[lit-ideas] Re: on the home front
- From: "David Wright" <wright@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2008 08:46:44 -0500
Irene:Evolutionarily speaking I would think if being able to afford a big
car ensured the best genes [...] So the evolutionary explanation doesn't
satisfy.
If so, what's the point of the cerebral cortex? To design better
weapons...
The effects of an uber-large cerebral cortex may not satisfy our ethical
image of what it should, even could, produce psycho-socially.
The survival of a trait is concerned exclusively with the survival of the
genome. The tragedy, like that of the commons, is that all indications
point to it being the font of our ultimate destruction. Perhaps if we
were 'designed' to be more introspective, compelled to seek harmonious
communities... lamenting the opposable thumb for the bonobos had it right
all along,d.
----- Original Message -----
From: Andy
To: "lit-ideas"
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: on the home front
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:27:18 -0700 (PDT)
Be fruitful and multiply says the bible, so sex was on everybody's
mind for a long time. Likewise the selfish gene's primary purpose is
reproducing itself. But procreation isn't the point of sex nowadays,
at least not in the markets expensive cars are aimed at. Is sex more
public? I'm not sure that even that's the issue. In
'primitive' societies (and we're pretty primitive, we just like to
think we're not, hence the quotes) sex is out in the open. Sex is a
part of life, no doubt, but animals don't obsess about it. They
don't even care about it. They reproduce, they raise their young,
they're done. So what's going on? Does obsessing about sex as
opposed to just passing along one's genes distinguish us from the
rest of the animal kingdom? If so, what's the point of the cerebral
cortex? To design better weapons and ad campaigns for cars, which of
course they use sex to sell? Personally, I think humans are
basically so tranced out after millennia of wars and bad child
rearing and who knows what all, that they're in pain, and the
pleasure chemicals in the brain are basically an endogenous mood
altering drug. And it takes ever more stimulation to get the same
high and so it keeps spiraling upward. In the meantime, the
cognitive part of the brain is less and less used. It's too bad that
if humanity has to obsess about something it doesn't obsess about
improving collective life in some way instead of just distracting
itself in what is ultimately a downward spiral. Money BTW is in the
same category as sex. It's just another obsession.
--- On Sun, 8/10/08, David Wright <wright@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
Is the obsession escalating, or is it simply becoming more
public?
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