Explain love, heroism and forgiveness if life is merely survival of the fittest?

[Journyman16]

Personally I don't really care what you appreciate or not. You have your beliefs about the bible and Christianity and nobody else can possibly have one according to you. And if you are sensitive to words like 'arse' and 'crap' perhaps you should go find a nice lovely Christian forum to tout your beliefs? Drug people tend to be nicer people than most but they also don't give a rat's arse about specious rules we are meant to follow to be seen as 'nice.'

Th 'nasty' comment comes from the fact that I made a quite mild comment in response to...

Sometimes it helps you to forgive yourself if someone else forgives you first.
Religion isn't all about forgiving others.

...saying...

Apart from Zen and Buddhism I can't recall any Religion that suggests forgiving yourself.
That aside I didn't imply Religion was 'all about' anything, so maybe I am reading your response incorrectly?

... and in response copped this...

For all your apparent intelligence and the vastness of your vocabulary, you - again - fail to understand the fundamentals of what you're discussing.
Go talk to a priest about self-forgiveness, then get back to me.

Snide comments easily define as nasty and are hardly worthy behaviour from someone so superior about their biblical and Christian knowledge.

Your beliefs do not match those of any Christian I have met and that's fine by me, but I don't take well to them being paraded as the only right views - you show no difference to any Christian sect who insist only THEIR dogma will get people to heaven. Intolerance is just that, no matter which side of the system it comes from.

And the idea of forgiving yourself is something any rational person can perform and see the benefits of; waiting around for God to do anything depends entirely on belief and rationalisation, so being forgiven by God is equal to forgiving yourself only in YOUR set of beliefs. Unless of course you are saying that there is no God anyway so when a Christian asks for and receives forgiveness it is just themselves doing it all?

That should go down well in Church. :D

Which is why I suggested you go to a priest to help sort out your confusions.

You come across as an ex-Catholic with your own ideas, so be careful what you say to the priest - they still don't react well to heresy.

I have no such confusion, and no use for a priest; I have come to my views by working them through and I don't insist I am right even if I do present them well and with good articulation. I am unsure just why you would choose such an angle to get snotty over.

Oh... and BTW, Christianity IS all about forgiveness - that's the WHOLE POINT of the Christ experience.

 

[ForEverAfter]

I could go through your post history and provide countless examples of you being rude, patronizing and arrogant...
Not to mention passive-aggressively mocking certain religions every chance you get...

I couldn't be bothered.
In the end, you just want to see the flaws of certain religions.
So, you don't see them clearly.

You have an axe to grind with Christianity, like most of the members of this forum. (Don't bother denying it.)
As I said, I don't appreciate it. If you don't care that I don't appreciate it, then continue to act accordingly.
Your attitude, in the context of religion, is - often - rude and disrespectful.

I'm not perfect, by any means, but I'm not on a mission to mock and discredit mainstream spiritual beliefs.

Oh, and for the record: you insist that you're right, just as much as I do.
(See, for example: the redshift nonsense and your insistence that you know more than all scientists on Earth.)

 

[L2R]

sorry if this has been said already, i haven't read any replies, but the question isn't that difficult.

"survival of the fittest" refers only to competition between species, not between individuals. a species is strong and is more likely to survive when its individuals co-operate. so love, heroism and forgiveness is essential for species survival.

 

[Journyman16]

sorry if this has been said already, i haven't read any replies, but the question isn't that difficult.

"survival of the fittest" refers only to competition between species, not between individuals. a species is strong and is more likely to survive when its individuals co-operate. so love, heroism and forgiveness is essential for species survival.

It's a valid question to ask, and not simple to answer. Genetics tends towards the selfish gene model, seeing organisms as vehicles for the continuation of genes and that attitude carries over into Evolution models.

Survival of the Fittest, even at species level is driven by survival of individuals - if animal A has an adaptation that gives it better chances of surviving and breeding more or for longer, those genes are supposed to spread through the species over time. At heart, it is the genes that count, not the animal itself.

But there are some problems with the basics - for example the trunk of a tree. Cells in the tree grow in particular fashion then suicide to form the trunk. How is that possible under the evolutionary model? Such cells do not get to pass on their characteristics so how did the tree come up with a system that kills off most of its cells to form the entity we call tree?

