Good enough

There is no intention that the products of evolution should be 'perfect'. All that matters is that they should be 'good enough' which means better than the competition. The sexual reproduction system generates variations which compete for places in the next generation. Those with the most offspring win. So there is survival of the fittest by natural selection.

It is easiest to figure out what is going on by considering the domestication of plants and animals during the development of settled agriculture.

Think of dogs. Once upon time and not so long ago, there were only wolves. But people befriended them and began programmes of selective breeding for useful features – size, temperament, sense of smell, length and thickness of their coat etc. And this early form of Genetic Modification (GM) gave us the canine cornucopia of today.

Now think of sheep, pigs and horses, of rice, potatoes, and brocolli, and of hundreds of other species that have undergone un-natural selection at the hands of farmers who determined which of the offspring were allowed to breed. Farmers playing God.

Now think of Hitler and the blond haired, blue eyed Aryan master race. And the Holocaust. Politicians playing God.

Now take the farmers and politicians out of the picture. Un-natural selection reverts to natural selection. But, language dictates that if there is selection then there must be a selector, who will have a forward plan and a sense of direction for evolution. God playing God.

But the supernatural agent notion is a linguistic and existential cop out. An omniscient and inscrutable being belongs in the archives of myth and magic. But there is a suggestion that the notion is now hard wired as a god spot in the human mindbrain - perhaps next to the my grandmother spot in that part of the pre-frontal cortex that deals with executive functions.

BUT – reality is a distributed network rather than a centralised bureaucracy. I had a numinous and non-egoic feeling for what that meant the other day while driving through the manicured countryside.

A cow is the grass's way of becoming milk

Milk is the farmer's way of making cheese

Cheese is the hotel's way of feeding guests

Guests are the tourism industry's way of enabling purchasers

Purchasers are industry's way of making a profit

Profit is the capitalist's way of justifying existence

Existence has been around since the big bang

Progress since the big bang has been good enough