[extropy-chat] Rational thinking

[Lee Corbin]

Keith had *specifically* asked for someone to suggest (as an
exercise) a EVOLUTIONARY  PSYCHOLOGICAL analysis
accounting for the behavior of America's founders

> Who would like to take a crack at an EP analysis of why the founders acted 
> as they did?

and, after a paragraph or two that really provided no new information, 
I launched into  other  types of explanation, as if that had been
the question.

My apologies.

Lee


> Your posts were almost entirely adequate on this point. It's
> pretty obvious, really. These were men with stronger social skills
> and stronger social instincts than most, and nature, as many
> processes are wont to do, serves up a normal distribution
> of such skills and instincts.
> 
> Based on survival evolution, their genes were the distal cause
> of their behavior;  individuals and groups having such individuals
> fared better not only as you write, in the EEA (environment of
> evolutionary adaptedness), but also in the last 10,000 years.
> 
> Your analysis, however, did not adequately mention the cultural
> evolution that had placed these men in those positions at those
> times. "The Rights of Englishmen" was not to them an idle phrase,
> and we can see its memetic power clearly.
> 
> The proximate causes of their behavior included in many cases
> their own economic self-interest.  George Washington, for example,
> had been incensed for years at the treatment of himself and his
> neighbors by the distant government of a King to whom they were
> still very loyal.
> 
> Almost all of them exhibited strong mixtures of  motivations---the
> feelings of group loyalty and patriotism to what they called and
> considered to be their own "dear native land". Not a few of these
> were written out in the Declaration of Independence, (which contains
> quite a list of grievances in addition to other observations keenly
> and sincerely felt).
> 
> Genes provide just one level of explanatory power, a level that was
> sadly neglected for ideological reasons throughout the entire 20th
> century. But it's important to keep in mind that it's not the only level
> at which valid explanations are to be found.
> 
> Lee