And there are similar issues with almost any cell in the animal world as well - not so much they die off, but that they do not get to reproduce. For the vast majority of cells, reproduction consists solely of replacing itself while the entity lives then dying completely.

How can this be? What is the overarching connection that allows cells to sacrifice themselves for others? What is it about a collection of cells that lets them provide for the future of a random (so we are told) selection of traits to be passed along to an entirely new entity?

I think the answers to such questions might give us some clues as to the same behaviour in the entity itself. What is it about the group that makes it a survival trait for a single member to sacrifice itself for the larger group? Where in the physical makeup is the mechanism that weighs up the value of ceasing to exist in favour of other individuals?

For that matter, what is the mechanism for Love? Many animals have proved they can love, often to the extent of giving their lives for creatures not even of their own species. So how does that fit into an Evolutionary scheme?

Even within a species, love of other entities of the same generation doesn't really make sense - loving one's descendants is a way to increase the survival chances, and even perhaps love of a mate can help, but loving a member of the same sex or a non-partner of a different sex? How does this fit a survival of the fittest regime?

There is clearly something else going on I think. Something we have not even begun to broach, although I think Rupert Sheldrake might be on to something with his 'Morphogenetic Fields' and Bruce Lipton was at one point investigating fields of a more personal type that carried characteristics from donor to recipient of transplants.

If a species IS just lots of individuals bound by a field, (or perhaps 'twined' as Orson Scott Card describes it in his Ender's Game series) then things make more sense. The individual that matters if the Field, not the bodies that support it - lose one body to ensure many more bodies will survive is a typical survival calculation if we see (say) a chimpanzee tribe as a single being.

And if you've ever watched the footage of a Gorilla family in the wild, it can be difficult to NOT see them as a single entity moving and living as one.

 

[Journyman16]

I could go through your post history and provide countless examples of you being rude, patronizing and arrogant...
Not to mention passive-aggressively mocking certain religions every chance you get...

Yes you could, but you won't find any where I target a member unless I am first targetted. Attitudes towards topics are not in the same arena as personal comment.

I'm not perfect, by any means, but I'm not on a mission to mock and discredit mainstream spiritual beliefs.

True dat, but you have little hesitation in talking down to posters over a matter of personal beliefs.

Oh, and for the record: you insist that you're right, just as much as I do.
(See, for example: the redshift nonsense and your insistence that you know more than all scientists on Earth.)

Except I provide evidence for what I say and it is based in practical Science and observations made by professionals. Also my view of things is being backed up more across the years as others come to realise there is something significantly wrong with what the 'consensus' believes.

I do exactly the same thing with Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW) and once more I provide the evidence to back my claims. That's how debates work. Even in those cases I remained quite dispassionate and cordial until after a while the abusive types made it clear they would not go away nor cease their personal attacks.

On the other hand your recent discussions about Adam and Eve being taken from Gilgamesh require a highly speculative version of what is actually said in the poem. Yet you kept insisting it was the evidence of your claim - you might have done better to use the Samson and Delilah story - the parallels are far closer. And not once did you give evidence of your view.

You and I have had a previous run in, but you notice in this thread I was polite in my comments until YOU decided to get personal.

 

[ForEverAfter]

Dude, give it a rest.

I didn't say anything offensive.

Saying that you failed to understand something, despite being highly intelligent, isn't nasty.

It's a criticism, wrapped in a compliment.

Chill.

 

[Journyman16]

Dude, give it a rest.
I didn't say anything offensive.
Saying that you failed to understand something, despite being highly intelligent, isn't nasty.
It's a criticism, wrapped in a compliment.
Chill.

Thank you - I take it this is your version of an apology - it is appreciated.

Now perhaps back to the subject? :D

 

[ForEverAfter]

I don't have anything to apologize about.

