reval wrote:Now, you seem to dismiss points 1-6 as obvious, but that's where the real work is done. Before we get to point 7, human nature is packaged up as a process-within-a-process, and the powerful inner process is ready to break free.
Let's leave "process" aside for a moment. Consider three other ideas: "thang", "goal" and "method". "Thang" (spelling resembles "thing") is the thing in question. "Goal" is what the thang wants to do - in this case, to propagate. Where this goal came from does not matter for this point; simply accept it as the thing which the method (to be described later) accomplishes. To this end, the method serves the goal, even if the goal is only there because it's "the thing the method accomplishes". It works because there's a feedback loop in the system somewhere, which is interesting but not important if you simply accept these terms.
Every thang we'll discuss here has the goal of propagating. This fact is what makes it a subject of the discussion.
Every thang has a host - an underlying substrate in which the thang is "written" and through which the thang accomplishes its goal of propagation.
A meme is a thang whose host is a (human) brain. Memes that don't propagate never get called memes, and are forgotten, but those that do have the trait that they are successful at using the resources of brains to stay alive and copy themselves into other brains. (At the moment the only brains of interest here are human brains, but this may not always be the case.) For now, it's equally fair to say that memes are hosted by human individuals, whose behavior helps them propagate, and memes that influence people in the "right" way will propagate. They do so by competing with other memes and other thoughts, sometimes extinguishing them. At the moment the meme of white supremacy is fighting the memes of egalitarianism, and by influencing the behavior of people, is winning.
A gene is a thang whose host is a living thing's body (which in animals, includes the brain). While memes influence (and can generate) behavior, genes directly influence (and generate) the body itself. By creating bodies that are better able to reproduce in the "real" environment, the gene that does so propagates. Unlike a meme, genes directly code for and create their own host. Some genes code for living things that can host memes, others don't.
Now consider a "thought process" - it is made up of memes. Memes are ideas - specifically ideas that have been successful at propagating. Some of these memes are the ideas in question, some of them are ideas about how those ideas should be considered, some of them are ideas about validity, but a thought process is made up of ideas and nothing more. It is executed by a brain, but in its essence it is made up of ideas encoded in this brain, and the reason they are encoded in this brain is that they are successful at propagating themselves.
So, a thought process is a result of a battle of ideas; like all battles it is adversarial. Natural selection happens, and the survivors pass on their memes (in the form of tweets, books, blog posts, musical notation, etc.) where they can be picked up and enter battle in another brain, fighting that brain's existing memes for dominance, and perhaps causing the brain's host to "change its mind".
So yes, there's a "process in a process", and it's inside a process too. That's not in contention, nor is it important to your argument. But what
is important and relevant is that all of this is based on
a battle between thangs, where the winner gets a chance to propagate.
And this means that natural selection drives the evolution of memes, ideas, and thought processes.
This is one crux of your argument - to wit, that the "thought process" supersedes evolution. It does not. This is why. It is itself a product of evolution, and runs its own process of evolution as it attempts to propagate.
I will grant that the evolution of memes can lead to behaviours that influence the evolution of genes - to wit, genetic engineering. But then your core argument is that the very existence (and not the actual machinations) of genetic engineering will cause people to change their behavior for the better.
Why?
Before you answer that question, answer the more fundamental question of why people do
any particular thing. Why do you like (or avoid) strawberries? Why do you choose the clothes that you do (or choose not to wear any)? Why do you learn to swim, or read, or drive?
The proximate reasons will probably focus on pleasure and pain, either now or planning for the future. Delving a bit more you might say your choice is the output of a thought process that has been successful at reproducing, and thus an evolutionary byproduct. But I doubt you will end up saying "I'm consciously doing it to propagate my chromosomes".
But that is what is required to support your contention that "the very existence of genetic engineering will cause people to change their behavior for the better" (whatever "better" is).
And, I bet we have a lively disagreement on what constitutes "better". Your memes, my memes, and the rest of the board's memes will do battle here on xkcd, and some minds may be changed, by the victory of one meme over another. This is evolution in action.
reval wrote:...let's cut it short and say that compassion has no place in evolution at all.
Except that would be false. Compassion cements relationships between individuals, creating groups. Groups are stronger than individuals, and the creation of these groups helps the group's genes (and memes) to propagate. This also is evolution in action. Compassion has a lot to do with evolution. Organisms that are compassionate are more likely to form groups, and thus more likely to pass on their genes (and any memes they host)... at least to the limit where compassion's benefits outweigh the harm ("me first!"), and that depends on just how tight resources are.
reval wrote:I don't see what I can say about genetic engineering, other than that it is inevitable.
But you
have said more about it - to wit, that it will lead to a Better Master Race.
No, that does not follow. Not in the least.
Jose