Selfish genes and self destructive behaviors

[questionposter]

I think that you are straying into the realm of metaphysics and leaving science behind. Yes, in the world of very small things quantum mechanics holds sway and fundamentality challenges that which we hold to be reality. However, in the world in which we seem to have our being Newtonian physics and the laws of cause and effect seem to have pretty powerful predictive capabilities. You have two choices (a) take your line and conclude that causality is an illusion and that we live in world of random and ultimately inexplicable events; or (b) take the view that it is the business of theoretical physicists and kindred scientific workers to struggle towards a reconciliation between QM and NP whilst the rest of us strive to continue making the immense progress in our understanding of the world that has been achieved in the last 400 years, not least by a belief in cause and effect and the significance of experimental replication. And surely it is obvious that neither position can secure a knock blow over the other. My inclination is to think that you are reaching back over 2000 years to Plato's theory of the cave which postulated that we can never know anything with any degree of certainty; you think I am identifying patterns where none exist. As I have always though Plato's cave a clever put ultimately pointless mind game, I am never likely to warm towards your 21st century reformulation. Nor would I think that any other hard-nosed neo-darwinist would feel any better disposed to your point of view.

 

What I should stress is that my approach is so prosaic that I do not buy in to any of the notions you hang round my neck in the final paragraph. I do not think that life is either essential or inevitable, or that it is necessarily driven by some will to survive. My basic premise is that that genes are the only known currency of evolution and that if a gene- a mindless speck of DNA - happens to code for something that will lead to its reproduction generation after generation, it will, self evidently, so replicate. A gene that does not so code will- equally self-evidently - not replicate. The whole thing is entirely without higher purpose, but to those of us with an enquiring mind it explains an great deal about the world in which we operate. More specifically, I think it explains why we seem so hag-driven to succeed in terms largely derived from others or pay an horrendous physiological price if we fail to do so.

 

Well, quantum physics isn't meta-physics which is why it's been around in the science community for over half I century since it was created and why its the modern frontier of science . I think that perhaps your views at this point aren't as approaching religious extremism as I thought your statements were originally, but I can't help but notice your still seem to be suggesting some determinism revolving around "why" things happen or that living things "have" to do something that leads to their survival. Quantum mechanics says things can't be deterministic, and that's because atoms aren't deterministic and you cannot predict the future state of an atom based off of the past state of an atom. The entire macroscopic world is built from atoms, and living things are built form atoms and even things like DNA are subject to this chaos. I can agree that things can be probable to happen.

Your saying that consciousness is nothing more than the coding of DNA to make chemical reactions that will generate processes to generate some kind of electromagnetic...um...whatever you think that voice in your head is (and there's another problem, even at the point where your viewing all the chemical reactions line up to do something, you still need to figure out what they would actually be generating which hasn't been...I guess, confirmed? Studied?) and that DNA will generate things to generate "thought" processes that survive if the DNA is to be passed on, right?

One problem with this is quantum mechanics, because the atomic (which includes DNA and all the chemical reactions in your body) world is even more visibly subject to chaos, so how does DNA go about "determining" what will happen in the future if what "will" happen in the future cannot be based off of present information?

Then, another problem is consciousness itself. It's immeasurable, yet we can still measure what it causes. How is it that we measure the impacts and choices of consciousness as a separate entity, separate from all these chemical reactions, if it is nothing more than a bunch of deterministic reactions? How is it that we cannot measure that consciousness is those chemical reactions themselves? What about the fact that we cannot predict with certainty what something "will" think in just the plain macroscopic or "Newtonian" world?

 

 

What your saying implies that if we figure out how DNA works, than we can determinate what something will or has to think, but nothing "has" to think any particular thing and what something does think cannot be determined with a lot of accuracy.

Things might "seem" deterministic at times because there isn't enough information to see the pattern of chaos that is occurring or at times there aren't a lot of apparent variables that change much or things by pure random chance might just be coincidentally happening in a slow enough time scale to see where they are "likely" to go.

Consciousness is just something entirely different than a chemical reaction or just some generator, it doesn't belong in the realm your putting it in and that's why we can't measure consciousness itself as chemical reactions or "things generated from DNA".

 

Also, what about all the other "thought processes" that survive but don't actually help someone survive? Surely you don't think "I want to get hammered" helps you survive, even though people who get hammered all the time end up surviving and reproducing.

 

Even with wanting to commit suicide, I think you can agree that it's at least a little tiny tiny bit more complex than "he has inferior genes so he will kill himself due to his inferior thought processes".

There's still the process of conscious thoughts becoming actions as well that you have to consider with this. The genes make the glands of your body likely to generate a more of a chemical that can somehow cause consciousness feel the feeling of depression in response to something, they don't generate thoughts themselves.

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I think that what your saying is logical in most respects which is why I'm paying attention to it, but that problem with determinism and that problem with consciousness not being actual chemical reactions are big problems.

Perhaps if it was tweaked to say

"Some genes will be less likely to get passed on because they are more likely to code for a gland that will generate too much of a chemical response which in turn has a higher probability of afflicting consciousness more severely" or maybe "building bad habits", I think you see relatively what I'm saying. Perhaps the high levels of hormones can inhibit conscious thought all together, which would be more plain evolution. Although even at this point, you still can't say if a thought process will actually turn out successful lead to an action that ends up allowing something to survive.

Edited January 18, 2012 by questionposter

[Mike Waller]

Well, quantum physics isn't meta-physics which is why it's been around in the science community for over half I century since it was created and why its the modern frontier of science . I think that perhaps your views at this point aren't as approaching religious extremism as I thought your statements were originally, but I can't help but notice your still seem to be suggesting some determinism revolving around "why" things happen or that living things "have" to do something that leads to their survival. Quantum mechanics says things can't be deterministic, and that's because atoms aren't deterministic and you cannot predict the future state of an atom based off of the past state of an atom. The entire macroscopic world is built from atoms, and living things are built form atoms and even things like DNA are subject to this chaos. I can agree that things can be probable to happen.

Your saying that consciousness is nothing more than the coding of DNA to make chemical reactions that will generate processes to generate some kind of electromagnetic...um...whatever you think that voice in your head is (and there's another problem, even at the point where your viewing all the chemical reactions line up to do something, you still need to figure out what they would actually be generating which hasn't been...I guess, confirmed? Studied?) and that DNA will generate things to generate "thought" processes that survive if the DNA is to be passed on, right?

One problem with this is quantum mechanics, because the atomic (which includes DNA and all the chemical reactions in your body) world is even more visibly subject to chaos, so how does DNA go about "determining" what will happen in the future if what "will" happen in the future cannot be based off of present information?

Then, another problem is consciousness itself. It's immeasurable, yet we can still measure what it causes. How is it that we measure the impacts and choices of consciousness as a separate entity, separate from all these chemical reactions, if it is nothing more than a bunch of deterministic reactions? How is it that we cannot measure that consciousness is those chemical reactions themselves? What about the fact that we cannot predict with certainty what something "will" think in just the plain macroscopic or "Newtonian" world?

 

 

What your saying implies that if we figure out how DNA works, than we can determinate what something will or has to think, but nothing "has" to think any particular thing and what something does think cannot be determined with a lot of accuracy.

Things might "seem" deterministic at times because there isn't enough information to see the pattern of chaos that is occurring or at times there aren't a lot of apparent variables that change much or things by pure random chance might just be coincidentally happening in a slow enough time scale to see where they are "likely" to go.

Consciousness is just something entirely different than a chemical reaction or just some generator, it doesn't belong in the realm your putting it in and that's why we can't measure consciousness itself as chemical reactions or "things generated from DNA".

 

Also, what about all the other "thought processes" that survive but don't actually help someone survive? Surely you don't think "I want to get hammered" helps you survive, even though people who get hammered all the time end up surviving and reproducing.

 

Even with wanting to commit suicide, I think you can agree that it's at least a little tiny tiny bit more complex than "he has inferior genes so he will kill himself due to his inferior thought processes".

There's still the process of conscious thoughts becoming actions as well that you have to consider with this. The genes make the glands of your body likely to generate a more of a chemical that can somehow cause consciousness feel the feeling of depression in response to something, they don't generate thoughts themselves.

 

 

 

Don't get me wrong, I think that what your saying is logical in most respects which is why I'm paying attention to it, but that problem with determinism and that problem with consciousness not being actual chemical reactions are big problems.

Perhaps if it was tweaked to say

"Some genes will be less likely to get passed on because they are more likely to code for a gland that will generate too much of a chemical response which in turn has a higher probability of afflicting consciousness more severely" or maybe "building bad habits", I think you see relatively what I'm saying. Perhaps the high levels of hormones can inhibit conscious thought all together, which would be more plain evolution. Although even at this point, you still can't say if a thought process will actually turn out successful lead to an action that ends up allowing something to survive.

