LRH, Natural Selection & The Dynamic Principle of Existence

[Rene Descartes]

Most recent issue of Freewinds has an excerpt from The Phoenix Lectures.

Ron talks about how in 1938 he was performing experiments with cells and he discovered, yes discovered The Dynamic Principle of Existence.

And that is SURVIVE.

My comment on this is that it is a simplistic and naïve approach and attempt at turning the concept of Natural Selection into a philosophical adage.

It has three powerful words in it
Dynamic
Principle
Existence

But after all these years I finally see why it comes up short despite those powerful words.

If one falls for the hoodwink then one then walks around thinking that this is powerful scientific discovery. However it appears to me to be a house of straw compared to the concept of Natural Selection

Case in point: The Dodo Bird.

Rather than take my word for it look up the Dodo bird and read about its existence and its extinction.

The Dodo bird lived on an island off of Africa. There were no predators on the island.

The dodo bird was nothing more than a pigeon, albeit a very large one. Since there were no predators and no need for flight the dodo bird became a bird that evolved into something that did not fly.

It also put on weight. All of its food was right nearby on the ground. When man came to the island and brought dogs and cats and rats the dodo became a target that one would call easy pickins’

Eventually because of the strong survivors and the dodos own ineptitude it became extinct

Note that Natural Selection explains what happened there to the dodo. But the Dynamic Principle of Existence does not.

If the Dynamic Principle of Existence is the way things work the dodo would have improved its condition and at the same time not gotten rid of its flight capability.

The Dynamic Principle of Existence is to a shaman waving his totems as Natural Selection is to Medical Science repairing hernias and taking out ruptured appendices.

The Church of Scientology thinks it is surviving but if it can’t follow the above allegory it will end up going the way of the dodo, due to Natural Selection.

I rest my case.

Rd00

PS: Dear LRH, for someone who through his life saved every single phtograph, typed piece of paper, hand written manuscript, audio recording and video film it baffles me that you cannot produce one iota of lab notes from all of these experiments that you took part in when you were doing research.

 

[SchwimmelPuckel]

Yeah.. And I don't know why an immortal being would concern hisself with survival anyway?

 

[Terril park]

Bad argument. Natural selection does not nullify the urge to survival.

For the Dodo to have survived it would have had to re-evolve flight in
probably one generation. Not possible.

Bacteria on the other hand are winning the war against anti-biotics. They
in their many generations have time to evolve resistance. For example the
very dangerous flesh eating bacteria, found mostly in hospitals, now only have one anti-biotic that works against them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_resistance

 

[Rene Descartes]

Bad argument. Natural selection does not nullify the urge to survival.

For the Dodo to have survived it would have had to re-evolve flight in
probably one generation. Not possible.

Bacteria on the other hand are winning the war against anti-biotics. They
in their many generations have time to evolve resistance. For example the
very dangerous flesh eating bacteria, found mostly in hospitals, now only have one anti-biotic that works against them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibiotic_resistance

Terril,

I don't think anywhere in my post did I say that Natural Selection nullifies the urge to survival.

I'm pretty sure I only said it explains why the dodo is extinct and what happened through the years such that the dodo changed and lost its feathers and became a walking couch potato.

But to reiterate The Dynamic Principle of Existence does not explain why the dodo is extinct. Never did and never will but I welcome you to explain how it does.

Rd00

 

[Demented LRH]

Scientology is a Doo-doo bird who fell victim to the SP.

Apparently, Hubbard did not realize that the principle of natural selection runs contrary to the thetan concept -- the thetans lost their powers because of the overts that they committed, while the organisms gained new abilities due to natural selection.

 

[Terril park]

You compared the urge to survival as a house of straw compared to natural selection.

They are two separate ideas that both seem to be workable. However
your argument is very poor. For natural selection to work one needs many generations. The Dodo didn't have the time to re-evolve flight. An impossible task. However if rats and cats and dogs were introduced while the Dodo
was in the process of losing its ability to fly, but it was still there, evolutionary
pressure would have selected those Dodos who were more able to fly and the species would have survived as slimmer fitter better flyers. Each of them also exercising there urge to survive.

 

[Rene Descartes]

You compared the urge to survival as a house of straw compared to natural selection.

They are two separate ideas that both seem to be workable. However
your argument is very poor. For natural selection to work one needs many generations. The Dodo didn't have the time to re-evolve flight. An impossible task. However if rats and cats and dogs were introduced while the Dodo
was in the process of losing its ability to fly, but it was still there, evolutionary
pressure would have selected those Dodos who were more able to fly and the species would have survived as slimmer fitter better flyers. Each of them also exercising there urge to survive.

