From: Peter C. McCluskey (pcm@rahul.net)
Date: Thu Aug 15 2002 - 11:27:43 MDT
lcorbin@tsoft.com (Lee Corbin) writes:
>Peter writes
>> Why would such genes have enabled your ancestors to reproduce better than
>> someone whose genes caused him to tip in order to establish his reputation
>> for niceness, or to tip in order to create warm feelings inside himself?
>
>Here is one theory. Men need to convince women that they're good
>providers who'll look out for their children even when it's in
>their better genetic interest to split and spread their seed
>elsewhere. So women evolve mechanisms whose purpose it to detect
>genuine altruism.
I'm having trouble understanding why they would have evolved detection
mechanisms that would recognize your notion of genuine altruism, which
is very hard to detect, rather than evolve mechanisms that detect a
broader class of phenomena which includes my notion of altruism.
>> There is, of course, much less evolutionary pressure for being conscious
>> of one's self-interest than there is for being conscious of one's niceness,
>> so I'm rather skeptical of your reports of your introspection.
>
>I'm not talking about consciousness here at all. And yes, you
>are perfectly right: one must be EXTREMELY wary of introspection.
>We all have many mechanisms conscious and unconscious for convincing
>ourselves that we're the good guys, or the nice ones, or whatever.
>I came up with my VR Solipsist thought experiment precisely to
>avoid the constant rationalizing I do of my behavior. So I now
I'm sorry, but I don't understand how a thought experiment avoids
introspection. What can I find out about your behavior in the VR Solipsist
example without using your reports of your introspection?
-- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Peter McCluskey | Free Jon Johansen! http://www.rahul.net/pcm |
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