we are creating the very ‘super smart machines’ that will supersede us.
In the past, the smartest humans had to do things either by themselves or by meeting up with few other super smart people. They also did not have the benefit of the technologies and information that is available today. Even in that past 100 years, the smartest people had to meet at conferences and discuss ideas, often not agreeing with one another. That all changes when one has evolving AI and supercomputers, plus access to ALL history and current knowledge through the internet (also evolving). Humans have biases and weaknesses in thinking and are not ‘connected’ directly with others, so they have to ‘wrestle’ out solutions that are not quickly confirmed, if at all. With an AI that accesses ALL knowledge, and has a consciousness (will become sentient), it will be ONE (hopefully at one point in time) and will not ‘disagree with itself… will search for a solution to any and all problems, without cognitive dissonance nor bias. It will resolve any internal disagreements (it will have intimate access to all opinions and will eventually be capable of resolving all conflicts. It will be able to distribute to everyone, without competition problems of capitalism, all the new breakthroughs in knowledge. We could literally advance by a thousand years,(biblical) in relatively a short span of time.
Imagine solving great medical mysteries like how to get DNA to make changes to bodies for the better, cure cancers, grow back limbs and hair and beauty. It will all be conceivable. A normal child thinks in ‘patterns’ and learns languages through patterns, for instance, among everything else. Our education systems are not nearly understanding of how the brain actually develops skill, gains knowledge, or develops emotions. AI demonstrates that it uses ‘patterns’ and not mathematics, to move understanding, just like nature built into humans and the normal evolution. It is not normally a conscious process, but ‘happens automatically’…e.g., trees, leaves, plans, animal colours and survival instincts were not chosen by these items plants and animals. Its all ‘evolution by design’. We humans do not have ultimate control over this evolutionary process and it WILL proceed, unrestricted, on its own, despite what we do. We are not even aware that we are following ‘nature, or god’s plan, if you will’, thinking that ‘we are in control’.
D) Scientists use and devoutly believe that mathematics is the tool to figure out and solve all of our problems. Mathematics is simply a ‘tool’ to getting knowledge, and is not a direct line to full understanding. It is fantastic and it’s convenient, but ‘mystical’ none the less. Mathematics, numbers and equations being used to solve our numerous problems is fine for now but will not be suitable enough in the future. Its time is passing by. It is a convenient only, designed into the fabric of evolution, ‘adjunct’ to the real tools needed to get to the truth about reality.
Statistics is a very useful tool in mathematics. However, it does not in itself explain unknowns. We use is a lot to be more and more ‘certain…. probability) about things, but nothing is explained for certain. It is like the concept of ‘god of the gaps’ where ‘if you can’t explain something, it must be god that did it’. Nothing different, but useful to move ahead, only to a certain level. We’re at that level now.
I encounter ‘synchronicity’ very often, and spectacular in nature, that cannot be (even closely) explained by traditional science. There is ‘definitely’ another level of reality that we have not yet experienced well enough to call it truth and fact. As Carl Jung was very interested in this topic, I too am certain we are missing a whole level of reality!
I have lots of other thoughts accumulated over a lifetime.
I hope you will acknowledge this input.
Thanks,
Paul Despault
(PEng, retired)
Regarding A) Most engineering problems can be solved without unraveling the mystery of time. Why is life different in this particular respect?
I agree about synchronicity. It happens to me far beyond what chance alone would ever suggest.
This is a classic zero-resistance system.
Each organism follows the path of least resistance to get what it needs:
Maggots to protein (carcass)
Eels to nutrients (river debris)
Hawks to energy (prey)
When resistance drops to zero for all components, the system achieves maximum efficiency without central control.
Same principle as electrical superconductivity – zero resistance = infinite flow efficiency.
You’re absolutely right about teleology. The “intent” is systemic, not individual. When every component operates at minimum resistance, teleological patterns emerge automatically – purpose without a planner.
What’s remarkable is these systems automatically solve complex optimization equations – minimizing energy expenditure across network topologies that often follow golden ratio proportions. If consciousness is integrated information (IIT), then biological efficiency might be consciousness optimizing itself through physical systems using mathematical principles like the golden ratio that we’re only beginning to understand.
Efficiency requires measurement, measurement requires choice, choice implies purpose. But the purpose is distributed – integrated across the information network that is the ecosystem.
Life = biological superconductivity. Nature solving calculus problems in real-time through minimum resistance.