 

I increasingly feel that you are making things unnecessarily complicated. My opening premise is that genes can code for physical characteristics, biological processes, and behaviours. Simple examples would be the giraffe's long neck, the digestive processes from mouth to anus, and the kind of drive which has female salmon struggle relentlessly to the spawning grounds, producing the next generation and then dying. The key evidence for this is that the same patterns are to be observed in the same species, generation after generation. The next stage is to accept - as virtually all evolutionary biologists do - that all such gene defined phenomena are initially but pale shadows of the fully developed form and these shadows arise out of genetic mutation. Thereafter, natural selection acting on marginal differences between competing alleles, carries out the process of refinement. If you accept all that, my ideas are but a logical extension; it you do not (a) you and I can never have a meeting of minds, and (b) almost the entire weight of modern biological theory is on my side.

 

Assuming that you do accept it, all I am saying is that much as natural selection, on 3 or 4 occasions, has taken what was most probably no more than a mutant patch of light sensitive skin and turned it very slowly into an eye, it has also taken a modestly adaptive piece of behaviour which had losers backing down in the face of challenges from more powerful rivals ( he who fights and runs away......) into something which literally takes out individuals who judge, or are who are led to judge, that their performance is so sub-optimal that they are doing reputational damage to kin with negative eproductive consequences significantly in excess of any gene throughput that individual is likely themselves to contribute.

 

To me at least, if you accept the opening neo-darwinist premise, my corollary is difficult if not impossible to refute.

[questionposter]

I increasingly feel that you are making things unnecessarily complicated. My opening premise is that genes can code for physical characteristics, biological processes, and behaviours. Simple examples would be the giraffe's long neck, the digestive processes from mouth to anus, and the kind of drive which has female salmon struggle relentlessly to the spawning grounds, producing the next generation and then dying. The key evidence for this is that the same patterns are to be observed in the same species, generation after generation. The next stage is to accept - as virtually all evolutionary biologists do - that all such gene defined phenomena are initially but pale shadows of the fully developed form and these shadows arise out of genetic mutation. Thereafter, natural selection acting on marginal differences between competing alleles, carries out the process of refinement. If you accept all that, my ideas are but a logical extension; it you do not (a) you and I can never have a meeting of minds, and (b) almost the entire weight of modern biological theory is on my side.

 

Assuming that you do accept it, all I am saying is that much as natural selection, on 3 or 4 occasions, has taken what was most probably no more than a mutant patch of light sensitive skin and turned it very slowly into an eye, it has also taken a modestly adaptive piece of behaviour which had losers backing down in the face of challenges from more powerful rivals ( he who fights and runs away......) into something which literally takes out individuals who judge, or are who are led to judge, that their performance is so sub-optimal that they are doing reputational damage to kin with negative eproductive consequences significantly in excess of any gene throughput that individual is likely themselves to contribute.

 

To me at least, if you accept the opening neo-darwinist premise, my corollary is difficult if not impossible to refute.

 

Well, what I was saying wasn't really "neo" anything, it's just the relativity of morals.

Anyway, what your saying now is different that what you had said originally. At first you said consciousness was a complete fraud, an illusion, and that it was a bunch of deterministic mechanisms, now your just repeating how normal evolution already works to make it seem as though I disagree with Darwin's theories, I don't get what's going on exactly.

I can agree DNA code for a complex mechanism which releases hormones in response to something and can cause compulsions or "suggestions", and that's it, consciousness itself doesn't belong in evolution at this point in our understanding of life, let alone science at all.

I don't even think that mechanism can code for "better" or "worse" thoughts because that doesn't really make sense. Perhaps learning ability and memory, but it doesn't make sense that someone's thoughts are "better" or "superior" to someone else's, it's just like saying an opinion is right or wrong, and there's not really a way to determine if a acting or not acting upon a thought will ultimately lead to something good or bad. Maybe someone wants to commit suicide but then other people recognize that and try to help that person, and so that person get's a job from someone, or wins the lottery or w/e, or he/she dies. Maybe that person doesn't want to commit suicide so he/she goes about his/her normal life and just lives a decent life, or maybe that person doesn't commit suicide and ends up having a heart attack later.

Edited January 21, 2012 by questionposter

[Mike Waller]

Well, what I was saying wasn't really "neo" anything, it's just the relativity of morals.

Anyway, what your saying now is different that what you had said originally. At first you said consciousness was a complete fraud, an illusion, and that it was a bunch of deterministic mechanisms, now your just repeating how normal evolution already works to make it seem as though I disagree with Darwin's theories, I don't get what's going on exactly.

I can agree DNA code for a complex mechanism which releases hormones in response to something and can cause compulsions or "suggestions", and that's it, consciousness itself doesn't belong in evolution at this point in our understanding of life, let alone science at all.

I don't even think that mechanism can code for "better" or "worse" thoughts because that doesn't really make sense. Perhaps learning ability and memory, but it doesn't make sense that someone's thoughts are "better" or "superior" to someone else's, it's just like saying an opinion is right or wrong, and there's not really a way to determine if a acting or not acting upon a thought will ultimately lead to something good or bad. Maybe someone wants to commit suicide but then other people recognize that and try to help that person, and so that person get's a job from someone, or wins the lottery or w/e, or he/she dies. Maybe that person doesn't want to commit suicide so he/she goes about his/her normal life and just lives a decent life, or maybe that person doesn't commit suicide and ends up having a heart attack later.

 

What I have being saying about consciousness for about 20 years is entirely consistent. I believe it to be real in the sense that itis a very valuable "app" strongly favoured by natural selection in specieswhose main strategy is a combination of cooperating with and seeking to outwit their own kind plus continually seeking new ways of exploiting their environment.Much as engineers and scientists use computer models to carry out project pre-tests or conduct otherwise impossible experiments, so we evolved a large brain to pre-restnew social tactics and other novel behaviours. And to provide the essentialaction criterion in such circumstances, a sense of self evolved as a means of determiningwhich of various options is most likely to prove most beneficial to the thinker. Because (on the planet Earth at least) we seem to be the supreme exemplars of this kind of strategy, our ego needs drive us to accord what is no more than a neat little app, quasi-mystical status.

 

Where the idea of an illusion comes in is that it has also proved evolutionarily adaptive to come hard-wired with the idea that "consciousness" runs all the important bits of the entire organism. Yet we have known for years that this is not so. In the early 1960s the British neurosurgeon, W. Grey Walter,carried out an experiment in which he implanted electrodes into a subject's motor cortex and linked these to the advance mechanism on a slide projector. He then gave the subject a dummy button which supposedly advanced the slides. What happened came as a complete shock to the subjects. If the sequence actually went consciousness, motor cortex, muscles, slides, the subjects would have noticed no difference.Instead, the subjects said the projector was somehow ahead of them. Just as they were thinking about pressing the button, but before they had actually decided to do so, the projector advanced the slide. To me what is happening is obvious. A decision process which is not embedded in consciousness decides that it has seen enough of the current slide. It then triggers the appropriate motor response whilst in parallel giving consciousness the "heads up". Consciousness then "decides" in accordance with the decision already made and thus maintains its illusion of control. Simply by cutting out the muscles' role in this, GreyWalter brought his subjects to a very uncomfortable appreciation of what was actually going on.

 

As for determinism, it is not really germane to what Iam talking about. It could be that, as you suggest, QM makes a deterministic world impossible. Alternatively, it could be, as others have suggested, that the Newtonian model has worked so well throughout humanity's evolution that our brains simply cannot cope with some illusive logic within QM. Who knows? However, as I am just operating at the level of questions such as what caused the giraffe's long neck to evolve, determinism is simply not my bag.

 

Ditto with "better" or "superior" decisions. I am interested in what can or cannot evolve; not value judgements and comparative morality. And I say yet again, in the context of assortative mating, kin are a very valuable source of data concerning recessive genes a prospective mate may carry. It follows from this that a point can be reached where the reputational damage caused by an evolutionarily underperforming individual hits a level significantly greater than the genetic throughput she or he is likely to contribute to the family group's overall throughput. Given this, inclusive fitness theory suggests that the evolution of a self-elimination mechanism would be virtually certain. And that is why, I believe, so many life threatening conditions and behaviours seem to follow on from major depressive illnesses, and, in a world in which socio-sexual success and celebrity have become so hugely important to many of our young, suicide is now cutting a swathe through their ranks.

 

Edited January 24, 2012 by Mike Waller

[CharonY]

It appears to me that you are promoting a form of group selection that in turn has a rather weak standing. Questions that I would have is what would be the mechanism to identify detrimental traits and how do members judge relationship? Are destructive behaviors not triggered, within groups of non-related individuals? Or would they be modulated?

 

I.e. what predictions would you make based on your theory and how could they be tested?

 

 

 

 

As to questionposter: cheating is, from an evolutionary viewpoint, an expected behavior in presence of altruistic behavior as it allows the cheater to optimize resource utilization. But there are of course counter-strategies that allow altruistic behavior to persist. As such, social behavior is very universal and certain examples can be found even in the bacterial realm.

 

 

[questionposter]

As to questionposter: cheating is, from an evolutionary viewpoint, an expected behavior in presence of altruistic behavior as it allows the cheater to optimize resource utilization. But there are of course counter-strategies that allow altruistic behavior to persist. As such, social behavior is very universal and certain examples can be found even in the bacterial realm.

