Thursday, October 18, 2007

There is no line in life but the evolutionary imposed one

"Science care nothing of the way it is being used"

There's just one problem in the sentence above, what should be added is "...except when taking into consideration the Science of how evolution shapes us to think in terms of intentions (ie. morality) and categories." Yes, Science still doesn't feel anything about actions that we do, but it can tell how people will feel about it, how people will differentiate stuff, and how all these is related to evolution.

Hmm, it took me quite some time to research more about this topic and hence the delay in completing, so let's start from the top, that is the fundamental properties of DNA. As we all know, DNA is self replicating for billions of years, and what's more is that it replicates in an environment of limited resources. You don't do that for so many years and don't develop some properties of your own.

First property of DNA is of course the property to try to replicate more copies than rival DNAs. Obviously due to the limited resources, the slightest advantage any DNA has over its opponents would favour an exponential growth, while the other dies off. Property is then passed on to the next replication.

Second property of DNA is to try to not compete as much as possible with copies that are very similar to itself. Internal competition is always bad for survival, therefore DNA that are similar would try to gang up and compete with a more different strand. Again, the property is then passed on to the next replication.

Third property of DNA is that to be able to take advantage of other DNA as much as possible without being punished in any way. Not taking the advantage would lower survival, being punished will also lower survival. Again we see the property passed down to the next replication.

So what does all these means? Well first of all, it means that DNA are usually locked in a position with a low possibility of applying these three properties. For the first property, rivals will also try to out-replicate the DNA, and both are sort of stuck in the middle. In the second property rivals will also tend to gang up, again creating a stand-off situation. For the third property, with DNA taking advantage, other can either follow suit, or create defences to prevent the practice, again neutralising the treat in stability. The only occasion when the properties are shown is when a new innovative DNA strand appears produces some novel changes, which can be quite rare indeed.

So what of these three properties you ask, what has the DNA got to do with humans? Well, DNA express its effect physically on us humans. It might well be the 3rd property of DNA that makes us so resistant to change, while the 2nd property of DNA is a catalyst for sectarian problems.

It is because of the needs of the self replicating DNA molecules that we are programmed to have morality. A DNA molecule needs to be able to tell which other kinds of DNA can it trust, and which others that it cannot, according to the 3rd property. The effects seen in humans is of course the differentiation between good and bad actions. What good and bad in actual fact are is arbitrary categories that is in place to foster cooperation and punishment.

Of course what we put into those categories are also important, and some (many) stupid liberals put equality into the category of good. What we put in there is essential for the stability of social structure. Equality is one of the poorest choice because it is a reinforcement of the result of the 3rd property of DNA, that is being resistant to change at the individual level. A good defined as "equality" provides no differences on which DNA can act. On the other hand sectarian people define good as themselves and their practices, this is then a reinforcement of the result of the 2nd property of DNA (to gang up), again another set that is resistant to change, this time it is resistant to change of the will of the majority powers.

If you're wondering why the 1st property doesn't get mentioned, it is because advanced DNA had placed much less emphasis on the 1st property ever since they grouped up into multicellular organisms.

The key to all these is that we must learn that progress can only be brought through change. By taking into account that we cannot just draw a line to split up the good from the bad, and that again good and bad is evolutionary imposed on us through history, we must be careful in choosing what we want to categorise as good or bad.

All these time keeping in mind that Science doesn't care what we choose, but can tell us how people would care about the choices made, on which side of the evolutionary imposed line will the choices fall under, and what it takes to shift that freaking line.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Well said.