The End, As We Know It
This week’s installment of the Humanist Network News is out today and includes my article, The End As We Know It.
I quoted two AgnosticMom readers who contributed to the discussion about death in the comments section. Since it would have broken the flow of the article to name them, I wanted to acknowledge Jen and Hifi in this blog entry and thank them for their insight.
To begin reading HNN from the beginning, click here (and make sure you subscribe if you haven’t already!).
One of the other regular columnists, Doug Thomas wrote an article on ethics called, The Evolution Of Kindness, that is another version of the arguments I have been making about morality (no, Hifi, I have not had time to respond to your last three or so comments. I hope to get to them soon). Thomas uses slightly different wording than I do, words like “love” and “kindness” which he lifted from Bertrand Russell, where I prefer to use words like “empathy.”
But utlimately Thomas is making the same claim I made: that evolution provided us with some helpful characteristics in addition to some hurtful ones. We can use another of our evolved traits, rational thought, to choose the helpful characteristics (love, kindness, empathy) in our dealings with others. Here is a quote:
How do humanists explain their need or desire to perform charitable acts? Oh, of course, there is the pragmatic argument — what goes around comes around — a kind of “What’s in it for me?” approach. However, that does not explain the altruism performed without thoughts of pay back that I notice among my fellow humanists. I think it goes beyond a secular belief in “karma.”
Go enjoy some time with other humanists reading this week’s HNN. Feel free to start a discussion on one of the article topics in my comment area.
Note to the fans of my “Leaving The Church” series. I am glad that a number of you have been enjoying it and have expressed anticipation of part 3. Please be patient as I have a few topics to work on first. It’ll come, I promise.
June 15th, 2006 @ 2:37 am
oh my goodness I just want to say after reading a few or your entries I’m still trying to figure out what am I suppose to do. I have been Catholic, A.M.E., Muslim, S.D.A., Buddhist, Atheist, Pagan, and back to Muslim, and now I have left Islam for the second time. I have always prided myself on studying religion and I have come to a point in my life I am truly at a lost for words. Every religious text I have laid my hands on has errors in them and I can’t possibly believe in something that is full of errors, yet it suppose to be from god. I’m having a tough time being all lost and alone feeling spiritually. I mean I literally give up on the religious home front. I can’t say there is nothing it has to be something out there, but what it is we don’t know. do you have any advice for me. I feel like I have wasted a good amount of my life trying to chase down the correct religion to follow.
Thanks,
Na’weh Nzingha
June 15th, 2006 @ 1:28 pm
Once again, the morality subject rears its head. I don’t want it to sidetrack the main subject matter of this post, Noell’s article for HNN and about how to educate our kids about death.
In another instnace of sidetracking, the quotes Noell referred to came from a discussion that was tagged on in the comments as aside at the end of an unrelated topic. To help bring this topic to prominence, I’d be interested in hearing here from anyone else as to how they approach the subject of death with their children.
If I may I’d like to repost the full comment I made under the Self-Inflicted Discipline post:
I tell my kids that they do continue, not only in the life matter and lineage cycle which Jen uses, but as part of the world/universe per se. “The world produced life and us along with it. We are not separate from it. Like a drop of water taken from the ocean and returned, when we die we return to the world. There is no place else to go (the world is a materially closed system) whatever we are has been and always will be a part of it.”
If you asked either them what happens when they die, they will tell you, “We go back to the world.”
This raises an interesting philosphical/scientific question as to whether consciousness is a fundamental emergent quality of the universe. If so, even consciousness - human or otherwise - is a quality of world, like life, that is extended in us. It may sound a bit pantheist (pantheists don’t believe in personal immortality either), but this is the personal philosophy I share with my kids. Just as we are the life of the world, we are also the mind and feelings of the world. We are literally the world and whether we are alive in it or die in it, it remains.
Does that make sense?
June 15th, 2006 @ 2:04 pm
To me, “altruism” vs. “selfishness” aren’t the only available concepts.
Take the story of Jesus as the Christ. (I don’t believe it, but it’s a good illustration and has plenty of real life counterparts that happen under rubrics like “sacrifice” or “altruism.”)
Getting nailed was perfect fulfillment. Who wouldn’t - to save the world? It isn’t always about even our fundamental physical well being.
Jesus was doing what he wanted, and not sacrificing himself “altruistically.”
June 15th, 2006 @ 2:35 pm
Darius-You make a good point, and I think it illustrates one of the problems with our on-going debate. Altruism, empathy, love, and self-interest are all intertwined.
It isn’t that he WASN”T doing it altrusitically. It’s that his altruism stemmed from his personal desire, or the level of his empathy.
This is why I think why I empasize empathy in the ethics/morality debate. Empathy already exists within healthy human beings to one extent or another. Certain experiences in the environment can also increase a person’s empathy. For example, giving a child a pet puppy is a good way to help the child grow their empathy, or desires to be altruistic.
The more empathy, or desires to be altruistic a person has, the more they WANT social justice and the less they want to cause others pain when they don’t need to.
That is what this is all about. Combining empathy with self-interest.