 

 

 

Well I mean I know altruism doesn't usually work when things are scared for their own survival and doesn't usually work on it's own, but what about ants? There's probably more ants in the world than people...

Edited January 24, 2012 by questionposter

[Mike Waller]

It appears to me that you are promoting a form of group selection that in turn has a rather weak standing. Questions that I would have is what would be the mechanism to identify detrimental traits and how do members judge relationship? Are destructive behaviors not triggered, within groups of non-related individuals? Or would they be modulated?

 

I.e. what predictions would you make based on your theory and how could they be tested?

 

 

 

 

As to questionposter: cheating is, from an evolutionary viewpoint, an expected behavior in presence of altruistic behavior as it allows the cheater to optimize resource utilization. But there are of course counter-strategies that allow altruistic behavior to persist. As such, social behavior is very universal and certain examples can be found even in the bacterial realm.

 

 

 

You raise a key point, but I am scrupulous in sticking within the bounds of inclusive fitness theory. To make matters simple, let us imagine 4 siblings born to parents who both carry a single copy of the same deleterious recessive gene. Amongst the siblings, one is entirely free of it, two carry it as a recessive and in the forth, who has two, it is fully expressed. Because it is a very much an under-researched area, the evidence of mate selectors using kin as to key guide to the genetic worth of a prospective mate, is limited. However if you read my paper you will see that I have found some, and amongst humans (including stockbreeders, insurance companies, and marriage brokers) the evidence is overwhelming. Indeed, modern Western ideas of romantic marriage are very much the exception – most societies consider the family background an essential consideration – and even in the West, evidence of negative family traits can still have a powerful effect. My paper includes material taken from an island study in which a terrible genetic disease is a key determinant of which families are considered eligible for marriage, whether or not the individual under consideration actual has the condition. Against such a background there seems to me to be an impelling logic to the idea that if the forth sibling's hereditary problems are sufficiently serious, the mating prospects of the other three would be very much enhanced were he or she not around to, in effect, give evidence against them. I think it clear from the above that I place no reliance whatsoever on group selection theory.

 

That said, when I started out on this quest, I mistakenly thought the group advantages crucial. That there are group advantages seems to me indisputable. Take for example the established fact that depressives actually move more slowly than those not depressed, then transpose this to a prey species. If group A have this characteristic and it is linked to individuals recognising – or being made to recognise - that they are adaptively sub-optimal, then the prey animals will forever be picking off the weaker brethren. Put another way, this form of self-elimination will act as a multiplier on the normal processes of natural selection. As a result, group A will be refined by such processes far more quickly than group B in which, no matter how mal-adapted, every individual runs like hell. With the second group, natural selection and the laws of probability will still act to improve the average level of adaptedness, but nowhere near as quickly. Result? Game, set and match to group A.

 

Eventually I came to realise that this is a flawed argument as it is too open to cheating. Within group A, seemingly, any family group that lost the self-destruct genes, would out-breed those that carried them, so that Group A would fairly rapidly become indistinguishable from group B. I was stuck at that point for some time until I suddenly realised the reputational implications in the context of sexual selection for any families with young markedly less well adapted than the preponderance of their siblings. Ironically, once inclusive fitness opens up the way for such a process to evolve, the group level benefits come into play unhindered. It's a funny old world!

 

As to how detrimental traits are identified, my answer is just as they are in the context of sexual selection. In species which practice assortative mating, we readily accept that that those choosing mates have a capacity to discriminate between a number of suitors. I am just talking about the same kind of judgement being applied to self and to kin. As to identifying who is related to whom, I include in my paper a fascinating study in which peacocks hatched away from their family groups, nonetheless formed leks disproportionally comprising kin when released into a naturalistic setting. My guess is that it is all down to pheromones.

 

Regarding what happens in groups of unrelated individuals, my feeling is that in the natural groups of about 250 in the context of which we evolved, evolution did not favour as a default condition "You're bloody marvellous unless told otherwise". What we seem to need, to a greater of lesser degree, is some kind of continuous positive regard. That is why, as I detail in my paper, those without close friends and family tend to do badly in terms of health and longevity. The effect of this need for emotional buffering when individuals find themselves on their own in the nation states and mega-cities of the modern era, can be pretty devastating in terms of the mechanism I am suggesting. That said, when my paper first came out a group of American researchers looked at the national suicide statistics and reckoned that they were highest in rural communities. So it could just be that being ignored by our metropolitan neighbours is not half as bad as the all too critical attentions of neighbours and family members in a small community! The key thing, perhaps, is that in such communities our shortcomings do much more reputational harm.

 

As for predictions, I make four in my paper and test them all. Have a look and see what you think. All you have to do is put "Family stigma, sexual selection and the evolutionary origins of severe depression's physiological consequences" into Google.

 

[questionposter]

You raise a key point, but I am scrupulous in sticking within the bounds of inclusive fitness theory. To make matters simple, let us imagine 4 siblings born to parents who both carry a single copy of the same deleterious recessive gene. Amongst the siblings, one is entirely free of it, two carry it as a recessive and in the forth, who has two, it is fully expressed. Because it is a very much an under-researched area, the evidence of mate selectors using kin as to key guide to the genetic worth of a prospective mate, is limited. However if you read my paper you will see that I have found some, and amongst humans (including stockbreeders, insurance companies, and marriage brokers) the evidence is overwhelming. Indeed, modern Western ideas of romantic marriage are very much the exception – most societies consider the family background an essential consideration – and even in the West, evidence of negative family traits can still have a powerful effect. My paper includes material taken from an island study in which a terrible genetic disease is a key determinant of which families are considered eligible for marriage, whether or not the individual under consideration actual has the condition. Against such a background there seems to me to be an impelling logic to the idea that if the forth sibling's hereditary problems are sufficiently serious, the mating prospects of the other three would be very much enhanced were he or she not around to, in effect, give evidence against them. I think it clear from the above that I place no reliance whatsoever on group selection theory.

 

That said, when I started out on this quest, I mistakenly thought the group advantages crucial. That there are group advantages seems to me indisputable. Take for example the established fact that depressives actually move more slowly than those not depressed, then transpose this to a prey species. If group A have this characteristic and it is linked to individuals recognising – or being made to recognise - that they are adaptively sub-optimal, then the prey animals will forever be picking off the weaker brethren. Put another way, this form of self-elimination will act as a multiplier on the normal processes of natural selection. As a result, group A will be refined by such processes far more quickly than group B in which, no matter how mal-adapted, every individual runs like hell. With the second group, natural selection and the laws of probability will still act to improve the average level of adaptedness, but nowhere near as quickly. Result? Game, set and match to group A.

 

Eventually I came to realise that this is a flawed argument as it is too open to cheating. Within group A, seemingly, any family group that lost the self-destruct genes, would out-breed those that carried them, so that Group A would fairly rapidly become indistinguishable from group B. I was stuck at that point for some time until I suddenly realised the reputational implications in the context of sexual selection for any families with young markedly less well adapted than the preponderance of their siblings. Ironically, once inclusive fitness opens up the way for such a process to evolve, the group level benefits come into play unhindered. It's a funny old world!

 

As to how detrimental traits are identified, my answer is just as they are in the context of sexual selection. In species which practice assortative mating, we readily accept that that those choosing mates have a capacity to discriminate between a number of suitors. I am just talking about the same kind of judgement being applied to self and to kin. As to identifying who is related to whom, I include in my paper a fascinating study in which peacocks hatched away from their family groups, nonetheless formed leks disproportionally comprising kin when released into a naturalistic setting. My guess is that it is all down to pheromones.

 

Regarding what happens in groups of unrelated individuals, my feeling is that in the natural groups of about 250 in the context of which we evolved, evolution did not favour as a default condition "You're bloody marvellous unless told otherwise". What we seem to need, to a greater of lesser degree, is some kind of continuous positive regard. That is why, as I detail in my paper, those without close friends and family tend to do badly in terms of health and longevity. The effect of this need for emotional buffering when individuals find themselves on their own in the nation states and mega-cities of the modern era, can be pretty devastating in terms of the mechanism I am suggesting. That said, when my paper first came out a group of American researchers looked at the national suicide statistics and reckoned that they were highest in rural communities. So it could just be that being ignored by our metropolitan neighbours is not half as bad as the all too critical attentions of neighbours and family members in a small community! The key thing, perhaps, is that in such communities our shortcomings do much more reputational harm.

 

As for predictions, I make four in my paper and test them all. Have a look and see what you think. All you have to do is put "Family stigma, sexual selection and the evolutionary origins of severe depression's physiological consequences" into Google.

 

 

 

What your describing seems logical, however I don't think it is describing what you think it is describing. Your subconscious itself isn't a single entity, it's millions and millions of cells, and cells themselves can't do math or use reasoning or whatever other things your trying to force them to do, they just operate, they just release certain chemical reactions when some chemical or electrical impulse would cause them to do so. Based on your description what your describing seems to be hormonal mechanisms combined with habitual mechanisms that work in a way as to release hormones in response to an environmental habit. If someone is appealing to someone else, then probably based on where they grew up there are certain ranges of hormones released, however based on these experiments, I cannot conclude that what you were saying originally that consciousness is those mechanisms is true.

