Chapter 24 5.2 The incomprehensibility of life

Stewart Borland majored in biology at Stanford University under the supervision of population biologist Paul Ehrlich.Ehrlich was also obsessed with the impenetrable mirror chameleon mystery.And he saw the shadow of this puzzle clearly in the relationship between butterflies and their host plants.Avid collectors of butterflies have long known that the best way to create a perfect specimen is to box the caterpillar with the plants it will eat and wait for it to cocoon.After transforming, the butterfly emerges from its cocoon, displaying its flawless wings.Kill it quickly at this time, and you can make a perfect specimen.

This approach requires butterfly collectors to know what plants the butterflies eat.In order to get the perfect specimen, they can be said to spare no effort.The result has been the accumulation of a large literature on plant/butterfly communities.In short, most butterfly larvae eat only one particular plant.For example, milkweed is exclusively eaten by monarch butterfly larvae, and milkweed seems to only welcome monarch butterflies for its meal. In this sense, Erlich notes, the reflection of the butterfly is invested in the plant, and the reflection of the plant is invested in the butterfly.In order to prevent butterfly larvae from completely devouring their own stems and leaves, milkweed has stepped up defenses, forcing monarch butterflies to "change color"-try to bypass the plant's defenses.This mutual projection is like two chameleons dancing on their bellies.Milkweed is so devoted to protecting itself from monarch infestation that it becomes inseparable from the butterfly instead.vice versa.Any long-term adversarial relationship seems to accommodate such interdependence. In 1952, Ross Ashbee, a cybernetician concerned with how machines learn, wrote: "[The genetic pattern of the organism] does not specify how the kitten catches the mouse, but provides the learning mechanism and the gist of the game, so that the mouse will catch the mouse." Taught the kitten the tricks of catching mice."

In 1958, Mulder published a paper in the journal Evolution entitled "A Mathematical Model of the Coevolution of Obligate Parasites and Their Hosts."Erlich found a word in the title that could be used to describe this kind of pas de deux—"coevolution."Like most biological discoveries, the concept of coevolution is not new.In his 1859 masterpiece, the amazing Darwin said: "The co-adaptation of living organisms to each other..." John Thompson made a formal definition of "coevolution" in the book "Interaction and Coevolution": "Coevolution is the evolutionary evolution of interactions between species that influence each other." In fact, coevolution is more like a tango.Milkweed and monarch butterflies form a single system side by side, influencing each other and co-evolving.Each step along the path of co-evolution entangles the two rivals more and more inseparably, until one is completely dependent on the rivalry of the other, and the two become one.Biochemist James Lovelock wrote of this embrace: "The evolution of a species is inextricably linked to the evolution of its environment. The two processes are closely integrated into a single, inseparable process."

Brand took the term and started a journal called Coevolution Quarterly, a catch-all treatise—biology, sociology, and technology that co-adapt, co-create, and weave together into holistic systems. Wait.As an opening statement, Brand wrote a definition of coevolution: "Evolution is adapting to one's own needs. Coevolution, a more holistic view of evolution, is adapting to each other's needs." The "common" of co-evolution is a signpost pointing to the future.Despite complaints about the continued diminishing status of human relationships, modern people are living more interdependently than ever before.At present, all politics means global politics, and global politics means "common" politics; online communities built on the basis of communication networks are "common" worlds.Marshall McLuhan wasn't quite right.What we are building together is not a cozy global village; what we are weaving together is a bustling global swarm—a “common” world at its most social, a mirror-like “common” world.In this environment, all evolution, including the evolution of artifacts, is co-evolution.Any individual can bring changes to himself only by approaching his changing neighbors.

The natural world is rife with coevolution.Every corner with plants has parasites and symbiotic organisms in action, performing an inseparable pas de deux all the time.Biologist Price estimates that 50 percent of today's species are parasitic. (This number is old and should be growing.) And the latest statement is: half of all organisms in nature live together in symbiosis!Business consultants often warn their clients against falling into a symbiotic situation of dependence on a single client or supplier.But, as far as I know, many companies do this, and they are, on average, no less profitable than other companies.In the 1990s, a wave of alliances among large corporations—especially in the information and networking industries—was another aspect of the growing co-evolution of the world economy.Instead of eating or competing with your opponent, form an alliance - a symbiotic symbiosis.

