From Scott Christensen             Mar 21, 01 10:44:39 AM -0800
To: <fuchs@michaelfuchs.org>
Subject: RE: 2000.03.20


> I'll be interested to hear your take on _The Moral Animal_. Up very
> soon on my list is his latest book, _Nonzero: The Logic of Human
> Destiny_.  

I'll have to check that out soon.

Anyway, my take on the first book is that it's awfully accurate. I'm
still fascinated by the "free will" question which he only briefly
glances upon. It feels like it's more complex than the simple delusion
of free will so that you'll be more believable which he ends up
espousing.

Most of the time that's clearly the way it works. In my own life I know
I've noticed that I often do things and as I'm doing them I'm wondering
what the hell I'm doing. It's like you lose control over you actions
sometimes. However, if you try you can force yourself through any
internal pressure that the subconscious/genetic parts of your being are
exerting. I've done that too.

I suppose you could rationalize that by saying that sometimes it would
be in your genetic interest to not follow your instincts but that seems
like a lot of complication with very little real explanation. It ends up
being an awful lot like a religion when you start doing that.

Which is another problem I had with his conclusions. This is my area of
focus for the past year or so, the "What is it all about?" kind of
questions. He and Singer and a host of others end up saying that
everyone should be nice to people because it would be nicer if everyone
were nice to people.

Granted, that's how I live my life. Although I've always been pretty low
on the social scale so it would make sense for me to be polite and
helpful to win friends and compatriots. I figured that out years ago.

What I don't understand is why anyone at the top would ascribe to that
philosophy which is the basic idea of communism. We'll all work together
and everyone will end up better.

The problem with all that for me is that it ends up as a "because we say
so" arguement when trying to describe the rightness of doctrine no
matter. If there is no _meaning_ to Life then being nice to people
doesn't matter in any way other than as a deliberate calculation as to
how much your actions can help you. No matter how much you wrap it up in
logical agruments and reason it always ends up at the "because I say so"
argument.  This bothers me in a deep and fundamental way.

Why? Because I think I could argue the exact opposite life practices of
social darwinism just as well. They would claim that it's been disproven
by the natrualistic fallacy. So what? People believe in god and all
sorts of other wacky stuff which have no basis in reality at all.

What's Life all about? Is this the end of evolution? Is there something
more? Is Life a process of growth or a process of aimless exploration
and filling a niches? If the only point to all this crap is to make more
life, then what does it matter how any of that life acts toward the poor
and the downtrodden of their kind? If life is a process of growing up,
like people have always thought for millions of years, wouldn't it make
more sense for the weak and superfluous to be weeded out the way
evolution has always done up until a few thousand years ago? Why should
you question a process that made these really cool human brains?

Obviously it all gets twisted up the more you explore this stuff which
is why everyone always ends up at "because I said so".

And I'm still terribly interested in the loose theories espoused by
Howard Bloom and the grroup selectionists. Wright dismisses them as
wackos and stupid which might have been the case in the early days, I
don't know enough of the history and original science to say either way.
What he seems to be missing though are a lot of the recent advances and
a kind of big picture that also ties into the meme concept which, I tend
to think is the essence of everything although I realize that's just me
and my mystical ways.

Scott