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State of Human Civilization (What are we? (Whispering Genes (Differences…
State of Human Civilization
What are we?
Whispering Genes
Differences between Cultural and Biological Evolution
Entities and Definition of the Process of Change
Biological : Change in representation of phenotype because of changes in genes
Cultural: Change in representation of behavioural phenotypes because of changes in popularity of memes
Proximate Cause of Change
Biological: Differential reproductive success of phenotypes through generations (natural selection)
Cultural: Differential learning and copying success of phenotypes through generations (cultural selection)
Medium of Action
Biological: Sex - individual bodies interact through meiosis and syngamy of gametes
Cultural: Communication - individual minds interact through language and visual signals
Ultimate Cause of Change
Biological: Propagation of genes that influence more successful phenotypes because of changes in nature not nurture
Cultural: Propagation of memes that influence more successful phenotypes because of change in nurture not nature
Ultimate Source of Novelty and Variation
Biological: Mutation in the genome
Cultural: Imagination, innovation and creativity within the mind
Cultural Determinism
Trait variation caused by environmental variation
social learning
Has no effect on genetic variation
'transmitted culture' ex. differences in national sports, different accents
ex. variation in musical expression
Genetic Determinism
Adaptive traits expressed because of gene expression affecting 'hard-wired' behaviours
Human 'universals'
Unaffected by environmental variation
Early genetic variation of these traits was eliminated through natural selection
ex. human attraction to sex, response to pain, response to fear, variation in skin tone, resistance to malaria
The Mind
Is not a blank slate
Is not a blueprint
It is like a colouring book with the guidelines being the genes and the colours being the environment and social learning
Standard Science Model
Shaped by social learning
unaffected by genetic variation
Biological and Cultural Evolution Interact
blending of gene transmission and meme transmission
Evolutionary Science Model
Genetic propensities expressed through development and interacting with the environment influence what culture is learned
behaviour modifies selection acting back on the genome
The Mating Machine
Marriage
Uncertainty of Paternity
Incorrect paternity assumption
Men who believe they are the father are wrong up to 30% of the time
Men want to minimize this uncertainty to ensure their genes are passed on
Subjugation of Women
Dominant control over their fertility was adaptive because it ensured the women had no other sexual partners
Horrible techniques used such as chastity belts, constant pregnancies, female circumcision, forced child marriage and rape
Sexual Jealousy
Men want to have sex with other mens partners but not allow his partner to have sex with other men
Has led to rape, adultery, spousal abuse, homicide
Cheating
There is a fitness advantage to cheating
Allows males to decrease uncertainty of paternity
Allows females to keep a partner who can support her family while having children by another man with superior genes
Monogamy
There was a fitness advantage
Bonding for the division of labour
Reduces paternal uncertainty for males
Good when distribution of wealth is narrow and even
Promoted bu cultural evolution
Rarely exists in true form
Polygamy
Beneficial when there is a wide variation of male wealth
For females, they may be better off being a third wife of a wealthy man than being the only wife of a poor man
For men, they can increase their quantity of offspring and spread their genes more
Modern Day
in the past women got married to secure herself and offspring. Men got married to satisfy his sex drive, for a housekeeper and cook, for childcare and for certainty of paternity
in modern society, these do not apply
today, many women would rather be single and not get married
Family
Offspring Gender
When wealthy, male offspring are better because they can buy wives and have a greater reproductive success to pass on genes
When poor, a daughter is a better option because she can marry up, where the poor son will most likely be unable to find a mate to pass on family genes
Fertility and Family Size
Wealth allows for more offspring
The percentage of women choosing not to have children has doubled
Women have fewer children today because.....
