Blog number four, I’ve been thinking about mans animal nature and how even to reason is impulsive what that actually means. In a platonic sense man animal nature is the predominant hurdle to our moral perfection. Hence man animal impulses and physical needs have to be held in check. But what of resin I ask myself as Nietzsche states and I agree to reason is impulsive as impulsive as any animal dive. It is in a sense that is to reason is as a faction to problem solve.
I have noted that one of your biggest and most profound questions is “why do we care, Why do we possess empathy?” it’s because we are finite we live, we love and we die. Care is universal to self-preservation care serves a function of mutual Interest, we feel remorse because if we did not we could not survive with the intelligence and abilities to mould our environment. Our moralities are to a degree false the ones that lead use down misanthropic rods or organized religious avenues of one mindedness. They is selfish anthropocentric in a way that leads to the justification of murder and war. Life is beautiful and to reason it away by want of an afterlife, for obedience and sameness is flawed.
While care is mutually self serving it is the source of compassion it is why we feel love, it is why there is a chemical bond between mother and child father and family the individual and community. All these things are ultimately about self and ironically why humanity can be selfless. (adepted from an old work) I recognise in my old work leaps and perhaps unclarity in the source of these things that help us survive. To understand the origin of compassion care and concern we must dispel an old myth. That myth being Group Selection. Group Selection was championed by V.C. Wynn-Edwards in 1960 and popularised by an American TV show “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom”. This is a misconception of the evolution of behaviour, Group selection was done in by a series of theoretical and empirical studies showing key patterns of behaviour were incompatible with it. The key works done by evolutionary biology. George Williams of SUNY Stony Brook and Bill Hamilton of Oxford University.
Often referred to as Neural Darwinism Charles Darwin postulated that group selection could impact the ability of the individual to survival in groups. He was most certainly correct in this assessment as we learned over time The Group is unconcerned with the individual unit, it is expendable. The importance of the individual was best Highlight by B.F Skinner and C.B Fraser in “Schedules of Reinforcement” 1997 wherein the Operant Behaviour was contrasted with the work of Pavlov in his approach known as Classical Conditioning. In studying individuals non normative behaviour and accumulating the individual cases, under controlled conditions for the purpose of studying when to schedule reinforcement for operant behaviour methods, learning how animals learn new behaviour form spontaneous acts. Noting that once you allow for the different ways different species make contact with the environment what remains of their behaviour shows astonishingly similar properties. The use of “operant” here is as a noun: “an item of behaviour that is not a response to a prior stimulus but something which is initially spontaneous, which may reinforce or inhibit recurrence of that behaviour”.
The sentiment here can be boiled down to a simple observation, in most eusocial species[1] insects in a colony or ‘society’ for example are non-reproductive. Why would the individual Ant forgo reproduction? Group Selection would of course say for the greater good of the group. Though one says this is naive of any person to assume. Animals do not behave for the good of species, rather they behave to maximise the number of copies of themselves. Williams of SUNY Stone Brooks elaborates how this more standard genetic system, in species from non-eusocial insects to us was incompatible with Group Selection. So given that ‘selfish gene’ as coined by Darwin, were led to individual selection. Though if we are inherently selfish which we indeed are how has it been possible for our groups to survive?
Individual Section seems to best describe the behaviour of survival or surviving, for non-eusocial animals take for example: a Lioness chasing down a zebra, were the zebra a group selectionist it would stop and sacrifice itself for the group but it does not. It runs like the wind. Another example might be the crossing heard animals at a river crossing laden with expectant Alligators In the program, “Mutual Of Oklahoma Wild Kingdom” it was presented that the oldest and sickly would gallantly wade out and sacrifice themselves for the group. While the Gators were busy with the sacrifice the rest of the heard could cross. Poppycock! [2] As we can see in the video below no such thing occurs. Raising the question, form where did such a notion come? Not something I feel I can answer here but I have an idea.
So then if we are inherently selfish how then do manage to cooperate? Well, it would seem in endeavouring to propagate copies of ourselves we inevitably sacrifice ourselves for our copies. But this says nothing of how we learned to cooperate and not kill the young of another such as a Brown Bare Male might kill the young of a rival. Well by the consequences of our own actions, we are very similar to our mammal friends in how learning new behaviour; we have some advantages a more developed nervous system allows us more adaptability. We learned over time to reciprocate social behaviour the outcome being less conflict. This is an important aspect to all animals, in the wild even a simple cut can be life threatening. So, animals will most often go to extraordinary lengths to avoid conflict, meaning there is something in the behaviour of compassion that evolutionarily desirable, or strong. We developing ritualistic behaviour to minimise risks. For example, the cuddly Panda! An extremely powerful but lazy animal, its ritual to protect resources from others with status by seeing whom can defecate highest on the trunk of a tree. That these things are respected show a high level of cooperation. Many such examples can be found in ‘animal’ Kingdom that includes like it or not ourselves. So, we learn operantly how to survive in groups. Namely by respecting the individual; the individual being paramount, the individuals behaviour being the fundamental component of any group. The irony is it is our selfish nature to survive that allowed us to care and by extension of consequence, ‘the fallout effect’ (if you like) we care about others. Research conducted by Frans De Waal a Dutch primatologist and ethologist. He is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Primate Behaviour in the Department of Psychology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. Discovered on average female chimpanzees were more empathetic, across all chimpanzees the most dominant males did most of the comforting. Highlighting that leadership has far more to it than power and dominance. [3]
[1] (of an animal species, especially an insect) showing an advanced level of social organization, in which a single female or caste produces the offspring and non-reproductive individuals cooperate in caring for the young.
[2] https://youtu.be/s8HJ2RJwcJM
[3] https://www.ted.com/talks/frans_de_waal_the_surprising_science_of_alpha_males/transcript?language=en
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