Ian said to dmb:
...No brainer that it is seriously misguided stuff, leading to all manner of
evils. The problem that gives us, though, is the danger of that label and
no-brainer argument making (intellectually valid) evolutionary arguments
appears taboo in any social context. Sometimes, as you have chastised me
before, a little intellectual rigor and clarity is important ;-)
dmb says:
If you're saying that social level evolution can be distinguished from the
doctrine of social darwinism, I'd agree. But I would challenge you to
re-examine your Dennettesque scientism especially as that sort of worldview
informs the notion of "memes". I mean, doesn't that idea apply that empty
and stupid motive of mere survival to meaning itself? Doesn't that idea
remain silent with respect to "any substantive excellence in WHAT survives"?
It's been a while since you praised the notion, but I think so. I mean, it
seems to me that you do not quite realize the extent to which you've
absorbed that cold and cruel version of darwinism. But you tell me. Go ahead
and give me "a little intellectual rigor and clarity" on this point. That
would be the very opposite of drivel...
Hey, there's an idea. Let's say that on the fourth level, drivel leads to
(well justified) extinction. But seriously, the objection centers around a
very simple question. Why survive? Is it not meaningless to assert that mere
existence as the goal of existence? Doesn't the MOQ's idea of betterness as
the engine of evolution reduce survival to just one kind of betterness
whereas classic natural selection makes survival the whole point? I think
so.
dmb
"The entire modern deification of survival PER SE, survival returning to
itself, survival naked and abstract, with the denial of any substantive
excellence in WHAT survives, except the capacity for more survival still, is
surely the strangest intellecual stopping-place ever proposed by one man to
another." William James
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