There is less need for offspring labourers
There is less need to produce offspring to care for elderly parents
There is greater family dispersal
There are delayed family starts due to university
There is birth control
There are effects of technology interfering with fertility
There is status anxiety, the need to maintain family reputation
Sexual Behaviour
Sex Drive
Men have a higher sex drive
Natural selection has made it hard for men and women to be friends because the cost for men to overlook sexual activity is high
Fitness Signals
Signals associate accurately with high fitness potential
There is attraction to them
Conspicuous Indulgence
Indulgence in wasteful possesions has fitness benefits
Is an indicator of wealth, status and membership
May improve their attractiveness and increase chances of reproduction
ex. buying boats, expensive cars, tattoos
Waist Size
Women artificially slim their waist because men prefer optimal hip to waist ratio
The Crazy Bastard Hypothesis
Young men who engage in risky behaviour
May be adaptive because you would rather have them as your friend then enemy
Cosmetics
Men prefer younger women because they are more fertile
Women use makeup as a way to look younger
The Media
Themes in the media as a reflection of human nature
ex. films, music videos, romance novels, music lyrics
All seem to sexualize women and teach women to be attracted to high-status males
Male vs. Female
Differences in sexual behaviour a product of natural selection
Reproductive fitness potential
Females - mother of 10-20 offspring per lifetime
Males - fathers of hundreds of offspring per lifetime
Optimal Tactics:
Females: choose mates carefully to maximize quality of offspring
Males: compete for mates aggressively, seek quantity of offspring
Males more interested in multiple partners, polygamy, one night stands
Trade-Offs
Evolutionary fitness requires trade-offs in time, resources and risks
Somatic effort vs. reproductive effort
Mating effort vs. parenting effort
Courtship effort vs. mate guarding effort
Playing-the-field effort vs. falling-in-love effort
Escape from Self
The Need to Find Purpose
The need to understand our purpose and the meaning of life is a prevalent question that permeates humanity and seems to be instinctual
Awareness of Time and Self-Impermanence:
Also called the "Curse of Consciousness"
Became deeply troubled by this awareness
Became aware of our limited capacity to leave behind our legacy
Denial of Death
Evolved as a mechanism to manage the terror of perceived impermanence
The solution to this existential dilemma has been to develop cultural world views:
"...humanly constructed beliefs about reality shared by individuals in a group that serve to reduce the potentially overwhelming terror resulting from the awareness of death"
(Becker)
Fear of Death
Ancient survival instincts primed us to to feel anxiety
Stems from an ancient impulsive fear of the unknown
Living in the Moment
It is only a temporary remedy
The human mind cannot live for long in the present (as other animals do)
Our evolved consciousness reminds us that the present does not really exist (except as a fleeting transition between the past and the future)
Need to repeatedly reenter the present in order to live in the moment
Humans find it difficult to be alone with their own thoughts and often look to outside sources of entertainment as distractions
Living in the "Future"
We have a capacity for curiosity, wonder and anticipation of the future
Feelings associated with worry, sadness and depression generally increase with age, decreasing overall happiness
Living in the "Past"
Find comfort/nostalgia from the past
Fantasizing about the past presents symbols that affirm one's cultural world view
Mental Illness
Recent research suggests that depression and other mental irregularities may commonly be misdiagnosed as a mental illness and that people who are "mentally healthy" often may actually have overly optimistic ideas about their place in the world
Positive Thinking and Optimism
The ability to delude ourselves into believing we are happy or deciding to be happy, regardless of life circumstances, must have provided an advantage that increased fitness
Is informed, at least partially, by genes
Smiling and laughing can trigger endorphin pleasure rewards all by themselves
Evolutionary Advantages of "Mental Illness"
Depression
can give people keener powers of perception and heightened abilities to assess complex or tumultuous situations
ADHD
(a rapidly-shifting but intense attention span and a taste for novelty) would have proved highly advantageous in locating and securing rewards
Schizophrenia
,
autism
and
bipolar disorder
may have helped our forebears conquer the world by embracing the unique skills and attributes that came with unusual ways of thinking
"Melancholia is a necessary ingredient of any culture that wishes to be innovative or inventive"
Leisure Drive
Distractions from self-impermanence through pleasure/escape from self that rewarded the reproductive success of our ancestors
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Pleasure-Based Meaning:
Sensual pleasure
Social pleasure
Intellectual pleasure
Rewards of Intellectual Pleasure
Improved chances of survival
Elevated social status
Greater attractiveness to mates
Triggers for Intellectual Pleasure
Solving nature's challenges and dilemmas
Guiding the tribe through unknown or hostile territory
Averting a new predator found there
Discovering how to effectively hunt a new prey
Discerning what newfound plants were edible
Evolutionary Roots of Leisure Drive
The need to eat, mate, rear offspring, and survive provided the evolutionary roots of pleasure-based distractions that buffered the anxiety of self-impermanence
Domains
Obtaining food
Obtaining shelter
Exploration
Maintaining social status
Shopping/conspicuous consumerism
Success in individual competition/team sports
Cooperation and social alliances
Companionship
Family relations and affection for kin
Sex
Humour
Aesthetic entertainment
Escapism (i.e. through novels, plays, films, toys, yoga, meditation, and intoxication)
Extension of Self
Legacy Drive
Self-impermanence buffers can manifest not just as distractions, but also delusions
Eudemonic wellbeing
Time does not have to take away all that one does and is
Remain delusional about the delusion
Legacy delusions may manifest through at least three distinct ventures
