Beyond Survival of the Fittest

[Mijin1]

It’s a good OP, in that it describes well a couple of common positions on natural selection, my 2c on both of the main issues is pretty straightforward though:

On the extent to which natural selection applies to Homo sapiens:
In my view, we’re largely outside of it. I know some quibble with this; and it’s technically true that as long as there are differences in who survives or reproduces, we’re evolving.
But humans make radical changes to our environment within a human lifetime. It makes evolution an ocean liner whose destination is changing much faster than it can even turn, let alone move.

NB: I don’t think we need to make a value judgement of us being “better” than nature to acknowledge that we’re in something of a special bracket when it comes to natural selection.

On how natural selection should influence society and our views:
Not at all, IMO.
We don’t owe evolution anything, and we do not need to “honour” natural selection or anything like that.

I’d also point out that natural selection doesn’t entail any values in itself. For example, an entity could look at nature and determine that the goal is to become extinct. And that the minority of species currently failing in this goal by having traits like enjoying sex are the unlucky ones. Who is to say that’s wrong?
It’s very natural for us to see survival and sex as success because we are among the species with those traits. From a god’s eye view, you could take either view.

[Wayfarer]

@Dawnstorm

What’s the key difference between humans and other animals.

If you’re talking metrics, the index of brain weight to body weight (EQ, encaphalisation quotient) might be an indicator: 7.5 for humans is a major one. Next nearest is dolphins with 4.2. Elephants are 1.3. So what does that forebrain do?

My contention - and this is not at all a biological argument! - is that the massive hominid forebrain is an augmented reality generator. The forebrain in conjunction with the other part of the brain and nervous system, generates what phenomenology calls the lebenswelt, the ‘lived world of meaning’ that is specific to human society and culture. Other creatures also have lived worlds, but those are designated umwelt:

A tick’s Umwelt consists only of butyric acid odor, temperature, and skin hairiness; a dog’s Umwelt is driven by olfaction. Two species can inhabit the exact same physical space (Umgebung) while existing in completely disjointed Umwelten.

Likewise, groups of people can inhabit in the same geographical environment but live in totally different lebenswelts, which is the source of a great deal of conflict and confusion. (Look at modern politics!)

Another interesging fact from etymology, is that the term ‘world’ comes from the Old Dutch ‘werold’ meaning ‘time of man’ or ‘aeon of man’ (ref). Accordingly a ‘world’ is something different to a ‘planet’; uninhabited planets are not really worlds, under this distinction.

@Scorpion

Evolution is not teleological.

Taken to its logical conclusion, nothing is. Hence the persuasive idea of the purposelessness of the Universe! I think that’s what I’m challenging.

@Chelydra

Thank you for the link; I am very interested to read the conclusions and interpretations…

You’re welcome. That book, by the way, is representative of the so-called ‘Third Way of Evolution’, a school of thought which aims to differentiate itself from mainstream neo-Darwinism and intelligent design-type ideas. It’s controversial and still a bit fringe, but it’s attracting some reasonably heavy hitters nowadays. It’s where my sympathies lie.

[Scorpion]

@Wayfarer

Taken to its logical conclusion, nothing is. Hence the persuasive idea of the purposelessness of the Universe! I think that’s what I’m challenging.

Haha. On the matter of life there is purpose - eyes, hands, ears, etc. all are designed to serve a function - but this comes about by the mindless, unguided process of evolution. Living organisms mutate, the environment selects for mutants that survive in that environment, and what we end up with are living organisms like carnivorous beetles that have mouthparts tailored to eating only snails.

However, your question is about humans and the universe itself. Religions have been at the forefront in this regard. One answer is the universe was made for us and we are to try and get to heaven while avoiding hell. Other suggestions like nirvana/moksha are singularly remarkable in their goals, goals that are said to be beyond human cognition.

[Wayfarer]

@Scorpion

On the matter of life there is purpose - eyes, hands, ears, etc. all are designed to serve a function - but this comes about by the mindless, unguided process of evolution.

