[Jack]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergySpin', '
')And since both tinosorb and Jack seem to agree that JH is making a valid statement about the real world/evolution why don't you guys answer my points 1-3 which do point out the logical contradictions inherent in his text, or Ludi's empirical evidence (the only kind of evidence that Hume's followers ala JH admit) about human societies.

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('tinosorb', '
')Med Hypotheses. 2005;65(4):703-7.
Are dopaminergic genes involved in a predisposition to pathological aggression? Hypothesizing the importance of "super normal controls" in psychiatricgenetic research of complex behavioral disorders.
Chen TJ, Blum K, Mathews D, Fisher L, Schnautz N, Braverman ER, Schoolfield J, Downs BW, Comings DE.
PMID: 15964153

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobbyald', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ooperation has been the most successful strategy for humans during their entire existence on Earth

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobbyald', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') challenge (and a simple one) was put forward and you run away ...

[bobbyald]

Ludi.

I not saying that cooperation is not a very important strategy within the animal kingdom and very sophisticated in humans but it is just one of many strategies that play a part in survival. It’s probably too simplistic to name just one as the most successful but my favourite is “faking sincerity”. Do this well and you’ll go along way.

[bobbyald]

EnergySpin.

I WILL reply but tomorrow as I need my beauty sleep.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobbyald', 'L')udi.

I not saying that cooperation is not a very important strategy within the animal kingdom and very sophisticated in humans but it is just one of many strategies that play a part in survival. It’s probably too simplistic to name just one as the most successful but my favourite is “faking sincerity”. Do this well and you’ll go along way.

[EnergySpin]

Jack if one is not willing to refer to the "physical" basis of human nature /biology then one is not really answering the question and he ends up projecting his own biases or preconceived notion to the world (the "mind projection fallacy"). But since you do not want to start a dissertation in genetics (and neither do I !) you would agree that one has to stripe his text clean of any scientific or pseudo-scientific references.
Then it becomes clear that one has to answer my first question .... what happens when all the looters/killers/rapists destroy everyone else ?
If the genes determined the behaviour (as he asserts) then they should have killed each other and we would not be here.
The fact that we are here can mean only a limited number of things:
a) the original premise is wrong i.e. there are no such genes (and his program goes down). In this case we are back to an Enlightment type of optimal "tabular rasa" program
b) the looters/rapists are the loosers and the kind/cooperative people prevailed. This means that evolution actually guides humans to a nobler nature
c) such behaviours are subsumed by other behaviours operating in higher echelons of the neural architecture (subsumption seems to work in robotics by the way, so we know of at least one artificial systems which can be constructed this way)

If genetics is not driving "selfishness" then other non-genetic (cultural/environmental?) factors do; these factors are amenable to change and norms of human behaviour can change dramatically. JH is relying on a genetic determinism that is not born out by his statement of the problem, and is probably quite wrong given the stochastic nature of genetic regulation.
The latter is a crucial point that JH either is unaware of, or simply ignores; he prefers to distribute Multilayer Perceptrons programs in C/C++ than do a little bit of real homework.


Hence the Odulvai is just that - neo Malthusian mental masturbation. I guess some people are actually turned on by the implicit carnage .... some go to S&M clubs, others read and write like Hanson (intended as an ad hominem attack) or have simply not grown beyond the 7 year old stage.

The sweep of human history has included both wars and cooperative approaches .... wars usually were regressive.

Rationality is defined as the ability to make consistent decisions or arguments that do not end up contradicting their premises.
For example 1+1 =3 is an irrational decision.
An argument that reads: there is no limit to the speed of light is irrational today (by the theory of relativity), but it was rational 150 years ago.
A rational decision maker should only manipulate symbols correctly. But the quality of answers he provides is contigent upon the quality of data and the correctness of the models he or she is using. Garbage in , garbage out.

By the way: I am not disputing the role of genetics in the function of the brain ..... but to search for a gene that describes a norm of behaviour is foolish. For any organism to derive an evolutionary benefit from the brain, common sense argues that genes should provide a way for:
a) real time signal processing capacities
b) information extraction
c) reactive behaviour
d) model construction and use
e) symbolic manipulation activities
f) language

a-e are variably present in different organisms .... Symbolic activities are known to exist in humans, monkeys, dolphins and dogs. All species that manifest both cooperation and competition and different language skills.
My opinion is that the answer about the "norms of human behaviour" is found somewhere in the d->e->f line. But it is along these lines that civilization which also has a non-biological basis operates. Cultural norms and genes both operate there. But if one deconstructs the pure genetic determinism argument .... then one has proved that the potential for change is there. JH does not admit that ... due to his faulty line of reasoning

[bobcousins]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergySpin', '
')3) If the rape-looting-killing "genes" are limited to males (as he seems to imply), where are they? The Y chromosome is a pretty small one to accomodate so many genes (or actually a gene set)

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergySpin', '
')3) If the rape-looting-killing "genes" are limited to males (as he seems to imply), where are they? The Y chromosome is a pretty small one to accomodate so many genes (or actually a gene set)

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('tinosorb', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergySpin', '
')Tinosorb .. Medical Hypotheses is a jorunal about that: Hypotheses that might or not might not be true. In fact when I opened up the abstract and the journal I got another fMRI (a technique that leads lots of standardization) and SNP study (itself a rather "controversial" field in the sense that polymorphisms found in one study are rarely replicated more than once and negative studies are not reported). Not to mention the inappropriate use of chi-square in the tail of the probablity distribution (but this is a technical point that may be used by nitpickers like me to turn down publications when people mentally masturbate with tests of significance) .

