What should you do now? — Purple Pond

Die. Die your hair blonde, and get a boob job, or work out and develop muscles. Humans are frightfully superficial; good looks are everything in our world.

Every progress in evolution is dearly paid for; miscarried attempts, merciless struggle everywhere. The more detailed our knowledge of nature becomes, the more we see, together with the element of generosity and progression which radiates from being, the law of degradation, the powers of destruction and death, the implacable voracity which are also inherent in the world of matter. And when it comes to man, surrounded and invaded as he is by a host of warping forces, psychology and anthropology are but an account of the fact that, while being essentially superior to all of them, he is the most unfortunate of animals. So it is that when its vision of the world is enlightened by science, the intellect which religious faith perfects realises still better that nature, however good in its own order, does not suffice, and that if the deepest hopes of mankind are not destined to turn to mockery, it is because a God-given energy better than nature is at work in us. — Jacques Maritain

God and science

quote="Jacques Maritain"]if the deepest hopes of mankind are not destined to turn to mockery, it is because a God-given energy better than nature is at work in us[/quote]

What are the deepest hopes of humankind? Humankind appears to be hell-bent on destroying all life on the planet.

It's survival of the fit, not the fittest. Often misquoted.

I'm confused about your ant example. The worker ant seems perfectly fit, although her circumstances may have changed.

(Fyi, depending on the type of colony, there may be more than one queen, and in single queen colonies depending on the time of year, there may be queen larvae.)

Our human traits are a product of natural selection, made for surviving and reproducing. If you are unable to survive very long and/or reproduce, now what? How similar are you to that worker ant who loses the queen? What should you do now? — Purple Pond

You could follow a moral framework that does not reference survival/fitness. Plenty of people today are not concerned (or at least profess to be so) with the proliferation of their genes. I don't know that there is any evidence that these people suffer some psychological damage as a result. I think humans are adaptable enough to find purpose outside of biology.

If course, in a literal doomsday scenario, things might be different.

If course, in a literal doomsday scenario, things might be different. — Echarmion

The literary doomsday scenario has begun when I started to write poetry.

There is bad poetry. There is BAAAD poetry. And then there is mine.


(I know I used an alteration of the word, and then cmmitted the equivocation fallacy on the Strawman just committed. It's for the humorous effect.)

While many humans are fit enough to continue the life cycle of finding a partner and producing healthy offspring, many don't make it. — Purple Pond

According to one source, 87% of women and 81% of men reproduce. Here's a link:

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/26797a/what_percentage_of_humans_reproduce/

I don't know if those numbers are right, but it does seem that the great majority of humans reproduce.

Our human traits are a product of natural selection, made for surviving and reproducing. If you are unable to survive very long and/or reproduce, now what? How similar are you to that worker ant who loses the queen? What should you do now? — Purple Pond

So, are you saying, what is the purpose of life? your post seems to suggest that reproducing is the meaning of life? You imply without it, what is the point. Many humans CHOOSE not to have children. Evolutionarily (is that a word, haha), those people (me) are unfit. But so what?

Those who view THEIR purpose in life as reproduction, would likely have a severe reaction to their inability to achieve their "purpose." They are also unlikely to view their inability to reproduce as their own fault. This could result in terrible consequences for society (at the very least we just have a higher percent of depressed people)

This seems a good reason NOT to convince people that reproduction is THE purpose. Although we are fighting centuries of religious arguments that emphasize making babies and working hard as the sole reasons for human existence.

It's survival of the fit, not the fittest. — Artemis

I like this. And human society has made it so that just about everyone "is fit" (those that wants to have kids, can - even those with severe disabilities). Now, many (most) will not get their first choice (if you can't be...with the one you love...love the one you're with), but IF their MAIN purpose is reproduction (not WHO they reproduce with), they can find someone.

I wanted to start a similar thread but you got there first.

Evolution is usually spoken of as a competition between organisms and thus survival of the fit is a common description of it.

If we cast our glance beyond the limits of our cities we can directly observe how the weak become prey or succumb to disease - we need to be fit to make it in the wild.

However, looking within into human societies we see people trying to save the weak and diseased, giving those who are physically or mentally handicapped special privileges so that they may get equal opportunity as those who are fit/healthy.

This exclusively human phenomenon, protecting and nurturing the weak/unfit, is at odds with how evolution works for non-human organisms. Yes, a good chunk of the unfit population may be incapable of having children but some do go on to pass on their unfit genes.

One of two ways this can be understood is that humans have outgrown evolutionary constraints - our environment no longer determines the health of the human gene pool - and this is, in part or in whole, due to our moral sense. To anyone who is moral the weak/unfit need protection and care and this is carried out all over the world despite it being contrary to the accepted wisdom of how evolution is about survival of the fit.

The other way to understand this is that morality is part of evolution and somehow a population of unfit genes is beneficial on some level for survival. I mean if diversity is essential to survival then having sick/unfit members may be necessary.