 

[GodandLove]

To me, as a guy who likes to think things through, something doesn't quite add up about Darwin's theory on the evolution of the human race. If Darwin is correct that we evolved from some kind of primordial soup where through millions of years plus genetics, the weakest on the earth perish and only the fittest survive, then why do we humans jump in heroically in the utmost danger to save the weaker one? Why do we love deeply, forgive and have an inbuilt capacity to discern right from wrong (a moral framework even)? Surely, we should be hardened to such responses and in fact, not even have the capacity to even consider such matters. We would be cold, calculated, amoral terminators, each to our own. Yet, we are not. Far from it. Survival of the fittest and human compassion are not compatible. In their purest form, they are as far apart as east is from west. Can anybody rationally explain this disparity?

I myself don't believe in Darwinism, but those that do are sighing, "You're gonna have to try a little harder then that".

Prove that "Love", "heroism" and "forgiveness" are objective constants.

 

[Smoky]

I don't think Life is merely survival of the fittest, if this is the case we are in deep trouble as human beings.
Forgiveness is an inner happening… It takes loving oneself to forgive and let go. Letting go takes love
It is not contingent on someone or something outside of us. This is a problem with self love depending on someone else.
This ime, is just what the person believes.
I suppose the act of asking for forgiveness can be a movement in forgiving oneself, but still it's an internal change that happens in the individual.
How could it not be?

 

[rickolasnice]

sorry if this has been said already, i haven't read any replies, but the question isn't that difficult.

"survival of the fittest" refers only to competition between species, not between individuals. a species is strong and is more likely to survive when its individuals co-operate. so love, heroism and forgiveness is essential for species survival.

This.

It was beneficial for animals to feel empathy.. the rest naturally follows.

 

[methamaniac]

This.

It was beneficial for animals to feel empathy.. the rest naturally follows.

How did ability to experience empathy evolve?
At some exact point a certain individual in a certain species had to have a light bulb go off. How did this animal spread this to other members of species?
Logic dictates that at one point not having empathy was working fine. What changed?
What single random mutation (or series) could account for an animal suddenly being able to have empathy ?

 

[rickolasnice]

At some exact point a certain individual in a certain species had to have a light bulb go off. How did this animal spread this to other members of species?

Not necessarily.. But ok.. If a mother was born feeling more empathy then she would protect her young better.. increasing their chances of survival.. they will then do the same for theirs and so on

Logic dictates that at one point not having empathy was working fine. What changed?
What single random mutation (or series) could account for an animal suddenly being able to have empathy ?

Something came along that worked better.

There are too many variable to pinpoint a definite start for empathy.. but it would have happened in the brain..

Structurally and chemically it would have slowly changed from a mother being that more defensive when defending a young to defending young from other mothers.. all the way up to defending animals from completely different and seemingly unrelated species.

Remember evolution doesn't happen without survival of the fittest.. which, when we come to social mammals, would branch out to other members of the same species.. It increases the likelihood of survival of the individual in one way or another by being altruistic in society.. protection, shared resources, mating opportunities (and then the obvious additions when thinking about the offspring)..

Oxytocin no doubtedly had a roll to play but the brain is far too complicated for us to have sussed it all out even now..

 

[methamaniac]

Not necessarily.. But ok.. If a mother was born feeling more empathy then she would protect her young better.. increasing their chances of survival.. they will then do the same for theirs and so on



Something came along that worked better.

There are too many variable to pinpoint a definite start for empathy.. but it would have happened in the brain..

Structurally and chemically it would have slowly changed from a mother being that more defensive when defending a young to defending young from other mothers.. all the way up to defending animals from completely different and seemingly unrelated species.

Remember evolution doesn't happen without survival of the fittest.. which, when we come to social mammals, would branch out to other members of the same species.. It increases the likelihood of survival of the individual in one way or another by being altruistic in society.. protection, shared resources, mating opportunities (and then the obvious additions when thinking about the offspring)..

Oxytocin no doubtedly had a roll to play but the brain is far too complicated for us to have sussed it all out even now..

Sup Rico,
Not really a fair question as I am at the core asking you to explain how consciousness evolved randomly.
No human can do that.☺

 

[swilow]

^Can you explain how consciousness was created intentionally?

 

[ForEverAfter]

Another evolution "discussion"?