June 15th, 2006 @ 2:42 pm
Hifi, I left a part of that quote out of the article because it contradicts my own personal beliefs about the world (the universal consciousness). To me it is within the same realm of possibility as the existent of a Higher Power.
I encourage anyone who DOES believe in it, or wants to, to go ahead and pipe up. It would make for an interesting conversation. I probably won’t participate much, but I will enjoy reading it.
It’s interesting because it reminds me of a post I am currently preparing based on a comment from Dan. Dan implied that a universal consciousness equals some sort of “god” or “higher power.”
And if you don’t mind my bringing the “morality” discussion back into this, I think what Dan was really implying, based on a counter-statement he made, is that if there is a universal consciousness, then there is a universal moral absolute.
Again, I don’t personally believe that, but it’s interesting philosophy. Does one view lead to the other?
June 15th, 2006 @ 2:46 pm
Lovely column Noell!
I liked it a lot - and hope to refer back to it down the line when these questions start popping up in my own child.
I’m surprised to read that you feel “Evolution Of Kindness” reflected your own position - as he so carefully avoided any attachment to a system of morality - or to go within a mile of even using the word morality (or empathy - quite a different matter than ‘love’ or ‘kindness’).
To say that people realize that they survive better when they work together is very different than saying there is a set order of right and wrong that the enlightened amoung us are granted by evolution - which is what you have claimed.
His dismissal of ‘what goes around, comes around’ was more in line with calling that sentiment an oversimplification - then he invalidates it further with a comparison to superstitious belief (karma). I’d agree that it is a simplification - but I reject the idea that playing the odds on something is behavior in line with desiring rewards of good fortune from the heavens.
Aside from dismissing ‘what goes around, comes around’ - and coining a wholly new term (to me) “derived ethics” to name what I read to be a more wordy and complex framing of ‘what goes around, comes around’ (after all - humans cooperate because of experience with past results ‘coming around’) - I’m on board with his summation of our desire to cooperate with one another as a species.
‘enlightened self interest’ seems synonymous with ‘derived ethics’ to me.
Maybe this is more evidence that we are more on the same page than our disagreement over details would make it seem.
June 15th, 2006 @ 3:26 pm
Loved the article! It’s been over six months since I found this site and it continues to inspire me. Thanks again and keep up the great work!!!!!!
June 15th, 2006 @ 3:28 pm
Thanks, Ron. Death is such a touchy subject, especially without religion (unless you’re talking about a death like that of a friend of mine. His death by suicide and his actions right before it would hardly make a religious perspective on his fate pleasant). I wasn’t sure what people would think of the article.
As for Thomas’ article, whether we want to refer to it as a system of morality or ethics, or something else entirely is a different matter. Thomas was referring to evolutionary psychology, or evolved traits that we all share. This, along with our ability to reason, is the foundation for why we are able to choose “enlightened self-interest” as opposed to plain old “self-interest.” You don’t recognize that from my previous comments?
I do not understand why you consider terms like “love” and “kindness” to be acceptable with regard to this subject, but not “empathy.” You and Hifi have been criticizing “empathy” as being immeasurable. Empathy is by far more specific than love and kindness. It is a specific component of love and kindness. It is so specific that I have been able to cite prominent scientists who use the word to explain the same subject.
Ron, you said: To say that people realize that they survive better when they work together is very different than saying there is a set order of right and wrong that the enlightened amoung us are granted by evolution - which is what you have claimed.
In fact what you say I claimed is SO ABSOLUTELY NOT what I have claimed. I have said that the human species evolved psychological traits, some of which combine to make up a moral sense, and that moral sense, or those traits were selected from those who realized that we survive better when we work together. All humans share these traits, just like all humans stand on two legs.
I have said there is NOT a set order of right and wrong, but that humans have evolved a general understanding that it is wrong to hurt others unnecessarily because nature selected traits based on the realization that we survive better when we work together. These traits involve reason and empathy.
And I have never said anything about the “enlightened among us.” HUH? Where did that come from? Empathy and reason are human traits. Your statement is beyond me.
The name, “derived ethics” works perfectly for what I have been trying to express. They (ethics) do not come from a divine source, but they come from traits and a shared understanding within us, which we can use for social well-being. That shared understanding is that we all have pain, we do not like pain, we do not like to be violated, and we want to be able to pursue our own interests.
Thankfully you have acknowledge that we are more in agreement than disagreement. In fact, whenever you try to rephrase positions of mine that you disagree with, you say something completely opposite of what I mean. I don’t know where the breakdown is, but it seems that just because I used the word, “morality”, you and Hifi project all kinds of ideas on me that are quite opposite of the very simple position I hold.
June 15th, 2006 @ 5:18 pm
Thanks, Rodolfo!
June 15th, 2006 @ 10:11 pm
Noell -
When you tell me that I am saying the opposite of what you intended to communicate … I really don’t know how to respond. I’ve probably spent too long with the trailing threads - getting little irritants stuck in my consideration rather than focusing on common ground.
I felt sure that on several occasions you claimed that evolution has given humanity knowledge of moral right and wrong. The ‘enlightened’ bit was just to indicate those attentive to a moral compass, vs. people just acting out of self interest (enlightened or no).
