[ExI] Meta question

BillK pharos at gmail.com
Thu Aug 18 16:49:15 UTC 2016


On 18 August 2016 at 17:30, Keith Henson  wrote:
> Humans frequently take actions that, if viewed only from their
> personal viewpoint are not rational.  But from the viewpoint of genes,
> the actions make sense.  See Hamilton and Haldane, "two brothers or
> eight cousins."
>
> So to restate your closing line, "it is sometimes rational from the
> genes viewpoint for genes to build brain mechanisms that induce humans
> to act irrationally from their individual viewpoints."
>
> Millions of years of genetic selection have left humans with
> behavioral mechanisms that lie behind such things as suicide bombers.
>
> Least you deplore this too much, it is worth remembering Thermopylae
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae.  The
> accomplishments of the Greeks lie at the root of Western culture.  Our
> history would have been very different without the suicidal self
> sacrifice of King Leonidas of Sparta and his men.
>


And you can add in that even when humans think they are being
rational, they're not.
Human thinking is driven by emotion, brain cludges, wrong beliefs,
logical fallacies, etc.

Humans are not rational.

BillK



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