MOEGID Home Page
This web site investigates how the human world evolves. It brings together existing concepts of natural evolution based on genetic inheritance, with the evolution of ideas, that ability to apply complex thoughts that makes human kind unique in the living world.
The basis of this web site is a model which describes how both genetic information and ideas influence how humans interact with their environment. The web site includes refinements and variations of this formal model as well as more discursive articles which covers similar issues. The model is defined using UML (Unified Modeling Language) "Class" and "Object" Diagrams. This technique, developed to describe computer applications, allows one to describe the different types (classes) of objects that exist in the real world (people, ideas, genes) and how they relate together. The abstraction provided by UML makes it possible to investigate the evolution of ideas without being bound to any particular idea. For an outline description of UML see: Wikipedia: Class Diagrams
Whilst UML was developed as a basis for complex software systems, it also provides a useful tool for modeling any information processing system - including people. The Moegid UML model may be later used as the basis of computer simulations, but the prime reason of the Moegid model is to help in our understanding of human evolution by providing a formalized description of how humans evolve through both genetic inheritance and the exchange of ideas.
It is though unlikely that this model will fully be able to represent how a person acts, in all his/her subtlety and complexity. Also, I tread the path of many greater minds who have searched for similar meanings over millenia. However, the journey of investigation embarked upon in Moegid is considered worthwhile. Anything that increases the understanding of ourselves should help us act in a more wise manner. Some may feel that reducing the human kind to something akin to a computer is demeaning and does not give a true representation of our capabilities. However, I believe that using any tools available to better understanding has some value, even if time later shows that using that such modeling is too far from reality to be helpful. Unless one embarks on a journey of self investigation there can be no progress.
Assumptions
The methodology used in Moegid is not only to describe the elements of the model using a formal language such as UML, but also to list, as far as possible, any assumptions on which the model is based. It is understood that this list of assumptions that list will be incomplete but by attempting to identify assumptions any weaknesses in the basis of the model might be identified. The following basic assumptions are identified in the overall MOEGID approach.- The evolution of ideas is primarily determined by the ability of ideas to survive and the "successful" (with regards to evolution of the ideas) application of those ideas by beings.
- The evolution of humans is most significantly impacted by the evolution of ideas, and the ability to "process" those ideas, rather than other physical characteristics (e.g. strength, visual and other sensual capabilities, ability to physically fight other beings from microbes to other human beings). Thus, to better understand our own evolution we need to understand the evolution of ideas.
- Ideas are inherited and evolve both from the environment in which a being exists and through genetic inheritance.
- By using information processing system modeling tools such UML the evolution of ideas may be described, and potentially analysed, and so better understood.