X-Message-Number: 5360
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 1995 21:14:04 -0800
From: John K Clark <>
Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Why there is Death.
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NOTE: In this one post I will put anthropomorphic terms in quotation marks so
they are not taken literally. It should not be necessary to repeat this
practice.
In #5341 Peter Merel <> On Tue, 5 Dec 1995 Wrote:
>DNA generally requires intelligence, in the form of one or
>another phenotype, in order to be passed along.
The DNA of plants, bacteria, and even viruses have been passed on for
billions of years and the phenotype they use as a vehicle have no
intelligence whatever.
>when Dawkins asserts that human happiness, or it's lack,
>is directly affected by whether or not that human has
>followed the purpose encoded in their DNA, then I think
>that teleology is the right word for this.
Dawkins doesn't assert that, and there is certainly nothing
"direct" about it. Humans have intelligence, DNA "knew" it did
not have all the answers in a fast changing world, so it
constructed a brain for us to aid it in it's quest for survival,
thus unlike plants and lower animals, we are not a slaves to our genes,
BUT, we're not completely independent of them either.
DNA predisposes us into certain directions. DNA "wants" to
survive, the reason for this is that is that the DNA that was
not "interested" in survival became extinct long ago. Survival
and growth is what DNA is maximizing thus that is it's "purpose".
DNA accomplishes it's "goal" by engineering into it's phenotype,
it's vehicle, us, a predisposition to want to survive as well.
If it starts to look like we will not survive we usually become
unhappy and try to change the situation. That's why we have medicine,
and cryonics.
>I don't think that such a conjecture can be regarded in an
>empirical light
I think their are empirical tests, the most dramatic is the
existence of death. If the survival of the individual animal is
what is being maximized why do we only live a few decades and
most animals far less? Evolution has been at work for billions
of years it should have been able to do better than that IF
that's what it was trying to achieve. The answer is that nature
is indifferent toward the individual, it's well being is NOT
what is being maximized. After an animal has reproduced their
is no point in wasting valuable resources on him, better to put
that effort in the early part of his life so he is strong then
and can be more certain to reproduce.
Another test is altruism among the social insects. A worker ant
will not hesitate for an instant to give up her life for the
queen because a worker ant is sterile and can not reproduce. The
genes in the worker ant's body "knows" that it's best bet is to
see to it that the queen survives because the queen has the
same genes as the worker and she can reproduce.
Genes aren't the only thing that can reproduce, so it's not too
surprising that the same process happens for ideas, for example
the concept that it's a good thing to die for your country.
If you can infect at least one other person with this meme before you
head off for oblivion, then you will die but the meme will not.
By the way, the article in Scientific American in just one chapter from the
new book by Dawkins called "The River out Of Eden". I highly recommend it.
John K Clark
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