From Scott Christensen             Mar 22, 01 10:33:16 PM -0800
To: "Kassis, Jeremy" <jkassis@netfish.com>, <fuchs@michaelfuchs.org>
Cc: <cpoplawski@iMediation.com>
Subject: Musings upon the notions of morality and other evolutionarily related things

> JK: it's only depressing because it reveals situations that
> you have not considered in which you behave according to genetic
> programming and not according to your existing concept of
> "free will."  like me, you were probably bummed when the doctor
> tested your reflexes by bonking your knees with a rubber mallet.
> i tried and tried to control that "knee-jerk"
> reaction.  but i failed.  i was both disappointed, but
> fascinated at the same time.  i had the same response when
> i realized i had limited control over the dilation of my eyes
> and rate of pulse.

SC: I come at all these notions from a different perspective it seems. I
never questioned the deterministic free-will notion very much until Nov
1999 after I had been wandering the earth for a few months. The reason
it never occurred to me was that I had always been assaulted by
biology/genes/et al from my earliest experiences. It was obvious. When I
was 5 I had a piece of my lung removed because of chronic pneumonia/weak
immune system. Asthma and allergies have always plagued me. Poor vision
was foisted upon me by parents who both had bad vision and when you
combine the two genetically it's a great big mess let me tell you.

So growing up with a lot of physical problems the notion that you are
what you were born to be was pretty easy for me to accept even if I
didn't like it very much. Once I met my father for the first time it was
even easier. You don't really notice how much like your parents you are
until you see yourself in the mirror of a man 25 years older than you
whom you have never met, with whom (is it who? I can never get that
right) you've never had _any_ contact.

You might intellectually understand all of the inner workings of
genetics but seeing a vertable stranger use the same words you do the
same way you do is truly odd.

Not too long after that I started to get a feeling that I described
poorly on my website as more-than-beauty. There isn't any word that
fully encompasses the feeling and believe me I looked. At first I
figured I had finally gone insane. What better place to go insane than
Albuquerque?

Then I asked a trusted advisor and found out that she has had very
similar experiences too. She thought, "Well that was nice," and went on
with her life. I, on the other hand was completely freaked out.
Unfortunately, the 13 years of Catholic school which you would think
would have prepared me for a mystic experience completely failed to
deliver.  The experience is like an _emotional/intellectual_ orgasm and
it's been described almost exactly the same way throughout history by
every mystical tradition from Western Christianity right on across the
continents to the Eastern traditions.

Once I figured out that I had gone completely crazy, based on my
previous stricly scientific world view (former physics major, worked
with computers for almost 18 years now, blah blah blah), I started
combing the scientific literature for reasonable explanations which lead
me back to the kinds of topics that we all seem to be pondering.

Undoubtedly, there is a simple physical explanation for the mystical
experience although I have yet to find one. Considering lots of
halucinogenic drugs (none of which I've taken by the way ,just thought I
should make that clear) are reputed to induce experiences a lot like
what I had, there would have to be a good solid physical explanation out
there somewhere.

Why do I bring all that silliness up, tempting you to totally discount
me as a wacko, you ask? It's because it has a bearing on the debate I
think. The entire notion of _morality_, rightness and wrongness of our
actions, is as far as I can tell, based on that experience. Kassis said
later on in his email that morality is negotiated and that is true. What
we consider right and wrong is partly built in to every human being, as
described in TMA, leading to the enormous similarities in all human
philosophical tradtions. Partly it's negotiated based on cultural
experiences leading to the unique differences in those philosophical
traditions.

What I think is interesting is that every belief system has the mystical
expeience underlying it. From the earliest mythologies (Joseph Campbells
books are great introductions to these) right on through to the codified
religious traditions that currently hold sway, that more-than-beauty
thing is what they all build upon.

Once you sit and get that flash of Oneness, to borrow the
Taoist/Buddhist notion for a moment although I still feel ridiculous
using it, it's awfully difficult to accept that morality/good and
evil/quality isn't inherent in the very fabric of the universe despite
the clear and obvious evidence that it really isn't.

> JK: We don't need for this to be wrong.  And we don't need a
> rational basis for morality.  I say, "I want to live in a
> society that severely punishes recreational torture.  Who's
> with me?"  I don't have to have a reason.  I just need to
> have options.

SC: Why do you want to live in a society that severely punishes
recreational torture? I think that why question is really important.
What does it matter? It must matter if you don't want to live in that
kind of world yet there isn't any convincing reason for it to be so
other than that you don't like it.

