tdekeyser

There are lots of different ways to think about how/why humans act the way they do. We still poo, pee, eat, wash, have sex, care for young, and sleep like most every other species. Those things are ingrained in us through evolution and the design of the earth's living things.

The other side is this new mind we have. With it we reason, think, have style, creativity, morality, education, technology, the list is endless.

But we are still animals with DNA that is designed a certain way. Is it possible that we have a being here that is 'caught' in the middle of a beast and a civilized thinking being? It seems to me to be that way.

Infidelity is a prime example. A lot of species in the animal kingdom do not create monogamous sex partners, but civility and morals brought us to see it as a bad thing. We still have the urges, but fight them because our higher minds tell us that it is morally wrong.

Fighting is another example and so is sex. These things we have to supress our natural instincts and use our minds and morals. War is a big one also.

Will we ever evolve to be all minds and no monster?

[ June 01, 2002: Message edited by: tdekeyser ]</p>

excreationist

We learn that it is wrong from society's point of view, in our society. We often value community harmony over our other cravings and so conform to fit the society. In the same way pets can learn to behave or do as they're told - to avoid the consequences.

For evolution to happen in this case, aggressive traits that are genetic or learnt would need to be eliminated. This would probably happen through "designer babies". But I think that people who aren't able to push the limits of morality would miss out on many of the top positions in the business world. And since business and also politics would be important in the future I don't see excessive selfishness disappearing in the future.

I think empathy comes from a desire social "connectedness". If this is very strong then the person would be very altruistic - or they could identify very strongly with a religion, etc. But it is just a basic principle in business that to get ahead you've got to milk as much profits from your customers as possible - it's not about being fair. If you helped your customers and competitors properly then you wouldn't be very rich. You would care about the third world and share with them and be as poor as they are...

I think that rape and murder are kind of similar to the concept of allowing third world people to starve - it involves some lack of empathy. I don't think future rich kids would have total moral empathy - otherwise they'd share their wealth to the starving - to the horror of their parents.

(By the way, I don't have much empathy for starving people - I'm not saying that people should feel guilty about starving people)

The Other Michael

I think there are group marraiges that have worked out to the satisfaction of the participants, so I don't think you can claim that a lack of monogamy is, of necessity, a bad thing in re civility and ethics.

However, you could still have a group marraige with multiple sex partners within the unit, and have members who do not maintain fidelity within the group, and I can see that could be unethical behaviour if the group has mandated that members be true to the group.

cheers,
Michael

Bill

Our studies of other animals has led to the conclusion that "infidelity" is not a uniquely human trait. Some animals "mate for life" but most do not.

In "Queen-type" colonies (ants, bees, etc.), where one female does all of the breeding for the entire colony, different mating strategies are obviously called for as compared with the majority of species where all (or at least, most) members have some ability to breed.

Nature has an abundance of different breeding strategies, and the one that predominates in other primates (small "tribes" headed by a single "Alpha male") isn't the one that we humans have come to prefer for ourselves. I think that the source of this preference is obviously some mental judgment that each "society" has made when it chooses its own social structure. The variations in breeding strategies from one "society" to another can give a great deal of insight into what sort of socio-economic forces were operating when the social rules were set down that implmented the preferred breeding strategy for that "society."

For instance, we have patriarchial polygyny (multiple wives per patriarchial male) appearing in ancient Jewish scripture, Islam, and the 19th century Mormon church. In all three cases you have males involved highly-dangerous efforts (in the first two cases, conducting wars of conquest; in the case of the Mormons, battling a harsh environment for survival) which resulted in the deaths of far more men than women. Sheer practicality led to adopting polygyny as the breeding strategy in situations like these.

=====

My first point here is that, even though humans have become "infested" with a nearly-autonomous "mind" (which is the repository for "memes"), we are still subject to classical evolutionary pressures of various sorts, and even our "memes" can clearly be "naturally selected" by exactly these sorts of classical evolutionary pressures.

