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> the origin of that attitude I suspect the attitude is the default / most primitive one, because any other attitude requires higher-order cognitive processes

by epgui 2y ago

> the origin of that attitude I suspect the attitude is the default / most primitive one, because any other attitude requires higher-order cognitive processes that can abstract one's own experiences (which is the only real input one has) with the behaviours of entities that appear to be very different from oneself. In other words, the capacity for empathy is a "positive feature", in the sense that it is absent by default. The ability to make this kind of abstraction is a pretty sophisticated thing, and either requires time to evolve (as an instinct), and/or requires socialization/learning (as a partly or totally-intentional practice).

DangitBobby 2y ago
True. It's also sophisticated to have the ego required to believe you should inherently have dominion over the entire planet and all animals on it. I don't think it's an idea most people would have adopted themselves without being born into a society formed by religions that perpetuate such a belief and it's consequences [1]. As an aside, it's not clear to me how "having dominion" should justify such mistreatment, anyway. 1. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:25-27&version=KJ21 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:25-...
- epgui 2y ago
  > It's also sophisticated to have the ego required to believe you should inherently have dominion over the entire planet and all animals on it. Is that really "sophisticated", or is that just what happens when an entity outcompetes all others for resource utilization by chance (ie.: in the context of ecology / evolutionary pressure)? This is basically how cancer happens, and yet I wouldn't call cancer cells more sophisticated than healthy ones. I call it dys-regulated.
  - DangitBobby 2y ago
    Yeah, I think it's sophisticated. Our brains are hardwired for empathy, and people are able to mostly ignore their social/emotional programming through a system of beliefs that would be difficult to propagate without language.
    - epgui 2y ago
      You seem to think we're somehow "empathetic by default", but that's something I'd disagree with. Our primal instinct is one of tribalism and auto-centrism, but over long periods of time we've developed a (fragile) capacity to empathize with 1) other people that look like us, and 2) other people that don't look like us, and 3) perhaps animals. But we didn't always have this capacity, and we see it break down all the time.
      - DangitBobby 2y ago
        What makes you think we "didn't always have this capacity"? Or that other animals don't have it? We have it from a very young age, children like animals, want them as pets, and cry when they see them hurt or killed. We've had at the very least a desire to commune with animals for 100,000 years or we wouldn't have dogs in their current form.
        epgui 2y ago
        I haven't claimed that animals don't have it. In general, empathy can be either an evolved behaviour, a learned behaviour, or both. In humans this is largely-but-probably-not-exclusively socialized behaviour. Most cases of (human and non-abused) feral children exhibit behaviour that is not particularly compatible with empathy. I shared my rationale for why we "haven't always had this capacity" a few comments up this thread, and you seemed to agree with it before immediately making the contradicting statement.
        DangitBobby 2y ago
        If you think I'm contradicting myself, then I didn't know what "abstraction" was referring to in "sophisticated abstraction". (FWIW, it's pretty difficult to review the conversation and formulate good responses on mobile, since all I can see easily without switching back and forth is the comment I am replying to). I think it's "sophisticated" to have the language and philosophy required to follow a moral system that you prioritize over your own instincts—in this case, the prioritization of members of your species. I don't think it's "sophisticated" to not attempt to maximally exploit everything around me for even the most modest benefit to the deteriment of all else. Maybe I have too high an opinion of people. Maybe it's just a consequence of scale. I see empathy alone as being much more basic, requiring only a very low-level "theory of mind", likely arising from the type of evolutionary pressure that leads to social species. I would be surprised to learn that was a recent adaptation in our evolutionary line. Maybe most species have it "off by default", if you consider the "default" to be a constant state of duress and resource scarcity.

by epgui 2y ago

DangitBobby 2y ago

True. It's also sophisticated to have the ego required to believe you should inherently have dominion over the entire planet and all animals on it. I don't think it's an idea most people would have adopted themselves without being born into a society formed by religions that perpetuate such a belief and it's consequences [1]. As an aside, it's not clear to me how "having dominion" should justify such mistreatment, anyway. 1. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:25-27&version=KJ21 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%201:25-...

epgui 2y ago
> It's also sophisticated to have the ego required to believe you should inherently have dominion over the entire planet and all animals on it. Is that really "sophisticated", or is that just what happens when an entity outcompetes all others for resource utilization by chance (ie.: in the context of ecology / evolutionary pressure)? This is basically how cancer happens, and yet I wouldn't call cancer cells more sophisticated than healthy ones. I call it dys-regulated.
- DangitBobby 2y ago
  Yeah, I think it's sophisticated. Our brains are hardwired for empathy, and people are able to mostly ignore their social/emotional programming through a system of beliefs that would be difficult to propagate without language.
  - epgui 2y ago
    You seem to think we're somehow "empathetic by default", but that's something I'd disagree with. Our primal instinct is one of tribalism and auto-centrism, but over long periods of time we've developed a (fragile) capacity to empathize with 1) other people that look like us, and 2) other people that don't look like us, and 3) perhaps animals. But we didn't always have this capacity, and we see it break down all the time.
    - DangitBobby 2y ago
      What makes you think we "didn't always have this capacity"? Or that other animals don't have it? We have it from a very young age, children like animals, want them as pets, and cry when they see them hurt or killed. We've had at the very least a desire to commune with animals for 100,000 years or we wouldn't have dogs in their current form.
      - epgui 2y ago
        I haven't claimed that animals don't have it. In general, empathy can be either an evolved behaviour, a learned behaviour, or both. In humans this is largely-but-probably-not-exclusively socialized behaviour. Most cases of (human and non-abused) feral children exhibit behaviour that is not particularly compatible with empathy. I shared my rationale for why we "haven't always had this capacity" a few comments up this thread, and you seemed to agree with it before immediately making the contradicting statement.
        DangitBobby 2y ago
        If you think I'm contradicting myself, then I didn't know what "abstraction" was referring to in "sophisticated abstraction". (FWIW, it's pretty difficult to review the conversation and formulate good responses on mobile, since all I can see easily without switching back and forth is the comment I am replying to). I think it's "sophisticated" to have the language and philosophy required to follow a moral system that you prioritize over your own instincts—in this case, the prioritization of members of your species. I don't think it's "sophisticated" to not attempt to maximally exploit everything around me for even the most modest benefit to the deteriment of all else. Maybe I have too high an opinion of people. Maybe it's just a consequence of scale. I see empathy alone as being much more basic, requiring only a very low-level "theory of mind", likely arising from the type of evolutionary pressure that leads to social species. I would be surprised to learn that was a recent adaptation in our evolutionary line. Maybe most species have it "off by default", if you consider the "default" to be a constant state of duress and resource scarcity.