[EnergySpin]

And since this has deteriorated into the quotation of abstracts from PubMED
and the role of genes evolution and the mind, I cannot be blaimed for posting the following:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '
')1: J Theor Biol. 2005 Sep 7;236(1):95-110. Epub 2005 Apr 20.

The evolution of the human mind and logic--mathematics structures.

Yunes RA.

Medicinal Chemistry NIQFAR, Universidade do Vale do Itajai (UNIVALI), 88302-202,
Itajai, SC, Brazil. ryunes@qmc.ufsc.br

The evolution of the human mind is discussed based on: (i) the fact that living
beings interchange matter, energy and information with their environment, (ii)
an ontological interpretation of the "reality" of the quantum world, of which
logic-mathematics structures are considered constitutive parts, (iii) recent
theories according to which living beings are considered as dynamic complex
systems organized by information, and (iv) the fact that the evolution of living
beings is guided by information about the environment and by intrinsic
information on living systems (auto-organization). Assuming the evolution of
vision as a model we observe that the driving forces that directed the evolution
of the eyes, as dynamic complex systems, are the information about the
environment supplied by sunlight and the intrinsic information-gaining mechanism
of living organisms. Thus, there exists a convergence toward a visual system
with the greatest ability to obtain light information, like the human eye, and
also a divergence that leads to the development of specific qualities in some
species. As in the case of vision the evolution of the human mind-brain cannot
be a consequence of factors unrelated to the object of its own functioning. The
human mind was structured for the acquisition from reality of the
logic-mathematics structures that underlie the whole universe and consequently
of an internal representation of the external world and of its own self. Thus,
these structures are, together with the intrinsic capacity for auto-organization
of the human brain, the predominant driving force of the human mind evolution.
Both factors are complementary.

PMID: 15967187 [PubMed - in process]

[Ludi]

I question whether the increasingly violent, lying, cheating, raping group would successfully produce more offspring which live to reproductive age than the cooperative group. This seems unlikely to me.

Also, I should point out that successful "cheaters" never tip their hand, such as bobbyald did when praising the trait of "faking sincerity." Knowing now that bobbyald is likely insincere, I don't trust him, and so, in a group situation, would likely not support him. How successful has bobbyald been in a Darwinian sense? Has his fake sincerity enabled him to produce viable offspring which will live to reproductive age? That's the question. Does uncooperative cheating behavior enable the cheater to produce a larger number of viable offspring in real life? Or only in fictional models?

[EnergySpin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'I') question whether the increasingly violent, lying, cheating, raping group would successfully produce more offspring which live to reproductive age than the cooperative group. This seems unlikely to me.

Also, I should point out that successful "cheaters" never tip their hand, such as bobbyald did when praising the trait of "faking sincerity." Knowing now that bobbyald is likely insincere, I don't trust him, and so, in a group situation, would likely not support him. How successful has bobbyald been in a Darwinian sense? Has his fake sincerity enabled him to produce viable offspring which will live to reproductive age? That's the question. Does uncooperative cheating behavior enable the cheater to produce a larger number of viable offspring in real life? Or only in fictional models?

[aldente]

Good to see you in action, Energyspin. The bunch here is just not used to someone of your caliper, excellent points that you make, this site needs someone to kick those sleepy doomsdayers in the butt...

Cheers and keep up the good work!

[MicroHydro]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Jack', 'I') would not dismiss Mr. Hanson's conclusions so lightly. I think his views are closer to the truth than most care to admit.

[SarahC1975]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobcousins', 'H')anson is right to think that our behaviour is determined by our genes, but that article is mostly rubbish. He states that selection occurs at the genetic level, then apparently talks about selection of individuals, an error also made by posters here. The nature of genetic selection is really quite subtle and complicated, and it is quite difficult not to think about individuals. There is a complicated relationship between the organism and the genes. Hanson's article throws out some emotional arguments but sheds little light on what is really going on.

While thinking about collapse of society, I initially thought that maybe the reason is that in large groups cooperation is strained too far. If people then start to act selfishly, this causes the system to break down into smaller, more stable groups.

This hypothesis is I think quite wrong. You need to think of it in the opposite way. It is actually because humans are supremely cooperative that we grow into large civilisations in the first place. Because we cooperate so well, we are able to effectively exploit resources. While successful in the short term, this leads to overshoot. Civilisations break down because the underlying resource base is insufficient.

Hanson is following his own agenda to conclude that we destroy ourselves because we are dumb animals. True, we are dumb animals, but we are highly cooperative dumb animals. .

[SarahC1975]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bobbyald', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')ooperation has been the most successful strategy for humans during their entire existence on Earth

[SarahC1975]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergySpin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'T')hat's hilarious, Mr Hanson. So why were people successfully cooperative for 100,000 years if we're selecting for greedy lack of cooperation?

Because cooperation is the more successful adaptation, ya goofball!