That’s materialist dogma in a nutshell. It’s what I am protesting. Obviously the religions don’t see it in those terms, but then, a large part of the cultural impetus behind materialism has been the reaction against religion. Richard Dawkins is a case in point, but I think he is philosophically shallow.

I’m not claiming there is a ‘grand purpose’ in a one-size-fits-all sense. It’s more that I call into question the nowadays received wisdom that life began and evolved by chance. But then, the problem we have is, if not chance, then what? Not all religious responses to that question are the same.

@Scorpion

Other suggestions like nirvana/moksha are singularly remarkable in their goals, goals that are said to be beyond human cognition.

Beyond natural cognition. There’s a big difference. Indian spirituality is more gnostic in orientation - not gnostic in the historical sense of ‘the middle eastern Gnostic sects of early Christianity’ . They’re gnostic in the sense of the pursuit of insight into modes of being that are beyond what can be ascertained by sensate perception alone.

[Thrifclyfe]

Scientists have already discussed the prospect of the officiality of the Anthropocene and it was decided humans are not important enough to deserve their own era.

[Wayfarer]

It’s not a formal categorisation but the term is very much in use. Furthermore the effects of human fossil fuel consumption on the global environment cannot be denied.

[Thrifclyfe]

I’m not talking about the man’s dominance over nature because this is not a common mood among normal people. I can’t go and wrestle a beaver for some crude oil, for example. But I would like to.

[Scorpion]

@Wayfarer

That’s materialist dogma in a nutshell. It’s what I am protesting. Obviously the religions don’t see it in those terms, but then, a large part of the cultural impetus behind materialism has been the reaction against religion. Richard Dawkins is a case in point, but I think he is philosophically shallow.

I’m not claiming there is a ‘grand purpose’ in a one-size-fits-all sense. It’s more that I call into question the nowadays received wisdom that life began and evolved by chance. But then, the problem we have is, if not chance, then what? Not all religious responses to that question are the same.

It behooves us to find why materialism fails. Consciousness and the mind is a hurdle materialists haven’t yet cleared, but nonphysicalists have exercised due caution, not overstating their case.

Religion, from what I’ve learned, epecially the Abrahamic triad, started off pretty simple - the body-centrism is clear in the belief in resurrection - and later, due to Greek philosophical and mythological influence, morphed into belief in deathless souls that could ascend to heaven/descend to hell. Socrates rid himself of the fear of death by saying it’s either a dreamless sleep or being im the company of heroes.

Buddhism simply denies the existence of souls, anatman. Nirvana = Extinguishment. These don’t look like errors. Reincarnation and samsara notwithstanding.

@Wayfarer

I’m not claiming there is a ‘grand purpose’ in a one-size-fits-all sense. It’s more that I call into question the nowadays received wisdom that life began and evolved by chance. But then, the problem we have is, if not chance, then what? Not all religious responses to that question are the same.

The origin of life is an unsolved problem, but there’s one hypothesis that made a prediction - deepsea hydrothermal vents - which, as you well know, is true. An astrophysicist cited this as evidence for how powerful good science can be.

@Wayfarer

Beyond natural cognition. There’s a big difference. Indian spirituality is more gnostic in orientation - not gnostic in the historical sense of ‘the middle eastern Gnostic sects of early Christianity’ . They’re gnostic in the sense of the pursuit of insight into modes of being that are beyond what can be ascertained by sensate perception alone.

Thanks for the clarification. I have to agree with your assessment.

[Chelydra]

@Wayfarer

Beyond natural cognition. There’s a big difference. Indian spirituality is more gnostic in orientation - not gnostic in the historical sense of ‘the middle eastern Gnostic sects of early Christianity’ . They’re gnostic in the sense of the pursuit of insight into modes of being that are beyond what can be ascertained by sensate perception alone.

I am very fond of “nature”, so I am sensitive to how people use the word nature. My “nature” includes “beyond what can be ascertained by sensate perception alone”. It’s funny that one of the first subjects we had in school was “nature and society”. I always took “and” to represent unity and not division. I am in search of a better word for the nature I am pointing at. Would you have any suggestions?