I would also argue that people wouldn't necessarily "need" to have all the mechanisms your describing to consciously get through the situations you describe, and in fact it has been tested that people's environments effect their subconscious triggers so the notion that people would "need" to have a feeling one way or another is false because sub-consciousness mechanisms independent from a conscious mind can adapt to it which is why generally people raised by nicer people will generally not have violent triggers. Only with adapting to it, your conscious mind actually has the ability to chose the degree of the severity of adaptation somehow, which I can only explain by means of consciousness not being those mechanisms themselves.

 

I can agree perhaps that rather than a causation between conscious and sub-conscious that there is sometimes a correlation between feelings and mechanisms, as in it isn't necessarily that consciousness and sub-consciousnesses always have a "cause-and-effect" with each other, but merely correlate to mechanisms being equal to a compulsion and a compulsion being equal to a chemical triggered by a conscious response, or a feeling recognized by consciousness is equal to a mechanism.

It is similar to the notion that "if a=b=c, then a=c", which is a correlation, however time does not need to pass in order for that to be true and thus it is not a causation.

Even at this point though, I still think we have no idea what things like consciousness actually are, how something "knows" it exists in the universe.

Edited January 29, 2012 by questionposter

[Mike Waller]

What your describing seems logical, however I don't think it is describing what you think it is describing. Your subconscious itself isn't a single entity, it's millions and millions of cells, and cells themselves can't do math or use reasoning or whatever other things your trying to force them to do, they just operate, they just release certain chemical reactions when some chemical or electrical impulse would cause them to do so. Based on your description what your describing seems to be hormonal mechanisms combined with habitual mechanisms that work in a way as to release hormones in response to an environmental habit. If someone is appealing to someone else, then probably based on where they grew up there are certain ranges of hormones released, however based on these experiments, I cannot conclude that what you were saying originally that consciousness is those mechanisms is true.

I would also argue that people wouldn't necessarily "need" to have all the mechanisms your describing to consciously get through the situations you describe, and in fact it has been tested that people's environments effect their subconscious triggers so the notion that people would "need" to have a feeling one way or another is false because sub-consciousness mechanisms independent from a conscious mind can adapt to it which is why generally people raised by nicer people will generally not have violent triggers. Only with adapting to it, your conscious mind actually has the ability to chose the degree of the severity of adaptation somehow, which I can only explain by means of consciousness not being those mechanisms themselves.

 

I can agree perhaps that rather than a causation between conscious and sub-conscious that there is sometimes a correlation between feelings and mechanisms, as in it isn't necessarily that consciousness and sub-consciousnesses always have a "cause-and-effect" with each other, but merely correlate to mechanisms being equal to a compulsion and a compulsion being equal to a chemical triggered by a conscious response, or a feeling recognized by consciousness is equal to a mechanism.

It is similar to the notion that "if a=b=c, then a=c", which is a correlation, however time does not need to pass in order for that to be true and thus it is not a causation.

Even at this point though, I still think we have no idea what things like consciousness actually are, how something "knows" it exists in the universe.

 

You might be right; perhaps it is all impossibly complicated and we will never get a handle on it. However, it's not a story I buy. It seems to me that if you took a piece of battery driven electronic technology back to the twelfth century and then showed folks what it could do, they would first rip it a part and say that these seemingly inert pieces simply could not produce what they had just heard and they would then burn you as being in league with the devil! In short, our lack of understanding does not mean that things cannot eventually be understood.

 

Yes, of course it is hard for single cell organisms to start coalescing and then move on, over the generations, into ever increasing complexity; but at each step all they have to attain is a tiny edge over what had previously been conspecifics or make a successful niche shift. No doubt in most cases they failed, but complexity is built on the very rare exceptions that succeed + almost unimaginable periods of time.

 

When complexity starts to produced large brained creatures in response to turbulent environments, it is heading for an existential crisis. As I have already suggested, fully to exploit such environments an organism needs a capacity to review its options in advance of acting. And, in my mind at least, that essential capacity is what we know as conscious. The problem is that once consciousness develops to the level at which we possess it, it starts throwing up annoying questions such as, "What's it all about?". The difficulty is, if the account I have given is to be relied upon, the answer to that is, "Nothing".

 

You then have three choices: share with others a belief in a deity; take it on the chin; or find solace in the conclusion that the whole thing is ineffably complex. In terms of my theory, the first and last carry a major adaptive advantage that the evolved desire to be well regarded is met in part by a god considering us important or a sense that one is an integral part of that ineffable mystery. I should perhaps say that if it works for you, I should stop trying to fix it!

Edited January 30, 2012 by Mike Waller

[questionposter]

You might be right; perhaps it is all impossibly complicated and we will never get a handle on it. However, it's not a story I buy. It seems to me that if you took a piece of battery driven electronic technology back to the twelfth century and then showed folks what it could do, they would first rip it a part and say that these seemingly inert pieces simply could not produce what they had just heard and they would then burn you as being in league with the devil! In short, our lack of understanding does not mean that things cannot eventually be understood.

 

Yes, of course it is hard for single cell organisms to start coalescing and then move on, over the generations, into ever increasing complexity; but at each step all they have to attain is a tiny edge over what had previously been conspecifics or make a successful niche shift. No doubt in most cases they failed, but complexity is built on the very rare exceptions that succeed + almost unimaginable periods of time.

 

When complexity starts to produced large brained creatures in response to turbulent environments, it is heading for an existential crisis. As I have already suggested, fully to exploit such environments an organism needs a capacity to review its options in advance of acting. And, in my mind at least, that essential capacity is what we know as conscious. The problem is that once consciousness develops to the level at which we possess it, it starts throwing up annoying questions such as, "What's it all about?". The difficulty is, if the account I have given is to be relied upon, the answer to that is, "Nothing".

 

You then have three choices: share with others a belief in a deity; take it on the chin; or find solace in the conclusion that the whole thing is ineffably complex. In terms of my theory, the first and last carry a major adaptive advantage that the evolved desire to be well regarded is met in part by a god considering us important or a sense that one is an integral part of that ineffable mystery. I should perhaps say that if it works for you, I should stop trying to fix it!

 

I think emotions themselves are linked to evolution too, but I still can't conclude that what your saying is true. Cells can't reason, so the notion that someone does something "because their sub-conscious mechanisms think it will benefit them in the future" is false. Subconsciousness does not have that ability to think or reason, it is simply a culmination of very complex mechanisms and switches, and it's already been shown that consciousness and subconsciousness are separate entities. Complex mechanisms happen, consciousness perceives them, and can then act in agreement to those mechanisms or not by in some inexplicably complex way as to send signals to subconscious mechanisms, although I suppose the mysterious "will-power" can have something to do with that as well. I mean I don't think we're in complete control, but I don't think we have 0 control either.

Edited January 31, 2012 by questionposter

[Mike Waller]

I think emotions themselves are linked to evolution too, but I still can't conclude that what your saying is true. Cells can't reason, so the notion that someone does something "because their sub-conscious mechanisms think it will benefit them in the future" is false. Subconsciousness does not have that ability to think or reason, it is simply a culmination of very complex mechanisms and switches, and it's already been shown that consciousness and subconsciousness are separate entities. Complex mechanisms happen, consciousness perceives them, and can then act in agreement to those mechanisms or not by in some inexplicably complex way as to send signals to subconscious mechanisms, although I suppose the mysterious "will-power" can have something to do with that as well. I mean I don't think we're in complete control, but I don't think we have 0 control either.

 

I think that you first need to define what you mean by "reason". Would you consider the use of calculus (sadly,a closed book to me) an example of reasoning? I ask, having read that billions of folk who would claim no such capability routinely use it, for example, in catching a ball. This is particularly so when the curving flight of a baseball or cricket ball hit high requires complex positional calculations if it is to be caught. Again who was doing the reasoning that kept your car out of trouble when you were thinking about how to reply to me? Folks remarking that "they" don't remember covering some part of their journey is fairly common in my experience.

 

My expectation is that you will say that you actually mean is high level reasoning as in "Who should I vote for?" or "What does freedom really mean? ; but to me, privileging this kind of mental function over all others would be the equivalent of giraffes privileging long necks were they the dominant species. Giving thought to such things is just something we do because that is the kind of species we are. Big brained, opportunistic problem-solving, environmental exploiters have to have a second-order, option-consideration box in which to work out the approach most likely to be most beneficial.

 

I learned recently from a programme dealing with the career of a female academic who had spent her life studying them, that amongst birds the Corvus (crow) family are (a) some of the most intelligent and (b), in proportion to their cerebral capacity, brilliant at problem-solving. Last night, on the TV quiz cum comedy show, QI, they made the same point and showed a clip of a crow said never to have seen the artefacts to which it was being experimentally exposed. Having rapidly investigated its new surroundings, it used its beak to pick up a piece of hooked wire and then used that to hook out a small pot with a handle that had been put deep in a larger container that precluded direct access by the crow. The smaller pot contained food.

