The idea but forward in the ‘Selfish Gene’ is that Genes are inherently selfish but cooperate out of the fact that they can both mutually benefit at the expense of another. They are more successful together then they are apart. They are also willing to partake in reciprocal altruism, not selfless altruism. But it isn’t something they select themselves, but the process that’s used to make them all interacted. Its like they’re all in one big vat being mixed around and the big mixing instrument is Physics and Game Theory (at a logical level, to view which gene is more light to survive then another).
True, but you can’t ignore the fact your in completion with others. I’m in conflict with lots of things. When I go for a Job I’m in competition with every other applicant. But once I get the job I become a member of a team, as teams work better then individuals. That’s way many animals hunt in packs, as they have greater success rate at taking down a pray. But once the pray is down there is a pecking order of who gets what meat based off strength. They’re all equal until it comes time to take what is needed for survival then the strong oppress the weak to take what they want.
Natures at war with itself! Look at the weeds that strangle other plants to survive, the spider that makes a web to ensnare the fly. Look at the Lion that kills the Zebra. That’s war! The Zebra has no intention of becoming the next meal for a Lion. But the Lion in battle takes his prize and fills his belly. Nature is savage from a Moral perspective.
I agree conflict doesn’t keep use strong it weakens us, as we must expend energy to win the conflict. If we had no conflict we would have more energy to do other things. Yes cooperation is a better way, but we need to trust that those who we place our trust in will not stab us in the back. Look at all the corrupt politician, people placed their trust in them, yet they go and break that trust by stealing or skimming the cream off the top so to speak. If you haven’t read ‘Non-Zero’ by Robert Wright you should.
I’m sure the drug addict feels the exact same way.
I believe that life has a purpose. As you said, your life has a purpose. Life is not an objective experience, it is a subjective one. So your subjective purpose is more real then any objective analysis that might suggest otherwise. It is true that my theories cannot be proved. However, they are based upon many things that can be proved, and neither can they be disproved.
Okay, of course there has to be mutual benefit in order for there to be cooperation successfully. That just goes without saying.
All the people who are applying for the job are already cooperating with society and the employer before they are competing with one another. Before they can be in competition they must be in cooperation.
I wouldn’t call that war, I would call that nature. Nature put the zebra there for the lion to eat. Without the lion to kill the zebra, the zebra population would explode, and the zebra would quickly over-populate, consume all the resources, and the population would starve. So in a sense, the lions are cooperating with the zebras even though neither of them know it. It is quite typical that a species be in conflict with itself, as is the case with the pecking order with the lions. If the hierarchy becomes too unfair though, the leader will soon be removed from the population by the masses. Sounds an awful like people doesn’t it? I don’t deny that there is competition in nature, I only deny that competition is sole motivator for evolution and survival. That is what people who advocate natural selection seem to think, and it is obviously false.
Okay, I agree with you here. The problem is the people who are trustworthy and won’t skim from the top are not interested in power. This is why I advocate minimal goverment that rewards rather then punishes (not exclusively per se), encouraging the masses to do what is right and cooperate with one another. I don’t think that any big institution will ever be effective at controlling people. People just need to learn to controll themselves. The most powerful form of control is self-control.
Nope… I’ve known plenty of drug addicts. Believe me, they DO NOT feel that way. Take cigarette smokers for example. How many people do you know that smoke cigarettes, are addicted to them, and are really happy with the situation? Same goes for cocaine addicts, and heroin junkies. They aren’t cooperating with the drug, they are just being controlled by it. I really don’t see how drug addiction compares to love in any form.
Right, but what is money? Some on or off circuits in a mainframe computer=your bank account. Money is more or less imagined by us. This imagined entity is more beneficial to some then others. The ones it is most beneficial to have a way to coerce others to do what they want without using force, or without essentially losing anything. It just alters a few circuits in a mainframe computer. It only takes away from them in theory.
So you don’t believe in ‘Survival of the fittest’? What happens when famine stricks, which people will live? Those who get food, it doesn’t matter how they get their food, only that they get it and live to eat it! In this way the end justifies the means when it comes to Survival. If your goal isn’t survival you will go existent.
Okay here’s a thought experiment to prove a point about control and necessity. Lets say that Aliens land and start a war with the stated aim to wipe out the human race. What do we do? If we say okay here have it they will just kill us all and we’ll cess to be. Or we have to become savage and face them at there own level, one of hostile aggression. Yes Control is good but it’s a luxury bought by our affluence as a species. There are already so many guardians of trust built into our society that we are free to be trusting. If we loss these guardians we’ll go backwards as a moral species. Look at the dark-ages after the Roman Empire, it could happen again…
Welcome to my view on love or lust!
Yes that’s the way it is now, but before when banks were started by the Templar Knights the money or what might be more appropriately be called a guaranty of invested commodities, i.e. a piece of paper. Then they could use this piece of paper at other Templar Banks to take out some of the money they had entrusted to them. It’s only in modern times that Banks could lend more money then they have in their vaults. Meaning a bank can only led up to something like 35% more money then they have physical commodities in there direct control, or what ever your countries government dictates.
