Week 7 - Evolution/Stories

I was thinking about this topic, so I decided to post it in this older forum, where I thought it was more appropriate.  Because of a part of my senior research, I am beginning to really get interested in human beings' frame of mind, as we make decisions and opinions and think of ideas, I want to look into where it stems from.  Is it from a build-up of our past experiences, a result of the making and wiring of our brains? a novel idea? the framework of our brains? Or from the current frame-of-mind, i.e. our mindset?  I'm beginning to think that it is too difficult to trace back a single idea or belief to its earliest of orgins, for it may not have just one origin and it could have been influenced by many many different beliefs and experiences and been modified.  So I think our current decisions are made mostly from pulling and using our resources (already established and set in our brains), and then, applying them to our current state of life and current frame-of mind.  Does anyone else...if they read this....have any opinions here? Or any general knowledge on this topic?

I was online recently and stumbled across this article which I believe interesting and pertinent (especially for those of us in Anne’s last section before the break). The article touches on the notion of ethics or morality, which we discussed and which Dennett devoted an entire section to in the later half of his book. Also the article somewhat deals with the notion that machine is expected to be infallible and therefore cannot be intelligent (see quote on p.428). It seems to me after reading this article that ethics may not necessarily be inherent in our nature, more so that we must be taught them, much like the robots in the article. Also, the fact that robots can learn to react implies some understanding of what is appropriate or not on an ethical basis. Based on this it seems as though soon enough technology may reveal a robot that can learn from these reactions, if this one already does not (it didn’t seem clear to me whether or not this was established within the article or not). In any case, it seems to suggest that maybe the robots have some artificial intelligence and can learn from their mistakes. Just some thoughts lingering from the week before the break… <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/03/070316-robot-ethics.html>

I actually wanted to follow up on something that came up in last week's thread...I met with someone last week who's a good friend of a gynecological surgeon who specializes in the restoration of the genitals of women who have undergone female circumcision. (She most frequently clears away scar tissue so that the women can clear menstrual blood properly or bear children.) What fascinated me the most about the conversation, though, was the following tidbit: many women in cultures that practice FGM "want" to go through with it. They will feel so unclean that if a "skilled" doctor isn't able to provide them with the procedure, they'll go out and get them done on their own, the equivalent of back-alley abortions. It's really an interesting perspective on the evolution of morality, I guess - the culture selects for (or pressures women into becoming) women who feel unclean when they haven't undergone a clitorectomy. And I suppose that it's possible that this kind of culture might select for women who experience a lower biochemical response to sexual stimulation, to breed a group of women who don't enjoy breeding. It's really a neat intersection of culture and reproduction, right at the threshold of biological and cultural evolution. It also makes me wonder - what kind of person is our culture selecting for? What sets of values and moralities are we indoctrinating our children with, and what does that bode for future generations? And how much of our day-to-day actions are entirely determined by our culture, by the evolution of our culture over hundreds of years?

Katie Baratz

So it may not be the New York Times, but sometimes I find that Yahoo's "Featured News" box on its main page to have some great articles to read when I'm procrastinating. Its articles are simple and to the point with all the basic information that you need, and are all so conveniently located right there when the page pops up.

My favorite article of the night, so far, is "Researchers studying phenomenon of mind-wandering." Now, the concept of mind-wandering is nothing new to me, or to anyone really, and it wasn't surprising to hear that interest in the topic has waxed and waned over the years, just like our minds do when we're going through a typical day. One of the interesting points the article made was "More generally, scientists say, mind-wandering is worth studying because it's just too common to ignore." Very true, I thought to myself when I read that line. When something is staring you in the face like that, why not study it? There has to be something interesting to discover there. Hopefully.

So, where does evolution come in here? I asked myself. While the article doesn't ever expressly mention the impact of evolution on mind-wandering, I can't help but think that the researchers studying this phenomenon have definitely thought about it. As the article says, "A lot of human daily life is auto-pilot," meaning that we have time to let our mind wander without an enormous negative impact. Of course there are exceptions to this, and the article references them. But if mind-wandering almost constantly detracts us from what we're supposed to be doing or thinking about, why do we do it? There doesn't seem to be any clear cut answer for why we do, or what it accomplishes. I can't think of any mind-blowing realizations that I've come to while day-dreaming or spacing out, but my mind wanders anyway. So why do it do it?

Aside from trying to find the answer for why it happns, what I love the most about mind-wandering is that we're capable of it. If there's anything to be said about the topic, that's one of the important things to say I think. Our brains aren't wired to constantly be focused on one task and one task only. Yes, sometimes it would be great if I could turn off this "capability" that my brain has, but I can't. One of my favorite things to do sometimes, when I have nothing better to do, is to try and trace back through the topics of my mind-wanderings to try and figure out what started it all. It's a fun brain exercise to do, and surprisingly difficult. And there's really no end to it, well that is, until you absolutely cannot remember why you were thinking about your first pet goldfish... But I'm wandering, of course.