If that's the case then the whole edifice of morality is simply part of
the mechanims that are described in TMA to explain consciousness...the
notion that people bullshit themselves into believing what they're
saying so that other people will believe them despite the fact that they
will often do the exact opposite of what they say they believe. The
typical example is of a man convinced that he loves a woman until he
screws her and then suddenly the love for her disappears then fixates on
another woman.

Perhaps we shouldn't be using the word "morality" if it's all whim as
the word has too many absolute connotations to it.

> JK: The concept of objectivist ethics, of one standard from basic
> principles, rationally consistent . . .is . . . a . . .
> stratagem.  It is a play for mindshare and sucks bandwidth.
> We can make rational appeals for certain ethical policies,
> but they are grounded in emotion and the genetic imperative.

SC: That's another thing that currently fascinates me. The entire notion
of memes making a play for dominance and that inflection point where
they grow exponentially is explored all the time in advertising which is
the industry I last worked in the last time I worked.

You can pretty much convince anyone of anything based on what I saw at
the ad agency. Given enough time and money you could probably make the
world think that giant space monkeys are eating our linen and the only
way to stop them is to drink a special elixir of wonder (available at
your local grocery store) every day.

Mindshare of ideas is the place where all the really interesting
activity is taking place these days. Memes are generated at a furious
rate and live and die at an equally furious rate. Some of them are
generated chaotically by the summation of all sorts of collective
activities. Some of them are generated through conscious intent by
advertising. The two generators mix and mingle and modify each other
then churn out whole new sets of memes for ever more epic competitions.

There's an interesting book on marketing and modern culture called
_Nob®ow_ by John Seabrook who touches on these topics without realizing
he's talking about memes. Mostly it's a vague and poorly defined
commentary on modern culture but what I found most interesting about the
book is how it examines the lack of a clearly defined modern belief
system.

Belief systems, morality and all it touches, are essential to the entire
subject and they're all emotional. I don't know if there is much of a
point in bothering to discuss morality if you're going to say that it's
all essentially relative, that there is no absolute sense of quality of
action.

Why? Because you can never convince anyone with the argument that your
morality is the better solution if you're going to say that there's no
real reason for this to be so other than that you would like it to be
that way. "Everyone should be nice to people because it would be nicer
if everyone were nice to people" for instance will never fly in the
marketplace of ideas because it doesn't have any emotional impact.
People might agree but they'll never _believe_ it deep down.

Whatever is true or not (if there is such a thing), your beliefs in the
marketplace of ideas, in the life and death competition for mindshare
amongst memes, your notions will wither and die in an instant like an
orchid in the Arizona desert. A logical conundrum if ever there were
one.

To live in a world you consider moral, you have to sincerely know, not
just believe, you have to know that you are absolutely and unequivocably
right in your beliefs. Kind of funny in a way and tends to make me think
that there really is a god but he only cares about comedy.

> JK: you actually had less choice as a child, not only because
> your parents told you what to do, but because your mind
> had not been filled with the data and experiences it
> requires to buck its programming.  do you have more control
> over your thoughts now than you did as a kid?  i do.
> i don't get boners in class anymore.  thank god.

SC: Really? Some days it feels like I'm 15 years old again. Maybe that's
just me. Try taking vitamin E regularly.

Anyway, I don't think that boner thing has anything to do choice. When
you're 15 you are so flooded with hormones that a piece of chalk can be
sexy. Based on what I know of the original conditions of humanity
getting aroused by a light breeze makes perfect sense and losing that as
you get older also makes perfect sense because you don't have to compete
as much and you're most likely to have kids that you have to support so
making more and more and more of them would be detrimental to your
lineage in the long run.

> JK: the question that concerns me, even more than the question
> of "free will" is happiness.  and i think that TMA analysis is
> also beneficial in this regard. by identifying what our
> imperatives tell us to do, we have a guide to what
> we "should" do.  in the simplest analysis.  what we "should"
> do is strive, compete, and complexify because these are the
> means by which we ensure the most suitable mates that ensure
> the survival of our offspring.  in this very real way, the
> purpose of life is life.  whether you believe this is shallow
> or profound is really just an issue of your perspective -
> your cognitive, intellectual background.  but i guarantee
> that if you throw off your intellectualism and heed the wisdom
> of your genetic imperatives, you'll find it quite beautiful.
>
> once you've come to the realization of the profound beauty of
> that statement at your deepest levels, you can begin to engage
> your rationality to elaborate your concept of what life entails.
> this is the aesthetic of god which i am trying to cultivate in
> myself because it leads to the harmonious resolution of existence
> (our genetic origins and heritage), emotion (how i
> feel every day), and consciousness (the pinnacle of evolution - a
> dynamically configured, adaptionist, executor of behavior).

