Ligia Parra-Esteban
Mon, 18 Feb 2002 09:03:27 -0800
Feb 2002 13:43:24 -0000 Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 09:32:04 -0000 Subject: [evol-psych] Re: Richard Dawkins: Our big brains can overcome our selfish genes
In his lecture to the Royal Institution, Dawkins suggests that the future survival of humanity depends on humans being able to transcend the values and motivations inherited from our biological past. Surely the strength of this part of his argument is not undermined by whether this inheritance makes us cooperative, ambivalently cooperative, self-interested, moral or something else? The chances that our inheritance will match our future needs seem negligible. The motivations and volitions (moral or otherwise) that were favoured by Darwinian selection in our evolutionary past are highly unlikely to be optimal for our successful survival throughout the next million years. The values and motivations that are optimal are likely to change many, many times into the future as circumstances change. But where his lecture is wrong is its suggestion that "the brain - especially the human brain - is well able to over-ride its ultimate programming; well able to dispense with the ultimate value of gene survival and substitute other values." To the contrary, humans obviously do not yet have a comprehensive capacity to transcend our biological past. We cannot, at will, change our likes and dislikes, our emotional reactions, our motivations, what it is that gives us pleasure or displeasure, out habits, our personality traits (eg change from an introvert or extrovert at will) etc. "Christians" have generally found it impossible to 'turn the other cheek' in the fullest sense of that metaphor. And it is not only their biological past that humans would need to transcend if they are to be able to survive successfully into the distant future. We would also have to be able to transcend our cultural past and up-bringing. We would have to become self-evolving organisms in the fullest sense, able to adapt in whatever ways are needed to guarantee a successful future, relatively unfettered by our history, and able to move at right angles to our biological and social past. Science has not yet discovered much about how humans could develop such a comprehensive capacity. Psychology is not yet able to say a lot about our potential for further psychological development. "Evolutionary psychology" is really a Darwinian evolutionary psychology, and does not yet include a cultural component. Whether evolutionary psychology continues to be limited in this way will determine its future relevance—as Larry Arnhart suggests in his post, the intellectual power of Darwinian theory will be radically narrowed if humans develop a comprehensive capacity to transcend our biological past. However, this deficiency of current science should prove to be temporary. There is an extensive body of knowledge that is currently outside mainstream science that includes techniques for the development of the comprehensive capacity I have referred to. This knowledge has apparently existed for thousands of years and is often associated with religious systems such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and esoteric Christianity. A key challenge for science is to systematise this knowledge and integrate it into mainstream science, as it has done successfully for many other bodies of pre-scientific knowledge. My attempts to integrate some of this knowledge about our psychological potential into a evolutionary framework can be found in Chapters 1, 11, 12, and 19 of my book `Evolution's Arrow' (online at http://www4.tpgi.com.au/users/jes999/ ) and in my paper `Future Psychological Evolution' published in the journal Dynamical Psychology (online at http://goertzel.org/dynapsyc/ ) Regards, John Stewart __________ Unsubscribe or change your subscription options at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology/ Archive: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evolutionary-psychology/messages/ Join Evolutionary Psychology: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Human Nature Review: http://human-nature.com/ Human Nature Daily Review http://human-nature.com/nibbs/ Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ --------------------------------------------------------------------- Ligia Parra-Esteban Directora Fundacion VOC de Investigacion de la Comunicacion Entre Cientificos. Apartado Aereo 86745 Bogota. Colombia. http://www.mox.uniandes.edu.co/voc Telefono (+) 571-6242075 Fax (+) 571-6139654 Zona Postal 1102 E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Secretario Junta Directiva Luis H. Blanco <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Laboratorio de Investigaciones Basicas. Bloque 9 Ciudad Universitaria. Unidad Camilo Torres. --------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================================= Si necesita retirarse de la lista envie un mensaje a: [EMAIL PROTECTED] con una unica linea : unsubscribe r-caldas Para inscribirse en la lista envie un mensaje a [EMAIL PROTECTED] con una unica linea : subscribe r-caldas Los mensajes que circulan en la lista los puede consultar en : http://www.mail-archive.com/r-caldas@colciencias.gov.co