From: Warren Ockrassa <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Gene space arguments are fine if you're discussing creatures with no clear sense of self-awareness or consequences for actions, such as bacteria or tobacco company attorneys. Once you install a sense of "I", things change.
Keep in mind, that a sense of "I" is limited entirely to the "I".
No; it actually predicts "you" -- by distinguishing oneself from others, others must logically spring into existence.
That is, I don't think you can have an "I" in a vacuum. This means that the presence of self-awareness, being almost by definition other-awareness as well, changes how an I-conscious being behaves.
That's all fine & dandy, but it still comes down to a particular 'I-conscious' being, making individual decisions.
That's true, yeah.
For we all are individuals and cannot be lumped together in this particular context because of that.
Actually we can (I think), since I-consciousness is a trait, or at least that's how I see it. And in order for that "I" to be there, I've got to have something to contrast it with -- otherwise "I" has no meaning.
Basically all I'm suggesting is that while the gene drives evolution in animals lacking self-awareness, as soon as the "I" surfaces, as soon as visible signs of intelligence can be seen (and selected for by potential breeding mates), we're moving into Dawkinsian meme-space. Genes are no longer the sole driving factors in human evolution, in selection, or in determining what traits pass along. (After all we see traits other than the physical, such as tastes in music, etc.)
-- WthmO
I've never held an opinion. I give them away freely. --
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