Week 6 - Evolution and Stories

I, like many others here, think the idea of superiority interesting and am impressed that everyone is taken the time to define what superiority entails. Or at least try to define superiority.

there are certain words associated with evolution. Higher state of evolution. More evolved. One evolutionary stage or result as superior. I understand that we like to categorize and organize in rank. And I readily can empathize with the concept that no generation from evolution is any better than any other because 1) we have no universal way of judging these generations and 2) we cannot fully evaluate the conditions under which they exist.

So we must be context specific, a theme which seems to constantly come back to me in this course. Context is everything.

It's interesting that many times we hear humans being discussed as possibly the most superior form of life here, on Earth, as we know it.  We have the consciousness to think this- we can think, and we can be aware, and we can respond to other people.  We contemplate things we think of as huge questions- how we've come to be, who we are, the philosophy of the world.. we can question things ourselves, can question why this world is what it is, what our reality is... our brains are complex, and, as we're discovering little by little, we're seeing just how they function- possibly discovering the backbone of what makes us human.  At the same time... there are two main problems as I see it with thinking that humans are superior to any other organism.. I think that our consciousness is relative- that we can be aware of some things- but there are many things, for whatever reason- a lack of receptors, lack of capability- that we aren't aware of other things.  I think that being aware, and questioning, and thinking makes us feel like we have worth- like we're intelligent, in a way- that the more questions we produce that we don't have answers to, the more we have to discover, the more possibiltiies we can see. I think that we like to complicate things to make these possibiltiies seem endless... In the Unbearable Lightness of Being, one of the characters descirbes how she wakes up, and her first thoughts are that it's early, she's tired, and shuts her eyes, but her dog, is just happy to be up, comes over, says hello, is happy.. I think that we can never really know how much a dog thinks- maybe he's happy he's still alive, maybe he's happy that it's a nice day out, maybe he's happy to be with the person he loves.. maybe he's just happy.. but..in the end, does it matter? There is the question of whether it's better to remain ignorant and happy or not.. and, while the more 'educational' answer seems to be that it isn't... maybe that really isn't true.  Maybe it's like how we question, in academic settings, but in the real world.. do we really want to question as much? It's an interesting problem.. just how much we should know- how much we need to know- for what? To live.. a happy life? A meaningful life? Whatever can define, if you can..organism superiority? Success?

In Anne’s group on Thursday, we discuss the idea of the “selfish gene”.  The selfish gene is Dawkins theory that “from the gene’s ‘point of view,’ a body was a sort of survival machine created to enhance the gene’s chances of continued replication” (p. 325).  I find that viewing life from the gene’s perspective is very interesting.  This idea is hard to grasp at first because it puts humans in a subordinate position relative to the genes, since we are just machines that carry genes so that they will be able to replicate.  We are doing their bidding by reproducing, thus passing them on to the next generation.  In this context, the role of humans and the purpose of our lives are to be a good carrier of genes and a good mate so that we are able to reproduce offspring.   A purposeful life is created when a person is able to leave a legacy of their genes behind before they die. 

  Using the selfish gene theory as a definition for a purposeful life, we can look at its application towards adoption.  If someone chooses not to reproduce but to adopt they are not going to leave their legacy of genes behind.  Could their life be considered purposeless?  Or could their genes be flawed.  Maybe their gene is telling them not to reproduce because the gene is flawed in some way.  Thus by not reproducing that flawed gene will be eliminated from the gene pool.  So this is good for the welfare of the gene pool as a whole.   

If humans are destined to be carriers of genes, do we have free will?  Yes, we do have free will in the context of our actions, but in the case of the purpose of our lives, I don’t really think so.  If we die, the only thing that will live on is the legacy of our genes we have left behind.  Humans could leave a historical legacy behind (ex: winning the Nobel Prize) but historical records could be destroyed and oral history can easily become extinct when no one remembers the accomplishment.  What is lasting and concrete is the genes you replicated to survive another generation.  We must reproduce to make our lives purposeful.  Of course, you will always have the free will to not participate in this game of gene replication but your legacy ends there.   

