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Author Topic:   The difference between a human and a rock
Modulous
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Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(1)
Message 28 of 102 (539142)
12-13-2009 10:15 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Bolder-dash
12-12-2009 1:19 AM


then what exactly makes any natural form any more valuable than another?
What makes chocolate ice cream more tasty than strawberry?
What make the music of Mozart better than the music of Rossini?
Why is gold more valuable than soil?
They aren't objective discriminations inherent in the universe. 'Value' is in the eye of the beholder. No beholders, no value.
Do things "deserve" to live?
Yes and no.
Living didn't do anything prior to living that anyone I know is sufficiently meritorious to mean the 'gift of life' should have been awarded to them.
However, that which is living has a claim to maintaining life...but whether they can assert their claim under any given circumstances remains to be seen (and ultimately their claim to life can no longer be asserted in all cases).
Why would smashing apart a rock be any different than smashing out a life, when in fact they are just different versions of the same thing?
Chocolate ice cream is no different to Strawberry Ice Cream. If you mean 'Why are they different?' as a rhetorical device which results in the chocolate ice cream being no different to strawberry ice cream then your point is trivial. There is no difference: They are all just interacting waves or fields or some such.
However, if you are asking about a qualitative difference: Why is choc ice cream different than strawberry ice cream becomes more interesting. Obviously the ingredients are slightly different, but they have a suitably different affect on humans. So humans identify key differences between them.
Does that matter?
To whom?
It does to me. That's why I pick chocolate.
Should smashing a human to pieces be considered different to smashing a rock? Should according to whom? It is an empirical fact that they are viewed differently. There is a solid theoretical basis of an explanation for why that state of affairs came to be. What else can be said?

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 Message 1 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-12-2009 1:19 AM Bolder-dash has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-13-2009 10:34 AM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 31 of 102 (539147)
12-13-2009 10:58 AM
Reply to: Message 24 by Bolder-dash
12-13-2009 9:19 AM


So you believe, in the just so stories of Darwinian evolution, that somewhere in the history of advanced life forms such as primates, or the like, that an individual was born with a unique mutation, that caused it to have feelings of empathy, where none ever existed before. And because of this empathy this one individual carried, it had a selective advantage for survival- and thus this trait became a norm? I wonder why this would carry any selective advantage?
It isn't uncommon for an animal that is born to be in proximity to its close family members for some period of time. Even if the parents abandon the offspring - they are often born near siblings.
In short - any allele that can contribute towards a phenotype that increases the survival amongst siblings could increase the differential reproductive success for that allele (after one generation - there is a fifty percent that siblings will also also have that allele so in a litter of eight offspring, four of the offspring are helping each other out*. This is in tension with the concept of 'freeloading' and letting others help you and not helping in return.
There are many interesting mathematical ways of representing this, which turns out to be an a real world occurence of game theory. Certain mixes of cooperative and uncooperative turn out to be stable: These ideas are the study of Evolutionarily stable strategies.
Either way, whatever selective advantage it might have incurred at that time, that advantage is surely lost by now
I look around me. I note that hard working and basically 'good' people generally are more reproductive success than psychopaths. However, it does appear that a certain percentage of people being psychpathic is Evolutionarily Stable, but it seems you do better if you're good at hiding it.
If you are immoral enough to sleep with whoever you can, with whatever trickery you can conjure up, you will likely create more babies.
And you will note that this is a utlized strategy that people attempt to engage in, especially in young males and/or those who have not experienced sexual intercourse for some time. It is a fairly common occurrence indeed. However, if you become known as a 'womaniser' (or as a deadbeat dad), for some reason women tend to find you repulsive unless you have high social status (and can thus protect and provide for all the bastard children).
There is a good reason for this: Females are capable of having less children than men. So the females that are most succesful are those who descended from females that had developed succesful strategies for enforcing monogomy.
In many species (ours included) there is often a protracted mating ritual where it seems the male has to prove a commitment. Males try and get away with as little commitment as they can, women try to extract as much commitment as they can.
It's a fascinating subject, with lots of material on it out there. Not all of it is uncontroversial. See Bateman's principle.
quote:
in most animals the fertility of the female is limited by egg production which causes a severe strain on their nutrition. In mammals the corresponding limiting factors are uterine nutrition and milk production, which together may be termed the capacity for rearing young. In the male, however, fertility is seldom likely to be limited by sperm production but rather by the number of inseminations or the number of females available to him... In general, then, the fertility of an individual female will be much more limited than the fertility of a male... This would explain why in unisexual organisms there is nearly always a combination of an undiscriminating eagerness in the males and a discriminating passivity in the females
And, since we realize that this unusual feeling of empathy is really just a genetic mistake from some long ago primate or hyena, we now must realize that even though we have these awkward feelings, there is nothing fundamentally special about them, and if we can find a way to live without them-its just as well. We really shouldn't care anymore about our morality than we care about our appendix.
It sounds like a compelling argument for nihilism.
Our appendix isn't a structure that gives us feelings of concern, social strategies and other such 'caring' feelings. We shouldn't 'care' about 'caring'. It is as impossible for us to not 'care' about 'caring' as it is for us to see wavelengths rather than colours.
I can look at an optical illusion for hours. I can know it is an illusion. It is still compelling though. It "shouldn't" be, by your understanding of what should and shouldn't be.
But you are right about something, there is nothing fundamentally special about our emotions. There is plenty of things which are subjectively special about them. What you want to do about them is your concern.
* Of course, it may be the case that the allele is prevalent in the population already and works in conjunction with another allele to produce the novel affect - so even by helping selfish siblings it increases the frequency of that allele in the population which increases the probability in the next generation that the mix of two alleles that increases cooperation will meet again in each of them. This point is highlighted by Dawkins' rowboat analogy and the concept of the gene complex.
Edited by Modulous, : added footnote

