RE: The biological goal of the human mind

-----Original Message-----
Behalf Of Matthew Horning

>Since the nature of life is that it survives, is it not a necessary
>conclusion that the goal of the species is to survive? If, within the
>behavior of an organism, survival of the species were subjugated to any
>other task, would that not hinder the ability of the species to survive and
>thus eventually cause it NOT to survive?

There is no evolutionary programming for "species".  For example, Americans
will not change their breeding habits just because North Koreans are
starving to death.

Evolution works at the "gene" level.  In other words, whatever genes lead to
reproductive success (e.g. genes for smarter, faster, prettier) in the
current environment will reproduce themselves -- put themselves into the
next generation -- while genes for stupid, slow, etc. will tend to die out.
This is why evolution scientists say that people are simply a gene's way of
making more genes.  Or from a human perspective, our innate goal is simply
to reproduce the genes that created us.

There may be some innate programming to vary reproduction rates depending
upon local conditions (e.g., with plague rats), but I don't think they know
for certain how it might apply to us. In any event, I have only seen it
mentioned once (THE SPIRIT IN THE GENE) and Morrison didn't elaborate.

Jay