“I have said there is NOT a set order of right and wrong, but that humans have evolved a general understanding that it is wrong to hurt others unnecessarily because nature selected traits based on the realization that we survive better when we work together. These traits involve reason and empathy.”
to me this reads:
“..there is NOT a set … right and wrong… humans .. evolved .. understanding .. it is wrong … ”
I read this as a contradiction. I don’t know how not to.
I tried not to trim anything essential to the meaning of your statement.
‘There is not wrong’ - followed by - ‘it is wrong’.
When I put it that way is it easier to see what I don’t understand?
June 15th, 2006 @ 11:01 pm
never mind
you answer this perfectly on the previous thread
(where am I?)
Thanks,
Ron
June 16th, 2006 @ 2:45 pm
Hello… Can the subject of how to approach death please have its own space?
I would be interested in hearing here from anyone else as to how they approach the subject of death with their children. How do you do it? If you don’t have children, what is your own view?
Noell, You tell your kids there is a “Universal consciousness” - the barely made over Christian God of omnipresence of the New Agers? I admit in my first forays out of the church 20 years ago, I also was led there. Very, very hard to shake off the supernatural. Man did they love to work that idea - with equal passion to any religious person claiming something they have no evidence for. Equal lack of evidence as for god. Why introduce it when there is no basis for it?
Wait, don’t get sidetracked: I would be interested in hearing here from anyone else as to how they approach the subject of death with their children.
June 16th, 2006 @ 3:42 pm
Hifi-
I put up a post for you. If you’re seeing this, then I’m sure you saw the post.
Out of curiosity, what makes you think I talk to my kids about a “universal consciousness?” I actually don’t, but I must have said something in the past that made you think I did.
We started our family religious, so when we left religion, rather than suddenly tell our kids there is no god or heaven, we decided to wean them slowly as we feel they are ready.
It’s been VERY slow because they attend church with my in-laws a few times a year when Israel and I are out of town. Plus their friends talk about God. And I have found that kids will believe whatever they hear if parents don’t pound ideas into them. I refuse to pound ideas into them, so they believe whatever they want to believe at any given moment.
But at this point, I’ve gotten to where I tell them that there is no scientific evidence for gods, spirits, ghosts, or heaven, so I do not believe any of those things exist. I tell them we make decisions or buy into ideas based on the amount of scientific evidence backing them up.
Sometimes they say, “Okay, nobody really knows.” Sometimes they seem to lean toward the probable non-existence of gods. Sometimes they tell me they believe because they want to believe. And I tell them that is okay.
But I’ve never talked about a “universal consciousness” with them, so it’s curious what I said that sounded that way.
That said, I do not have strong opinions that atheists should reject the idea of a universal consciousness. It is not important to me whether people believe that or reject it. I hope you and anyone else will feel comfortable talking about it.
June 17th, 2006 @ 9:39 am
It has been a while since I have had my oar in the water so I want to comment on a couple of subjects.
I sent a link to your outstanding HNN article “Then End as We Know It” to several friends, most of whom are religious and one Universalist that I have not decided if that is religious or not. Since I considered the article to be very rational and intelligently presented, I expected to hear some thoughtful replies. Instead I got responses I guess I should have expected. I would like to quote one from a woman in her 80’s I have known all my life. Though not a professional scientist, she has done research with methods I would consider worthy of any good scientist.
“Thank you for your comments and forwarding Noell’s comments. Being a Devout Christian, I can only say how sorry I am for the children that they are brought up without faith. Just because their mother is an Agnostic Mom, doesn’t make sense that she would want to impose that on her young children without their having had an opportunity to learn what the Bible teaches us.
We know that God answers our prayers, even though they aren’t always the way we wanted them to be, but for what is best for us. His time is not necessarily our time. Our world has gotten very bitter and cruel since they took prayer out of schools, and most children have not had the opportunity to know that Jesus loves them. Our church was built on a Community Life Center which is widely attended by many young people and small children who have come to know someone loves them.”
… and the Universalist
“I agree it is well done. I disagree that earth is a closed system and nothing leaves it. If our being is a unique form of electrical energy I say we belong to the universe not earth. Our physical presence only, is of earth. Our thoughts exceed these limitations. To me this ability to think beyond the needs of existence on earth is a window that lets in the light of the universe. To practice agnostics is to have a lazy closed mind. I believe her struggles will continue. To only believe what you can prove is to deny the existence of additional knowledge. “
I consider such comments almost shocking in the 21st century. We have much work to do.
On “altruism”: I have always viewed the term to mean that any act of altruism is an act that places the welfare of someone or something else above your own. That is quite different from generosity, charity, helpfulness, good heartedness or any one of a similar set of synonyms that anyone can look up in their thesaurus. I consider it an extreme act but not out of the range of human actions. Running into a burning, collapsing building to save a pet or another person is an example.