This message is a reply to:
 Message 24 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-13-2009 9:19 AM Bolder-dash has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 50 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-13-2009 3:13 PM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 35 of 102 (539159)
12-13-2009 12:02 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by Bolder-dash
12-13-2009 10:34 AM


Yes, it is an empirical fact that they are viewed differently, even though logic should tell us they are the same.
P1: Something is the same if it shares identical properties.
P2: Rocks and humans share differing properties.
Conclusion: Rocks and humans are different.
You need to be more exact. Logic does not make qualitative statements: the niceness of chocolate ice cream isn't a property that can be found within the chocolate ice cream.
Logic is only as good as the empirical facts behind it.
And to frogs and to aardvarks they are the same.
Hardly. Depending on context humans might be best considered dangerous predators and rocks might be considered immediate threats if they are moving rapidly. Frogs and aardvarks definitely treat humans differently than they do rocks.
So do you believe that this genetic accident, presumably to a hyena, or to a capuchin or something...
It wouldn't be any modern living creature. Nor do social instincts exist purely in mammals.
would have carried a significant survival advantage for the Morality Eve who was so fortunate to get this mutative mindbend amongst their immoral hyena or monkey brothers and sisters?
I think it would be a mistake to think there was a morality gene that just 'popped up'. I'd be more inclined towards the view that the external stimuli that produce a 'threat' tag was modified slightly over time. That brain structures that deal with 'in groups' and 'out groups' develop over many generations into a variety of different strategies.
And it would be short sighted to think that this had a definite benefit to an individual organism. It is easier to consider it as of benefit to the allele in question, as this allows us to consider 'kin selection' effects much more straight forwardly - as per the 'Selfish Gene' concept.

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 Message 29 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-13-2009 10:34 AM Bolder-dash has not replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 54 of 102 (539196)
12-13-2009 4:17 PM
Reply to: Message 50 by Bolder-dash
12-13-2009 3:13 PM