Terril,

Thank you for verifying in your own words that Natural Selection can explain why the dodo became a fat walking couch potato and why it became extinct

This is what I am trying to point out and you put forth an eloquent dissertation on the matter.

So it appears that we are in agreement with the fact that Natural Selection can explain why the dodo became a fat walking couch potato and why it became extinct

Now if you or someone can show how the Dynamic Principle of Existence explains how the dodo became a fat walking couch potato and why it became extinct I am all ears.

Rd00

 

[SpecialFrog]

If anything, the Dynamic Principle of Existence seems like Natural Selection backwards. Kind of like Lamarckism.

The dodo didn't evolve / not-evolve in any particular way because of an urge to survive. It evolved how it did because of the characteristics of its ancestors who happened to survive.

Of course, the big issue with the DPE are the fact that most forms of life on the planet clearly see their own survival as a lower priority than the survival of some vague approximation of their genetic information.

If survival was engrained at the cellular level as being the most important thing this wouldn't happen.

 

[Mick Wenlock]

Terril,

Thank you for verifying in your own words that Natural Selection can explain why the dodo became a fat walking couch potato and why it became extinct

This is what I am trying to point out and you put forth an eloquent dissertation on the matter.

So it appears that we are in agreement with the fact that Natural Selection can explain why the dodo became a fat walking couch potato and why it became extinct

Now if you or someone can show how the Dynamic Principle of Existence explains how the dodo became a fat walking couch potato and why it became extinct I am all ears.

Rd00

Well it's best illustrated by Salieri's great quote from Amadeus "why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?"

Just because a member of a species has the urge to survive is no guarantee that they will. Each generation will do what it needs to survive - but most species do not do more than that unless some competition forces them to. So - to use your example - lack of competition on the ground allowed the Dodo to survive as a flightless bird in a non-competitive environment - as the environment changed and became more threatening the Dodo lacked the millennia need to evolve.

 

[Rene Descartes]

Well it's best illustrated by Salieri's great quote from Amadeus "why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?"

Just because a member of a species has the urge to survive is no guarantee that they will. Each generation will do what it needs to survive - but most species do not do more than that unless some competition forces them to. So - to use your example - lack of competition on the ground allowed the Dodo to survive as a flightless bird in a non-competitive environment - as the environment changed and became more threatening the Dodo lacked the millennia need to evolve.

Mike,

It sounds to me like you are stating why Natural Selection can explain why the dodo became a fat walking couch potato and ended up extinct.

I just want to verify something here. Was that your intention?

Rd00

 

[Rene Descartes]

If anything, the Dynamic Principle of Existence seems like Natural Selection backwards. Kind of like Lamarckism.

The dodo didn't evolve / not-evolve in any particular way because of an urge to survive. It evolved how it did because of the characteristics of its ancestors who happened to survive.

Of course, the big issue with the DPE are the fact that most forms of life on the planet clearly see their own survival as a lower priority than the survival of some vague approximation of their genetic information.

If survival was engrained at the cellular level as being the most important thing this wouldn't happen.

Dear SpecialFrog,

Your post appears to contain enlightenment and it also brings me to give thanks to the Gods of Genetic Mutation that Darwin preceeded LRH on the time track.

Rd00

 

[Mick Wenlock]

Mike,

It sounds to me like you are stating why Natural Selection can explain why the dodo became a fat walking couch potato and ended up extinct.

I just want to verify something here. Was that your intention?

Rd00

It's Mick not Mike LOL

Not quite - what I am saying is that natural selection is the adaptation of species to environmental change

Urge to survive is species dealing with current environment

 

[Rene Descartes]

It's Mick not Mike LOL

Not quite - what I am saying is that natural selection is the adaptation of species to environmental change

Urge to survive is species dealing with current environment

Sorry about that Mick.

And thanks for the clarification anout adaptation.

So adaptation in addition to improving or adding genetic traits needed for the new environment also involves dumping or degrading the genetic traits that might be considered redundant.

As for "urge to survive" that was something Terril introduced into the thread. I only mentioned That LRH discovered the DPoE to be SURVIVE.

Unless there are some people who might consider it more of an invention.

I am sure ther dodo tried to run away from the predators and if that is the case then one could say that the DPoE was at work when the dodo tried to run away but the DPoE doesn't explain how the dodo got to a point where it was a fat walking couch potato.