Human flourishing, self-referentiality, larger-than-self identity, afterlife transcendence, and symbolic immortality: parenthood, religion, and accomplishment
Religion
Promise of some kind of afterlife
Provides reassurance that the 'self' need not be impermanent, even though the body is
Provides answers when no practical ones can be found
Calm general fears of the unknown and unexplained, promote social order and cohesion, and hence individual prosperity of some members
Parenthood
Perceptions of offspring and parenthood provide deep-seeded symbolism for immortality
Leaves an 'extension of self' behind that might transcend death
Drive to leave something significant of oneself behind
Accomplishment
Generates recognition or status, which may be earned through dominance or prestige
Overshadows both religion and parenthood as a domain for legacy drive
Fuelled by attraction to things like financial wealth and consumerism/materialism
Belonging to something "larger than life"
Curse of Consciousness
Eventual mortality can be interpreted in terms of genetic fitness as maladaptive, neutral, or adaptive
Eventual mortality anxiety is just ancient 'survival instinct' gone awry
Fitness trade-off is the cost of consciousness
The Big Four Human Drives
Legacy, sexual/familial, survival, and leisure
Sub-selves
Intrinsic pleasure rewards can be evoked from intentionally seeking the sense of attachment security and self-worth
Connected with feelings of admiration and acceptance from others, intimate relations, and close family relations
Legacy and Leisure Drives
Human achievements and triumphs define the history of cultural evolution
More content to endure the striving and struggling needed to reach individual goals and achievements
Staying Alive
Environmental Cues
Adaptive trait variation resulting from gene expression that is dependent on environmental factors
Psychological mechanisms along with flexible behaviours allow environmental cues to change the behaviours and motivations of individuals and groups
Increased Pathogen Prevalence
is generally associated with:
A higher degree of polygamy
A higher fertility rate
A higher
preference for healthy attractive mates
A greater sexual restrictiveness
A decreasing range size of ethnic groups
A general decrease in
parental care investment
Birth Weight
Low = more likely to reproduce early when they are adults
High = more likely to reproduce later when they are adults
This could reflect an evolved mechanism to adjust reproductive strategy in response to the quality of the environment
Socialization and Cooperation
Unparalleled, ingrained capacity for socialization; cooperative interaction within one's social group
Increased chances of survival to reproductive maturity by being willing to cooperate within one's social group and to advertise that willingness even if it meant death
Probably accounts for why we are the only surviving homo species and why other apes have been held back from evolving the same cognitive capacities that we have
Morality
Moral standards which promote group cooperation are founded primarily on societal impertinence
Religion is not required in order to recognize and embrace moral standards
Can be explained as a product of biological evolution: reproductive success of our predecessors was rewarded by having a moral instinct and associated helpful behaviour
Can evolve through mutualism and reciprocal exchange between non-relatives
Morality as a state of mind and motivation is a product of biological evolution
Obligations
Having a greater obligation to some individuals over others, helpful behaviour evolved most readily when recipients are kin
This depends on the amount of genetic relatedness (i.e. individuals care more for closely related individuals than those more distantly related)
Incorporates a broad range of genetic relatedness, including other species
Kin/Non-kin boundary = nepotism
Boundary separating races = racism
Boundary between species = speciesism
Racism is regarded as immoral while nepotism and speciesism have been historically regarded as moral
Religion
Used historically as a tool for enforcing moral societal impertinence or social order
Individuals who believed in a religion with a strong punitive component were less likely to commit crimes
Religious imperatives have often been used to justify immorality (i.e. empire building through mass murder and conquering of other societies)
Society Requires both Morality and Immorality
Morality exists as a continuum of behaviours with varying degrees of moral sense depending on the percieved balance of costs and benefits
100% "Immoral" = less group level efficiency and tend to be out competed by "moral" groups
100% "Moral" = less stable because they tend to be easily invaded by "immoral" groups
Both are required to ensure reproductive success
"...the strategies that account for the emergence of homosapiens as the dominant social animal were written as a complicated mix of closely calibrated altruism, cooperation, competition, domination, reciprocity, defection, and deceit" (E.O. Wilson)
Mechanisms for the Evolution of Non-Kin Helping Behaviour
Promotes cohesion/group success
Confers social success
Confers attractiveness to potential mates
Promotes mutualism and reciprocal exchange between non-relatives
By-product of kin-selection
Why Human Social Evolution is More Sophisticated than Other Species:
Larger brain
Particular brain structure
Capacity for complex language
Capacity for consciousness
Capacity for empathy
Advantageous Group Level Traits:
Division of labour
Coalitions
Accomplishments
War and Genocide
Rewards reproductive success
Can arise from deeply ingrained xenophobic hostility
It is human nature to be drawn to violence and killing
Source of Entertainment
Violent video games
Violent movies
Playing and watching team sports
Almost Exclusively a Male Enterprise
Violence stems from a historical desire to fiercely compete with other males for mates
A masculine warrior mentality is a sexually selected trait
Soldiers become hypersexual and acts of rape increased reproductive success in warfare
Self-deception:
"Self-deception lubricates
the psychological machinery of slaughter, providing balm for an aching conscience"
Ancient biological dispositions to overcome the problem of killing members of our own species
Rewarded Reproductive Success
Secured more resources and wealth for survival
Secured access to more females for reproduction
Secured a heroic reputation within the home tribe, attracting more mates
Where are we headed?