I especially enjoy reading your replies, as they always are chock full of interesting content-but forgive me if I don't always do justice to them in responding fully (yours take more time).
*tips hat, gracefully*
I think one should be weary about using evolutionary behavioral social science to make conclusions about human traits origins.
Agreed.
When one starts to say that any particular trait amongst humans would be the deciding factor for who reproduces more, I feel this is on pretty shaky ground.
Agreed. However sometimes it is useful to talk in specifics to get across the principles under discussion as a means to explain why a human treating a human differently than a rock could occur.
So when you start talking about womanizers and deadbeat dad's and high social statuses I really think you have a pretty hard case to make for this causing any of the mental traits we see in humans.
Can you see why an undefined female animal could have to make a greater investment of time and energy into creating offspring? Could you see that there could be advantage in selecting a mate that will invest some of it's own time and energy into raising the offspring? And if cheaters are sufficiently punished (no more sex, no access to the social group, no mutual protection etc), then whatever genetic component lies behind motivating an animal to cheat will be constrained. It may still be a good bet to cheat in certain circumstances still, of course. However 'being good' might be the best strategy for a male to get what it ultimately wants: lots of healthy babies.
I'm simply giving you reasons to accept that it is not inherently a major difficulty to consider that our social instincts (ie, treating certain others as not being inanimate objects or simple resources to be ruthlessly exploited) might be as a result of natural events.
I'm certainly not going to attempt to provide you with a complete physical theory of human psychology and consciousness. I can explain how, given that we are animals with social instincts, there is no reason to think that the general principles of how animals develop social instincts can't be applied to humans too. However, humans have all that interesting pre-frontal cortex stuff going on and some other interesting things that are unique to them.
We often make moral decisions based on an instinct that we rationalize after the fact. So I wouldn't be surprised if our morality, like other animals, is based on a lot of hard wiring that can then be used as a starting point for that extra grey matter to ponder entirely novel situations. It all does seem consistent with the evidence, but there are many ethical restrictions against direct testing of these issues on humans (fitting, given the topic of the thread) - so indirect evidence is all we can access really.
If one were to choose one element as the most important in deciding who reproduces and who doesn't I think the overwhelming favorite would be pure blind luck, with perhaps proximity to a pint of Guiness as second.
In human terms? Oh in a civilization where we live to such a ripe age? Undoubtedly. In a civilization where reaching thirty is something to be pleasantly surprised about, I have a feeling that competition for mates might be a little stiffer.
And for the rest of all life? Yeah - there is a lot of competition out there, and small edges matter: as testified by the numerous trials males face in the animal kingdom, before they get to mate. Blind luck is out there of course, and has its role too in individual cases. But as you look at bigger and bigger numbers of cases, the patterns would show a clear bias towards certain alleles in the population and I think we wouldn't be mad to argue that those alleles might be giving their posessors a statistical edge.
You can disagree with this all you want, but no science has proven this, and frankly its just too easy to make up any story one wants to say why it would have been selected for.
I'm not making up just so stories, fortunately. I am not saying 'this happened to these animals'. I'm just saying that animal behaviour can be explained as a result of natural selection. There are empirical studies that suggest that this is true. Social animal behaviour (morality) doesn't seem to be excluded from this.
Do you at least agree that the fact that I prefer chocolate ice cream to strawberry is at least as mysterious as why I prefer opening doors for people rather than slamming them in their faces? Even if we can't agree that there is a possible physical account for them, that's the least I think we can achieve.

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 Message 50 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-13-2009 3:13 PM Bolder-dash has not replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(1)
Message 60 of 102 (539239)
12-14-2009 9:29 AM
Reply to: Message 58 by Bolder-dash
12-14-2009 8:01 AM


Explaining the evil that does exist
So when I pose the question, why isn't smashing a rock any different than smashing out a life, the answer is blaring right back at us. Because our love and our empathy are what we are as human beings
But that's not an answer, is it? Why don't we want to smash out a certain life? Because we are driven not to.
But why are we driven not to?
Its not just another one of the survival techniques which could be discarded as easily as we could discard our hair-it IS what we are.
It's amazing how our species so frequently lies, cheats, kills and steals when survival is on the line. Almost as if we could discard it when it becomes necessary to survive. Try shedding some survival strategies when survival is actually on the line. Try not to grasp out for something when you fall. Then shave your hair. Then tell me that you really think survival techniques are easily discarded.
Your supernatural theory has to be able to take human's propensity to commit immoral acts in order to survive or prosper into account.
We have evidence of some of the earliest men involved in tribal or ritual acts, as well as worshiping some type of God.
It also needs to explain the evidence that one of the leading causes of death in earliest men was being killed by other men. Because we love one another doesn't explain why we go to war today. It doesn't explain why we need to set up stringent protections against being murdered, robbed or raped. How does the supernatural theory account for the increase in crimes when social structures begin to break down?. How does it account for the startling numbers of young men that answer 'yes' when asked confidentially 'would you rape a girl if you knew you could away with it?'?.
Of course, the physical theory is making interesting progress in explaining things like in-group cooperation versus out-group violence. About why cheating within a group is still be expected.
I am claiming that morality is obviously extremely important (the most important aspect) of our entire being. So important that it trumps every other emotion we have in our lives. So of course atheists will have this.
Really? Have you ever heard of the Milgram experiments? Ones where your moral beings would administer lethal shocks to other moral beings just because someone with a perceived authority told them to or if they agreed to take responsibility for the consequences?
It's an important part of our lives, but it is very easily trumped by other concerns.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 58 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-14-2009 8:01 AM Bolder-dash has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 63 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-14-2009 1:12 PM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(1)
Message 66 of 102 (539289)
12-14-2009 5:25 PM
Reply to: Message 63 by Bolder-dash
12-14-2009 1:12 PM


