3 ms·

Or is there a better abstraction? We're here because intelligence is good, an organizational force. We're here to do that as approximately as we can.

lisper 3y ago
Oh how I wish that were true, but unfortunately at the end of the day Darwin is running the show. Intelligence exists not because it's "good" but because genes that build brains that can solve problems reproduce better than genes that don't.
- maxbond 3y ago
  > Oh how I wish that were true, but unfortunately at the end of the day Darwin is running the show. This is just essentialism. We can draw that line at any arbitrary point. I can say Darwin isn't running the show, Einstein is. You can try to point out the ways biology effects our lives and argue that it should hold a more privileged position, and I can wave it away and insist you're being sentimental. "I wish that were true, but we're just rocks that happen to think and reproduce, nothing more." And just as credibly, I can say that things are at the level of human abstraction and that life is about farting around. I can point out how profoundly conceptions at this level effect our lives, and argue that it should hold a privileged position. You're free to set your standard and the arbitrary point you prefer, but that doesn't devalue anyone else's decision. It's just a philosophy that doesn't resonate with you because you have a different perspective, that might make it less useful to you but it isn't really a mark against it. I don't eat steak and have no desire to, but I don't argue when people say that steak is delicious.
  - lisper 3y ago
    The reason Darwin is revered is that he discovered some important emergent structure in natural processes that is not immediately evident from Einstein’s field equation even if it turns out that the latter entails the former. But “we are here on earth to fart around” doesn’t follow.
    - maxbond 3y ago
      I will immediately concede I am wrong if you can show me how democracy, monogamous marriages, and a night on the town obviously emerges from darwinism. Or from biology more generally. If you can't use biology to explain society, then based on your reasoning about why Darwinism is preferable to relativity, I think you should reconsider whether or not this is true universally rather than for you in particular.
      - lisper 3y ago
        There's a stock answer for monogamous marriage: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-secret-evolutionary-weapon-monogamy/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-secret-evolut... Democracy and a night on the town are a little more challenging. Both are actually pretty recent inventions, having existed only for a few thousand years, which is nothing on an evolutionary time scale, and the jury is still out over whether either will survive in the long run. (Personally I'll give you long odds against.) But the short version of the answer is that genes have only very indirect control over the brains they build, and sometimes those brains can have a mind of their own (so to speak) and goals of their own, some of which can be in direct conflict with the goals of the genes that built them. For example, birth control pills are an quite literally an existential threat to our genes. So in the long run one would predict that our genes will tend to build brains that have an instinctive aversion to things like birth control. But the dynamics of human societies are off-the-charts complicated and non-linear, so who knows?
        maxbond 3y ago
        > There's a stock answer for monogamous marriage This article is just supposition. "Monogamy forms the basis of complex social networks." As opposed to polygamy...? "Females preferred reliable providers to aggressive competitors." Pretty impressive how their attitudes were preserved in the fossil record. The article is pretty clearly written from the perspective that polygamy is weird and unnatural, noting that we have an "imperfect record " of monogamy - as if societies where this was the norm were a mistake. The article goes on to make it clear this is a controversial idea, not one that has wide acceptance in this community. If you have a better article or a better argument to present I'll check it out, but I don't see why I would accept this argument. > But the short version of the answer is that genes have only very indirect control over the brains they build, and sometimes those brains can have a mind of their own ... > But the dynamics of human societies are off-the-charts complicated and non-linear, so who knows? I think you've conceded the point.

lisper 3y ago

Oh how I wish that were true, but unfortunately at the end of the day Darwin is running the show. Intelligence exists not because it's "good" but because genes that build brains that can solve problems reproduce better than genes that don't.

maxbond 3y ago
> Oh how I wish that were true, but unfortunately at the end of the day Darwin is running the show. This is just essentialism. We can draw that line at any arbitrary point. I can say Darwin isn't running the show, Einstein is. You can try to point out the ways biology effects our lives and argue that it should hold a more privileged position, and I can wave it away and insist you're being sentimental. "I wish that were true, but we're just rocks that happen to think and reproduce, nothing more." And just as credibly, I can say that things are at the level of human abstraction and that life is about farting around. I can point out how profoundly conceptions at this level effect our lives, and argue that it should hold a privileged position. You're free to set your standard and the arbitrary point you prefer, but that doesn't devalue anyone else's decision. It's just a philosophy that doesn't resonate with you because you have a different perspective, that might make it less useful to you but it isn't really a mark against it. I don't eat steak and have no desire to, but I don't argue when people say that steak is delicious.
- lisper 3y ago
  The reason Darwin is revered is that he discovered some important emergent structure in natural processes that is not immediately evident from Einstein’s field equation even if it turns out that the latter entails the former. But “we are here on earth to fart around” doesn’t follow.
  - maxbond 3y ago
    I will immediately concede I am wrong if you can show me how democracy, monogamous marriages, and a night on the town obviously emerges from darwinism. Or from biology more generally. If you can't use biology to explain society, then based on your reasoning about why Darwinism is preferable to relativity, I think you should reconsider whether or not this is true universally rather than for you in particular.
    - lisper 3y ago
      There's a stock answer for monogamous marriage: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-secret-evolutionary-weapon-monogamy/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-secret-evolut... Democracy and a night on the town are a little more challenging. Both are actually pretty recent inventions, having existed only for a few thousand years, which is nothing on an evolutionary time scale, and the jury is still out over whether either will survive in the long run. (Personally I'll give you long odds against.) But the short version of the answer is that genes have only very indirect control over the brains they build, and sometimes those brains can have a mind of their own (so to speak) and goals of their own, some of which can be in direct conflict with the goals of the genes that built them. For example, birth control pills are an quite literally an existential threat to our genes. So in the long run one would predict that our genes will tend to build brains that have an instinctive aversion to things like birth control. But the dynamics of human societies are off-the-charts complicated and non-linear, so who knows?
      - maxbond 3y ago
        > There's a stock answer for monogamous marriage This article is just supposition. "Monogamy forms the basis of complex social networks." As opposed to polygamy...? "Females preferred reliable providers to aggressive competitors." Pretty impressive how their attitudes were preserved in the fossil record. The article is pretty clearly written from the perspective that polygamy is weird and unnatural, noting that we have an "imperfect record " of monogamy - as if societies where this was the norm were a mistake. The article goes on to make it clear this is a controversial idea, not one that has wide acceptance in this community. If you have a better article or a better argument to present I'll check it out, but I don't see why I would accept this argument. > But the short version of the answer is that genes have only very indirect control over the brains they build, and sometimes those brains can have a mind of their own ... > But the dynamics of human societies are off-the-charts complicated and non-linear, so who knows? I think you've conceded the point.