On evolved sensibilities that lead to cooperative behavior: Based on the works I have read, I believe the situation is subtly different from what I think you are suggesting; i.e., cooperative behavior has survived the evolutionary process as a winner because humans have found such behavior to be advantageous. My impression is that this concept is more closely aligned with memetics than biology.
Based on scientific research the following statements can be made:
1. Some predictable variations in animal behaviors have been observed.
2. These behavioral variations were heritable, and clearly caused by variants of behavior-associated genes.
3. Variations in genetics are not associated with any particular behavior but instead, broadly direct the daily life. Single genes can contribute to a given behavior but are not in and of themselves the sole determinant of that behavior. It is the integrated effect of many genes that adjust behavior.
4. Genetics only endow an organism as complex as a person with a set of capacities for daily life but the environment/culture plays a major role in determination of specific behaviors.
One final comment more in the form of a question directed toward HiFi. As a cultural anthropologist, consider the hypothetical concept of suddenly moving the Tasaday with whatever cultural codes of conduct they possess into the middle of Victorian England. I’m attempting to set the stage for a major cultural discontinuity. My question … on a slower time scale, do you think that is analogous to the present day situation in the world in which developing genetic options, communication advances, hostile cultural interfacing, and resource depletion will demand that the “Tasaday” of today will need to make major cultural shifts to adapt to the “Victorian England” that is rapidly arriving? Do we need to train a “new” type of person? My intent is to understand the nature of the moral and ethical codes of such a person and hopefully that links the relevance to this blog.
June 18th, 2006 @ 3:54 pm
Noell, great article in HNN! I am very honored that you quoted me. You have an excellent way with articulating your thoughts which makes your blog and your columns easy to read, and always thought-provoking. (Yes, I am a great schmooze, but really, I’m serious here, too).
On morality - I’m loving the discussion about the intertwining of altruism, self-interest and empathy. It’s easy to make the blanket assumption that all altruism ultimately stems from self-interest. “I feel satisfied when I realize I am a ‘good’ person.” Don’t we all get a great deal back from doing good deeds in the form of warm fuzzies? Can it be extended to a power thing; i.e., “I am a better person than you are because I sacrifice to help others?”
But things like your example of teaching (or watching) empathy within kids by giving them a pet - that just doesn’t fly with the blanket assumption. Children are an excellent example of humans at their purest, aren’t they? And for many children, that desire to reach outside of themselves, to extend their reach to others - it seems inate. And if it *is* inate, even from just one kid, then the argument that all altruism stems from self-interest is hard to hold onto.
I don’t know. There’s a lot there to think about and discuss. I do know one thing, though, and that is that I hold in higher esteem empathy (or morality, whatever your semantics may dictate) which comes from self, as opposed to that which is there from fear or a sense of duty (as hard-core religion often tries to prescribe).
Jen
June 18th, 2006 @ 7:45 pm
RE: Greg100’s friends -
How does a person respond to that? Why would an agnostic mother teach her child to be a christian any more than a christian would teach their child to be agnostic? Or to be a Buddhist? All those poor christian children going without the knowledge of a loving Buddha because of their selfish christian parents?
The universalist’s responses were similar in their own way - apparently attributing transcendent powers that branch out into the universe to the little grey mush pies in our heads. Electric beings? Claiming close-mindedness for folks whom, you and I know, fairly drive themselves crazy with a life spent gathering information to make the right choices, and search for truth.
You are right - these are jolting statements.
I passed a church (one of the shopping mall looking ones) today that has big wooden cut outs of fighter planes advertising their summer bible camp - titled “Real American Heroes”, and featuring a military theme. For a church camp. Its a mega-church - - didn’t anyone on the board say “maybe a theme not based on raining death death down upon brown people would be more appropriate”? Apparently not - GI Jesus was selected instead.
A friend of mine witnessed a woman trying to ‘cast the devil out’ of a fussy baby last week - - only to have a passerby offer the ‘tickle monster’, which apparently the devil was very afraid of - since it worked within seconds.
That cave in the Ozarks is looking more appealing every day.
June 20th, 2006 @ 2:57 pm
Noell,
Re: “universal consciousness”. I think what happened is that, for some reason, you interpreted my comment about consciousness as an emergent property of the universe as suggesting “universal consciousness”. At the time, I couldn’t understand where that idea came from, so I thought it was one you were introducing.
Perhaps I was unclear. I most certainly never intended to imply the existence of such a thing. Rather, as with life, there is an operating assumption in evolutionary science that the potential for life is inherent in the physical properties of the material universe. We would expect to find it anywhere conditions allowed it (what those conditions are is still an open question). It follows that consciousness is a similarly emergent property life and of our the universe/our world.
Consider an apple tree. It produces apples. Is the apple part of the tree? Imagine looking at it in compressed time. A tree, apples falling, trees growing from them, snaking, “branching” away from the original location, intertwining with lines of pollination from other trees: a continuum of apple tree across time and space. It may be a practical illusion for our type of survival (just as it is not seeing in the ultraviolet or hearing in the ultrasonic), but is it a factual view when we “slice” things up so as to break the continuum of an apple tree into separate entities of trees, blossoms, pollen, apples, seeds, branches and leaves?