Re: Explaining the evil that does exist
That is sort of the point isn't it, we have a choice to act or not act upon it, with guilt being the consequence is we ignore it.
And how do we make this choice, upon what criteria? Where do these criteria come from, what is making these decisions?
Why don't we have guilt if we don't go to watch a watch a baseball game, or play music?
Guilt is a feeling associated with morality, by definition. We don't feel hungry when we miss a baseball game, or kill a puppy.
And can we discard our feelings of love if it makes it easier to survive? If your wife or best friend dies, wouldn't it be much better for your survival to just ignore it, because its already over anyway, and there is nothing you can do about it.
If my survival depended on it, I'd either ignore it or die. It's quite simple. I make no claims that the physical theory would give us an optimal solution.
And don't people go (willing) into a war to fight and die over principles of love for family or country knowing that it may very well kill them?
But why go to war? To protect the family or territory from invasion? But if we all love one another, then why would we need to protect ourselves against those that also love us? The physical theory has the start of an explanation here. What about the supernatural one where we are all moral beings?
Our feelings of love and morality are feelings we can never escape from-unless of course we choose to become immoral (which according to you we shouldn't ever choose unless it is going to help us survive longer, which let's face it, this is not the reason people choose immorality usually.
This makes no sense. We have feelings of morality from which we cannot escape unless we escape them. Eh?
There are reasons in the physical theory to cheat and lie and be immoral and not just because of pure survival. I might embezzle to gain money. Money is just a stand in for resources. Resources enable me to survive, protect my family, and win mates.
I'm not going to explain every possible motivation and possible pathways from instinct through the quagmire of culture and out into modern context. However, I know the basics behind how moral decisions can be made and so far it is all explained physically. Your Supernatural explanation seems to be 'we love each other, but sometimes we choose not to.'
Its almost as if we are beasts, forced to struggle to live and die just like all other animals, yet with one odd difference from all other animals-we are forced to live with the consequences of our actions (forever) as if it is a struggle between good and evil...
Is it?
It does appear that we are like beasts, capable of creating social strategies and navigating the various challenges that come our way. It seems that we are capable of more complex interactions. It is proposed that brains control behaviour, so larger brains would be expected to handle more behavioural instructions.
I see no evidence that suggests that we are subconsciously aware of a great struggle between good and evil that continues for eternity or whatever. It certainly makes for an fun story, and we humans do love a good story. But I thought you were railing against 'just so' stories?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 63 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-14-2009 1:12 PM Bolder-dash has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 69 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-14-2009 10:31 PM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


Message 85 of 102 (539426)
12-15-2009 5:57 PM
Reply to: Message 69 by Bolder-dash
12-14-2009 10:31 PM