I've been thinking a lot about purpose. I know we're not supposed to say purpose but I think it still applies. I think that maybe although evolution lacks a purpose, the things evolution acts on (species or organisms or whatever) does not. I think that maybe their purpose is just to be a part of evolution. I mean with out the intermediate Homo habilis, maybe we never would have become Homo sapiens. Maybe we needed that stage in evolution to continue. Maybe the purpose of Homo habilis was just to exist, so that other species could come before and after it. And those species could exist for those who come before and after and so on and so forth. Their purpose is just being.

I also find it hard to believe that the oxygen producing bacteria that saturated the atmosphere with oxygen, had no purpose. It's purpose was to expel oxygen. You may say that this was not it's purpose. But then why don't they give off another type of gas? I don't know. Maybe I am confusing usefulness with purpose. I just think that when something has an effect on something else, it had a purpose. I see that evolution is not heading toward a particular thing. It was not designed with a particular purpose in mind but is continually evolving itself. Maybe these things all have purposes (or not) in the light of evolution. If evolution didn't exist, there would be no need for the intermediates and therefore, they served no purpose.

I'm not all sentimental when it comes to meaning and purpose. I'm not religious or anything and I don't think that my life would be meaningless without a purpose. I would just rather think that I have an effect on at least SOMETHING. That maybe one tiny little thing would be different as a result of my existence.

I doubt any of this made sense. It's just what I've been thinking.

The idea of the individual as constantly becoming lines up well with the story of evolution, though the leap from there to free will is a little difficult for me. I think that as an individual I do have free will. Each choice is my own, and I am responsible for the direction in which I go. This is all well and good if I live on a remote island by myself, but in my community I do not always have free will. I am subject to the will of the state and the community. Maybe the idea of free will is a function of the western obsession with individuality.

So far as we are all connected to one another we do not have free will. I cannot choose what course my friend will take in her life, though her choices may affect the direction my life takes. I cannot, according to the theory of evolution, choose the direction evolution will take. Though I may be constantly becoming, as evolution is ceaseless, I cannot choose the direction of this becoming because it is also directionless. In this sense I do not have free will. I may be able to choose some things, but I cannot choose my own personal evolution.
Evolutionarily speaking we can’t direct where we will got because it’s a group effort. Religion evolved because we realized that we are part of this vast whole, we can feel it but we can’t name it.
These are most likely half finished thoughts, but I am becoming!

Danielle Joseph

In my section last week, we started by getting some of Dennett's key terms on the table ("universal acid," "greedy vs. proper" reductionism, "cranes vs. skyhooks," "emergent meaning"). Then we settled into the questions about morality (can we design it ourselves, if it doesn't come with the package? is it then "real"? is it valid?) And we talked about free will--what the conditions are for having it, whether we do or not, whether we feel that we do or not, whether we act as if we do or not...

Yesterday afternoon, I attended a session of the Working Group on Mental Health, where the topic was "meaning-making." The reading, which was about Viktor Frankl's "logotherapy," offered, I thought, a pretty good answer to some of our questions:

"this form of existential philosophy...says that man is--in spite of whatever mechanical limitations of heredity and environment he may face--always free to chose among alternatives the action he will take in response to those determined factors. It charges each individual always to be aware of this freedom, and therefore of the contingency of his destiny upon his own choices. Man is never a finished product, but an eternally and dynamically changing and developing organism; he never is, but always is becoming. Therefore he faces the responsibility for choices that will take him in the direction of what he wishes to become."

The first thing I'm going to do with my freedom is change the pronoun usage above.

Through the reading in Dennett and class discussion, the story of and details about biological evolution can give us headway into understanding cultural traits. I cannot help but stick to the topic of evolution being a random and spontaneous chain of events, leading up to our random existence (and making us, as some will argue, less important since we were not placed on the earth with an ultimate intent). Yet, from an anthropological perspective, our species has given rise to language, art, and other aspects of culture. This leads to the inevitable conclusion that despite the randomness, meaning can still emerge. Not just meaning, but this great scheme of organization, of a code of morality, of purpose and structure all came about from such an arbitrary process.

I was struck by Dennett's coinage of proper and greedy reductionism. A greedy reductionist explains events without foundation or concrete facts. A proper reductionist does not use miracles to prove anything. I immediately came to the conclusion that I am in fact a proper reductionist, taking phenomena for what they are rather than looking to miracles as the only truth. I base what I know on the least miraculous explanations; perhaps it is my human nature to do this, since I have not had a firsthand experience with a miracle. I could not use something with which I have had no experience to account for  what I cannot explain.

