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Philosophy 101
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Evolution and Politics
| Philosophy 101 |
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Evolution and Politics |
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fractal007 Senior Member
since 2000-06-01
Posts 1958 |
I've recently been poking into Dawkins' book "The Selfish Gene." I'm kinda wondering, If we're all supposed to be elaborate defence machines for little pieces of "replicators", or in this case genes, then why do we form giant political systems like democracies so we can live in peace? Shouldn't we all be out there fighting wars and killing each other so that only the most strong and perfect genes survive and spawn even better humans? I suppose that democracies do allow for increased survival, but what about campaigns for equal rights? Aren't those all against the whole idea of each individual being out for himself? "If history is to change, let it change. If the world is to be destroyed, so be it. If my fate is to die, I must simply laugh" |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Fractal, Are you alluding to the meme? |
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fractal007 Senior Member
since 2000-06-01
Posts 1958 |
Not at this point I'm not, no. Right now I'm just referring to the selfish gene. "If history is to change, let it change. If the world is to be destroyed, so be it. If my fate is to die, I must simply laugh" |
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Brad Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705Jejudo, South Korea |
Are you ascribing 'intent' to the gene? I'm reading Daniel Dennet's "Consciousness Explained" and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" concurrently right now and it's easy to do that (easy for me anyway), but genes aren't out to evolve or to do anything really, they follow chemical and physical rules and nothing more. We absribe intent only because they're so damn complicated. One of the most interesting things is that Darwin's theory gives little if any short term predictive power. We just don't 'know' what we 'should' be doing in order to survive. Neither do genes. |
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