Re: Explaining the evil that does exist
I thought the physical didn't explain why we would go to war, because the physical theory has taught us that by killing others we are making ourselves less safe.
Nope. The physical theory says that we are forced to make decisions about what to do using the decision making machine that is our brain. There are certain people, under certain contexts that are viewed as people we care for and protect. These are our allies. The people that cooperate with us and with whom we have cooperated. This cooperation increases our success in the world and this is can be a non zero-sum situation. By helping you, I don't necessarily hinder myself by a proportional amount.
However, there are some people who are not allied with us. They are in competition with our group for resouces. This brings about a conflict.
i thought that was how the whole concept of morality got into our population, because we gained some mutations which made us realize that not killing others was to our advantage?
No. It wasn't about 'realizing' anything.
You mean we also got another mutation which which made us realize that going to war was good for our survival? gee, I hope there are no other contradictory mutations we have to select for with natural selection, because now we are starting to run out of time.
There are no 'contradictory mutations'. There is a brain that has certain in built knowledge of mixed strategies depending on context. There is no reason to expect only Pure strategies (always go to war, always avoid killing), Mixed strategies can be in Evolutionarily Stable too.
I am not asking for an optimal solution from your theory, how about even a decent one.
I gave you one. Sometimes I'll choose to die.
Guilt and mourning serve absolutely no purpose as a means of propagating our gene pool.
That sounds like a definite statement of fact. How did you come to know this? From the statements that follow it appears to be based on nothing but your own incredulity. A response more in line with an appropriate level of epistemic humility would have been 'I can not see how guilt and mourning could serve a purpose that would be selected for'.
Anyway, I don't know all the details, obviously, but it is not impossible to consider possibilities here using the physical theory. Guilt is clearly a motivation to behave according to the prevailing social rules - to obvious benefit. Bereavement is more difficult, naturally. It certainly seems to be readily apparent to others when someone is greaving, and people react poorly to people that don't grieve. It maybe then that grief is just the motivation for causing us to advertise that we really do care about family and allies and don't see them as mere resources to be exploited.
Could you explain how guilt and grief make any sense in the supernatural theory?
We already know that guilt and stress actually lead to premature destruction of our body not increased survival.
Your focus on survival is telling. Behaviour that decreases survival prospects can still increase the chances of the allele that causes that behaviour to increase in frequency. Otherwise suicidal bee attacks would be mysterious.
You see no evidence that we are subconsciously aware of a great struggle between good and evil that continues for eternity?
That's right. For us to be aware of this, in any sense, it would need to exist. So I'd need to see evidence that there was this great struggle.
Our feelings of love and morality are feelings we can never escape from-unless of course we choose to become immoral
That's right, the morality exists within all of us, we can't choose to have morality, we can only choose to abandon it.
You just quoted yourself so I'm not surprised you think it was right. At least it shows consistency.
However - you don't explain anything. You simply say that sometimes we are moral, and sometimes we choose to ignore morality. That is an observation, and nothing more. Is there a supernatural explanation that does better than the physical one? How do these choices get made?
According to you, we wouldn't be able to make a choice of right and wrong, but instead would only be able to choose between what will make me survive longer and what won't. If something will make me survive longer on average, that is automatically the choice I will make.
No.
According to me, evolution will find a non-perfect non-optimal mixed strategy for attempting to negotiate around a world with other beings that are useful but dangerous. There is no need for an 'always act in fashion x' type of simple-minded description.
This won't necessarily be to the advantage of the individual organism that exhibits the behaviour, but it might to the advantage certain alleles, which will tend towards being increased in frequency in the population as a result.
And once again, why do you think it is that love and empathy hold such a high priority for our existence, which is completely disproportionate with any selective advantage your theory proposes it may or may not incur?
Another absolute statement of fact. How do you know it is disproportionate? That implies you've done the maths.
And no, my supernatural theory doesn't say that we love each other and sometimes decide not to, it says that we know the difference between right and wrong, and sometimes choose to ignore it.
Oh well that's much better explanation. We know what's right and wrong but sometimes we ignore that knowledge. But how does the decision to ignore it occur? Why does it occur? What's the explanation? You've just described observable facts, not given a theory to explain them.
Something other animals can't do, because they don't have a conscience.
And yet many animals are aware of social rules (right and wrong) and sometimes they follow them and sometimes they don't. That's another observable fact. So erm...you're just wrong on that account.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 69 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-14-2009 10:31 PM Bolder-dash has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 88 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-16-2009 1:29 AM Modulous has replied
 Message 89 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-16-2009 1:41 AM Modulous has replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(2)
Message 93 of 102 (539505)
12-16-2009 10:14 AM
Reply to: Message 89 by Bolder-dash
12-16-2009 1:41 AM


supernatural theory continues to fail
BTW, since you have already determined it as fact, that animals are behaving based on their knowledge of right and wrong, and not based on the threat of violence or reprisals from the stronger animals for not obeying the stronger animals desires
I'm sorry - what's the difference? Seriously - there are clear moral rules in many animal species. It isn't that a stronger animal enforces the rules necessarily (though in the supernatural theory, that is often exactly what happens - an undetectable superhuman enforces morality in an eternal struggle of some kind), the entire social group is often involved. It doesn't matter how strong you are - it is unlikely you are able to overcome your entire social group. So you stick to the rules. You don't have sex with that woman because she is taken, you dedicate some time looking out for predators even though it means you go hungry.
Do you seriously doubt that animals have social rules and that sometimes they sacrifice their own well being or mating chances for the benefit of others? I can provide evidence if you really really need me to.
Could you do me the honour of showing how the supernatural theory does better? Why does the supernatural theory have us differentiating between a human and a rock? No matter how often I ask, I don't seem to get an answer. Is this because the supernatural theory can't get off the ground at all?

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 Message 89 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-16-2009 1:41 AM Bolder-dash has not replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(1)
Message 94 of 102 (539506)
12-16-2009 10:22 AM
Reply to: Message 92 by Bolder-dash
12-16-2009 7:27 AM


Re: We invented morality
Well, this contention of yours would be not be in agreement with a number of atheist posters here who have suggested that their moral capacity is not something they can rationalize or choose- to them, it is innate and unavoidable. So one of you appears to be wrong.
Rationalization and choices are innate and unavoidable.
If you were correct, however, in that one can simply use their own standards to judge morality, based solely on what is best for them and their family-and NOT based on any abstract reality of good and bad-then certainly such an individual would consider death of another as no different from the death of a rock-as long as that individual concurred no survival benefits for that person judging correctness only based on what is good for them.
The 200,000,000 people that died in Africa over the past twenty years due to easily prevented problems such as diseases with cheap cures or vaccines, starvation etc are seen emotionally differently than the death of my grandfather, a single human being, twenty years ago.
And Hitler's death makes me smile and think 'it couldn't come sooner'. I'm pretty sure if I had a choice between a 100ct diamond and reducing the deaths in Africa by one person per year for 100 years, I'd be very tempted by the rock.
The supernatural explanation for this is...?
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.
Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-16-2009 7:27 AM Bolder-dash has not replied

