On 07/06/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Evolution doesn't care about the survival of individual organisms > directly, the actual goal of evolution is only to maximize > reproductive fitness. > > If you want to eat a peice of chocolate cake, evolution explains why > you like the taste, but your goals are not evolutions goals. You > (Stathis) want to the cake because it tastes nice - *your* goal is to > experience the nice taste. Evolution's goal (maximize reproductive > fitness) is quite different. Our (human) goals are not evolution's > goals.
That's right, but we can see through evolution's tricks with the chocolate cake and perhaps agree that it would be best not to eat it. This involves reasoning about subgoals in view of the top level goal, something that probably only humans among the animals are capable of doing. However, the top level goal is not something that we generally want to change, no matter how insightful and intelligent we are. And I do think that this top level goal must have been programmed into us directly as fear of death, because it does not arise logically from the desire to avoid painful and anxiety-provoking situations, which is how fear of death is indirectly coded in animals. -- Stathis Papaioannou --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
