The Philosopher's Stone Issue 2

Evolution and our attitude to it

Evolution is a well-established scientific model of how organisms develop. Evolution presents a different view from the Creation Story in the Bible. In light of scienfitic facts, evolution wins, hands down.

Does it follow as Nietzsche and Hitler suggest that the strong have the right to oppress and even eliminate the weak? Evolution seems to suggest that that's what happens spontaneously. So, do we or do we not believe in the evolutionary model, after all?

The prominent atheist Richard Dawkins thinks evolution explains how we got here but it doesn't tell us what to do. This seems to be nonsense: physics explains how objects have got to where they are right now but it doesn't tell us how they'll move from now on? Now, honestly. That's not the way scientific models work, they explain how things happen in general. You can't draw an arbitrary cut-off line and say science is valid up until this morning, but not any further, this afternoon, we'll be governed by a different scientific model.

Suppose evolution was only valid until Darwin discovered it. Has it stopped since then? It obviously hasn't. Suppose it was only valid until Mr. Dawkins first said it doesn't tell us what to do. Has it stopped since then? No, it hasn't. Mr. Dawkins might want to rethink his position. Or when he says evolution doesn't tell us what to do, does he mean something else? Can he have a valid, though ill-expressed, point?

This is a thorny problem, so I need your help, readers. What do you think our attitude to evolution should be?

Some ideas: we could say
- evolution is what happens against our better wishes and utmost efforts or
- evolution is what was happening to us until we evolved consciousness or
- evolution is hampered rather than spurred on by those involved or
- evolution involves stress while conscousness reduces it, so calmly reflecting on evolution is a contradiction in terms
- or...

The biological root of patriarchism

The modern way of looking at a male-dominated society is to say that it's a social construct and should be changed into a more equitable model. I argue that male domination is primarily an evolutionary construct based on women's choice and can only be altered by changing that choice.

Women tend to choose men who are taller than themselves. If they changed their preference and went for men who are of the same height or just a bit shorter, soon society would automatically cease to be male-dominated and become equitable. I doubt though that this can be achieved through female will-power. Sexual attraction seems to be stronger than new-year's resolutions.

The solution is ridiculously clear and simple, yet lamentably out of reach: women should only have sex with men who are not taller than themselves and should have a lot of offspring to outnumber traditional populations. That's how evolution takes care of things. It's as undoable as it is simple.

Why are women attracted to taller men? Because traditionally, men are hunters, providers and protectors, fighting off other males if necessary. That takes brawn. Tall men with shorter women proved to be a more viable setup in the course of evolution and that is how they became the predominant construct. Women pass on the attraction to taller men to their daughters, granddaughters and so on, thus perpetuating patriarchal society.

City-dwelling women may no longer need taller brawny men for hunting, provision or protection, but their biological preference has not changed. Can they change it by making a conscious decision? Probably not, because procreation is instinctive. It's no use to marry someone who's shorter and then desire other men who are taller, because that will defeat the purpose.

What happens to women who choose taller men, hate patriarchism and don't have enough children to sustain numbers? They will spend their lives in an anachronism and since they won't have enough offspring, they will become a dwindling and frustrated minority. Their cause is doomed by their own behaviour. They are proverbially shooting themselves in the foot.

Conclusion: patriarchal society is here to stay, because in theory, you could argue that it's no longer necessary for city-dwellers, but women instinctively perpetuate it. You can't beat evolution, you can't cheat your own biology.

The Philosopher's Stone, Issue 1

Reading Nigel Warburton's A Little History of Philosophy has inspired me to try and develop a general model of reality and my/our place in it. Using an ancient parable, if philosophers are touching different parts of the same elephant and describing their experience in very different ways, it should be possible to synthesize their part-models and describe the elephant itself.

This series is my attempt at doing that. I'm not a philosopher, I've just read quite a bit a philosophy and got in the mood to philosophise. Your comments may - or may not - help me to improve.

I'll use Hegel's approach of thesis - anti-thesis - synthesis, i.e. I'll describe every issue from three angles wherever possible and also add the achievements of modern science.

Issue 1

Perception, Ideas and Reality

Plato thinks our idea of a perfect circle is more real than all the perceived imperfect circles around us. In nature, there is no such thing as a perfect circle. Where, then, does the idea of a perfect circle reside? Appearantly, on some higher plane of reality, says Plato.

Aristotle thinks that the imperfect circles in nature are what really matters, and our idea of a perfect circle is an abstraction of them. Science uses perfect circles only to model the real ones and to enable us to perform calculations about them.

Kant thinks that we cannot perceive of reality as it is, we can only bend it to suit the structure of our mind. We don't even know whether what look like imperfect circles in nature are actually circles or something else. The idea of a perfect circle is in our head, along with the idea of squares and rectangles, numbers, etc. This is what Kant calls metaphysics, i.e. the human mindscape.

In light of modern science, Kant seems to be right. We do not and can not know Reality as it is. We can only sort-of-know what is available to us through our senses and intellect. And we can intuit some more. The idea of a perfect geometric shape is not on a higher plane of reality, not in outer space, but inside our head. Our brain is wired so as to enable us to process perceived information to our advantage, this is part of our evolutionary edge. The idea of triangles, squares, circles and numbers allows us to shape our surroundings and prosper. We only intuit that the ideas fit the imperfect real stuff, we have no way of actually knowing that.

But since our senses have evolved as an adequate means of survival, we can be sure that - much as they represent reality inaccurately - they are accurate enough for our purposes. We can't know what reality exactly is like, but we can come close enough to knowing it, so we shouldn't worry too much about sensual accuracy, i.e. the reality gap.

Example: a snake sees heat spots as opposed to coloured and textured surface, because having such vision enables it to attack the warm parts where there is blood to carry its venom so that it can prey, feed and survive. Should a conscious snake worry about what it's missing? Should it stress about the unknowability of ultimate Reality? If it needed further information to succeed in evolutionary terms, it would develop more sophisticated senses through spontaneous mutation. When the problem arises, the solution is usually available in a few generations. There is no point in worrying about how you'll cross a bridge that is nowhere in sight. Evolution will enable you to cross it when you reach it.

Evolution helps organisms develop capabilities to the extent they are needed, but it also causes them to streamline, i.e. shed capabilities when they are not needed, in order to minimise the survival effort and thus improve the chances of survival. A conscious snake concerned about not seeing more than heat spots may be comforted by the thought that some prior snakes may actually have seen colour and texture but lost the ability as it was not required.

Of course, the human mind looks ahead and worries about all the potential bridges that may or may not need crossing in some distant future. We think about long-term solutions, and having an ultimate model of Reality as it is, rather than a perceived and imperfect sensory model, would certainly help us address any challenge before it arises. But we also know we can't develop more sophisticated senses unless they are mandated by evolution, which should put our mind at ease about the reality gap. There certainly is a gap, but the challenge that will expose a part of it will also help us close that relevant part.

Conclusion: Reality is ultimately unknowable, and this is a verifiable theoretical limitation, but in practice, we can know Reality at any evolutionary point well enough to survive and prosper.