  
Modulous
Member
Posts: 7801
From: Manchester, UK
Joined: 05-01-2005


(2)
Message 102 of 102 (540322)
12-23-2009 8:14 PM
Reply to: Message 88 by Bolder-dash
12-16-2009 1:29 AM


This is your brain on morality
Ah ha, so now the concept of our inherited "innateness" of morality seems to have shifted from the previous argument.
Not even a little bit. That you think there is shifting going on is evidence you haven't understood the position.
Now it is no longer something that just happens to be inside us that we inherited, it is actually something which we can control.
Depends what you mean by 'control', and 'we'. I don't think 'we' can 'control' it.
We now can make a judgment about who are our allies, and who are not and we can shift our morality to suit our situation
That was the position I originally put forward. There has been no change in that regard. It's not a question of shifting our morality, it's a question of thinking different things are more or less moral depending on who we are talking about. In crude terms this can be seen as treating those 'in group' as different to those 'out group' relationships. I mentioned this quite a while prior to the post you are replying to insinuating that my position is changeing in Message 35:
quote:
I think it would be a mistake to think there was a morality gene that just 'popped up'. I'd be more inclined towards the view that the external stimuli that produce a 'threat' tag was modified slightly over time. That brain structures that deal with 'in groups' and 'out groups' develop over many generations into a variety of different strategies.
And it would be short sighted to think that this had a definite benefit to an individual organism. It is easier to consider it as of benefit to the allele in question, as this allows us to consider 'kin selection' effects much more straight forwardly - as per the 'Selfish Gene' concept.
So now, smashing a life that is not our ally is indeed the equivalent of smashing a rock, because they are not needed for us to survive, in fact they are in conflict with us to survive, so indeed we should smash them.
It's probably not a good idea to go from 'is' to 'ought'. The fact is that we do treat out groups differently to in groups. We are more inclined to tolerate the deaths of 'others' than those who are 'close'.
Whether or not we should is dependent on what moral philosophy we adhere to. Whether or not we will is dependent on our innate brain structures and the environments that our brains have experienced.
In a crowded world that would mean smashing a lot of people who are in competition with us for food, resources, mates, etc.. Nothing wrong with this, because as you have just explained, this is how we are wired.
You will note, in places where resources are dangerously low - conflict is inevitable. By invoking 'wrongness' you are again referencing a moral scheme. Is it immoral that humans kill and rape each other at the proverbial drop of a hat? It's just a fact.
That sounds like a definite statement of fact. How did you come to know this? From the statements that follow it appears to be based on nothing but your own incredulity.
Well, now you are not playing fair at all (perhaps that is wired into your being).
I'm sorry for asking you to support statements you make which are made without any tentativity as if they were irrevocably true is seen as unfair. You are allowed to ask me to support anything I say at any time - which seems fair to me.
Everyone of the statements about evolutionary presumptions are not based on fact.
Are you saying that this is not a fact: "in most animals the fertility of the female is limited by egg production which causes a severe strain on their nutrition"?
Odd.
If it is a fact then your sweeping statement that 'every one' of my statements about evolutionary 'presumptions' are not based on facts is falsified.
If you have something specific that I have said that you would like me to provide more support for, let me know and I will do what I can.
If you think it could have been that way, then so it must be.
No. No. No. If someone says 'evolutionary biology implies this about morality', then using evolutionary biology and showing how it does not necessarily imply that is sufficient to start with. If you want to take it to the next step, you should probably provide some support yourself.
Not a shred of anything other than speculation supports this idea of yours
Once again, you declare this as fact, but don't support it. I have cited things such as Bateman's principle, which is more than speculation.
But fine, here is a bunch of things which supports my position.


Damage to the prefrontal cortex increases utilitarian moral judgements, Michael Koenigs, Liane Young, Ralph Adolphs, Daniel Tranel, Fiery Cushman, Marc Hauser & Antonio Damasio.
quote:
The psychological and neurobiological processes underlying moral judgement have been the focus of many recent empirical studies. Of central interest is whether emotions play a causal role in moral judgement, and, in parallel, how emotion-related areas of the brain contribute to moral judgement. Here we show that six patients with focal bilateral damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a brain region necessary for the normal generation of emotions and, in particular, social emotions produce an abnormally 'utilitarian' pattern of judgements on moral dilemmas that pit compelling considerations of aggregate welfare against highly emotionally aversive behaviours (for example, having to sacrifice one person's life to save a number of other lives). In contrast, the VMPC patients' judgements were normal in other classes of moral dilemmas. These findings indicate that, for a selective set of moral dilemmas, the VMPC is critical for normal judgements of right and wrong. The findings support a necessary role for emotion in the generation of those judgements.
This demonstrates that the brain is involved in making moral choices and that damaging it can affect moral decisions.

