Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > > On 07/06/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>* > <[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[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
The top level goal implied by evolution would be to have as many children as you can raise through puberty. Avoiding death should only be a subgoal. Brent Meeker --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
