| | Steve,
I don't mean to say that maybe instinctual behavior can be used as an excuse for behavior. Hm well I guess acting primarily by feeling and little by reason would be similar to acting under the influence of drugs or maybe more exactly like just admitting that oneself is more like an unreasoning animal who is unable to learn new self beneficial behaviors. It would imply that restraint would be an ongoing future requirement due to incompetence vs in a case where a person who acted by more reasoning we'd use restitution & retaliation.
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Re: Gene continence, racism
==== Human design, and the strive to create children who have the best design ====
=== Overview ===
The reason why I'm going on about living for gene replication/continence is as I've already said... that's what natural selection selects for. A la natural selection, living beings who feel happy via making reproduction happen will continue to exist through the generations, vs ones that feel dissatisfied about reproducing will not make it to the next generation. Humans are no different in this regard. Since this is such a critical aspect for an entity to survive generations, its highly selective. So it should be clear to you by now that in general life form individuals become more happy if they reproduce. Not that all life forms do become happy from reproduction... there are variations in what makes Every individual happy not just at onset but it changes through time, particularly for humans.
To deny that humans in general gain happiness in reproducing is to deny human nature at its most fundamental level, the level that we share with all life forms. Its true that we gain happiness in ways different than other species due to our particular nature: our reasoning and memory capabilities... but that doesn't mean that at the same time we don't have the more fundamental nature.
But now as for the more romantic realist reason for desiring gene continuance: Encoded our in DNA is the design for our bodies. The design was used to build our bodies from the single cell at conception to the complex multicellular multiorgan reasoning capable neural network systems that we eventually build up to as adults. The design does matter.
Racism by skin color is always such an exciting hate filled topic to debate! Now... isn't it clear that more melanin is better for environments with more UV radiation to protect from folate depletion (or something like that)? For everything in the human body, one could tinker with the design, increase bone density at the expense of flexibility and higher weight; increase brain neuron and connection count at the expense of higher nutritional and immunological and weight problems; increase metabolic rate of all cells to increase speed of everything, but then there are issues with feeding the higher metabolic rate: oxygen & glucose delivery, waste removal, other beneficial molecule delivery, nutrition/energy consumption increases, waste heat/overheating problems, increased demand for water for cooling... there’s just so many ways the design of the human body could be changed to be improved or broken.
Ayn Rand was so passionate about Roark making exceedingly well designed buildings that elegantly succinctly fulfill their owner's purpose. The designs for his buildings were created with expert knowledge and brainstorming and hard work thinking about how new and available materials can be used to make such incredible structures.
In our extant bodies, we can do the best we can with what we have. We can fill our memory full of ideas which are both consistent with reality and useful. We can maintain our health and create external mechanical and biological systems that enhance our DNA built bodies' capabilities. And we can work towards making children who have even better DNA, better designs than us. Doing so makes most humans happy a la natural selection.
=== The process of generating human's design: From random to reasoned generation ===
In the past with life forms of very little rational/computational ability... gene selection for the design of children was extremely primitive/simple. With asexual reproduction, one copied one self’s DNA (or RNA back in the time of RNA world) with a few random alterations and split into two cells. Children with beneficial changes to their design were more successful in gathering resources, maintaining their bodies, and reproducing. Children with critically harmful changes to their design failed to maintain their bodies or reproduce, and their designs were lost as their DNA was broken apart by the environment or predators.
Eventually the functionality for DNA recombination was developed, and then cells met, exchanged DNA, swapped portions of the DNA (genes), and then split new copies of the new combinations (sexual reproduction). Sexual reproduction also includes the random alterations in asexual reproduction.
With asexual reproduction, when different organisms create children with new distinct beneficial genes, there is never the chance that the children could combine their beneficial genes into one organism that has both design improvements. If you draw a "family tree" for the genes, its literally a tree. Sometimes branches can't survive their ecosystem, and all of their awesome designs that they had developed are lost. Its like throwing away a design that had some good features, but a few critical problems. Here with asexual reproduction nothing tries to integrate those good features into another design.
With sexual reproduction, two organisms with different beneficial genes can recombine their DNA to create a child that has both beneficial genes. The children of sexually reproducing parents can benefit from all of the newly discovered designs in the world. Verses asexual children can only benefit from design improvements traced through the many fewer generations of its chain of ancestors.
