It wastes a lot of resources, and more importantly, it takes a huge risk-a large group of salmon may all die if they don't reach their birthplace, which means that their most important mission is bankrupt.
But on second thought, salmon is actually conducting a very rational behavior.
We might as well imagine from the beginning:
(1) A group of salmon were born in the swamp. (2) As the rain increased, they hitchhiked down the river, from the river to the sea, from their birthplace to the sea. (3) After reaching the sea, they swim along the ocean current, eat plankton when they are young, and choose bigger food when they grow up. In short, salmon seems to be lazy and hitchhiking in the whole process-they follow the principle of minimum resource consumption.
(4) It takes about three or four years to travel along the ocean currents in the Pacific Ocean and the Atlantic Ocean. When the salmon grows up, it is the breeding season-its genes have the ability to accurately find the estuary where it swims, and it is absolutely correct. (5) Adult salmon found the estuary and began to struggle upstream. Once they start to go upstream, they stop eating completely-this is a very unreasonable principle. Energy is just an output, not an input.
⑥ Salmon began to turn red, constantly consuming physical strength and going upstream. Many fish died during the journey. In this process, they will encounter this situation: when they swim to a place, a stream or river is cut off, and they will be trapped in a pool. Due to lack of oxygen, a large number of fish will die → 8 When the water comes, salmon will continue to swim upstream, and birds and grizzly bears will meet with a large number of prey. The most challenging thing is those waterfalls. There is only one way for them: concentrate all their efforts to jump to the waterfall like yue longmen, a carp-a large number of fish that can't jump can't lay eggs and will be completely eliminated → pet-name ruby After a hard journey, the adult salmon finally came.
Why does a species that is good at saving resources by hitchhiking become a very irrational species in the process of reproduction, which does not conform to the law of minimum consumption and maximum effect? The answer is simple:
The only purpose of this trip is to breed offspring, and there is only one selection criterion for breeding offspring-leaving the best genes, so the elimination rate is not 30%, 50%, 70%, or even 99%, but 99.6%.
Just finding a place with fresh water to lay eggs can't guarantee such a number. Only in extremely difficult places-only by maintaining a very high elimination rate can we guarantee to leave the best genes. To achieve this goal is simple: reverse the original rules of the game-how far and how easy it is for you to swim downstream, and how difficult it is in turn.
? Every time I watch a documentary about salmon migration, it is thrilling. In retrospect, this story actually only abides by two principles:
First, let the newborn fish reduce the waste of resources and grow as smoothly as possible;
Second, be as strict as possible when choosing genes.
These two points are actually a principle: how to maximize the survival possibility of species. The solution is: let the salmon be born in a place with potential energy, and let its birthplace form as high an altitude as possible-with this design, the two principles will be integrated.
From this, we notice that human beings have an impulse to simplify their cognition of the world. For example, the phonetic symbols of ancient Greece make it easier for them to approach this simplified way. Similarly, in ancient China, there was a similar cognitive impulse to return to simplicity-two instruments gave birth to four images and four images gave birth to gossip. No matter how complicated the world is, it is also composed of two basic factors, which can even be attributed to one factor-Taiji, which contains an impulse to return from complexity to simplicity, from pluralism to monism, and from many to one.