Becoming the Solution
Biosocial Management Goals
Ensuring that there are effective domains in place within cultural norms and institutions to sufficiently appease or mitigate our needs represented by 'big four' human drives (survival, legacy, leisure, sexual/familial)
Ensuring that these provisions do not unduly compromise the principles for achieving a sustainable, environment friendly, prosocial model for civilization
Challenges for Biosocial Management
Addiction to Consumerism
Environmental degradation directly linking to our growing economy (too much stuff)
MEN!
Men may be incapable of the cultural change needed to save our planet
We need more women in charge
Us vs Them Mentality
An ecologically-minded must be collective and free of racism and xenophobia
Self-deception
Widespread discounting of scientific evidence of a man-made climate disaster
Temporal Discounting
Humans have an instinct to respond mainly to the here and now
Aversion for Darwinism
Evolution is still largely absent from public school curriculum
Improved Interactions
Progress Through Empathy?
Directing our cultural evolution on a path that improves empathic instinct
Implementation of Remedies for Moral Enhancement?
Moral education
Institutional redesign
Pharmaceuticals/supplements
Genetic engineering/designer babies
Trans-humanism
Recognizing Our Faults
Overpopulation
We need to stop the upward trend of the world population
Technology cannot minimize the environmental costs of overpopulation
Freedom to breed cannot be overcome easily
Changes in birth and death rate will either help or harm us more
Laws of Population
Populations can only increase to a certain maximum (AKA carrying capacity)
Technology increases carrying capacity, but there is still a limit
Some people will always be able to produce more than one offspring
Approaching carrying capacity = more poverty
Natural selection will always favour those with a higher fitness, even at carrying capacity
Natural Selection to Blame?
Natural selection always favours those with a higher fitness
These individuals contribute the most to overpopulation
Even if one person fails to reproduce, another will always compensate by having more offspring
People with a higher fitness therefore privatize the benefits, while the costs are distributed to the entire population
Overconsumption
Overpopulation leads to an increase in resource utilization
This forces us to make changes to increase carrying capacity
Increasing carrying capacity only causes more problems for us
It becomes an ongoing upward trend of increasing resources to compensate for more people
How far can this go?
Technology Will Not Save Us
Our genetics and motivations only lead us to reproduce and pass on our genes
People want to believe that technology will help
Technological advances can only increase our carrying capacity to a certain point
There is always a limit to resources!
Cultural Evolution
Cultural Vs. Biological Evolution
Childfree culture can help with the overpopulation problem - if it persists
On the other hand, our genetics produce a strong parenting instinct
Norway Lemmings - Human attraction to growth may urge our species to push too far, ultimately forcing our population to fall away
Increased Intellect and Imagination
As human culture has evolved, we can consciously change our maladaptive environment
This threatens survival and reproduction
Human-made selection pressure was created, as only those who adapt to this environment will survive
Leisures and Legacy
The amount of people seeking leisure and legacies like wealth and status is growing
Fewer people are seeking parenthood - childfree culture
Some people attracted to parenthood are leaving descendants
Natural selection will ultimately favour those who thrive in their environment
Fighting Forces
Natural selection has always caused species implementing population control to die out
We can only beat this cycle using cultural evolution
We Can Start Now
Humans can understand and make sense of the history of evolution
We have the capacity to deny impending evolutionary changes
Solutions or Problems?
The Sustainable Development Goals were developed to promote optimal living and growth
Solutions created to achieve these goals have created more issues
Humans always push to increase carrying capacity instead of focusing on the main problem (overpopulation)
Anytime we increase resources, they immediately gets used up
We need to change our focus
Psychological Instinct
It isn't in our nature to let people starve and die
Average quality of life has been increasing - but this is skewed data
Once fossil fuels run out, we will be in trouble and quality of life will decline
Pragmatism
Realistic perspectives are necessary to make changes
The Earth's life support system needs time to regenerate, and can only do so if we stop over-consuming and maxing out our resources
Stopping the Runaway Train
The solution lies in:
Allowing the world to feed itself, not feeding the world
Controlling the number of people that need to be fed instead of feeding more and more people
Three Measures for Change
Increased female age to 30 at first birth
Decline in fertility to 1 child per female by 2045, continuing past 2100
No reductions in mortality
These all focus on decreasing birth rate and maintaining death rate
The third measure will be difficult to overcome because advances in medical technology aren't willing to stop researching ways to prolong life
It's not in our instinct to allow people to die
