AndrewPD writes:
Dawkins says in The Selfish Gene
"We are survival machines — robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the *selfish* molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment."
That is plainly reductionism it is not equivalent to explaining how a computer emerges from its parts but rather how behaviour we value is actually based on amoral selfish behaviour.
You seem very impressed by this - as you should be - it's a game-changing truism missed by humanity for thousands of years for lack of knowledge.
But now we understand it, what's the problem? It doesn't mean that
you are a mindless robot. It's a metaphor. The evidence of your own behaviour should tell you that for the most part you have control over your actions. You're capable of choices that work against this gene-driven objective of making more of itself.
It's sort of a proof that the ToE is correct that it accidentally created something that has the ability to defy its objective - should it so wish.
Of course, the evidence works the other way - H. Sapiens is amazingly successful, out competing all its rivals and reproducing vast quantities of genes. (Although if simple numbers of genes is the goal, there was no point going beyond bacteria and micro-organisms.)
You seem totally hung up on metaphysical nonsense. What is to be gained by tilting at these windmills?
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