Re: Follow-up on Berlinski
- From: Rumpelstiltskin <PleaseDoNotReplyByEmail@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 29 Aug 2008 03:20:53 GMT
On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 17:57:15 -0700, Islander <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Rumpelstiltskin wrote:
On Thu, 28 Aug 2008 07:50:23 -0700, Islander <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
Rumpelstiltskin wrote:
On Wed, 27 Aug 2008 18:13:16 -0700, Islander <nospam@xxxxxxxxxxx>
<snip>
I meant "selfless" in only an anthropomorphic sense. We, as humans,
interpret their behavior as selfless, but the behavior is very likely
just instinctive - programmed in their dna.
The behavior, however, is essential to the survival of the species. It
involves activities needed for the future and they perform these
activities even though there is no benefit to themselves. It is simply
a behavior that they inherited and perform and their species survives as
a result.
There has to be benefit to the short-term propagation of
their genes (or to the genes of a parasite), or there would
be nothing to support the behaviour. You're never going
to convince me that an organism (excluding humans who
can "think") sees ahead to the remote future of its
species or of its own genetic structures, any more than
water can plan in what stages to turn itself into ice, what
pathways to block with ice early in order to eventually
arrive at what an engineer might compute would be the
maximum area covered by ice.
Many species have arisen and died out. The survivors
are the ones who happened to have the characteristics
that allowed them to survive over many generations.
That doesn't mean they planned it that way.
Some behaviors that were thought to distinguish humans from the rest are
now found to not be unique to humans. The use of tools, for example.
A behavior that extends beyond any organism's immediate need and even
whatever comprehension they might have is still evolutionary, IMV.
So, the question that I am posing is, why are ethics and morals not just
an extension of a behavior that has evolved in what is simply the most
highly developed species?
Yes, but of course we have con-men too, and dictators. Those
are competing strategies that have successes of their own. Some
things work sometimes, some work other times. Some things
fail by no fault of their own, some things succeed only by luck.
Yes, there are behaviors that result in the destruction of a species
including small isolated groups of humans. The situation nearly reached
that point on Easter Island, for example. So, it is entirely possible
that the human species could destroy not only it's own species, but all
life through nuclear war or global warming.
But, evolution has given us the ability to plan for the future, even to
act in ways that might be a disadvantage to individuals themselves, but
which would benefit the survival of the species.
Unfortunately, we can't even get the USA on board to try to
stop global warming. I guess we have to keep trying, though.
Self-sacrifice, of course, has been covered by Dawkins and
Dennett and such, and argued to be derived from the same old
survival of particular genes. That doesn't mean it always
succeeds, or that it must always be completely right-directed.
It also doesn't mean genes have "intentionality", any more than
a sodium atom has "intentionality" to merge with a chlorine atom.
It's just the way things work out that we end up with lots of salt
without anybody planning for that or aiming at it.
"Behaviour", including "thinking", is just a convoluted analog
of the natural fact that a sodium atom will link up with a chlorine
atom, without anybody intending it.
I agree that this is unique to humans, but don't see it as anything more
than simply our stage of evolution.
Coming full circle, why is it useful to classify ethics and morals as an
unexplained, but valuable product of religion and not simply recognize
them as behavior that is influenced by our dna?
That's "emergent properties" I guess. They're "emergent" only
as seen from a viewpoint. To a human, a house is a house. To
the universe, it's just a load of bricks and wood that got thrown
together by a certain natural process, just as straws collect in
eddy currents, as a result of the nature of things.
As a related issue, we discussed the behavior of memes as contrasted
with genes a month or so ago and I argued that memes can be consciously
modified to anticipate the future while genes cannot. Of course, there
is genetic engineering...
As Voltaire noted in his essay on "free will"
But, you will say, can I not resist an idea which dominates me? No,
for what would be the cause of your resistance? None. By your will you
can obey only an idea which will dominate you more.
Now you receive all your ideas; therefore you receive your wish, you
wish therefore necessarily. The word "liberty" does not therefore
belong in any way to your will.
You ask me how thought and wish are formed in us. I answer you that I
have not the remotest idea. I do not know how ideas are made any more
than how the world was made. All that is given to us is to grope for
what passes in our incomprehensible machine.
The will, therefore, is not a faculty that one can call free. A free
will is an expression absolutely void of sense, and what the
scholastics have called will of indifference, that is to say willing
without cause, is a chimera unworthy of being combated.
http://history.hanover.edu/texts/voltaire/volfrewi.html
Oh dear! You have now ventured into the notion of predetermination vs.
free will. No, therein lie fierce dragons and I will not follow you there!
The truth is as plain and straightforward as a ray of white
light. It's only the attempts to avoid truth that are full of
fierce dragons, and necessarily so, as attempts to avoid
truth always must be. When a path is so plain, it takes
a great confusion of brambles to make it look not plain.
The world runs on QM, so it is not predetermined because
the universe (or each universe in the multiverse) contains
random elements. Randomness, though, is not "free will"
any more than determinism is. As Voltaire notes, echoing
Locke, the concept of "free will" is nonsensical. If you
don't think so, we disagree, though if "will" has any
component that is not determined, and not random, and
not a mix of those two, I would wonder what you think
that component could be? I think Gould thinks there's
"free will" in the street sense, but I've never seen a
coherent exposition from him as to what it could be.
That's because there is none. I think the reason people
refuse to give up "free will" in the street sense is because
they're afraid of losing the illusion. But one does not
become less when one moves from falsehood to truth.
As I noted earlier in this thread, "emergent" properties
are not in any way free of the natural world. I will accept
that there's an illusion of free will in humans, that it's an
"emergent property", that it's a very powerful illusion,
and that I'm glad that you and I have it. I won't,
however, accept that it's not just illusion.
And that inverted Bowl they call the Sky,
Whereunder crawling coop'd we live and die,
Lift not your hands to It for help -- for It
As impotently moves as you or I.
With earth's first clay they did the last man knead,
And there of the last harvest sowed the seed,
And the first morning of creation wrote
What the last dawn of reckoning shall read.
-- Khayyam (1120 A.C.E.) translated and
organized by Fitzgerald
( the logical pre-QM view )
http://classics.mit.edu/Khayyam/rubaiyat.html
Have you read Dennett's "Elbow Room - kinds of
free will worth having", or "Freedom Evolves"? In
those books, Dennett goes into the benefits of the
appearance of "free will" without pretending that
there really is any such thing as "free will" in the
street sense, and making it very clear that he is
not trying to pretend any such thing.
.
- References:
- Re: Follow-up on Berlinski
- From: Rumpelstiltskin
- Re: Follow-up on Berlinski
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