 

And what else did the female academic have to say about crows? To everybody's surprise, they had recently been shown to display some of the behaviours taken in primates to be indicative of self-awareness. Again this suggest to me that seeing this kind of thing as some kind of ineffable mystery is no more than intellectual snobbery operating, superficially at least, at the species level. I say superficially,because it seems to me that those most likely to beat the drum about it already believe it to be a characteristic with which they are particularlywell-endowed.

 

To finish on a lighter note, if my prose won't convince, perhaps my poetry will. Here is smething I wrote a few years ago:

 

O May NoSome Pow'r the Giftie

 

gie us............

 

 

I think old Rabbie got it wrong,

 

Our world would not last very long

 

If we could see with steely eye

 

The self that's seen by passers-by.

 

The human brain's perhaps the best

 

But in one way it fails the test.

 

In planning all our clever acts

 

We need a mind which faces facts.

 

 

Yet one such fact we deeply fear:

 

There ain't much point in being here.

 

As billions of us come and go,

 

From whence and whither we don't know,

 

Our egos need stout walls and roof

 

To shield them from this dreadful truth.

 

So, whilst outwardly there's no sign,

 

Inside ourselves we build a shrine.

 

 

There, raised upon a noble plinth,

 

Which stands within a labyrinth,

 

There dwells the sacred sense of self

 

So crucial to our mental health.

 

 

These gods, who hold us all in thrall,

 

Demand delusions shared by all,

 

Which serve to fool the human race

 

That everyone's a special case.

 

 

So when your mind to ego turns

 

Forget about old Rabbie Burns.

 

As of yourself you take a view,

 

Wear spectacles of rosy hue.

 

 

MikeWaller

 

 

 

 

Edited February 4, 2012 by Mike Waller

[questionposter]

I think that you first need to define what you mean by "reason". Would you consider the use of calculus (sadly,a closed book to me) an example of reasoning? I ask, having read that billions of folk who would claim no such capability routinely use it, for example, in catching a ball. This is particularly so when the curving flight of a baseball or cricket ball hit high requires complex positional calculations if it is to be caught. Again who was doing the reasoning that kept your car out of trouble when you were thinking about how to reply to me? Folks remarking that "they" don't remember covering some part of their journey is fairly common in my experience.

 

My expectation is that you will say that you actually mean is high level reasoning as in "Who should I vote for?" or "What does freedom really mean? ; but to me, privileging this kind of mental function over all others would be the equivalent of giraffes privileging long necks were they the dominant species. Giving thought to such things is just something we do because that is the kind of species we are. Big brained, opportunistic problem-solving, environmental exploiters have to have a second-order, option-consideration box in which to work out the approach most likely to be most beneficial.

 

I learned recently from a programme dealing with the career of a female academic who had spent her life studying them, that amongst birds the Corvus (crow) family are (a) some of the most intelligent and (b), in proportion to their cerebral capacity, brilliant at problem-solving. Last night, on the TV quiz cum comedy show, QI, they made the same point and showed a clip of a crow said never to have seen the artefacts to which it was being experimentally exposed. Having rapidly investigated its new surroundings, it used its beak to pick up a piece of hooked wire and then used that to hook out a small pot with a handle that had been put deep in a larger container that precluded direct access by the crow. The smaller pot contained food.

 

And what else did the female academic have to say about crows? To everybody's surprise, they had recently been shown to display some of the behaviours taken in primates to be indicative of self-awareness. Again this suggest to me that seeing this kind of thing as some kind of ineffable mystery is no more than intellectual snobbery operating, superficially at least, at the species level. I say superficially,because it seems to me that those most likely to beat the drum about it already believe it to be a characteristic with which they are particularlywell-endowed.

 

To finish on a lighter note, if my prose won't convince, perhaps my poetry will. Here is smething I wrote a few years ago:

 

O May NoSome Pow'r the Giftie

 

gie us............

 

 

 

I think old Rabbie got it wrong,

 

Our world would not last very long

 

If we could see with steely eye

 

The self that's seen by passers-by.

 

The human brain's perhaps the best

 

But in one way it fails the test.

 

In planning all our clever acts

 

We need a mind which faces facts.

 

 

Yet one such fact we deeply fear:

 

There ain't much point in being here.

 

As billions of us come and go,

 

From whence and whither we don't know,

 

Our egos need stout walls and roof

 

To shield them from this dreadful truth.

 

So, whilst outwardly there's no sign,

 

Inside ourselves we build a shrine.

 

 

There, raised upon a noble plinth,

 

Which stands within a labyrinth,

 

There dwells the sacred sense of self

 

So crucial to our mental health.

 

 

These gods, who hold us all in thrall,

 

Demand delusions shared by all,

 

Which serve to fool the human race

 

That everyone's a special case.

 

 

So when your mind to ego turns

 

Forget about old Rabbie Burns.

 

As of yourself you take a view,

 

Wear spectacles of rosy hue.

 

 

MikeWaller

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, there actually isn't a reason for everything, so it actually is likely that it is an "ineffable mystery". I already understand the type of thinking your putting towards this which is why I don't think it's accurate, but something you didn't consider is that words are not the only way to consciously process or perceive information. You can do this not only with words, but with sight, sound, feeling, tasting, hearing, looking through memory, etc, which means you can do calculus without processing information using words. The way I like to think about it is that there is a way to transpose different types of information, such as that a feeling covers a broader range information put into terms of words by not necessarily the high complexity that words can put information into. Sort of like depth vs. range.

Some behaviors are effected by subconscious mechanisms that respond to information running through the system of the brain so that when a specific signal is put out, there are specific probable outcomes for the ways cells act, and not much more, as well as how much of the signal makes it to certain parts of the brain and in what form. Cells can't reason at least in the same sense as consciousness, so the only thing they could be doing is simply be carriers of messages which even then aren't completely deterministic.

 

Also, can't you also "not" catch a ball? And besides, math itself isn't the universe, because math is deterministic and without us to assign meaning to it, it wouldn't be or do anything.

 

Your quest to explain every single behavior under one principal reminds me of Einstein, who failed in his quest to do the same.

Edited February 4, 2012 by questionposter

[Mike Waller]

Well, there actually isn't a reason for everything, so it actually is likely that it is an "ineffable mystery". I already understand the type of thinking your putting towards this which is why I don't think it's accurate, but something you didn't consider is that words are not the only way to consciously process or perceive information. You can do this not only with words, but with sight, sound, feeling, tasting, hearing, looking through memory, etc, which means you can do calculus without processing information using words. The way I like to think about it is that there is a way to transpose different types of information, such as that a feeling covers a broader range information put into terms of words by not necessarily the high complexity that words can put information into. Sort of like depth vs. range.

Some behaviors are effected by subconscious mechanisms that respond to information running through the system of the brain so that when a specific signal is put out, there are specific probable outcomes for the ways cells act, and not much more, as well as how much of the signal makes it to certain parts of the brain and in what form. Cells can't reason at least in the same sense as consciousness, so the only thing they could be doing is simply be carriers of messages which even then aren't completely deterministic.

 

Also, can't you also "not" catch a ball? And besides, math itself isn't the universe, because math is deterministic and without us to assign meaning to it, it wouldn't be or do anything.

 

Your quest to explain every single behavior under one principal reminds me of Einstein, who failed in his quest to do the same.

 

I am deeply touched to be linked with Einstein even if only in terms of his ultimately unsuccessful quest. And whilst we are in the realm of back-handed compliments, may I commend you on your remarkable capacity to impute to others opinions they do not hold. For example, I gave as an instance of non-human reasoning a crow that used a piece of wire as a hook. Yet you reply with a claim that I haven't considered that "words are not the only way to consciously process or perceive information". Indeed, given the extreme recency of language in the evolution of the organisms who eventually became humans, it would seem to me self-evident that most, if not all, reasoning is other than language-based. As for your claim that "cells can't reason", it seems about as insightful as an observation that cells can't run. In my view the answer to both propositions is "No, but they build structures that can".

 

Everything you have said notwithstanding, I remain convinced that anybody who accepts the genetic theory of evolution would find the following propositions conceptually irrefutable

 

1. Given that when proprioception is disabled by trauma or viral attack, the conscious mind loses its sense of control over the entire body, yet the body continues to operate seemingly as normal, that sense of control is unlikely to be anything more than an adaptive illusion.

 

2. Whilst it is perfectly possible for individuals within species who carefully select their sexual partners, to come into being with little or no interest in the careful election of sexual partners, the genes defining such indifference would be rapidly out-competed by genes favouring the opposite approach.

 

3. Again, with in such a species, using kin as an indicator of a prospective mate's true genetic worth would be of such adaptive value that once genes favouring such a strategy emerged, they would rapidly be generalised.

 

4. Once they were in place, inclusive fitness considerations would mean that individuals would cease to be, in terms of sexual selection, sole traders. Instead, their performance, good orbad, would impact upon the perceived mate-worthiness of all close kin.

 

5. Under such a regime the point can be reached at which an individual inadvertently does so much damage to his/her kin's' perceived mate-worthiness that the aggregate reproductive cost significantly outweighs that individual's probable personal gene-throughput.

