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But how does he come by this mind? Was its acquisition random? No, the mind, too, was sorted and sifted out by the grand DNA computation of the ages. The great advantage of individual and social responses that exceed the constraints of instinctive behavior moved the survival arms race out of the pure arena of tooth and claw, speed and strength: a mind that could record and reflect upon past outcomes, that could synthesize novel responses, fueled the evolution of both more powerful minds and their hugely increased power when linked with other minds, past and present: culture.
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Yet the mind, too, is subject to the gene-impacting consequences of failures and successes, the same sifting and sorting that removes rabbits too slow to run from the data set; minds that make too many poor choices are the products of genes that are thus less likely to reproduce.
These statements degrade the quality of man for man is but a product. Our actions in a cycle of natural selection become nearly predestined. Our choices are limited as our minds are.
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This, I suppose, is your chaotic Darwinist determinism, though chaotic indeterminacy may be more accurate, if less rhetorical. The rabbit can do no more than respond instinctively, and the responses will be virtually dictated by the stimuli. The mind removes the limiting constraints of instinct--limiting because the great DNA computer is glacially slow--and allows the individual organism and its societies to generate more complex and sometimes novel responses.
Our minds are man's saving grace but...
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Yet the mind, too, is subject to the gene-impacting consequences of failures and successes, the same sifting and sorting that removes rabbits too slow to run from the data set; minds that make too many poor choices are the products of genes that are thus less likely to reproduce
the mind's choices are limited, man's nature is predisposed, we are free in a limited fashion. It is as a prisoner that is free within a prison cell. Sartre says that freedom is man and that there is nothing man cannot do but what is the sense of this if our minds are limited, our choices are limited. We do not have a blank canvas with any possibility but the form of art has already been decided, the way we make our strokes is not an action we are to choose.
Depression sets in as one sees how determined our actions truly are according to Natural selection and according to Hard determinists.
This is why it may be necessary to reject this entirely. I am a libertarian because it is the only philosophy that does not dishearten me, it gives me hope that free will exists.
In this mindset how can you possibly validate or justify your own existence? How can one find purpose in an existence such as the one described?
™ Version 4.2