The Selfish Gene

[yuanqufucius]

The Selfish Gene - By Richard Dawkins 

http://www.amazon.com/Selfish-Gene-Anniversary----Introduction/dp/0199291152/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1453844947&sr=8-1&keywords=selfish+gene

 

The central idea is around evolutionary stable strategy, which lends alot of insight in to r/K selection theory

 

Thought never stated explicitly, what I gathered from it is a genetic based behavior/ethics that is, things wants to perpetuate their existence, there are no evil or righteous in the emotional sense.

 

There are certain gene set that will take advantage of the characteristics of another gene set and increase it's own "existences" at the expense of the existence of that other gene set.

 

However if "righteous" genes begins to dwindle then then entire gene pool suffers and evil genes begins to dwindle. Then "righteous" genes begins to flourish which causes "evil" genes to flourish as well. However this is not a spring back and forth action, but it reaches a equilibrium, with "evil" genes take the smaller percentage and "righteous gene being the majority, until the next evolutionary event occurs which breaks up the entire dynamic.

 

To me this just opened up a whole new way of looking at "evil" of society. Taking emotion out, people are not evil, they are only acting out their genetic instinct to perpetuate their existence. Just like how things falls toward gravity, if there is a way for an individual to live without expending his/her own effort, he/she will walk that way.

[bschu]

Thanks for sharing this. In fact before you even posted this I had run back to my copy of Selfish Gene and checked if r/K had in fact come directly from this book after listening to Stefan's r/K episode, although I didn't see it in chapter titles and didn't have time to read through, but it seems to be within the same theory of survival tactics that Dawkins explains after the replicators content. I didn't finish the book but did get up to the relevant parts you are talking about here in survival strategy.

 

Apparently Robert MacArther is the person responsible for this r/K theory though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory

 

Your association to good and evil here, which I'm not sure if comes directly from the book, is a very interesting way of framing things. I have been looking at the world through the survival tactics chapters I read thus far for a while now and it is a sobering frame of mind. Perhaps scary for some to think that we are all behaving upon such a simple presupposition, but we spend so much of our time in things trivial to the overall evolution of life.

 

I have to remind myself not to fall into the trap of assuming this is all designed but simply occurring through the force of nature, but what a complex thing, and with such systematic strategy, to conceive as being incidental to millions of years of trial and error. Or... does that just make perfect sense

[yuanqufucius]

Your association to good and evil here, which I'm not sure if comes directly from the book,

Yes, it does not come directly from the book. In fact Dawkins specifically said in the begging, that he has no intention to lay out any ethical frame work, he us just explaining the "how" as it is.

 

To me that "how" offers a whole new way to look at the current problems. If we treat "good" and "evil" just as a thing (syntax) and not attaching any semantics feelings to them, like the poor chump in the "Chinese Room Experienc", and purely look at current state of affairs from a cause and effect perspective, everything becomes clearer, and the solution becomes very simple. Of course that is not to say it's easy.

 

Just like how water dissolves salt and sugar, it's only natural, there is nothing evil (with emotion) about it. But the existence that was know as the collection of all salt and sugar crystals in the form of a grain was no longer there. Since an unit, or instance of existence has been erased, something evil (without emotion) has occurred. Cause and effect

 

In human terms, those without conscious will prey on those with too much conscious. As Stefan has pointed out continuously, self criticism is healthy around other people who self reflect/criticize, but among those who do not self reflect/critize (*cough primitives), it is extremely toxic, like sugar you will be dissolved. Your guilt button will be continually pushed. Those with a good heart who likes to do things for others, will continually be taken advantage of by those who simply do not reciprocate. I think this is foundation to the evil in society, not enough of those with too much consciousness say no.

 

However this gets really complicated because people aren't just static. There isn't a line you can draw that says to the left are all those without conscious, and to the right are those with too much conscious. The reality is that for the vast majority, each person has a percentage of times or certain situation where he/she will behave in a unconscious way, vice versa. The evil manifests from the collective result of each individual behaving in a unconscious way.