 

6. At this point, in the very unpleasant world that is shaped by natural selection, self-elimination starts to pay bigger evolutionary dividends than does continued existence.

 

 

Edited February 6, 2012 by Mike Waller

[Halucigenia]

...self-elimination starts to pay bigger evolutionary dividends [to the genes] than does [the individuals] continued existence.

By george, I think you have got it - with the inserted additions. Edited February 6, 2012 by Halucigenia

[questionposter]

I am deeply touched to be linked with Einstein even if only in terms of his ultimately unsuccessful quest. And whilst we are in the realm of back-handed compliments, may I commend you on your remarkable capacity to impute to others opinions they do not hold. For example, I gave as an instance of non-human reasoning a crow that used a piece of wire as a hook. Yet you reply with a claim that I haven't considered that "words are not the only way to consciously process or perceive information". Indeed, given the extreme recency of language in the evolution of the organisms who eventually became humans, it would seem to me self-evident that most, if not all, reasoning is other than language-based. As for your claim that "cells can't reason", it seems about as insightful as an observation that cells can't run. In my view the answer to both propositions is "No, but they build structures that can".

I'm pretty sure we're arguing different things. You say consciousness is some fancy illusion or magic trick like the matrix or something, and your connection to animals I guess could be interpreted multiple ways, because based on their actions they either also have consciousness similar to humans or don't have consciousness and somehow have mechanisms that generate something that is somehow fooling itself into thinking it exists in the universe (which to me personally don't make a lot of sense) like humans.

 

Everything you have said notwithstanding, I remain convinced that anybody who accepts the genetic theory of evolution would find the following propositions conceptually irrefutable

I can also say that your claims are also not actually on as much ground in reality, and obviously not everyone who accepts evolution automatically agrees with everything your saying. I already completely understand the notion of mechanisms causing compulsion and already see the point of view of which you perceive how thinking works, but what I don't actually see is much evidence for is that those mechanisms themselves that are what consciousness is and that we can predict what something will think solely based on their genes, which is what your saying should imply. It should also imply that after a certain point, all the people who would think things that would get them killed would disappear from the species, even though an organism acting on mechanisms that should lead to survival could still get killed just as easily as an organism without as "good" of mechanisms and thus any random process thought will survive anyway. Even if consciousness is a fancy illusion which I don't think it is, acting or not acting on different thoughts still can't be determined to be successful, so there won't ultimately be "perfect mechanisms for thinking" or even "optimally adapted" ways of thinking, and there could easily be different environmental changes, which means consciousness itself is not actually a part of evolution since there can't be many more "fit" or "unfit" consciousness. There's no better or worse mechanisms for what you would call the illusion of consciousness, all of those different "consciousness mechanisms" one way or another could eventually get reproduced or destroyed with equally unknown probability.

 

1. Given that when proprioception is disabled by trauma or viral attack, the conscious mind loses its sense of control over the entire body, yet the body continues to operate seemingly as normal, that sense of control is unlikely to be anything more than an adaptive illusion.

I think that perhaps it is a balance between what we're saying where every action and/or thought is in some way influenced by chemical reactions that generate feelings or compulsions but they usually aren't strong as there's millions of them that don't follow deterministic paths, because you can't really have consciousness without a physical body of chemical reactions and mechanisms to make it up, but at the same time those mechanisms themselves can't do everything of which we call free-will or "self-awareness" or "consciousness" or "thinking". I don't see how something can know it exists in the universe without it being something other than deterministic reactions.

And as I already stated before, mechanisms are subject to evolution and species over time can adapt different compulsions, such as with group mentality which is what you were saying before too. I can agree that every action can be "influenced" by mechanisms, but your going to need a lot more evidence to suggest that that's the only possible thing going on. I think that all the compulsions and influences are nothing more than just that, and there's not much to suggest they are actually much more than that, which would leave consciousness as a whole different entity.

Edited February 7, 2012 by questionposter

[Mike Waller]

...self-elimination starts to pay bigger evolutionary dividends [to the genes] than does [the individuals] continued existence.By george, I think you have got it - with the inserted additions.

 

 

At last, a kindred spirit!!! It is the genes that define the mechanism that reap the evolutionary reward. Though they, of course, are in competition with rival alleles who operate in precisely the same way, with, as usual, those who do the job most effectively achieving ascendancy. Effectiveness in this case is being not so over-active as to take out too many marginal threats to familial reputations, nor so lax as to allow too many to persist. More generally, I think this the only sensible way of looking at the evolutionary process. Although "we are all gene theorists now", many still seem to have pointless debates on topics such has why sexual reproduction has persisted in that it seemingly halves the chances of any given gene getting through. The only sensible answer is that it had proved a brilliant way for the genes defining sexual reproduction to persist over massive evolutionary timescales. Amongst species that go in for assortative mating, this is achieved by using the organism's own brain to identify the mate most likely, by coupling some of its genes with those of the mate-selector, to carry the sexual selection genes through into future generations. As we know, this is an effective strategy in environments where genetic variability pays big dividends in terms of environmental adaption, including parasitic resistance. In such circumstances asexual reproducers run a much greater risk of being driven to the evolutionary wall by parasites, or whatever, perfectly attuned to their relatively unchanging genetic inheritances. The field is thus left clear for the sexual reproducers.

 

From this standpoint, we can see that the genes defining the sexual selection mechanism are locked in an unending contest with the genes that define the mechanism I am proposing. The former seeking to get as much high quality information out of a prospective mate's kin as possible before making a mating commitment; the latter continually striving to mask familial weaknesses and secure mating opportunities better than their real adaptive merits would attain. The irony is that both genes are carried by all individuals.

Edited February 7, 2012 by Mike Waller

[questionposter]

At last, a kindred spirit!!! It is the genes that define the mechanism that reap the evolutionary reward. Though they, of course, are in competition with rival alleles who operate in precisely the same way, with, as usual, those who do the job most effectively achieving ascendancy. Effectiveness in this case is being not so over-active as to take out too many marginal threats to familial reputations, nor so lax as to allow too many to persist. More generally, I think this the only sensible way of looking at the evolutionary process. Although "we are all gene theorists now", many still seem to have pointless debates on topics such has why sexual reproduction has persisted in that it seemingly halves the chances of any given gene getting through. The only sensible answer is that it had proved a brilliant way for the genes defining sexual reproduction to persist over massive evolutionary timescales. Amongst species that go in for assortative mating, this is achieved by using the organism's own brain to identify the mate most likely, by coupling some of its genes with those of the mate-selector, to carry the sexual selection genes through into future generations. As we know, this is an effective strategy in environments where genetic variability pays big dividends in terms of environmental adaption, including parasitic resistance. In such circumstances asexual reproducers run a much greater risk of being driven to the evolutionary wall by parasites, or whatever, perfectly attuned to their relatively unchanging genetic inheritances. The field is thus left clear for the sexual reproducers.

 

From this standpoint, we can see that the genes defining the sexual selection mechanism are locked in an unending contest with the genes that define the mechanism I am proposing. The former seeking to get as much high quality information out of a prospective mate's kin as possible before making a mating commitment; the latter continually striving to mask familial weaknesses and secure mating opportunities better than their real adaptive merits would attain. The irony is that both genes are carried by all individuals.

 

Are you just not reading my posts? I already said the mechanisms are subject to evolution, but there is little evidence to support that consciousness itself has much to do with that. The mechanisms that cause compulsions can mutate, thus leading to different higher and lower probabilities of different actions, that's what your describing, not what consciousness is. Even at this point though it's still muddy. Why do you think after 3.8 billion years that organisms can still want to commit suicide?

Edited February 7, 2012 by questionposter

[Halucigenia]

At last, a kindred spirit!!!

Uh oh, I thought it might be a mistake to interject in this thread.

It is the genes that define the mechanism that reap the evolutionary reward.

Quite, that’s why the selfish gene is such a good metaphor.

 

Though they, of course, are in competition with rival alleles who operate in precisely the same way, with, as usual, those who do the job most effectively achieving ascendancy.

Competition can be certainly said to exist between rival alleles when taken metaphorically, and yes, selfish genes compete with other selfish genes, however, they also can be said to co-operate (and still be thought of as selfish) if the outcome is their mutual replication. Obviously mutual replication cannot be said to be the case between alleles though.

Effectiveness in this case is being not so over-active as to take out too many marginal threats to familial reputations, nor so lax as to allow too many to persist.

I’m not sure if I understand that sentence, you make it sound like some kind of gangster war but think that you may be taking the metaphor too literally.

More generally, I think this the only sensible way of looking at the evolutionary process. Although "we are all gene theorists now", many still seem to have pointless debates on topics such has why sexual selection has persisted in that it seemingly halves the chances of any given gene getting through. The only sensible answer is that it had proved a brilliant way for the genes defining sexual selection to persist over massive evolutionary timescales. Amongst species that go in for assortative mating, this is achieved by using the organism's own brain to identify the mate most likely, by coupling some of its genes with those of the mate-selector, to carry the sexual selection genes through into future generations. As we know, this is an effective strategy in environments where genetic variability pays big dividends in terms of environmental adaption, including parasitic resistance. In such circumstances asexual reproducers run a much greater risk of being driven to the evolutionary wall by parasites, or whatever, perfectly attuned to their relatively unchanging genetic inheritances. The field is thus left clear for the sexual selectors.

