[ExI] Going beyond EP

[Stathis Papaioannou]

On 29/05/07, The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> --- Joshua Cowan <jcowan5 at sympatico.ca> wrote:
> > Samantha wrote:
> >
> > >This line of reasoning has considerable dark side
> > potential.  We can  and
> > >do go beyond our EP in at least some ways.
> >
> > I'm quite interested in this thought.
> >
> > In which ways do you believe we go beyond our EP and
> > are there common
> > factors that determine when humanity is able to
> > transcend its evolutionary
> > psychology?
>
> It has been experimentally determined that human
> infants develop a fear of heights *before* they are
> even able to crawl around. This is pretty good
> evidence that there is something instinctual about the
> fear of heights. Considering that numerous humans
> routinely fly around in jet planes at mach 2, sky
> dive, rock climb, bungie cord, and walk on tightropes,
> I would say that it is a safe bet that many aspects of
> EP can be transcended if one is willing. To paraphrase
> Neitszche, evolutionary psychology is something to be
> overcome.
>

There is a hierarchy of EP at work here. Fear of heights can be overcome,
with some effort, by means of rational thought when we realise that it
probably won't kill us, but that just points to the higher level EP, fear of
death, or fear of the loss of everything you care about. These top level
motivations are very hard to shift, and when they are overcome it is not
because someone sees this as an intrinsically good thing to do, but usually
in the context of death and loss being inevitable, so best try not to get
too upset about it. Spontaneously arriving at the idea that your death and
that of other people are completely inconsequential, and actually behaving
in a way that indicates you are serious about it, is usually taken as a sign
of mental illness, even though there is nothing in this idea that is
contrary to logic or contrary to empirical evidence. In the end, the will to
survive, or even the will to see the world survive, is just an axiom of EP,
without any deeper justification.

-- 
Stathis Papaioannou
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