As I said, I don’t think that competition has no influence at all, but it certainly isn’t the sole motivator for evolution and survival. Do we as a species live better through cooperation, or conflict? If personal survival of the fittest is so great, why don’t you try to go live outside of society by yourself, and see how prosperous you are? See if you can do better then a society of people all working together. I can go to the store and get food. Is that survival of the fittest? How do I get money for the food at the store? By fighting people, or by becoming a part of, and cooperating with society? What if one day we could synthesize food? Then the famine situation would be obsolete. Would you still claim it’s survival of the fittest? Also, regaurdless of whether or not survival is your goal, you are still going to die.
Okay, here is a thought expiriment for YOU. What if one day we discover that there are many alien races out there with advanced, sophisticated technologies. We find that what each of these races have in common is that at one point in their history they had eliminated war and conflict. They are now peaceful species that only will attack if provoked. They come to earth, and earth being full of paranoid, suspicious, hateful people attacks them out of fear. They then, with their sophisticated technology annihilate the human race, which in their opinions was doomed to annihilate itself anyway through lack of cooperation. The dark ages were caused by a conflict between barbarians and romans. The Romans tried to establish absolute power, and were soon taken down.
okay, so your view is more like that of a drug addict then, not mine. If you remembered you said earlier that my view was the view of a drug addict.
Okay, in the past it was paper and rocks. How useful is that? It was still very superficial. It was still an idea which was just represented by certain objects of little or no use. That doesn’t make the idea any more tangible.
Is love a strategy? If so, it is a highly unpredictable strategy. People fall into unrequitted love with people who do not love them. People become the objects of unwanted love and have to actively discourage it or at least not encourage it. People find love, lose it and live the rest of their lives without it.
Love is extremely rare in my experience. It is very hard to find mutual love with someone that you truly love. Most people end up settling. If you are ever lucky enough to find true mutual love then it is an incredibly valuable and extremely rare occurance and the people involved feel so incredibly lucky and so truly blessed that they cleave to it desperately. Giving up nearly everything else in their lives they “become one”, they leave their fathers and their mothers and they cleave to their love mate as a man would cleave to the side of a clift when hanging off a mountain. Their partner becomes them and they become their partner. They merge in one mutual coupling, joined at the heart so to speak, two hearts beating as one. It is a very rare and precious thing, the loss of which cannot be taken lightly.
It is said that hate is lit match in a fireworks factory…and so is love. Love is just as exlosive and unpredictable as hate. Love is just as dangerous as hate. It takes and incredible amount of focus and energy to keep a marriage healthy and strong. The husband and wife have to actively and agressively work at nurturing and cherishing one another, or else it wanes and dies. It is very fragile and very pure, and it is easily corrupted and easily turned sour. Those who are not in successful long-term marriages underestimate dramatically how much work it takes to make a marriage successful. It is not reccomended for selfish or self-centered people. Neither money, nor physical beauty, nor intelligence, nor anything else other than just stubborn refusal to fail. It takes determined cleaving to the marriage through sickness, health, riches, poverty, and whatever life sends your way. So as a strategy it is probably the most difficult and risk ridden strategy that anyone could ever adopt.
So your strategist who sets out to use love is in for a difficult game of life.
I don’t believe in the Master Race thinking that one group of people have superior genes and that qualifies them to survive. I basically don’t accept the idea of “superior genes”. I believe all men are created equal and that happiness in life has nothing to do with what you were born with but rather has everything to do with the choices you make.
To me you sound like a truly jaded and cynical man who has had a bad experience with love, perhaps thought it should be easier than it actually is, and is searching for an explanation for his unhappiness.
I’m not saying there is a ‘Master Race’. But to use that terminology anyone who has a child would be part of it, as they have their genes live on, till its time to be passed on again. That’s all life is for a Gene, making sure it gets passed on. But not to but to fine a point on it some people are better then others, we just choose not view it that way. Some are stronger, cleverer, more beautiful, etc. To deny this is just foolhardiness.
This is very true, but born of it is the fact I know what makes me tick. I’ve learnt about Love from another angle. Not as good some would say as the way most others experience it, but that’s life each has their own journey.
I’ve been trying to view Love & Lust from a biological / gene perspective. How could such a thing come into existence and why? Lust is straightforward to explain, but Love has an affect that is difficult to explain, as people don’t like to examine Love at such a low level.
How do things look if we look backwards? Do we see a gradual buildup of more and more successful manipulators over time? Or has the level of manipulation remained about the same. Then again marriage used to be a financial affair arranged by families. Individual feeling of love or lust did not enter into the decision to marry. Now we select our own mates in part based on physical attraction. Maybe the new emphasis on individual love does have biological as well as social causes.
I can’t help thinking, isn’t there a danger in attributing motives to genes? How can a gene care? Does a blueprint care if the building gets built? Do genes have opinions and preferences? How does a gene know that it has had offspring? Isn’t being selfish a human attribute? Can we call a fish selfish? Or a bacteria? Isn’t this anthropomorphic thinking?