H. A. Chapman, D. A. Kim, J. M. Susskind, A. K. Anderson (2009). In Bad Taste: Evidence for the Oral Origins of Moral Disgust Science, 323 (5918), 1222-1226 DOI: 10.1126/science.1165565
quote:
In common parlance, moral transgressions "leave a bad taste in the mouth." This metaphor implies a link between moral disgust and more primitive forms of disgust related to toxicity and disease, yet convincing evidence for this relationship is still lacking. We tested directly the primitive oral origins of moral disgust by searching for similarity in the facial motor activity evoked by gustatory distaste (elicited by unpleasant tastes), basic disgust (elicited by photographs of contaminants), and moral disgust (elicited by unfair treatment in an economic game). We found that all three states evoked activation of the levator labii muscle region of the face, characteristic of an oral/nasal rejection response. These results suggest that immorality elicits the same disgust as disease vectors and bad tastes.
Which means my chocolate ice cream analogy has more relevance than I had originally thought.

The amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex in morality and psychopathy, R.J.R. Blair, Trends in Cognitive Sciences Volume 11, Issue 9, September 2007, Pages 387-392
quote:
Recent work has implicated the amygdala and ventromedial prefrontal cortex in morality and, when dysfunctional, psychopathy. This model proposes that the amygdala, through stimulus-reinforcement learning, enables the association of actions that harm others with the aversive reinforcement of the victims’ distress. Consequent information on reinforcement expectancy, fed forward to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, can guide the healthy individual away from moral transgressions. In psychopathy, dysfunction in these structures means that care-based moral reasoning is compromised and the risk that antisocial behavior is used instrumentally to achieve goals is increased.

Amygdala-prefrontal coupling depends on a genetic variation of the serotonin transporter
Andreas Heinz, Dieter F Braus, Michael N Smolka, Jana Wrase, Imke Puls, Derik Hermann, Sabine Klein, Sabine M Grsser, Herta Flor, Gunter Schumann, Karl Mann & Christian Bchel, Nature Neuroscience 8, 20 - 21 (2004)
quote:
Major depression is conditionally linked to a polymorphism of the human serotonin transporter gene (SLC6A4). During the presentation of aversive, but not pleasant, pictures, healthy carriers of the SLC6A4 short (s) allele showed stronger activation of the amygdala on functional magnetic resonance imaging. s carriers also showed greater coupling between the amygdala and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which may contribute to the abnormally high activity in the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex seen in major depression.