SC: I completely agree with that and it also is the essence of the Tao
(just without the scientific jargon). The only problem is that genetic
imperatives almost never produce happiness for very long. As mentioned
in TMA they almost invariably compel you on to further striving and
conflict. The long sought after goal of most people I think is
contentment but contentment is death in the eyes of evolution. Without
the striving and growing there is an inexorable decline.

[Small aside: There appear to be a lot of correlations between cultures,
conflict and vitality. It's been popularized by Bloom in _The Lucifer
Principle_ and _Global Mind_ but I first came to the notion through the
historian Arnold Toynbee and his _The Study of History_. Other books
that have similar notions are Thomas Sowell's _Conflict and
Civilization_ (I don't have the book with me right now so the name could
be wrong) and the ever popular Jared Diamond's _Guns Germs and Steel_.]

Going on the assumption that your genetic imperatives should guide your
actions probably means you can never experience anything other than
fleeting happiness at best and most likely a constant feeling of despair
at your failure to succeed at worst.

Not that I have any better solution though.

> MF: The rub is: WHERE DOES THAT "ALWAYS wrong" come from?
>
> JK: No matter what the content of an ethical prescription,
> one observation about ethics, to me, is inescapable.  It
> is negotiated.  You can make what arguments you like about
> ethics being objective and following from fundamental
> principles and unarguable.  But when you make these arguments,
> the most accurate existential description of what you are doing is
> "negotiating."  You are making arguments to shove your memes
> down someone else's cognitive cake hole.  If your memes have
> an air of internal consistency, the other person is weak-
> minded, and they have no competitive position, they will
> agree with you (maybe - many people are just obstinate).
> This perspective explains, to me, all ethical conundrums,
> including the *some things are always wrong* conundrum.
> The reality is that there is no such thing as wrong, and
> some people can never be brought to believe it.
> Many people can believe there is such a thing, because we
> have a similar evolutionary heritage.  When you say SOME
> THINGS ARE ALWAYS WRONG, you are saying that you believe
> that SOME THINGS ARE ALWAYS WRONG. Some people will agree
> with you.  Many will on the perspective of recreational
> torture.  But reality is that during colonial times,
> recreational torture of slaves was pretty common.  And
> nothing you could say would convince the sadists
> otherwise.  We have stomped most of that out by force.
> Anyone remember the Civil War?  When memes do not win on
> their own merit, when they cannot replicate into new fertile
> ground, they sometimes harness other memes (the concept of
> the enemy, the will of god) to destroy the hosts of competing
> memes.  People have been killed throughout history for what
> was in their heads.  Ethics are subjective.  And Ethics
> are negotiated. And I'll go out on a limb here to say that
> anyone that disagrees has their idealism blinders on.

I agree and I've said almost the same things to other people. However,
to play devil's advocate for a moment, making ethics subjective
completely destroys the idea of ethics/morality/whatever. There isn't
any point in ever mentioning the word if it can take on any feature at
all.

There is a very strong under current of basic beliefs that permeate all
cultures. Do no harm to one of us is the most basic. What constitues
"one of us" varies throughout the realm of human experience but it's
always there. Memes and genes have no problem stamping out others that
are not of their kind.

In the earliest days of humanity "one of us" was totally gene dependent.
Small groups of people were small pockets of similar genes. As minds
evolved memes took over and turned "one of us" into a much larger
notion.

There is no inconsistency with toturing of slaves and ethics in that
context because slaves were never one of the group. They simply didn't
matter and only matter now that memes which encompass all human beings
have taken over the Western world. Gengis Khan could pile 40,000 heads
at a city gate with little compunction because those people never fit
into the one of us category and if he tried it with Mongols it would
only have been against people who rebelled against the notion of
Mongolness and never against good honest Mongols.

You could say that the first axiom of ethics is "do no harm against one
of us" where "one of us" could be any arbitrary grouping.

> JK: Now tell me . . . do your feelings matter?
> Do they matter to *you*?  I hope so.  If so, then we
> have hope together.  And we have the basis for a moral society.

Maybe and maybe not. Everyone's feelings matter to them. It's when they
are all in line with each other that you have a moral _society_.
Otherwise it's all a random mish mosh of confusion and says nothing
about what those morals could or should be.


Scott Christensen
I realize I often sound perplexed and confused
about many things. Perhaps the memes of
absoluteness inscribed into me by 13 years of
Catholic school are over riding any sense of
perspective I have. Thusly, I blame the nuns
for destroying my mind.