[extropy-chat] is spreading ones own genes relevant, or just an anachronism ?

[Robert Lindauer]

Robin Hanson wrote:

> At 04:28 PM 8/23/2005, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
>
>>> I am informed by both my own (very powerful) instinctual urges and
>>> tendencies, and by works of authors (such as Jared Diamond in The 3rd
>>> Chimpanzee) that it is my goal to spread my genetic material, or 
>>> progeny,
>>> as far and as wide and as varied as possible.
>>
>>
>> No, this is your genes' goal.  *Your* goals are to love, to live, to 
>> have fun, to have sex, to eat good food rich and sugar in fat, to 
>> increase your status, to find a good long-term mate, to raise 
>> children together, etc. etc.
>
>
> Genes gave most people goals like these in an attempt to achieve the 
> genes' goals.


How useful is this metaphor, really?  It certainly gives one a way of 
understanding why -some- people do -some- of the things they do, but it 
creates just as many anomolies (homosexuality, cigarette smoking, 
self-sacrifice, male monogamy, etc.) in need of explanation.  One has to 
remember that while our in our physique there is a "normalcy" standard 
of health, in our behaviour, any such normalcy standard looks contrived 
in the context of the broader range of human behaviour. 

Also, when we talk about "having goals", we don't think of genes as 
mental entities with their own agenda, we think of them as mechanical 
things that simply do whatever they do.  They have no "desire to 
survive" even in evolutionary terms, they simply survive because nothing 
kills them.  They, consequently, can not pass their agenda on to 
anyone.  If you really wanted to express something like a genetic 
disposition to behave, it would be the genetic disposition to stick 
around until killed.

>   Of course it is easy to fool yourself into thinking you want 
> something unusual, when in fact you really want what most everyone 
> else wants.


You see, here the "anomolies" come out explicitly in your language.  You 
have to "fool yourself" to want something that someone else doesn't.  
But it's not so.  Some people want different things; in fact lots of 
people want different things.  One then tries to differentiate between 
what someone 'really wants' and what they say they want and what they 
actually pursue, creating the need for a metaphorical super-ego and id 
which, functionally or consciously speaking, have no real interest and 
in fact tend to allow people to see themselves as self-alienated, unable 
to control their behavior, when in fact most people are significantly in 
control of their behaviour and choose what they do (when they make 
choices of signficance) consciously.


Robbie Lindauer
.