Now initially sexual partner selection was very primitive. Simple single cellular organisms once in a while would collide and be in the right stage of development and health in order to perform DNA recombination. It was practically random, just like the random changes that were made during asexual reproduction. Children with parents with more good gene designs who were made with better gene combinations were most successful in collection resources, maintaining their bodies, and reproducing. Harmful combinations and less competitive designs with fewer improvements resulted in less success in resource collection, maintenance, and reproduction.
Eventually designs for multicellular organisms with specialized multicell organs were created through the sexual natural selection process. Designs were generated for things like sensors for chemicals, orientation, pressure, and other sensors which enabled the organisms to collect more detailed information around their surroundings. Structures of networks of cells that have chemical and electrical sensors, stimulators, and alterable input responsiveness (memory) enabled information processing. Cells containing materials that shrink or expand due to electrical stimulus enabled movement controlled by the cellular processing network. Organisms with such features were then able to collect detailed information about potential sexual reproduction candidates and save their resources for child development with only mates that have maximized magnitudes for sensor input of hard coded images that indicate health. Such images were first developed through the process of random selection. Designs that created better comparison images resulted in organisms that were better at judging the health of potential mates. So now organisms with these features are able to reject spending resources on making children with potential sexually viable mates that have poor health (correlated with poor design). Instead now they can choose the best mates they can identify.
Now we have humans. Humans are capable of processing vast amounts of detailed information. We have humongous neural networks compared to our body size, and AFAIK no other species spends as high of a proportion of their energy and resources on processing information as we do. With our eyes we can see detailed images of potential mates' bodies. We can reason about features on the skin to determine all sorts of implications on how healthy the person is. We can watch potential mates' actions over time and determine their ability to collect resources and manage harmful situations. We can determine both ability and ambition. We can remember thousands of potential mates and compare them all and select the one with the most attractive overall features. And then mate with the one with the best features. And all of such features are highly correlated with design, which is encoded in each person's DNA. So now with humans, we can do better than select our mates by happen chance of collision in an aqueous solution. We can select our mates by evidence based reasoning in order to select the mate that would have DNA that would recombine with ours to result in maximum design function, efficiency, etc!
We've built digital computers to extend our brain's computational abilities. Now we have began designing new genes (via vast reality prediction algorithms to compare and select good designs) to build new biological systems to improve both external organisms and even our own DNA. Directly altering our own DNA and biological processes via reasoned design is the ultimate awesome ending of this story of generation of human design from random to reasoned.
=== Back to our discussion: racism, making babies, and optimal philosophy ===
In this I am not promoting racism. Its not like I'm saying "All people who have dark skin or brown eyes should be shot". I'm saying we should work towards creating humans with better designs. I'm saying there is variation of designs between every human, and some have better designs than others. Even those who do not have the best designs overall may very well have sub-components that are better than comparable components in the overall best. Determining which designs are best is not easy since reality is so complex its impossible to make perfect predictions of how well each design would do given impossible to predict future contexts. I'd like skin that can quickly adapt to guard itself and internal organs from electromagnetic radiation and even collect the energy for use, that’s more impermeable to punctures and biological & chemical attack, that has high bandwidth electromagnetic I/O for wearable brain computer interfaces.
Why might you encourage your daughter to take the successful self made businessman and high school athletic & academic record breaker... rather than the 35 year old man down
the street who lives with his mother, has a stray eye, has OCD, has clubbed feet, has nail fungus on all of his fingers, has skin rash, is completely bald, has weird lumps under his skin, etc. Or throw a lottery with men's names in a hat, and whichever one paper you grab is the one. Or have her take a blind-folded run on a busy sidewalk, and whatever man she bumps into first, choose him. No! You will think of everything about every man you have ever met and all of your life's experiences and predictions of the future, try to think of which man would be the most successful, and beg your daughter to choose him, and hope that he will chose her back. Do the features of such a man's body, his structure, his design, have any influence on your decision, and on his apparent efficiency, ability, and ambition?
Human design matters. I like the best designs for humans, just like the best designs for buildings or railroad bridges. Creating children using components of one's own design (genes) combined with the best other one can find and mate with is naturally selected for as a goal. Pleasure is the identification of matches of sensory input with goals. Mating with the best you can brings one happiness. Assisting those related with you in mating with the best brings one happiness. -- At least as a generality. Natural selection weeds out those who don't.
The most successful philosophy will be one that recognizes these facts, whether Objectivism is compatible with it or not... because these ideas are part of what makes us the best, what makes us human, and what makes us continue to exist. The efficient, capable, and ambitious flourish and the wasting, malfunctioning, and lazy cease to exist.
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Cheers,
Dean
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