[Wayfarer]

@Scorpion

The origin of life is an unsolved problem, but there’s one hypothesis that made a prediction - deepsea hydrothermal vents - which, as you well know, is true.

I’m aware of the research.

@Chelydra

My “nature” includes “beyond what can be ascertained by sensate perception alone”

I guess I’m referring to ‘scientific naturalism’ which defines itself in distinction from what it regards as ‘supernatural’. So, how to draw the line? Historically, since the European Enlightenment, it has taken the form of the opposition between empirical science, based on observation, experiment and prediction, and religious belief, which is customarily said to be absent an empirical basis and to operate in defiance of what is regarded as scientific laws.

[Jamal]

Good response

@Wayfarer

So I wouldn’t claim that humans constitute a separate biological “kind” from other animals. My question is whether biological continuity entails ontological or explanatory continuity. I don’t think it does. And that is what I mean by saying that we are no longer determined solely in biological terms.

I wanted to talk about metaphysical/ontological kinds but made it look like I was just talking about biology.

I take your point to be something like this: if a capacity is not explicable in biological terms, then it is different in kind from those capacities that are; and/or the entity that possesses those capacities is thereby itself different in kind from those entities that do not.

That looks quite good—and I’ve been sympathetic to it for a long time—but there’s gap in the argument. You haven’t established that “no longer adequately described solely in biological terms” entails an ontological difference in kind. In other words, explanatory continuity can be broken while ontological continuity remains. This happens, for example, between physics and biology: theories and explanations in biology cannot be derived from physics, yet ontologically the objects dealt with aren’t usually thought to be different in kind, because they are made of the same stuff (vitalism would be the opposing, minority view here). Even within biology itself we find these discontinuities: there is no such thing as a predator in molecular biology or biochemistry; predation is an ecological, relational category, not a fact about an organism’s genes etc. We can say the same about the concept of species.

So I ask you, is a lion, insofar as it digests, a different kind of being from the very same lion, insofar as it hunts? Digestion is fully explicable at the biochemical level. Predation is not.

Or to bring it home: is a person, insofar as it wonders about its existence, a different kind of being from the very same person, insofar as it feels hungry? If not, must we choose one kind of explanation?

I think you’ll agree with me that the problem of reductionism is that it often seeks to obliterate any other explanation than the biological (whether that’s genetic, biochemical, or ecological). Your position is a lot better than that, because you don’t deny the biological explanations, but aren’t you similarly saying that some differences are more important than others?

Again, I think it depends on what you’re interested in. But I presume that a plurality of local ontologies won’t satisfy you.

Which brings me to your response to my final point.

@Wayfarer

In fact, I think your final point gets very close to the question I’m interested in: what makes the existential or phenomenological account of the human being more than just one optional taxonomy among others? My suggestion is that the answer may lie precisely in the fact that the human being can make its own existence, purposes and modes of knowing objects of reflection.

But that fact alone isn’t enough to answer it. On the other hand, I think it’s enough to push back against “nothing but” popular reductionism.

I’m probably agreeing with your main point but nitpicking over ontology.

[Johnnywas]

@Wayfarer

Michael Ruse has pointed out how readily evolutionary theory came to function as a secular worldview, supplying not merely an account of life’s origins but ideas about human progress and how we ought to live.¹

Thanks for this post. I appreciate that you are exploring views you don’t ultimately share and you have done so in a remarkably even handed way

I think that sociall darwininsm as described by Ruse is a fringe view even amongst evolutionary biologists. Most take the view that evolution is random so we have as humans to construct purpose. This isn’t because they are being coy about the harsh realities of evolution but because arguments that evolution provides clear purpose and goals are impossible to sustain.

That, however, is not necessarily to deny that humans have a form of life and that provides reasons for preferring one good over another. So for example, adequate nutrition and a degree of social interaction might be reasonably said to be good for people.