Again, I’m not sure if I understand that, but it sounds like you are conflating the evolutionary benefits of becoming a sexually reproducing organism and the potential evolutionary cost of doing so with the evolutionary mechanism of sexual selection there. Obviously sexual selection is only possible in sexually reproducing organisms, however, sexual selection itself maximizes the chances of sexually selected genes being replicated rather than halving the chances of any given gene getting through. The “twofold cost of sex” which I think that you could be alluding to relates to the evolution of two sexes in sexual reproduction only one of which bears young not the action of the mechanism of sexual selection.

Or maybe you allude to the fact that only half of an individuals genes get replicated to the next generation? But that is not a problem when one considers it from the selfish genes point of view - that it is the genes in the gene pool that are being replicated and that they have no concern for which individual vehicles that they find themselves in as long as that individual is capable of reproducing and passing them on to the next generation. As long as they are frequent in the gene pool it matters not, to them, the genes, whether only half of an individuals genes get passed on to the next generation as copies exist in more than one individual in the gene pool.

 

You could think of sexual selection as being an aberration of natural selection in sexually reproducing organisms allowing evolution to be directed along pathways unavailable to asexually reproducing organisms though. Also that this can be exploited by those selfish genes promoting traits that would not necessarily be of benefit to the organism’s survival otherwise e.g. the notorious peacock’s tail. Is that something like what you are getting at?

 

From this standpoint, we can see that the genes defining the sexual selection mechanism are locked in an unending contest with the genes that define the mechanism I am proposing. The former seeking to get as much high quality information out of a prospective mates kin as possible before making a mating commitment; the latter continually striving to mask familial weaknesses adn secure mating opportunities better than their real adaptive merits would attain. The irony is that both genes are carried by all individuals.

After skimming your previous posts I am still not quite sure what this “mechanism that you are proposing” actually is. “Sexual selection genes”, “the genes defining the sexual selection mechanism” and “striving to mask familial weaknesses” are unusual choices of words but I can only guess that you are alluding to the fact that not only the genes for sexually attractive traits are being selected and passed on but also genes that promote the behavior that selects those traits are also being selected and passed on in a kind of positive feedback loop. However, natural selection for organisms that are not for example so outlandishly ornamented by sexually selected traits that they are less able to survive and pass those and other genes on is the obvious curtailer of this feedback loop. So I suppose that this is what you are getting at by the above paragraph, it’s quite hard to tell by your strange usage of words though.

 

All I was actually commenting on was the fact that self elimination by whatever means, and the apparent altruism that this may imply, is possible because self-elimination can start to pay bigger evolutionary dividends to the genes in a given population’s gene pool by giving them a greater chance of being replicated than does the individuals continued existence is exactly what is explained by an understanding of the metaphor of the selfish gene. So, you were on the right track there. But trying to unpick your response to that comment has been an entertaining intellectual interlude, so thanks for that at least.

[questionposter]

After skimming your previous posts I am still not quite sure what this "mechanism that you are proposing" actually is. "Sexual selection genes", "the genes defining the sexual selection mechanism" and "striving to mask familial weaknesses" are unusual choices of words but I can only guess that you are alluding to the fact that not only the genes for sexually attractive traits are being selected and passed on but also genes that promote the behavior that selects those traits are also being selected and passed on in a kind of positive feedback loop. However, natural selection for organisms that are not for example so outlandishly ornamented by sexually selected traits that they are less able to survive and pass those and other genes on is the obvious curtailer of this feedback loop. So I suppose that this is what you are getting at by the above paragraph, it's quite hard to tell by your strange usage of words though.

 

I think what he is saying is that there isn't actually consciousness, that it's just a bunch of fancy mechanisms somehow formulating thoughts and only mechanisms that create good thoughts will survive.

I can agree that mechanisms such as the ones that cause compulsions perceived by consciousness and mechanisms that create chemicals for emotions can themselves be effected by evolution, but there is little evidence to suggest that your subconscious itself actually "thinks". It's more of just a boiling pot of millions of different signals that are almost randomly generated, some with more strength than others, it's actually a lot more complex than he is giving it credit or that I was giving it credit for. And then, he takes this a step further by saying on the organisms with the "best thoughts" survive, which to me still doesn't make sense, as you can't even determine if a thought will actually end up getting you killed or not. Perhaps compulsions such as depression are caused by mechanisms and he's saying people which those mechanisms will just die out, but if they are here after 3.8 billion years of evolution they probably actually help in some circumstances, which just does to show that you can't determine if a thought will actually lead to something good or bad anyway seeing as how something that would be as *seemingly self-destructive as depression is still around.

Edited February 7, 2012 by questionposter

[Mike Waller]

Uh oh, I thought it might be a mistake to interject in this thread. Quite, that's why the selfish gene is such a good metaphor.

 

Mike's reply:

 

Two opening points: I confirm that I, too, although recognising that genes are in fact mindless specks of DNA, nonetheless find it extremely helpful to envision them as being selfishly obsessed by their individual replication. I also affirm that where characteristics defined by two separate genes act to complement each other when expressed in an organism, the genes can, again, metaphorically, be seen as cooperating to mutual benefit. However, to use a sporting analogy, that cooperation is as conditional as it is between players in a professional sports team: if Player A is dropped because Substitute (= rival allele) B is deemed better, Player C will cooperate just as enthusiastically with the replacement as he did with the original. With both the player and the gene, the sole driver is a wish to be in a side/organism that's winning. Thus even cooperation is selfish.

 

As for language, my interests spread very widely and include creative writing. Sadly, therefore, I lack the polished patois of the specialised genetic theorist. I hope I will be forgiven!

 

Regarding sexual selection, I still think that had it a choice and could control its own environment – which patently it does not and cannot – a rank and file selfish gene would elect for the certainties of asexual reproduction in a very stable environment rather than the lottery of sexual reproduction in an unstable one.The one exception to this would be the genes involved in defining every facet of the processes of sexual selection who would be put out of business were a species to revert.

 

That said, both sexual reproduction and consciousnessare very much side issues to the debate I have sought to initiate and, although having introduced them myself, I would now sooner put them to one side or deal with them as separate topics if anyone is interested in setting this up.

 

As the heading "Selfish genes and self-destructive behaviours" makes clear, my interest here is in trying to explain what has been described as one of the thorniest of the outstanding evolutionary puzzles:

 

"Why has natural selection equipped us with biological and psychological mechanisms which are capable of increasing our susceptibility to diseases that make us likely to die prematurely." ("The Sickening Mind", PaulMartin, 1997, p.306). [in the US, it's "The Healing Mind", vive la difference!!!].

 

The psychological component of the processes to which Martin refers is major depressive illness , of which he says this:

 

"The sheer universality of depression – or, at least,the capacity to become depressed – suggests that its underlying biological mechanisms are a basic feature of human nature. So why has natural selection equipped us with the capacity for something as disabling as depression?" p.304.

 

The biological component to which he refers, is the now overwhelming evidence – detailed in his book and my paper – that depression is the royal road to a whole slew of physical ills that would have taken individuals in the natural world very rapidly out of the picture (sorry!).

 

The easiest way of comprehending the answer I am offering is to put "Family stigma, sexual selection and the evolutionary origins of severe depression's physiological consequences" into Google and then read my recently published paper which has passed through the peer review process.

 

Suffice it to say here that I have come to believe that the answer to Martin's question lies in the process of sexual selection. If, as stock-breeders and insurance companies definitely do, individuals selecting sexual partners (not just humans) use family members as a valuable guide to a potential mate's underlying genetic worth, what is routinely called "the genetic arms race", would call for a counter-strategy. And in the ruthless world of naturalselection, the most effective strategy would be to eliminate any individual whose own gene through-put was likely to be significantly exceeded by the qualitative and quantitative negative impact he or she is likely to have on the aggregated gene through-putof close kin, merely by existing.

 

Using siblicide or infanticide in the context of an individual who – for all its limitations – had evolved to fight like hell for its continued existence would be a very risky strategy as it might well severely damage kin in defending itself. The obvious solution – or so it seems to me –is the use of depression, to employ a very colourful (sorry!!) analogy, as a stun gun. Once the gene-based linkage between that and the host of physiological consequences Martin details (many of which are also to be found in my paper) was made, from the point of view of natural selection and inclusive fitness, it was all plain sailing (sorry, again!).

 

I fully acknowledge that the implications are appalling, but with major depressive episodes already high up the World Health Organisation's list of diseases causing most impairment to human existence and rising higher,I believe that it better that we understand what is going on.

 

 

Edited February 8, 2012 by Mike Waller

[questionposter]

Two opening points: I confirm that I, too, although recognising that genes are in fact mindless specks of DNA, nonetheless find it extremely helpful to envision them as being selfishly obsessed by their individual replication.