Isn’t it a fallacy to view seeds as a quality of only the apple and not of the tree? Zoom out from this view. The earth produces life, us… is it accurate to say that consciousness is a quality of only us and not of our earth?
As for death: Is it a valid concept outside of metaphysics? To return to the analogy, at what point does the apple tree end? Does the growth or breakdown in structure of a leaf, apple, seed or parent tree end it? Believing so seems to me based on a serious misunderstanding of the physical processes of life, arbitrarily chopping up things that never had, nor ever will have, independent existence.
If we are going to explain death: that something is disappearing forever (from what the universe?), then I think we first need to start with a comprehensive understanding of what life is. Can someone tell me, then, when a person dies, what exactly do you think is ending?
Noell, you tell your kids it is when an organism’s brain no longer works? (One could ask how does that apply to plants?) But more importantly, how is a butterfly’s demise different than that of a tree’s leaf? How can you logically explain to kids that one is an is an example of death (the butterfly’s) but the other is an example of life (the tree’s)?
P.S., how is educating your kids pounding ideas into them? Parents have an absolute responsibility to inform their kids and give them the critical thinking skills to go along with it. A lot of this needs to be done early on, I would say at the point of language acquisition. Why do you think it would be beneficial for your kids to think their mother does not have unambiguous ideas about things, while everyone else expresses absolute confidence?
P.P.S., I cannot understand how there are still only 3 people here who have anything to share in the way of how they explain death to their children.
June 20th, 2006 @ 3:29 pm
Gregg100,
Exactly, cognitive dissonance can be disastrous to societies and individuals. See my essay on morality for an examination of this in the religious reactionism that has grown in America since the beginning of the post-millennialist period at the turn of the 19th century.
Humans, it seems have little tolerance for it and will go to extreme lengths to deny it. In fact, the cargo cults of the colonial period that occurred among natives in shock of the weapons, ships and material abundance of invading colonists, is just the converse of your example. Victorian culture was suddenly imported into tribal contexts. A hybrid mythology would then emerge in which the tribe’s dead ancestors would arrive on ships to kill off the Europeans but also bring all the Western material goods to them. What is fascinating is that very similar mythologies of this type developed in coastal cultures around the world, independently - proving something universal about how the human mind adapts to change by subtle changes in mythology. Is this mythology so different isn structure from that of present day Dominionists? In fact, via a similar process , the transformation of the Christian virtue of poverty transformed into the Christian virtue material success of the protestant ethic during industrialization.
There are notable exceptions to the rule that cognitive dissonance must necessarily wreak maladaptive havoc in people: Traditionally shamans, visionaries, artists and in very recent times scientists have been able to embrace it and often thrive on it. Aren’t these also the type who we find most readily gravitates to atheism? I have suggested before that this is a 3rd phase of evolution, where there looks to be adaptive advantage to the species in individuals who can consciously and rationally harness our ability to change ourselves and our world.
June 20th, 2006 @ 4:16 pm
Na’weh-Perhaps it is time to start looking for truth in the places where you know you can find it; and likewise, spirituality. For example, whether you know there is a god or not doesn’t effect whether or not we exist. God or no god, WE exist. You also know that WE have a capacity for pain and pleasure, misery and joy, love and anger. Whether there is a god or not, we know these things exist. How about focusing on increasing pleasure, joy, and love. Both for yourself and others?
In addition, we all find spirituality outside of religion; in addition to religion. For example, I find it in running, dancing, listening to music, sharing ideas with other people, reading books that I learn from, cooking with whole foods, etc. Aside from religion, where do you find spirituality?
I recommend you start from there. Give yourself time to focus on those barest of things. Maybe you will find the level or spirituality and clarity you need to know where to move from there?
June 20th, 2006 @ 5:12 pm
Gregg100–Nice to hear from you again. I was wondering if you were going to join in the discussion, as I know you have studied much of these topics.
Your friends’ reactions to my article are interesting. They seem to have no comprehension of what it is like to have views other than their own.
Let me respond to the other part of your comment where you addressed me specifically. You said,
“My impression is that this concept is more closely aligned with memetics than biology.”
This is interesting because according to those I have studied, such as Richard Dawkins, memetics IS biology, at least in this context, and at least in the way Dawkins coined the term.
Did you mean to say the concept is more closely aligned with memetics than genetics? Do I not differentiate between memes with genes? Now that is possible. But that would not make a difference in any of my points, because memes are “an analog to the biological unit of inheritance, the gene or the genetic replicator“(from the Journal of Memetics, paraphrasing Dawkins). In fact, they are considered by many to be a result of natural selection.
Your explanation of genes is also the same as my understanding. I do not disagree with any of those points. Maybe you felt the need to outline them because I simplify the way I talk about genes and traits? I do this on purpose, for communication purposes. Dawkins has been accused of this reductionism himself, although he has explained how the genes REALLY work.
I DO understand that not every trait has its very own gene. But many writers who are communicating with those who have not studied the subject simplify the concept for easier communication.
I realize that it is a combination of genes working together, combined with environmental forces.