This view is sometimes described as naturalised aristotleanism and remains important in modern philosophy. Particularly Philippa Foot but also many others who may not use the label but share the key principles.

@Wayfarer

And while the Greek philosophers had divergent ideas as to the reasons behind existence, I don’t think it would have occured to any of them that there were none,

I think that Epicurus make this claim fairly strongly. He was strongly influenced by atomism. He concludes that existence is largely random but there are for humans exceptions. Epicurus was not an atheist but denied that the gods played any role in human affairs.

I personally am interested in the question. If as I believe life is a result of random selection. What reasons can we give for preferring x over y.

For example, we may prefer to have friends than to live in social isolation. Are the reasons for that subjective, or are they in some cases objective, or is the distinction between subjective and objective an error.

To the extent that the preferences we have are apparently “subjective” what might be considered good reasons for choosing x rather than y and what might be considered poor reasons.

[Tzeentch]

Trying to answer the question of “why are we here?” seems to me rather grandiose, and my first instinct when I run into such questions is to ask: why does it matter?

Isn’t the question “why am I here?”, which already takes most a lifetime to answer, enough to occupy us?

And is a preoccupation with unanswerable questions not merely escapism from the self that is knowable?

[Meta_U]

@Wayfarer

Some species have survived, many have not, others have evolved. And in day-to-day speech 'She survived the accident albeit with bad injuries; likewise is not ambiguous, the meaning is perfectly clear.

The point though, is that these two sayings “the person survived”, and “the species survived”, involve two distinct meanings of “survive”. The person is a physical being, whereas the species is a concept, a universal. Therefore we need to ask what kind of meaning can be assigned to the latter, because it’s clearly not the same meaning as the former

And once you immerse yourself in this question about “survival” of a species, the further question emerges, of what does it actually mean to be a distinct species. The common answer is that beings of distinct species cannot cross breed. But this is in no way absolute, and it leads to another question of whether it’s more accurate to say that they cannot cross breed, or that they do not want to. And of course, the concept of evolution necessitates that there must be a grey area, between species. Otherwise one species could not come into being from another. This implies that we need a completely different category which is not even properly “a species”, but something in between, as what exists in the process of the becoming of a new species.

[Wayfarer]

@Jamal

I take your point to be something like this: if a capacity is not explicable in biological terms, then it is different in kind from those capacities that are; and/or the entity that possesses those capacities is thereby itself different in kind from those entities that do not.

That looks quite good—and I’ve been sympathetic to it for a long time—but there’s gap in the argument. You haven’t established that “no longer adequately described solely in biological terms” entails an ontological difference in kind. In other words, explanatory continuity can be broken while ontological continuity remains. This happens, for example, between physics and biology: theories and explanations in biology cannot be derived from physics, yet ontologically the objects dealt with aren’t usually thought to be different in kind, because they are made of the same stuff (vitalism would be the opposing, minority view here).

Elsewhere I argue that organisms are already ontologically distinct from matter:

The organism stands in a dialectical relation to its material constituents: it needs matter to exist, but maintains an identity distinct from a particular collection of matter. It “rides the wave” of material change, maintaining its form through the constant replacement of its substance. Dependent on matter as material, it is independent of any specific matter. Its identity is functional and formal, not material.

(This is an) ontological reversal: in the realm of the lifeless, form is the accident and matter the substance — form is just a temporary configuration of enduring particles. But in the living organism this relationship is inverted: matter becomes the accident, form the essence. The material contents are phases of development for the self-continuation of the form, not the other way around ~ Is Mind Cause or Consequence?

This is derived from Hans Jonas Phenomenology of Biology. It’s not ‘ghost-in-the-machine’ -style dualism, being much closer to Aristotle than Descartes. And of course, the basis of Aristotle’s philosophy of biology are that organisms are goal-directed unities, not machines that execute programs. There are echoes of this idea throughout a lot of contemporary philosophy of biology, in the principle of autopoiesis for instance, also in Terrence Deacon and Alicia Juarrero, both of whom acknowledge an Aristotelian strain in their work.

