[LB232323]

Evolutionary biology is sincerely beautiful, the biological history of our species is a meta-history to human history.

On a grander scale, the biological history of life itself weaves the career of the human race into a context of profound interconnectivity.

It's natural to contemplate your origins, the place and culture you come from, your ancestors and the history of your family. It's even more profound to contemplate your biological origins, your ancestry into species unrecognizable from your own.

It really is a humbling experience to trace a path thousands and even millions of years into the past. The end result is an increased appreciation for the beauty of nature and for the inseparable unity of the human race.

[deltaonefour]

But also remember that billions died so you could exist. Natural selection is what it is... selection, and those that are not selected.. are silenced.

Be awed by the beauty but also be wary of the horror that is existence.

Awe, beauty and horror are human concepts. Do not let that bias cloud your logic. When something is beautiful to you, you become blind to the horror. When something is horrible to you, you become blind to the beauty. Best way to view something, is to ignore both, and judge it dispassionately.

Nothing is beautiful, nothing is horrible. That is true understanding.

[packetlost]

What's interesting is if you frame evolution as a system for producing and propagating increasingly efficient (given a context or state) behaviors through time (such that "living things" can amass more energy or manipulate their environment more), and take into account what makes humans unique, it's really eye opening as to the nature of intelligence, learning, emotions, and really just why we are the way we are. It seems the things that make humanity unique is how extremely efficient we are at propagating knowledge through time via means that are not merely genetic, yet our brains are still fundamentally limited by the chemical processes that make them up. What would happen if we were able to find a way to create a self-regulating, autofeedback system that made decisions at the speed of, say, electricity (nearly c)