Are we on the same page on this? Did I pinpoint what you were referring to? Do these clarified differences have any effect on my conclusions regarding this whole discussion? I don’t think so. If you do, let me know.
June 20th, 2006 @ 5:13 pm
Hifi, since you reposted your above comment on a different entry, I will go there to respond.
June 20th, 2006 @ 8:22 pm
Noell, I think you and I have very different understandings of “memetics”. While Dawkins presents memetics as analogous to genetics in that they both are subject to a form of evolutionary weeding, they are only analogs but quite different from a physical perspective. I understand memes to be cultural constructs and independent of biology. Examples might include current clothes fashions, automobile-centric life styles, K-12 schooling, caste systems, respect for elders or any other cultural practice that has endured or is subject to change or deletion as it is found to benefit or hinder life. I didn’t even get the impression that it was restricted to people.
Given the above, when I read words to the effect that cooperative behavior may have successfully survived the evolutionary process that brings beneficial memes (ideas, practices) to the fore because of the competitive benefits that may accrue, it just sounded like memetics as I understood it. At this point, I am not aware of any studies that suggest that cooperative behavior among people can be traced to any specific heritable genetic pattern.
June 20th, 2006 @ 9:11 pm
Oh, I see what you mean, Gregg100. Yes, I have that cultural understanding of memes as well. In terms of what Dawkins meant by “memes” I am not so well-versed. It could be that I misunderstand his meaning of memes.
But what I am talking about is not cooperative behavior. I am talking about innate and heritable notions or instincts. The actual behavior is separate, sort of a byproduct.
I am working on a post on this in response to a question from Dan. But let me give a brief introduction from Steven Pinker.
Pinker explains how Robert Wright (journalist and author of The Moral Animal) “argues how three features of human nature led to a steady expansion of the circle of human cooperators.”
Notice the difference between “features of human nature” which led to “human cooperators.”
The cooperation is not heritable, but the three features are. What are the three feature? Pinker says they are:
1. the cognitive wherewithal to figure out how the world works
2. language
3. an emotional reportiore–”sympathy, trust, guilt, anger, self-esteem” (this third feature, inherited through natural selection, is what I have been focusing on in this discussion).
Pinker then explains: “Long ago these endowments put our species on a moral escalator.”
Later he says, “Once the sympathy knob is in place, having evolved to enjoy the benefits of cooperation and exchange, it can be cranked up by new kinds of information that other folks are similar to oneself.”
(The Blank Slate pg. 168).
Hopefully, Gregg100, that clears up what I am referring to. I agree with you. The cooperative behavior is not genetic, (but I can remember things I said earlier that might have made it seem that way).
What is heritable is the “emotional repertoire” that gives rise to cooperative behavior. Nature selected the repertoire because it gave us greater advantage at self-preservation and self-interest. But now that we have the repertiore, the “sympathy knob” (I like to refer to empathy over sympathy) we are able to be altruistic in addition to self-interested. We have a motivation to do things even when they seem to go against our self-interest.
Does that make more sense? Agree or disagree?
June 21st, 2006 @ 3:48 pm
This emotional repertoire of Pinker’s inclines no more to cooperative behavior than it does to competitive behavior. There is no escalator in it, just vehicles for going in any even more directions. The historical evidence, as well, is that humans cooperate no more than they compete. Human actions and their moral rules are relative to goals (”arbitrary” is random and related to nothing), be they brutal or beign is an interpretation depending on whether you are on the exploited or receiving end of them.
But these 3 tiers (prediction, language and emotional repertoire) seem arbitrarily contrived. Why these 3. I can think of 10 others. Even so, as stated the heritable, emotional portion would appear to have little or no mitigating effects on the social behavior of human groups. Culture controls it – and thankfully so.
People who live in small tribal settings construct unimaginably elaborate systems of relations - rights and responsibilities - among their members to the extent that it would seem that nature bestowed barely any incentive, at all, on humans to get along with one another. In large, complex societies, lacking the scrutinizing community of tribal ones, hundreds of thousands of laws and penalties have taken the place of ostracism by the group and consequent loss of it’s benefits. If this is evidence of a moral escalator it is one leading down. Nice for us that evolution solved that maladaptive situation by providing the rational mind to be able to criticize both culture and emotion.
June 21st, 2006 @ 4:54 pm
Hifi–Yes, you got this statement right:
“This emotional repertoire of Pinker’s inclines no more to cooperative behavior than it does to competitive behavior. There is no escalator in it, just vehicles for going in any even more directions.”
Exactly. The “repertoire” gives us choices. Between empathy and our ability to reason, we can make choices to advance our own interests by hurting others, to find ways to advance our interests without hurting others, or sometimes to subvert our own interests in order to help or avoid hurting others.
We can use our reason to make sense of the innate emotions of guilt and empathy to make sure that what those emotions motivate us to do is also helpful toward the well-being of mankind and ourselves. And where our reasoning tells us our use of those emotions is not good for our well-being, we can ignore them.
You can think of ten other innate and evolved sets of capabilities that lead to cooperative behavior? By all means, share them!
