X-Message-Number: 4591
Date: 01 Jul 95 23:32:47 EDT
From: Mike Darwin <>
Subject: Evolution

Good!

I got what I wanted: lots of other people's views on this.

Now to honor their requests:

1) Dawkins responded  to my question by saying he had never thought about the
matter before. He then speculated/opined that one reason could be that humans
did  not evolve in an environment that allows them to deal with, or process,
very long timescales well.  Thus, most people are not equipped to take the
REALLY long view required to understand geological time, etc...


2) My thoughts were stated better by the others who posted on this,  and in more
detail than  I would have stated them. My position, briefly (I hope):

Simply that evolution has produced animals that can reason and that value their
own survival *as individuals*.  Unfortunately, the "purpose" of producing these
beings was simply to maximize the chances of genes (fragments of information)
getting passed along (i.e., surviving).  Thus, we have a conundrum: desire for
personal survival as an individual vs. the "desire" of the genes to survive at
the "expense" of the individual.  By making people rational and by making them
capable of understanding not only their own mortality, but that of those they
love and value, they pay a price (exlie from Eden): these things can cause
psychic pain, depression, and inaction.  Or, inappropriate (from the genes'
standpoint)  behavior such as searching for some definitive way around death
instead of reproducing.

Depression is not a good thing for survival.  Neither is spending all your time
running around looking for the Fountain of Youth (de Leon) or spending enormous
effort trying to find the Isle of the Immortals (Chien).

Religion serves, (I hate do it, but I gotta!) to quote Marx, as the opiate of
the masses.  It allows people in hopeless situations to have hope, to act, and
to NOT be immobilized by despair and/or depression. Class oppression or
exploitatation of the worker is only one of MANY depressing, unjust and
frightening threats rational, emotional, self-valuing animals face.  In that
sense, Marx got it right, but only in the particular case, not the general.  I

have been totally immobilized by despair, and I greatly envied those who can get
out that destructive, immobilizing lopp by simply "letting go and let God."
People who have experienced the relief that comes with this moment of surrender
to a higher power  during an otherwise seemingly hopeless crisis describe it as
the most liberating moment of their lives.  If you read history you will see
that it has often meant the difference between victory and defeat, survival and
death.

I thought the ideas put forth by others were fascinating and also very
worthwhile.   They will cause me to rethink my own beliefs and thougyts on this
subject.  Naturally, I would see the problem of personal mortality and the
mortality of loved ones as THE problem: when all you have is a hammer, every
problem looks like a nail.


Finally, Michael Riskin takes me to task for calling religion crap.  Actually, I
meant that ONLY in the context of scientific rigor.  Actually, I think religion
has been very valuable and, in fact, has a VASTLY greater value than it does

downsides.  I do not think, for instance, that sensitive, inquisitive, and truly

intelligent minds could have evolved (statistically speaking) without  realizing
that they were just a  tool to maximize the liklihood of an "arbitrary" strand
of DNA surviving. This is a pretty depressing view of things and certainly begs

the question of "What does it all *mean*?"  Tell that to a mother holding a dead
child in arms.

Thus, I believe that we (if we do not become extinct) are a transitional form:
imperfect and imcomplete.  A mixture of two evolutionary happenings often in
deep conflict with each other.

Contrary to Dawkins, I do NOT find the idea liberating, gratifying or otherwise
reassuring that I exist only for some 4-base pairs to keep on making copies of

themselves. He seemed to find this plenty enough reason to get up inthe morning!

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending upon your point of view, the Universe
doesn't give a damn what I  (you, we) feel.  There is no "cosmic plan" or
natural order to things as they are (if there were it would REALLY be a shitty

world!). So, that means it is up to us.  Like Captain Dan in FORREST GUMP we can
challeng/curse an apparently nonexistent God or do the job ourselves.

In the meantime, we're lucky religion exists.  While I realize that it would be
hard to imagine (at least for hard-core cryonicists), things would be far worse
without it: we wouldn't even be here.

Mike Darwin


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