 

Yep, there's the problem. It doesn't matter if your in the habit of saying you "like" to think genes act that way, because they don't, they don't think, they don't have to do any particular thing, they just exist. Some genes just happen to generate mechanisms that have a higher probability of getting passed on in that's about it, there's no real limitation, just that there may not be a suitable environment at the time. Genes themselves aren't competing, your subconscious isn't competing, it's just mechanisms and switches. Your subconscious doesn't get angry, it simply releases to hormone for anger in response to certain signals getting processed in your brain and then you perceive the information as anger. If everything was mapped put by genes themselves, psychologists would be geneticists instead.

Edited February 8, 2012 by questionposter

[Mike Waller]

In an attempt to stimulate more debate, I make the following claim which is of relevance only to those who, as I do, believe that the metaphorof the selfish gene offers the best available way of understanding why we and all other life forms come to be as we are.

 

Both here and in my paper "Family stigma, sexual selection and the evolutionary origins of severe depression's physiological consequences", I have contended that major depressive episodes reduce life-expectancy in the many ways they are now known to do because of a lethal interaction between mate selection pressures and those of inclusive fitness, acted out in the contest of the phenotype/genotype disparity. By this I mean that as individuals only express some part of their genetic inheritance, observation of a prospective mate's close kin offers the best chance of identifying the adaptive quality of those genes currently unexpressed but which are still likely to be transmitted to young. Against such a background and in a naturalistic setting, a mechanism which moved from sustained negative feedback with regard to performance, on to chronic depression and thence to an early death would be a very unpleasant, but evolutionarily effective, means of eliminating family members who, by performing well below the average for the family, would others inflict severe reputational damage on their siblings and other close relatives. In accordance with the postulates of selfish gene theory, the sole evolutionary beneficiaries of such a process would be the genes which defined the mechanism.

 

It seems to me that to those who accept selfish gene theory, there are only two possibilities with this idea. Either it is fatally flawed in terms of that evolutionary logic, or it offers one of the most profound insights into the human condition yet to emerge.

 

Regarding the former, if it is so, it would seem kindest were I to be relieved of my misconceptions as soon as possible. As I have indicated, I do have many otherinterests which, if I am mistaken in this, could be more profitably explored.

 

If, on the other hand, my logic is as compelling as it seems to me, is it not of considerable importance that we would at last have a clear insight into the reasons why we seem so hag-driven to trash the planet as each individual strives to secure the physical evidence of comparative success, an endless struggle which results in so many living out their lives under life-destroying clouds of depression? If, as I am claiming, we are all born with a life or death need to secure the approval of others, is it any wonder that so many of us do scrabble so intently for the trappings of success? Similarly, with the approval of others so crucial to our self-esteem, is it surprising that, when we buttress this fundamental requirement with pride in country, we are prepared to be organised to die and kill by the many millions, as the twentieth century all too clearly demonstrated?

 

On a more prosaic scale, cannot we suddenly see the underlying potency of advertising tag-lines such as "because you're worth it" and the enticing invitation to be "the only kid on your block with......" Does not the idea also explain Freud's conviction that thereis a death instinct, Thanatos, standing in opposition to the procreative urge; and in the world of literature, Victor Hugo assertion that "Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread";and Cervantes having given Sancho Panza these lines, over 400 hundred years ago:

 

"Ah, don't die, Master, but take my advice and live many years; for the foolishest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die without rhyme or reason, without anybody killing him, or any hands but melancholy's making an end of him"?

 

Comments please.

 

Edited February 12, 2012 by Mike Waller

[questionposter]

In an attempt to stimulate more debate, I make the following claim which is of relevance only to those who, as I do, believe that the metaphorof the selfish gene offers the best available way of understanding why we and all other life forms come to be as we are.

 

Both here and in my paper "Family stigma, sexual selection and the evolutionary origins of severe depression's physiological consequences", I have contended that major depressive episodes reduce life-expectancy in the many ways they are now known to do because of a lethal interaction between mate selection pressures and those of inclusive fitness, acted out in the contest of the phenotype/genotype disparity. By this I mean that as individuals only express some part of their genetic inheritance, observation of a prospective mate's close kin offers the best chance of identifying the adaptive quality of those genes currently unexpressed but which are still likely to be transmitted to young. Against such a background and in a naturalistic setting, a mechanism which moved from sustained negative feedback with regard to performance, on to chronic depression and thence to an early death would be a very unpleasant, but evolutionarily effective, means of eliminating family members who, by performing well below the average for the family, would others inflict severe reputational damage on their siblings and other close relatives. In accordance with the postulates of selfish gene theory, the sole evolutionary beneficiaries of such a process would be the genes which defined the mechanism.

 

It seems to me that to those who accept selfish gene theory, there are only two possibilities with this idea. Either it is fatally flawed in terms of that evolutionary logic, or it offers one of the most profound insights into the human condition yet to emerge.

 

Regarding the former, if it is so, it would seem kindest were I to be relieved of my misconceptions as soon as possible. As I have indicated, I do have many otherinterests which, if I am mistaken in this, could be more profitably explored.

 

If, on the other hand, my logic is as compelling as it seems to me, is it not of considerable importance that we would at last have a clear insight into the reasons why we seem so hag-driven to trash the planet as each individual strives to secure the physical evidence of comparative success, an endless struggle which results in so many living out their lives under life-destroying clouds of depression? If, as I am claiming, we are all born with a life or death need to secure the approval of others, is it any wonder that so many of us do scrabble so intently for the trappings of success? Similarly, with the approval of others so crucial to our self-esteem, is it surprising that, when we buttress this fundamental requirement with pride in country, we are prepared to be organised to die and kill by the many millions, as the twentieth century all too clearly demonstrated?

 

On a more prosaic scale, cannot we suddenly see the underlying potency of advertising tag-lines such as "because you're worth it" and the enticing invitation to be "the only kid on your block with......" Does not the idea also explain Freud's conviction that thereis a death instinct, Thanatos, standing in opposition to the procreative urge; and in the world of literature, Victor Hugo assertion that "Man lives by affirmation even more than he does by bread";and Cervantes having given Sancho Panza these lines, over 400 hundred years ago:

 

"Ah, don't die, Master, but take my advice and live many years; for the foolishest thing a man can do in this life is to let himself die without rhyme or reason, without anybody killing him, or any hands but melancholy's making an end of him"?

 

Comments please.

 

 

 

As someone who can see mechanisms effecting how decisions are made from a conscious 3rd-person-view, and as I have tried to convey before, it's not so simple. My best guess is that because you have been following this pattern of thinking for 30 years as you have stated yourself, your mind is so use to generalizing information along the premises of those "guidelines" or ideas that it would take more energy for you to be more open-minded and not let those subconsciousness mechanisms generalize information like that, and since this is only a forum you probably won't take putting work into that seriously which is likely why this debate as kept as long as it has. I know how evolution works, and what your saying is true in some ways and certainly evolution can play a role in emotions and effecting thoughts, but not every aspect of what your saying is true. It isn't that simple, and that's why even after hundreds of years we still don't really understand everything even about a single thing that is life.

Edited February 13, 2012 by questionposter

[Mike Waller]

If you click on the following web address you will find a blog from the BBC's Home Editor with the title "Friends are a matter of life and death". It arises out a recent remark by a UK Government adviser that "Loneliness is probably more dangerous to our health in retirement than smoking". This, in turn, arose from a meta-analysis carried out by academics at Brigham Young University and the University of North Carolina.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16989689

Edited February 13, 2012 by Mike Waller

[questionposter]

If you click on the following web address you will find a blog from the BBC's Home Editor with the title "Friends are a matter of life and death". It arises out a recent remark by a UK Government adviser that "Loneliness is probably more dangerous to our health in retirement than smoking". This, in turn, arose from a meta-analysis carried out by academics at Brigham Young University and the University of North Carolina.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16989689

 

Yeah, I know all about those types of articles, but honestly there is no direct connection, your subconscious can't actually reason or think. We don't even have evidence that what it's actually doing is even math. What happens is you have subconscious actions that people don't have a real reason to not act on, and people just try to think up of whatever reason try to fit for them existing completely ignoring the fact that your subconscious can't even reason like that.

It could be like "why do we have fingers?" and there would be someone saying "we have fingers because our DNA thought it would be good to have, and that has survived", which is only half right. We don't have fingers because our DNA or ANY mechanisms thinks anything, we have them because they just happened to what what's coded inside DNA and that DNA happened to make it after all this time.

The way it works isn't "we have friends so our DNA thinks its a good idea", its "There are genes that happened to code for mechanisms in the brain which implore social interaction, and those social interactions happened to be good for bringing us together, and because we are working together we have a better chance of surviving". It's not a direct correlation between subconscious reactions, its just a logically working thing that it would help us survive. The genes don't exist for any real reason other than that they lead to things that have a high probability of surviving, not because they actually "think". It doesn't matter if you'd like to think they think, they don't think or at least there's no evidence to support they think. People can still choose to not be social even if they are naturally social, and according to that article they just won't have as high of a probability of surviving probably because there won't be anyone around to help them if they are in danger, that's it, no cynical no not cynical.

Edited February 13, 2012 by questionposter