So what I’m working towards is an interpretation of Aristotelian ontology which recognises mineral, plant, animal and rational as different kinds of being as the source of these ontological distinctions (‘ontology’ referring to ‘kinds of being(s)’)

In h.sapiens, mind becomes capable of reflecting on it’s own nature (in the lexicon of the Eastern religions the capacity for self realisation or meta-cognitive awareness in cognitive science).

@Johnnywas

I appreciate that you are exploring views you don’t ultimately share and you have done so in a remarkably even handed way

Thank you

With respect to Michael Ruse -Michael Escott Ruse FRSC (21 June 1940 – 1 November 2024) was a British-born Canadian philosopher of science who specialised in the philosophy of biology and worked on the relationship between science and religion, the creation–evolution controversy, and the demarcation problem within science’ (Wikipedia). He was a legendary opponent of intelligent design theory, but he was also critical of Richard Dawkin’s style of ‘evangatheism’. I’ve often cited that essay of his Evolution as a Secular Religion, as a criticism of the tendency to read philosophical meanings into biology that aren’t really there (from both sides of the Culture Wars.)

@Tzeentch

Trying to answer the question of “why are we here?” seems to me rather grandiose,

Well, it is a philosophy forum, and that is a philosophical question par excellence. Although it might turn out that our answer to the question will be something we do, not simply an opinion we express.

@Meta_U

The point though, is that these two sayings “the person survived”, and “the species survived”, involve two distinct meanings of “survive”. T

That may be true, but it’s not the subject of the OP.

[Scorpion]

Who am I?
A fellow traveler.

What am I?
A human being.

Why am I here?
To participate in life.

Facetious/good, these answers are what pop to mind.

Reductionism is the problem - we’re simply fancy vessels for what could be considered viruses (DNA) and while we may philosophize and practice meditation and die for love and God we come face-to-face with nihilism. These lofty activities, emotions, and thoughts have a master, the DNA-virus coiled up in the nucleus of our cells. Beyond survival of the fittest could be just another marketing gimmick in evolution’s playbook.

[Wayfarer]

@Scorpion

Reductionism is the problem - we’re simply fancy vessels for what could be considered viruses (DNA)

Existence is purely physical–there is no other reality. The sources of this reality are the laws of nature, forces that are entirely impersonal, having no connection whatsoever with the mind of human beings, their beliefs, or values. These laws operate in isolation from any supernatural, spiritual influences, all of which are illusory. Life in the universe is an accident, the outcome of mechanical interactions among complex patterns of matter and energy. The life of an individual, one’s personal history, hopes and dreams, loves and hates, feelings, desires–everything–are the outcome of physical forces acting upon and within one’s body. Death means the utter destruction of the individual and his or her consciousness, and this too is the destiny of all life in the universe–eventually it will disappear without a trace. In short, human beings live encapsulated within a vast, alien world, a universe entirely indifferent to their longings, unaware of their triumphs, mute to their suffering. Only by facing this reality and accepting it fully can humans live rationally ~ B. Alan Wallace with Brian Hodel,Embracing Mind: The Common Ground of Science and Spirituality (Boston: Shambhala, 2008), pp. 24-5

[Scorpion]

How depressing and at the same time liberating. Thanks. Very kind of you.

[Wayfarer]

As a student, I read Bertrand Russell’s early essay A Free Man’s Worship, published around 1901, which expresses something like that view. I found it fascinating, but also entirely mistaken. Later, I was admitted to University as a mature-age student (having not done well in my leaving exams) on the basis of a comprehension test about another of Russell’s essays, ‘Mysticism and Logic’. I like a lot of Russell’s writing, but never his atheism.

Anyway, the kind of hardcore materialism that B Allan Wallace describes is still influential. But the times, they are a’changin’.

[Scorpion]

No such luck, not having been a bibliophile. IMHO, materialism wins over any other alternative. Science produces a continuous stream of gadgets and contraptions while the opposite view is just empty shelves and cabinets.