 

[psood0nym]

Sup Rico,
Not really a fair question as I am at the core asking you to explain how consciousness evolved randomly.
No human can do that.☺

It's easier to understand how consciousness evolved if we do NOT think of there being some magical point at which a subjective experience of nothing (as nearly everybody thinks of the experience that it is like to be a tin full of ashes, or the carbon atoms within it) suddenly becomes a subjective "something." That is, if we don't think that it evolved at all as a form of life in a fundamental sense, because it already was part of non-life. Alfred North Whitehead was among the first proponents of Panexperientialism, though I find the refined view of his ideas adopted by some intellectuals (mostly biologists) to be far more philosophically convincing than his or any other perspective on the matter.

This view of Panexperientialism proposes that subjective states are properties inherent in all matter, which vary correspondingly with physical states (Panexperientialism is NOT Pantheism or Animism, BTW). It asserts, for instance, that the subjective quality of being something as simple as a carbon atom in a vacuum is different than the "compound" subjective state of carbon as it exists as groupings of the element in graphite, which is likewise distinct from carbon's compounded state in diamonds. Even though both graphite and diamond consist of carbon the configuration of the atoms to one anther and the respective substance's physical properties are radically different, thus making their inherent subjective quality different according to the doctrine. Likewise the spatial stereochemical differences between "left" and "right" hand versions of molecules (say R and S ketamine) are proposed to confer different subjective states.

Note that the proposed perspective does not claim there is something that it is like to be a chair, as it holds this is merely an aggregation of atomic and molecular states of being (the individual molecular components of wood, nails, stain, etc.); nor does it assert quarks, electrons, molecules, etc., have thoughts or feelings. The suggestion is that we humans, as the most complex psycho-physical systems in the known universe, cannot begin to comprehend the subjective smallness and simplicity of basic forms of matter, and that's why most of us haven't even considered possibilities like this. This failure of imagination isn't surprising since we cannot even begin to comprehend what it's like to be something much closer to us like a dog.

In fact, for a long time the popular view subscribed to by scientists and philosophers in the wake of Cartesian philosophy was that creatures like dogs must be inert automatons, since they do not demonstrate that they have a "self" to do the experiencing. Many still hold similar beliefs. The overwhelming majority believe consciousness is a special pattern, a function, and that there's no reason a silicon-based computer chip that executed the "right pattern" couldn't faithfully contain and reproduce human consciousness. Panexperientialism suggests that would take a brain, or at the very least an organic computer (and that neurons are able to unify the subjective states of enormous numbers of molecules into a collective sphere of egoic awareness in humans that silicon is unlikely to be able to achieve). It does not deny the fundamental role of energy patterns in producing particular functions of consciousness, such as human-like self-awareness, our metaphoric comprehension style, etc., just that there is never subjective nothingness so long as there is matter/energy. If we admit there is something that it's like to be an infant, even if we don't remember, and think there's something that it's like to be certain animals, at what point traveling down this chain do we think it must become nothing and why?

There's no need to explain it. Panexperientialism says we never reach that point and that human-level self-awareness is just an especially highly ordered type of subjective being that, at its root, is possessed by all matter. There's no need for any magical function to produce it and certainly not anything like an eternal immaterial soul supporting it. Human consciousness EVOLVED in the same essential way as other living and non-living things, we just never figured those other things were fundamentally something profoundly more than what we think of as "inert." That's right: humans are less special than even the ego crushing view science has already put forth suggests. There's even fewer reasons to argue for any God that's concerned with us personally.

I'm such a big proponent of Panexperientialism because I arrived at the belief before ever researching it. It was a result of meditating on my salvia experiences. I explain how, and discuss more about Panexperientialism in "Salvia, The Conveyor Belt & Other Common Themes" (which I'm proud to say is popular enough that it now pops up automatically as a Google suggestion after typing "salvia conv"!). Use the Ctrl+F (open apple + F) keyboard shortcut to search for "Panexperientialism" to skip the rest if you want.

 

[methamaniac]

Another evolution "discussion"?

You wasted a post for that?
Now I wasted a post for this.
See how wasted post evolve☺

 

[ForEverAfter]

http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2014/02/evolution-in-real-time/

 

[methamaniac]

^
Maybe these bacteria will be more like there
billion year old cousins and finally evolve into something else other than bacteria.
Give them a good dose of imagination and I'm sure they will.