Your last statement:
“Nice for us that evolution solved that maladaptive situation by providing the rational mind to be able to criticize both culture and emotion.” Yes, I agree with you here. I’m not sure where your concept of a moral elevator came from. But I agree with this statement.
June 22nd, 2006 @ 4:08 pm
Noell, You quoted Pinker, “Pinker then explains: “’Long ago these endowments put our species on a moral escalator.’”
A bit more flippant than the challenge I would normally respond to, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
Note that many of these traits we share with other animals. So,in no particular order:
1. Parental care of young (immature young)
2. Sibling protection of the gene line
3. Social defense from predators and enemies
4. Leaving the arboreal environment
5. Ominverousness (hunting for meat in packs)
6. Symbolic structuring of reality (proto-language)
7. Trading ecnomomies
8. Agriculture
All I can think of in 10 minutes. This leaves out the 20 that are anti-cooperative. I still contend that there is little to be gained from inherited abilities (except for rationality) that anyone was ever able to use outside of protecting and controlling their tribal group. Mostly, control, repression and brutality against others. It would be an unwise argument to site evolution in any plan where one wants to be represented as not a threat to others. In childhood education, I would repress any inclination to fall back on such instincts for any guidance whatsoever.
June 22nd, 2006 @ 5:26 pm
HIfi, I didn’t recognize the escalator reference from Pinker’s comments. The way you posed it, saying it inclines us more toward moral action and away from selfish action, is not at all what Pinker means. Therefore, I didn’t recognize your reference at all.
Pinker was explaining that over time humans gained more and more of a moral compass. It expanded the circle of the in-group. You said that Pinker’s statement implied we are more inclined to cooperative behavior than to competetive behavior.
Your list above doesn’t tell the whole story. It leaves much out that makes the human species different in various ways from various animals.
For example, to go the other way, humans and dogs both have a spacial and navigational intelligence (I am not sure what the correct term is for this). But we are in no way able to navigate and just space the way dogs are able to. They can run tight circles in fast speeds, somehow dodging everything that comes their way. It’s amazing. So sure, we share the same trait. But can we navigate the way dogs do? No. Because they have the intelligence to a higher degree than we do, and it combines with other traits that we don’t have that makes the difference between us and them.
It’s the same the other way around.
June 22nd, 2006 @ 9:02 pm
Noell: What you are suggesting appears to be quite different from the mental model I have for the basis for cooperative behavior and further to the concept of empathy. I generally attribute cooperative behavior to three basic heritable traits:
1. Individual selection – People behave to optimize the number of copies of their own genes to pass on to the next generation. The concept of people supposedly acting for the good of the species was rejected in the 1960’s. This means that cooperation is seen as a benefit by the individual.
2. Kin selection – Many studies show that the degree of relatedness is an accurate predictor of cooperativeness. Degree of food sharing is a prime example. While it appears that altruism is involved, the motivation is actually a selfish desire to optimize the success of genes of the closest relatives
3. Reciprocity – recent studies using game theory show this to demand stable social groups and social intelligence to recognize cooperators and cheaters.
While an emotional repertoire may be involved, my impression is that it is not a primary. As you can easily see, this is a much more “self centered” view of cooperation than your concept of a person taking actions based on empathy for one’s neighbor and the rational judgment that cooperation will be beneficial to the group of cooperators. My view is closer to one of an indifferent natural process that could be applied to animals in general.
By the way, I continue to feel that great care must be exercised when using the term “altruism”. I feel that an act of altruism, which is, putting the welfare of someone at a higher priority than your own, is a very risky policy at best. Charity, welfare and generosity are different from altruism.
June 23rd, 2006 @ 8:23 am
Gregg100-In my studies, that same mental model, which you have listed, is what I have studied to be the “ultimate cause,” or the reason humans developed traits such as generosity, empathy, and all those things that lend to this innate sense that we have that some things are right and some things are wrong.
I agree that they were not for the good of the species as a whole but for self-preservation purposes (yes, I know that that was an incorrect theory no longer supported). We evolved sympathy and guilt specifically for our own personal social benefit. But now that we have it, we have it. The “knobs” are in place. So even though they are there because of self-preservations reasons, we sometimes now use them for empathetic reasons, which are the “proximate cause.” (Those three items you listed are not in conflict with the moral sense theory of Dawkins, Stevens, and the others).
We have our reasoning abilities to decide when we do or don’t want to subvert our self-interests for the good the whole of of others, including our own long-term benefit. (While natural selection designed us to compete with others in our own species, it doesn’t mean it’s the best way for humans to choose their actions: that is called the Naturalistic Fallacy. We can choose otherwise).
I’m not saying that people should be ignoring their self-interests, as if they were “bad.” To do so on a general basis would contribue pain to the world and ourselves. It is about using our reasoning skills to decide when the subversion of self-interest would be appropriate.
BTW, Hifi-when we all talk about “reason” “rationality” we should be aware that even those clouded. Another of our social survival traits is our ability to deceive ourselves, most especially about our own motives. Those traits, while important, are just as prone to problems as any others.