OK, so moral disgust seems to be tied up somehow with the same kind of disgust against certain nasty foods and as animals we react physically similar to each. We can see that the brain certainly influences moral decisions. And it is known that there are various alleles which result in slightly different things going on in the brain which can have an effect on mood and on the decision making regions.
I don't intend to, as I've said before, provide you with a complete story with every single thing sourced fully because that would be exhausting to compile and you might as well go read a book by someone in the field.
However, here is a little substance to the idea that the brain makes moral decisions, and the brain is built by genes, and genes are affected by evolutionary forces.
How's the supernatural theory doing as far as substance?
Here again, you are at odds with the theory others here have put forth, that they have an innate morality inside them for all of humanity, which is beyond reasoning. You suggesting that it is just a reasoning proposition-morality for those we need (allies), and immorality for those we don't need.
Whether or not reasoning is involved is irrelevant. You don't need to engage in reason to identify allies and enemies - though it might help when the situation isn't plain. When an animal with teeth and claws is running right at you - it is generally safe to assume they mean harm if you have evolved in an environment where teethy clawy things are predominantly predators.
Smashing that stranger vying for your job wouldn't seem a very unreasonable thing under your scenario.
Might be a viable thought process for someone under the age of 5 or a chimpanzee.
Seriously, job competitions are not something our brains have evolved to handle. However, social contests are probably something we've learned to deal with. So if killing social competitors is something that might have had negative repercussions for the alleles that influence that behaviour, then we would expect the instinct would be to not go and kill the competitor.
And with our enlarged brain we can even simulate what would happen ahead of time and work out if the expected consequences are worth it. Since it fails both tests (killing your competitors has the likely outcome of not getting you the job, causing a sense of moral disgust, losing support of family and friends, being imprisoned for a long time etc). Of course - if the job was good enough, some people might still go for the murder option. Presumably a more likely state of affairs with people with ventromedial prefrontal cortex damage or perhaps one of the serotonin transporter alleles that has an impact on psycopathy.1
Um, yes my focus on survival is telling. As is your focus on assuming that actions which lesson your chance for survival would somehow benefit your alleles chance for survival.
I made no such assumption.
I just wanted to point out that it is possible for an allele to influence behaviour in one individual that has a net impact of increasing the number of copies of that allele in the next generation.
You suggest that 'bee attacks are mysterious', but only to you and a few others. To those that study the subject they are not. Worker bees rarely reproduce. Most simply die or are killed. So - this means that the alleles they carry are never going to be passed on, right? No, of course not. They inherited those alleles from their mother, the Queen bee. So a worker bee can increase the chances of its own alleles being reproduced by assisting the Queen bee making so many bees the hive splits and a new Queen is born.
So if an allele, upon finding itself in a female, non-queen body, could influence behaviour to including protecting the queen at all costs, that might actually find itself increasing in frequency as hives become defended by fanatics that never reproduce.
Indeed, I decided to look up what one Ethologist had to say about bee attacks to test your hypothesis that 'bee attacks are mysterious' 'as are any genetic traits for a defense mechanism which when utilized causes instant death'.
quote:
Kamikaze behaviour...{is} not astonishing once we accept the fact that they are sterile...a worker bee never bears offspring of its own. All its efforts are directed to preserving its genes by caring for relatives other than its own offspring. The death of a single sterile worker bee is no more serious to its genes than is the shedding of a leaf in autumn to the genes of a tree.
--Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, Oxford University Press, 2nd edition(1989) p. 172
Let's try someone else:
quote:
Social insect workers are highly altruistic in their co-operative brood care and colony defence, an extreme example being the kamikaze defence by stinging honey bees that results in the defending individual’s death. These self-sacrificial traits have
probably been favoured by enhancing the fitness of the entire colony, lending support to the concept of the colony as a superorganism (Moritz, RFA, Southwick, EE. 1992. Bees as Superorganisms. An Evolutionary Reality. Springer Verlag, Berlin.).
--Manfred Ayasse and Robert J. Paxton in Chapter 5 of Chemoecology of Insect Eggs and Egg Deposition entitled Brood Protection in Social Insects
Not so mysterious really.
Also of side interest are segregation distorters. From wiki:
quote:
All nuclear genes in a given diploid genome cooperate because each allele has an equal probability of being present in a gamete. This fairness is guaranteed by meiosis. However, there is one type of gene, called a segregation distorter, that "cheats" during meiosis or gametogenesis and thus is present in more than half of the functional gametes.
Indeed, you can read more examples over at wiki under Intragenomic conflict. Some of these things are detrimental to their host, yet they still increase in frequency!
Ah, once again, these are observable facts when observed by an evolutionist. Quite convenient. When exactly did you observe an animal knowing the difference between right and wrong as a fact-as opposed to an animal just doing what it wants to do?
When did I claim to have observed an animal 'knowing the difference between right and wrong as a fact'? I mean I suppose, if you are trying to tell me that humans do know the difference as a fact, then I guess I could cite them.
Heck, if that were the case, I guess we wouldn't need to scold dogs, by yelling or hitting at them when they don't do what we want, or petting them or giving them food when they do, we could simply explain what is right and what is wrong, so they could decide for themselves, instead of forcing them to react to the threat of punishment and the promise of free food.
In case you didn't learn this in school, but dogs are incapable of fully understanding any human language - so you'd be wasting your time. Your dog already has a built in moral system surrounding alpha pack mates and co-pack mates. In order to get the dog to do the things you want it to do, it needs to think of you as an alpha pack member. You do this by dominating it and rewarding and protecting it.
This is the same with humans too. Without the threat of punishment, 'immoral behaviour' goes through the roof. The supernatural hypothesis has this covered of course, since it tends to stress punishment and rewards as guarantees rather than only so-probable as they are in this reality.
Again, I know in any argument, people always want to be right, but please don't use the idea of "my story is more believable than your story" to claim your rightness. It is only more believable to you.
I wouldn't dream of it. I'm just going to counter 'it's not possible!" with 'here's how it might be possible - can you show this won't work?'. Until you have something a little more impressive than denial it's all I can really do I'm afraid.


1see for example Serotonin Transporter Gene Polymorphism and Schizoid Personality Traits in Patients with Psychosis and Psychiatrically Well Subjects, Vera E Golimbet‌, Margarita V Alfimova‌, Tatyana Shcherbatikh, Vasili G Kaleda‌, Lilia I Abramova‌ and Evgeni I Rogaev‌

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 Message 88 by Bolder-dash, posted 12-16-2009 1:29 AM Bolder-dash has not replied

  
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