An atheist's paradise (Part 1)

Tristan explores a world where God's name is never mentioned.

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• atheism
• atheist
• morality
• altruism
• selfish
• gene
• God
• delusion
• Richard
• Dawkins
• christian
• consciousness
• self-awareness
• faith
• belief

[gaychristian]

The model you describe is unstable. You envisage a group of survival machines, where, as a side effect of another system, harm occurs to an individual when his/her actions lead to the demise of another individual, even when it doesn't carry similar genes.

But, in time, evolution will find a way around this. Discrimination, between relatives carrying similar genes and those who don't, will occur because there will be a survival advantage for the gene that encodes for such discrimination.

[Cyrathil]

But I do believe it is. Empathy is a trait that would have survival benefit, it's an emergent part of another system, so it would be selected for. Once you have empathy, causing pain to others would cause you to feel discomfort. Of course, there are some where this process doesn't exist as strongly or they rationalize it away, but the general person when he feels he is hurting someone else, will start to feel discomfort. It's not because of some moral absolute, it's your empathy.

[gaychristian]

If you mean by empathy, the ability for them to simulate in their "circuitary" other's pain or discomfort, then that ability, in Richard Dawkin's model, must involve a survival benefit for the gene encoding for it.

It could be used to assist close relatives carrying similar genes, but for others, I can see it being used in a more cynical and selfish way to manipulate others. Genes encoding for such discriminatory behaviour will predominate. Empathy isn't a sustainable basis for universal love.

[Cyrathil]

And that's also not the "without god" position. In no way do I not see that things might be. That person, who knows how they could have effected others. The old cliche, they might have discovered the cure for cancer. Again it comes down to the simple fact that humans have a genetic ability to feel the positions of others, called empathy. Because I don't want to be put down because of some mistake in my life, I will tend to not do it to others. Forgiveness is wrought from empathy, not a deity.

[gaychristian]

In the video, the survival machines do not wish to murder everything that they see. The question is about "charity" and universal love, and whether or not this behaviour is compatible with evolutionary principles. The man who is killed is killed because charity does not exist in the world that Tristan explored. The individuals are co-operating for mutual benefit, and if an individual can not contribute, then the society finds a way of removing him/her.

This sounds cold, but these are machines.

[Cyrathil]

I'm no biologist, and I can't say anything more than what I've said before. In what little problems I see a small jump where I might not know how exactly it occurred, I'm fine saying I don't know and waiting for better evidence. I remain convinced that with the habits of the other mammals and especially the other primates, and given our consciousness we can be fairly confident in saying the tendency to not murder everything we see is not specially given, but evolved.

[gaychristian]

The selfish gene by Richard Dawkins-

Pg2, "Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and welfare of the species as a whole are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense."

P36, "Any gene that behaves in such a way as to increase its own survival chances in the gene pool at the expense of its alleles will, by definition tautologously, tend to survive. The gene is the basic unit of selfishness."

Also, Pg66, and the chapter, "You scratch my back and Ill ride on yours."

[Cyrathil]

Our problem seems to bo on Mr. Dawkins' use of the word selfish. In the book, do you know of any specific passages that support this claim that evolution is inherently selfish, because seeing as how he has been labeled a militant atheist, and is one of the "four horsemen of atheism", I doubt he would espouse idea that evolution can't give us what we have.

[gaychristian]

I'm not arguing that communities will not evolve. The world that Tristan visits is a world with a community. But, as Richard Dawkins explained in his book, it is a community under tension. They are cooperating for mutual benefit. It is the selfish gene again.

I'm not sure that there is a gene that could be called a "community gene," but if you mean a gene that encodes for universal love and welfare, I doubt that this would be sustained in a model based on evolutionary priniciples alone.

[Cyrathil]

I don't necessarily agree that this selfish gene will be able to gain that much power. It's inherently self-destructive. We're not incredibly strong, or swift compared to the other animals, so we have to live together. Communities are important to us. In this, the person who is too self-absorbed will not survive long. We see communities form in the other primates, so this isn't something special for us, so the evolving humans would have had this community gene already instilled.