Unless of course the DPoE is incomplete in that it is missing something along the lines that an organism will climb the survival ladder to its own level of ineptitude.

Natural Selection > DPoE

Rd00

 

[Dave B.]

Survival is relative to environments. I think Hubbard's other idea may be in play in the Dodo example, "didn't know the gun was loaded." Remember that one?

The Dodo's wrere surviving quite well in their predatorless environment, in fact had adapted to it. Predators show up, and after all, just being dumb birds who can't fly away they are hunted to extinction. There are a lot of human examples too.

 

[Infinite]

..

How does the "urge to survive" explain that most human of acts: altruism? Is L Ron Hubbard really saying that in the pursuit of our godlike nature we must act like animals? Doesn't sound particularly spiritual to me.

 

[still here]

I think the only thing you need to see here is that Ron Hubbards personal dynamic principle of existence was to survive....just look at how hard he worked to avoid being caught or associated with the Guardians Office crimes, and there are examples throughout his life.

IMO in most of the tech - (and as you have already pointed out, L Ron did not do real research ever, he did not know the meaning of it) he based almost all of his strange theories on his own sick and twisted mind.

You cannot apply logic, or science, to the completely illogical and unscientific.

 

[Terril park]

RD

"As for "urge to survive" that was something Terril introduced into the thread. I only mentioned That LRH discovered the DPoE to be SURVIVE."

Same thing surely. Means you introduced it.

RD
"I am sure ther dodo tried to run away from the predators and if that is the case then one could say that the DPoE was at work when the dodo tried to run away but the DPoE doesn't explain how the dodo got to a point where it was a fat walking couch potato."

Au contraire.

Evolution on islands are full of such examples. Gigantism, and loss of flight for birds for example.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Island_gigantism

With no predators why fly? Takes lots of energy. Why nest on the ground?
Takes less energy.

Being fat means there is an abundant supply of food and little energy needs to be expended to find it. = Paradise.

Dodo's probably don't watch TV or have couches. So what to do?

I expect they had vigorous love lives and sired many little
Dodos, =paradise.

I expect their poets penned many "Odes to a Dodo". [ female one hopes]

My earlier post was really a thought experiment. How do Dodos survive?

Or do they?

In reality, given some ability to fly they are in a struggle to survive. Cats
and to a great degree rats can climb trees. Being heavy and fat can they climb to the areas others can't reach? [ Ad for Heinekin] Or are there cliffs
where they are pretty secure? Can their limited flight ability allow them to come to earth for food and still avoid predators? Can they learn or adapt nest building skills to a different environment?

More importantly can they avoid hungry sailors who like Dodos and their eggs?

Were there important Parisian restaurants who had on their menus
Dodo omelettes?

"Beware all who venture here."

Except the Dodos were ventured upon.

We are the architects of mass extinction. The Dodos were an early casualty.

Additions to the "thought experiment".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necrotizing_fasciitis

http://www.itsnature.org/rip/recently/dodo/

 

[Rene Descartes]

Survival is relative to environments. I think Hubbard's other idea may be in play in the Dodo example, "didn't know the gun was loaded." Remember that one?

The Dodo's wrere surviving quite well in their predatorless environment, in fact had adapted to it. Predators show up, and after all, just being dumb birds who can't fly away they are hunted to extinction. There are a lot of human examples too.

Sounds like you are describing Natural Selection

 

[Dave B.]

Sounds like you are describing Natural Selection

Hmmm. Yes, seems to be some link up between the two.

 

[Leon]

I'm not going to read the entire thread. Too tedious. But the "Dynamic Principle of Existence" truly is no more than a very self important title for the "discoverer" of the obviosity that life wants to live and living things would like to continue to be living things. That is all it is, at basic.

Looked at with a bit more lookingness - and one notices that this implies that a person committing suicide should also be "seeking to survive", and so he is - in hiis own estimation he is trading an unwanted mode of existence (aliveness) for what he reckons will be a better one (oblivion). So the principle does apply here too.

And further, when one considers the reactive mind and all that "non-survival" content that it has in it - here too every bit of it gets into restim only and purely because the guy reckons it is pro-survival to have it in restim.

I could go on but I know most of you don't want to know anything about any possible validity in anything by LRH - even if it was only ever intended as a useful working hypothesis and never intended to be the absolute truth of all truths.

Oh, and BTW, Lamarck is getting back into fashion in biology circles. It has been shown that adaptations to stressful living conditions in one lifetime can be transmitted via DNA to offspring who will display those adaptations even though the stressful conditions are no longer present. Lamarck lives on!