X-Message-Number: 5379 Date: Fri, 8 Dec 1995 21:35:41 -0800 From: John K Clark <> Subject: SCI.CRYONICS Why we don't want to die. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- In #5363 Peter Merel <> On Fri, 8 Dec 1995 Wrote: >It's plain that plants, bacteria and even some viruses react >intelligently with respect to their environments. Viruses? Wow, it turns out I must be an old fart too. I thought it was radical when I timidly suggested that machines may soon have a few faint glimmerings of intelligence and not just be data processors or servomechanisms, but that's nothing compared to brainy viruses. How about salt crystals, are they intelligent too? Is there anything that is NOT intelligent? >I'm sorry, did you mean human intelligence? I mente the only kind of intelligence I know anything about, the kind that deals in abstraction, foresight, induction and deduction. >humans have proven eager to act in ways that are counter to >the purpose of passing on their genes. Apart from >homosexuality, we enjoy warfare, suicides, high-fat diets, >smoking, drinking, risky sports, celibacy and breeding >without regard to resource limitations. You're mixing genes and memes and two separate theories, one about biology and one about the mind. Everybody has heard of "survival of the fittest" in biological evolution, but exactly what is it that is being selected for to survive? Is it the gene, the individual, the species, the genus, the family, the order, the kingdom, or what? I agree with Dawkins that it is the gene that is being maximizes, but all this has little to do with memes. The things you're talking about are memes not genes and the two can have very different goals. For example, A celibate person and his genes can not reproduce, but the celibacy meme can and does reproduce. That set's the stage for a battle between the genes and memes, sometimes the gene wins and the person breaks his vow of celibacy, sometimes the meme wins and the person has no offspring. >If we were actually blessed with such a predisposition, >[...] a bigger seller would be a business that pasted human >DNA into amoebae, algae and other highly procreative >organisms. Genes could never tell us to do that, because genes don't known anything about humans, DNA, amoebas, algae, procreation, or anything else. Knowing about things is memes work. It's just that genes that produce phenotypes that take active measures to avoid destruction, grow faster and thus become more common than genes that do not. That's why most of us don't like pain and don't want to die. Also, genes that are in animals that have large brains often do better in a complex world than genes in smaller brained beasts. That's why we have big brains. The brain is an astonishingly complex machine and it's full of strange memes, some of them quite intricate and subtle, so it's not always possible to know exactly how a brain will respond in a given situation. Sometimes a brain works at cross purposes to the genes that made it. Personally I don't think that's always a bad thing. I am my memes, I want to keep them happy, if my genes don't like it my genes can lump it. John K Clark -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.i iQCzAgUBMMkchH03wfSpid95AQGziQTwxrXPkri8+ajzgg1ilacO1I9jQz4Dt6u0 B2Sc1TxMGS3sw5HzHULaEdeYX9mostZhr2UlPpg0Qf8CyxLLQelY2ls9ZGIuaW7U CCdbjr/2fityVZxGrClnG2tmbSEC/OyJCQ8CSfJOjI2lncZAKEk7m3PsOSFVWqOO /KhxUjWbt3U8FrYki/gLg1H36NfugBMtfXUDqp30R/AjPhWHOZk= =Qj0J -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=5379