The behavior of the parties in a symbiotic relationship need not be symmetrical or reciprocal.In fact, biologists have found that almost all symbiotic alliances in nature necessarily benefit more from interdependence—which in effect suggests some kind of parasitism.Although one party's gain means the other party's loss, both parties are overall beneficiaries, so the contract continues to be effective. Brand began collecting various coevolutionary stories in his magazine, Coevolution.Here is an example of one of the most convincing alignments in nature: Various acacia shrubs and predatory ants grow in eastern Mexico.Most acacias have thorny and bitter leaves and other defenses against the ravenous world.One species, the "giantthorn acacia" learned how to coax a species of ant into killing or driving off other predators in order to monopolize it.The bait gradually included beautiful water-resistant spines for ants to live in, ready-made honeydew springs, and special food for ants-leaf tip buds.The interests of ants gradually merged with those of Acacia.The ants have learned to make their homes in the thorns, patrolling the acacia day and night, attacking all creatures that eat the acacia, and even cutting off invasive plants such as vines and saplings that may hide the acacia mother.Instead of relying on bitter-tasting leaves, sharp spines, or other protection, the acacia now depends entirely on the protection of the acacia ants; and the ant colony cannot survive without the acacia.Together they are invincible.

Over the course of evolution, organisms have become increasingly social, and there have been more and more instances of co-evolution.The richer the social behavior of an organism, the more likely it is to form mutually beneficial relationships.Likewise, the more the economic and physical worlds we construct interact and work together, the more instances of co-evolution we witness. For living organisms, parasitic behavior itself is a new world to settle down.It is precisely because of this that we find that there is parasitism on top of parasitism.Ecologist John Thompson observes that "just as rich social behaviors can foster symbiotic relationships with other species, so certain symbiotic relationships can lead to the evolution of new types of social behavior." What coevolution really means is that coevolution breeds coevolution .

Millions of years from now, life on Earth may be mostly social, populated by parasites and symbionts; the world economy may be a crowded web of alliances.So what happens when coevolution overwhelms the entire planet?What will this planet of mirroring, responding, adapting to each other, and looping chains of life end to end do? Butterflies and milkweed continued to dance around each other in an endless ballet of frenzy that altered their forms far from what they could have been if they were at peace with each other.The chameleon writhes on the mirror in some sort of disorder far from normal.The nuclear arms race after World War II gave us the same sense of foolishness chasing our own reflections.Coevolution pushes things to the point of absurdity.Butterflies and milkweed, though in some ways rivals, cannot live apart.Paul Ehrlich argues that coevolution pushes two rivals into "forced cooperation." He writes that "removing the enemy harms both the predator and the prey."This is obviously unreasonable, but it is clearly a force that promotes nature.

When a person's consciousness loses control, gets caught up in the mirror, or takes his enemies so seriously that he follows them, we think that consciousness is a little out of order.Intelligence and consciousness, however, are inherently a little out of whack—or rather, a little out of balance.Even the simplest of minds must, at some point, feel sorry for themselves.Does any consciousness have to cling to its self? After Brand posed the chameleon puzzle on the mirror to Bateson, the imbalance of consciousness became the focus of the conversation. Consciousness, life, intelligence, and co-evolution are all unbalanced, unexpected, and even unreasonable compared to other things that have a balance point.We see the elusiveness of intelligence and life precisely because they maintain a state of instability far from equilibrium.Compared with other things in the universe, intelligence, consciousness and even life are in a stable and unstable state.

Butterflies and milkweed, like pencils standing on the tip, stand straight by the recursive dynamics of co-evolution.Butterflies pull on milkweed, and milkweed pulls on butterflies, and the harder they pull, the harder it is to let go, until the whole butterfly/milkweed evolves into a unique being - a living insect/plant system that is itself generate. Symbiosis is not limited to pairs.Trios can also be fused into a progressive, co-evolutionarily linked symbiotic system.Entire communities can also co-evolve.In fact, any organism, as long as it can adapt to its surrounding organisms, can play the role of an indirect co-evolutionary catalyst to some extent.Since all organisms adapt to each other, it means that all organisms in the same ecosystem can participate in a co-evolutionary unity through direct symbiosis or indirect mutual influence.The force of co-evolution flows from one creature to its closest neighbor, and then spreads to the periphery in weaker waves until it affects all creatures.In this way, the loose network of hundreds of millions of species in the home planet of the earth is knit together and becomes an inseparable co-evolutionary system, the components of which will spontaneously elevate to some kind of elusive, stable and unstable cluster state.

The web of life on Earth, like all distributed existence, transcends the life itself of which it is a component.Yet the mighty life took root deeper, not only enveloping the entire earth with its web, but also linking lifeless rocks and atmospheres into its grotesque act of co-evolution.