Because humans are so cognitively advance, we undergo two distinct types of evolution, genetic and social.  Genetic evolution being change in the population gene pool, and social evolution being a change in the way humans act and think, because they have found that to be more advantageous.  Both have their advantages and disadvantages. Social evolution works much faster, because it can easily occur within a generation, while takes generations to take form.  Social evolution, however, can be easily lost, because it is not engrained into our biology.  For example, when the Roman Empire fell, much of the social evolution that it created was lost.  Another difference is that genetic evolution is pushed by nature towards the more advantageous form b natural selection (at least we think), but social evolution is pushed by us humans our selves.  Therefore, social evolution may not be advantageous, and likely could be harmful to our survival.

This got me thinking.  Is the ability to socially evolve an advantageous trait?  It certainly allows us to adapt.  We are the only species that can live in any climate on earth.  However, our creativity that allows us to survive in various conditions, also allows us to create destructive forces.  We have the ability to create complicated things, but we do not have the ability to fully understand the implications of many of our complicated creations.  This very well could end up destroying our species, but at the same time, it has helped our species grow.  As Dr. Grobstein stated, we will not know for sure until we are extinct, but evidence of global warming and similar human created problems point out that our ability to socially and culturally evolve may be a disadvantage not an advantage.

I found a very interesting article on NewYorkTimes.com about worries about male fertility.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/health/27sper.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=science&pagewanted=print

Basically this article warns men that they should be wary of their biological clocks as well. While advanced maternal age is accepted (obviously women can't have kids after a certain age, MENOPAUSE, people!), some are skeptical about advanced paternal age...but "until now, the problems known to occur more often with advanced paternal age were so rare they received scant public attention. The newer studies were alarming because they found higher rates of more common conditions — including autism and schizophrenia — in offspring born to men in their middle and late 40s. Over all, having an older father is estimated to increase the risk of a birth defect by 1 percent, against a background 3 percent risk for a birth defect. A number of studies also suggest that male fertility may diminish with age."

The thing is many people do keep their fertility, and the date is very sparse.

I just don't understand why people are surprised about this though, males in particular -- sperm cells DO age too, ya know. As these cells age, there is an increased frequency in new mutations. YAY! Evolutionary biology -- I am not at all surprised about the aging sperm cells, but I am very intrigued that when the cells age, they are at a higher risk for mutation. Does that explain why elderly people are more susceptible to illness? I guess this (genetic mutation) is the keystone for cancer at an elderly age as well? We do things "less well" the longer we travel down the aging path. In this article's case, men's "factories" break down and cannot produce sperm as well.

...Men, be scared...

In the reading in Dennett for this week he has been talking a lot about the evolution of language and how it must be an evolutionary process while pointing to Noam Chomsky, a prominent linguist, and showing how he does not believe that language was a product of evolution. This all brought to mind a lecture I heard several years ago given by Dean Falk on her "putting the baby down" hypothesis for the evolution of language. The theory in a nutshell and as well as I remember it was that when human women started having to put their children down as they worked  because human babies could not be born with the same motor skills as chimp babies to hold on to their mother themselves. According to the theory speech started as a way to reassure the children about the physical presesence of their mother and also so the child would have ways of communicating their own needs to the mother. This theory made a lot of sense to me as to how language started although it has obviously diversified from its original purpose, the capability to communicate well enough to keep your children safe does seem like it would be a pretty effective selector for speech in the first place.

Are humans superior to other forms of life? If superiority means being of a higher rank than another, then I do not think we are superior because just like all animals we depend on other organisms to survive.  Therefore, we are all of the same rank. 

However, if superiority means having a “competitive advantage” (dictionary.com), then, yes, I do think we are superior to other organisms.  The humans’ ability to produce language, culture and technology, has given us the “competitive advantage” over all other species.  What we are unable to do naturally, we are able to compensate for with our unique “ability to try things out” (Grobstein).  For example, we are unable to withstand extreme temperatures, but we have developed heaters, air conditioners, insulated shelters and clothing that have enabled us to live comfortably in all types of climates.  Therefore, depending on one’s definition of superiority, humans are either superior to other organisms on this earth or not.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/superiority

Andrea Zambetti