Hasn’t Multicellularity evolved independently many times on Earth?
Well, I started to cache-dump on colonies versus multicellular organisms, but when I got to the bit on the origin of mutlicellular plants/animals/fungi, I noticed I had a lot of what sure looks like special pleading. And then I noticed myself “rationalizing” the arguments instead of engaging them, because of my emotional dislike of the idea that a Great Filter might be in the future instead of safely in the past.
I am currently raising the probability of a strong filter still in our future on the basis of having one of my two strong past filters seriously weakened. I still have the desire to argue that plant/animal/fungi multicellularity is single ancestral cause (either a single evolution with branches that went back to unicellular life, or “parallel” evolution from a single origin instead of “independent” evolution), but I’m finding things like, for example, “oxygen levels finally got high enough to efficiently support multicellular life” coming in with higher probability.
Recently as I learned more about the social context for development of intelligence I updated further in favor of a future filter. I couldn’t understand why it would be useful enough to get a little more intelligent than being able to wear an animal skin for warmth and club a seal with a rock for food. But the reproductive benefits of going up the pecking order of the clan by way of clever plots seems pretty well supported and intuitively likely once I’d heard of it.
Hasn’t Multicellularity evolved independently many times on Earth?
It, or something leading up to it.
Well, I started to cache-dump on colonies versus multicellular organisms, but when I got to the bit on the origin of mutlicellular plants/animals/fungi, I noticed I had a lot of what sure looks like special pleading. And then I noticed myself “rationalizing” the arguments instead of engaging them, because of my emotional dislike of the idea that a Great Filter might be in the future instead of safely in the past.
I am currently raising the probability of a strong filter still in our future on the basis of having one of my two strong past filters seriously weakened. I still have the desire to argue that plant/animal/fungi multicellularity is single ancestral cause (either a single evolution with branches that went back to unicellular life, or “parallel” evolution from a single origin instead of “independent” evolution), but I’m finding things like, for example, “oxygen levels finally got high enough to efficiently support multicellular life” coming in with higher probability.
Recently as I learned more about the social context for development of intelligence I updated further in favor of a future filter. I couldn’t understand why it would be useful enough to get a little more intelligent than being able to wear an animal skin for warmth and club a seal with a rock for food. But the reproductive benefits of going up the pecking order of the clan by way of clever plots seems pretty well supported and intuitively likely once I’d heard of it.