On 07/06/07, [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Nope. You are confusing the goal of evolutions ('survive, feed,
> reproduce') with human goals. Our goals as individuals are not the
> goals of evolution. Evolution explains *why* we have the preferences
> we do, but this does not mean that our goals are the goals of our
> genes. (If they were, we would spend all our time donating to sperm
> banks which would maximize the goals of evolution).
>
Evolution has not had a chance to take into account modern reproductive
technologies, so we can easily defeat the goal "reproduce", and see the goal
"feed" as only a means to the higher level goal "survive". However, *that*
goal is very difficult to shake off. We take survival as somehow profoundly
and self-evidently important, which it is, but only because we've been
programmed that way (ancestors that weren't would not have been ancestors).
Sometimes people become depressed and no longer wish to survive, but that's
an example of neurological malfunction. Sometimes people "rationally" give
up their own survival for the greater good, but that's just an example of
interpreting the goal so that it has greater scope, not overthrowing it.
--
Stathis Papaioannou
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