My second point here is that every time we attempt to formulate a dichotomy and make an "either/or" choice between the two apparent options, it almost invariably arises that it isn't really an "either/or" choice in the first instance, but instead some sort of a combination of the two apparent options. Nature vs. nurture is the most classic example of this. We now are forced to admit that we are neither "all nature" nor "all nurture." We are instead a mixture of both. And mind vs. body would seem to be another of those classic dichotomies. We are neither "all mind" nor "all body" but are instead some mixed combination of the features of both mind and body.

If we ever did have a "mind" that was contained in some container other than a "human body" then that being would not be human. I have every reason to believe that our "mind" is strictly a function of the biology of our brains. Remove the human brain, and you no longer have a truly human "mind." You might have a simulacrum of a human "mind" but without the human brain, it could only be a simulacrum and never "the real thing."

As a physicalist, it is impossible for me to conceive of the existence of a "mind" with no supporting "body" (of any sort; even artificial, as in a computer). Frankly, that entire concept (that the "mind" has a plane of existence that is separate and distinct from the "body") is known as "dualism," a philosophical standpoint which I battle against on a regular basis.

With all this in mind, I believe your penultimate question is due an emphatic NO! for an answer. There can be no "mind" without a supporting "body" of some sort (rejecting "dualism" which would at least appear to allow that option); and even if it were possible to evolve such a thing (by some sort of exercise of quantum mechanics, perhaps), it would never be "us" (or "we") who were the products of that sort of evolutionary process. Instead, the product of that evolutionary process would be something so inconceivably different than what "we" are today as to constitute an entirely different (and distinct) sort of entity (from both a metaphysical and ontological point of view). Again, I reject the possibility for the foreseeable future.

== Bill

Kim o' the Concrete Jungle

I would pretty much agree with that. So much of our human understanding of the world outside the mind depends on our physical circumstances. When we think or dream, we do so in terms of images, sounds, and other impressions we form through our senses. We think of ourselves as self-contained, individual beings because all of our sensory apparatus are confined to the body. If that were not so -- if you were a brain in a jar connected to various sensory devices in different places -- I doubt you could form any sense of individual being. There would not be a "self", only a series of disconnected impressions.

A lot of our understanding of the world is based on the physical structure of our bodies. We perceive that there is an up and a down because of the balance organs in the inner ear. We perceive notions like forwards and backwards because some of our sense organs happen to face in one particular direction. We perceive that our consciousness resides somewhere in our heads, because that's where many of our sense organs are concentrated. We perceive that the world is full of manipulable physical objects, because our hands have evolved to manipulate things, and the tips of our fingers have evolved a superior sense of touch.

If any of these features were excluded, arranged differently, or added to, then the experiences and understandings of such an altered person would be radically different -- much in the way that a person born deaf or blind has a different understanding of the world, and behaves differently from people who are not deaf or blind.

As Bill said, I don't think there is any way that you could meaningfully separate the mind from the body and maintain a consciousness that is recognisably human. But I'm not sure I'd go so far as to do away with the concept of mind/body dualism altogether. It is still useful, I think, to make a distinction between the mechanical processes of the body and the brain and the end product of those perceptions -- our thoughts, emotions, compulsions, impressions, and memories -- provided that we understand these are not physical things in themselves, but the end result of brain/body processes.

Bill

The formal phrase for things of this nature is that they are emergent qualities. We recognize that bot living and non-living things are composed of atoms of matter (I'm speaking of the simplest sorts of "living things" here). How do we distinguish between "life" and "not-life"? The distinction involves a formal definition of the word "life" so as to require that "living things" possess a "metabolism." Thus, a virus is not a living thing (a virus has no "metabolism"), but a bacteria (which has a "metabolism") is a living thing. Viewed this way, we can see that the categorical distinction between life and non-life is rather arbitrary. Because the distinction is rather arbitrary, we can say that the quality of "being alive" is an "emergent quality" of matter once the matter organizes itself in some particular way (so as to possess a "metabolism").