As for altruism, Gregg100-biologists refer to altruism all the time. Personally, I am leary of the word, myself, but it is a regular feature in biological dialogue of human nature. Here is a quote from a discussion on social exchange which also demonstrates how species, including the human species, evolved different social capabilities:
Social exchange — also known in biology as reciprocal altruism, reciprocation, or tit-for-tat — is an ancient, pervasive, and central part of human social life. This mutual provisioning of benefits, each conditional on the others’ compliance, is rare in the animal kingdom. Some species — humans, vampire bats, chimpanzees, baboons — engage in this very useful form of mutual help, whereas others do not. This is itself telling: Social exchange cannot be generated by a simple general learning mechanism, such as classical or operant conditioning. All organsisms can be classically and operantly conditioned, yet few engage in exchange. That strongly suggests that engaging in social exchange requires specific cognitive machinery, which some species have and others lack.
That is, there are good reasons to think we humans have cognitive machinery that is functionally specialized for reasoning about social exchange — programs that make thinking about and engaging in social exchange as easy and automatic for humans as building a dam is for a beaver or spinning a web is for a spider. Such programs are sometimes called “reasoning instincts”. There are good reasons to suspect that we have evolved cognitive instincts for reasoning about social exchange, and that natural selection has had a long time to shape their design::
*
Social exchange is a human universal. Moreover, it is richly expressed in all human cultures, taking many different, highly elaborated forms: reciprocal gift giving, food sharing, market pricing, symbolic trades, implicit bonds of mutual obligation, and so on.
*
It is not a recent cultural invention, like the alphabet, computer programming, or rice cultivation. There is no evidence of a point of origin, of its being spread by contact, or of its being absent in any culture. In these respects, it is like language (and unlike cultural inventions like writing).
*
Paleoanthropological evidence (e.g., hunter-gatherer archaeology) suggests that this form of cooperation existed in hominids at least 2 million years ago
*
The presence of social exchange in related primates (from whom hominids diverged 5-30 million years ago) suggests that selection pressures involving social exchange have been shaping the minds of our ancestors for a very long time.
(To see source and read the entire paper you can go to
http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/socex/sugiyama.html
Gregg100-Yes, it might be accurate to say that some of the items in the “emotional repertoire” are not primary. They are probably secondary to social functions such as “cheater detection” and “tit-for-tat”. But they are pervasive among the human species. They are innate across cultures. Whether they are secondary or primary, they are still there, a biological part of the human species.
Refer back to my explanation of Ultimate Cause and Proximate Cause regarding this. Functions of social exchange and cooperation developed for self-preservation or preservation of ones own genes. BUT, now that they exist, they do not only have to be used to that end.
But let me re-emphasize, in case anyone mistakes me for thinking self-interest is “bad.” I do not think that. Self-interest is a natural part of us. They can be, in fact, a catapult to a productive society and social progress. I’ll quote Pinker again:
“Peaceful coexistence, then, does not have to come from pitting some desires–the desire for safety, the benefits of cooperation, the ability to formulate and recognize universal codes of behavior–against the desire for immediate gain. These are just a few of the ways in which moral and social progress can ratchet upwards, not in spite of a fixed human nature but because of it.”
June 23rd, 2006 @ 4:20 pm
“Moral and social progress”! “Universal codes of behavior”? Ayeeeee… This is meaningless gibberish.
Noell, there is no other way to interpret “moral escalator” other than “up” and “better”. Rather than tackling Pinker’s 3 ingredients for the higher moral status of the human species head-on, I thought I could simply state that his list appeared to be tortured toward the goal of making humans out to have some capacity over other animals in that regard.
But as we are still on this track, you are correct that no psychological theory includes sympathy, trust, guilt, and self-esteem as emotions. As complex psycho-cultural constructs, fundamentally learned, there is nothing universal about them either. To suggest they are part of a pan-human psychology is a fundamental flaw in any theory building on it.
Guys, we need to be very careful indeed. If Noell, had used the term reciprocal altruism there would not have been much controversy here over it. “Altruism” in the sense in which Noell used it: “People should act with other people’s interests in mind,” is very different in meaning when qualified by “reciprocal”. Adding “reciprocal” changes it to “People should act with other people’s reciprocal motivations and actions in mind”. Much more strategic and relative to context.
This is a very important point. If you read my character education critique, you know that non-devious action is dependent on society offering a level playing ground. If it is not, you need to prepare your kids to get down and dirty out in public. It really is moot, kids will do what’s right - no encouragement needed - if freed from irrational input like religion, given a font of information and trained in critical thinking. And no, I haven’t overlooked self-deception bias, self-deception, rationalizing from unconscous motives, is not rational. I always mean by critical thinking to include self-criticism skills.
Even worse for the term “altruism” than the philosphical and political sense of “altruism performed without thoughts of pay back”, when qualified by “reciprocal” the meaning is directly opposite to the scientific as well as common senses of the word when used without a qualifier:
Biology: “Behavior that benefits another individual at a cost to the actor, where cost and benefit are defined in terms of reproductive success.”
Psychology: A behavior that costs the doer and benefits others.
Anthropology: Acting to benefit others while disregarding one’s own welfare.