Here's the web address for the article, if you're interested: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070319/ap_on_sc/the_wandering_mind

Okay, so this may be a silly thing to write about but this class seems to be seeping into my everyday life.  So, I went to see 300 over break (a friend wanted to see it.)  For those that don’t know it’s the story of the Spartan King Leonidas who took his 300 soldiers and held off the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.  The movie was an action flick and was pretty good, if you’re into that type of thing.  However, what struck me was the Spartan culture, granted I have not taken any classics course and know very little here.  I was amazed at their culture and how this culture evolved to be such a war faring people.  These individuals raised their sons from birth to be fighters and soldiers, the women were raised to support this.  It was honorable to die in battle, basically you should come back a winner or you should come back dead.  I know this isn’t the only culture like this, however what interest me is how these types of cultures evolved into this way of life.  Rather maybe cultures that are not so war centric evolved past these cultures and these cultures are the “original.”  Or maybe we are just seeing group cohesions here.  The Spartans also took natural selection in to their own hands, if a child was born that was not fit to be a warrior they we killed, granted, I know this is done to preserve the resources of the group.  Basically, I was just amazed at how cultures can evolve to cherish different values.

 Okay on to new stuff!  So last Thursday in Prof. Grobstein’s group we talked about the similarities between evolution and literature.  What I found most interesting is comparing the evolution of species and the evolution of genres in literature.  In biology we see many organisms evolving that are crossing and blurring what we would call the “species line.”   Bacteria are a direct example, they take their DNA from other bacteria and cross it with their own bacteria, how can we classify this?  This same thing happens in literature and genres.  There are many pre-established genres: comedy, fiction, drama etc.  However what is popular now often is movies or books that come from hybrid genres, such as “drama-dys.”  I think we are seeing the same evolutionary forces working in biological evolution as well as in evolution in literature.  In biology we often strive to figure out what the “original” or starting organism was, in the same we strive to find what the original genre or idea is in literature.

i am the first to post about the news... but first, because i am on break, i must set the scene in an interminable way.

so, my dad and i were roaming around dupont circle in washington dc on this delightful sunday. we talked about the delights of specialization in academia, and how truly great work comes from specialization, and not from avoiding it. (my antagonistic position in the class runs in the family.) then i lectured him on video art. we went to the phillips collection, and afterwards to kramer books, where i found it: there's a new dennett book out!!!

it's called "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon" and he basically tries to describe religion in a scientific way. this is a controversial thing t o do, and the reviews are mixed. some summary comments are in the new yorker review: " “Breaking the Spell” ranges widely, perhaps too widely. It surveys the state of religion in contemporary America, considers whether believers are happier or more moral than nonbelievers, discusses the rise of modern nondenominational spirituality, and briefly reviews the purported philosophical proofs for the existence of God."

here's more: "According to Dennett, the earliest stages of religion were likely characterized by speculations about supernatural or quasi-natural beings. These questions arose out of an aspect of human nature we take for granted: the recognition that the world contains not only other bodies but also other minds. We recognize, in other words, that the world includes “agents,” independent minds that possess their own sets of beliefs and desires. This recognition allows us a wide range of cognitive moves and countermoves presumably unavailable to most other species"

Better than this, is Leon Wieseltier's condemnation of the book in the New York Times. The anger, approaching Martha Rosler-like vehemence, is a delight to read, and I think he makes some good points. His argument is essentially that Dennett tries to describe every aspect of religion through evolutionary biology, and this is often contrived, unjust and even arrogant. The arrogance we've read in his quote that says "if you don't believe in evolution, you're a pathetic, disgusting crime against humanity" (that's not quite verbatim) is referenced and picked on in this review by the literary editor of the new republic. he also says that dennett reads philosophers like hume wrong. Some delightful fragments:

"Scientism, the view that science can explain all human conditions and expressions, mental as well as physical, is a superstition, one of the dominant superstitions of our day; and it is not an insult to science to say so. For a sorry instance of present-day scientism, it would be hard to improve on Daniel C. Dennett's book. "Breaking the Spell""

"The excited materialism of American society — I refer...to the adoption by American culture of biological, economic and technological ways of describing the purposes of human existence — abounds in Dennett's usefully uninhibited pages. And Dennett's book is also a document of the intellectual havoc of our infamous polarization, with its widespread and deeply damaging assumption that the most extreme statement of an idea is its most genuine statement. "

"In his own opinion, Dennett is a hero. He is in the business of emancipation, and he reveres himself for it." :-D

"He thinks that an inquiry into belief is made superfluous by an inquiry into the belief in belief. This is a very revealing mistake. You cannot disprove a belief unless you disprove its content. If you believe that you can disprove it any other way, by describing its origins or by describing its consequences, then you do not believe in reason. In this profound sense, Dennett does not believe in reason. He will be outraged to hear this, since he regards himself as a giant of rationalism...Why is our independence from biology a fact of biology? And if it is a fact of biology, then we are not independent of biology."

"Dennett is unable to imagine a fact about us that is not a biological fact. His book is riddled with translations of emotions and ideas into evo-psychobabble."

Done!

How can only one number work? I understand that the earth we live on is the way it is due to an infinite number of random mutations, and if one of those mutations did not occur, the world could look very different than it does today.  What I don’t understand is if each of the over fifty billion galaxies has a six digit number and our earth was randomly given a six digit number that produced life, why can’t another six digit number work (produce life)?  Granted the atmosphere would be completely different than ours, but couldn’t this other atmosphere also produce unicellular organisms out of tangible object, as our earth has done?  With so many galaxies, and therefore billions of six digit numbers attached to those galaxies, it is hard to think that I would be “less wrong” by saying that only our galaxies number was able to produce life.

Andrea Zambetti