Just as the state of being alive is an emergent quality of matter organized in some particular way, so too is the state of possessing a "mind." Once again, matter must be organized in some particular way to produce the "emergent quality" of a "mind." The human "mind," of course, is a unique type of "mind," but it is still just an "emergent quality" of matter organized in a particular (unique) fashion.

There are many such "emergent qualities." The fact of the existence of these "emergent qualities" does not support the idea that any of them have any sort of ontological existence that is independent of the matter from which they emerge.

That is probably the key point of contention when discussing the idea of dualism. The proponents of mind/body dualism assert that the mind has at least the theoretical possibility of existing independently of the body. A proper understanding of the mind as an "emergent quality" of the body yields the clear understanding that the mind cannot exist independent of the body, and thus mind/body dualism is resoundingly trounced as a possible reality.

== Bill

Jamie_L

I disagree. I think evolution brought us to a state where monogamy was a relative norm among humans. Our morals built up around the instincts we had to begin with. I think humans begain "pairing up" as a common practice a long time before anyone came up with the idea that infidelity was "wrong". Now, the idea that infidelity is a moral wrong or an absolute moral issue - well, that's all from this crazy "mind" business.

Jamie

[ June 03, 2002: Message edited by: Jamie_L ]</p>

A3

Hi All,
Just for your information there are under “You’re not Human” some posts on this topic. Maybe the mind is not as new as we tink.

Regards
Adrian

Koyaanisqatsi

I've always considered the body to be nothing more than a physical projection/representation of the mind (both literally and figuratively). Just as thought always preceeds action (the idea of the chair exists prior to the actualization of the chair in physical space) so too with the mind/body problem, but I would augment it in much the same way that Einstein did with space and time.

We now consider space and time to be spacetime (one construct) thanks to Einstein's clarity and I would argue the same for mindbody. It is one construct, so the question of evolution in that sense would be answered, IMO, with, "Wherever the mind goes, the body will form accordingly."

After all, in a materialist/poetic sense, we're just a glowing fog of atoms perpetually awaiting a choice within an infinite series of possibilities; the observer collapsing the wave, so just as in the corruption of the term "after life" by sham cults, wherever and whatever subconsciousness decides it will project is what will be projected.

We just need to figure out how to take ourselves off of auto-pilot and drag the subconscious up into the conscious, IMO.

Yes, I know, rather spiritual talk for a rabid atheist, but, as I've always contended, cults corrupt what is innate and use it to manipulate, so the fact that I think consciousness can be translated into "soul" or that thought/mind can be said to "exist" in what could also be translated into a "supernatural" realm by those so inclined in order to further a cult agenda (aka, subvert critical analysis in order to control) bothers me very little.

My two cents.

A3

Hi Koyaanisqatsi

I have not studied what Einstein did with space and time but so far you seem right on the money. But what makes you say that the mindbody is “one construct.”? I think they are in different realms. The body is in space and time but the mind is not. The body is physical and the mind is spiritual or mental if you like, how can those be one and the same material? I think they are one unit, but the spirit gives life to otherwise dead meat (or this fog of atoms)

Do you mean with “Wherever the mind goes...” that the mind wants to be a monkey or now it wants to be a human or whatever?

That’s good picture ‘fog of atoms.’ But these atoms also combine into cells and there is an intricate interaction and ballance between millions of different blood cells, bone cells, tissue cells, brain cells.
Michael Behe, Prof. of Bio-chemistry (Darwin’s Black Box) is convinced that the most significant development in science in the 20th century was a discovery that “intelligent design” is behind all change.
Have you had a bad experience with a cult? Is everything that believes in a spiritual realm a cult to you?
“We just need to figure out how to take ourselves off of auto-pilot and drag the subconscious up into the conscious, IMO.”
Why, so we can think of more ways to kill others, to make better guns, nastier swearwords?

Personally, I believe that the only source of truth about what is above the physical, i.e. above science, is in a proper interpretation of revelation. And what is proper? Each individual should IMO decide that for him or herself.
Regards
A3