What should you do now? — Purple Pond

Whatever you want and can do! (don't hurt anyone) The extraordinary thing about us humans is that we are conscious to a degree that permits us to choose not to follow the dictates of our instinctual programs, even if the opportunity to fulfill them is still there. Herein lies our freedom and more. We don't have to play the game. Natural selection may have gotten us here, but now that we're here...

It's survival of the fit, not the fittest. Often misquoted. — Artemis

"Survival of the fittest" was not Darwin; it's Herbert Spenser's laissez-faire, proto-eugenic, coinage.

I agree with "fit" but iff it applies to (eu)social systems in terms of deep ecology (vide Næss, Diamond, et al); that is, a sort of '(eu)socialist darwinism' - perhaps in the (tautological?) sense of Survival of the Sustainable - with explicit ethical and political-economic implications for human development (e.g. UNDP indices of 'well-being' (vide Sen/Nussbaum, et al)).

... humans have outgrown evolutionary constraints - our environment no longer determines the health of the human gene pool - and this is, in part or in whole, due to our moral sense. To anyone who is moral the weak/unfit need protection and care [ ... ]

The other way to understand this is that morality is part of evolution and somehow a population of unfit genes is beneficial on some level for survival. I mean if diversity is essential to survival then having sick/unfit members may be necessary. — TheMadFool

:up:

Nature is cruel and inefficient, only a select few survive while many don't make it. Survival fittest applies to all organisms, including humans. While many humans are fit enough to continue the life cycle of finding a partner and producing healthy offspring, many don't make it. — Purple Pond

'Evolution' applies to groups, not individuals -  genes, species & ecologies (Darwin), not organisms & persons (Spenser) - the latter merely expressing traits adapted to proliferating the former. The OP's focus is incoherent because the level of abstraction is underdetermined and thereby misdirected.

If you are unable to survive very long and/or reproduce, now what? [ ... ] What should you do now? — Purple Pond

As a hypothetical imperative, I suppose, if one's goal is to "survive very long and/or reproduce", then one should work, or collaborate with others, to bricole (or engineer) tools which help facilitate that goal. This is irrelevant, however, to "fitness" or the lack of it with respective to the adaptive pressures of natural selection. (vide Dennett, Dawkins, Gould, et al).

Congratulations! You are the first person on The Philosophy Forum to use the word "bricole".

Unfortunately, you missed the boat. "Bricole" refers to the rebound of a ball from the wall in court tennis--basically a term describing balls bouncing around. Bricolage, which is what you were probably aiming for, means...

(in art or literature) construction or creation from a diverse range of available things.
"the chaotic bricolage of the novel is brought together in a unifying gesture"
something constructed or created from a diverse range of available things.
"bricolages of painted junk"

Perhaps you were using a French verb form? (I don't know -- my French is quite deficient.)

'Fitness' is a species-level designation in evolutionary theory, and not an individual one (or species-in-an-ecological-niche if one is being strict). If you're asking about the 'fitness' of individuals, one is no longer talking about evolutionary theory, but something else. Per that theory, if the species is not fit, it is extinct, or on its way to extinction. That's it.

Thanks for the correction; but we're both right. I've no french either but 'bricole' as I've used it is correct - meaning 'to tinker' - and, yeah, it's derived from the verb form of 'a process of innovation or tickering' i.e. bricolage. Good catch though.

What should it do now? — Purple Pond

Pontificate on a philosophy forum.

And read 'fit' the way a kitchen installer would. 'If it's not properly fitted, it will fall apart.'

Survival of the fittest" was not Darwin; it's Herbert Spenser's laissez-faire, proto-eugenic, coinage. — 180 Proof

Nevertheless Darwin approved it and included it in later editions of OoS.

Darwin responded positively to Alfred Russel Wallace's suggestion of using Spencer's new phrase "survival of the fittest" as an alternative to "natural selection", and adopted the phrase in The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication published in 1868.[1][2] In On the Origin of Species, he introduced the phrase in the fifth edition published in 1869,[3][4] intending it to mean "better designed for an immediate, local environment".[5][6] — Wikipedia

If memory serves, I seem to recall from either Darwin's letters or a biography that he took Wallace's suggestion because "survival of the fittest" was more accessible to the public than the scientific jargon of "natural selection". In short, marketing over edification; not an endorsement. In his last post SLX shows how the popular term has to be unpacked in a way the technical term does not. Wiki is as wiki does, Wayf ...

It’s still a myth that the phrase is a later accretion. He approved it, as he should have done, as it is perfectly in keeping with the thrust of the theory.

Not only is the theory not referrimg to "fittest" but "fit," it's "fit for a certain environment."

Scorpions are fit for certain places and climates, polar bears for others. Climate change is of course changing things, and so species will have to adapt to be fit enough for these changes, or go extinct.

Humans have the unique capacity to significantly alter their environment to suite human needs, even special needs, so the theory doesn't apply to us as much anymore.

Most of the work the average person does has nothing to do with their survival. With this being the case, it doesn't make sense to talk about survival of the fittest/fit, or whatever. Some hayseed living close to the land, self-reliant, will out survive the infants consummately dependent on each other through the market/boob lactating its milk/money.

There's no significant reason for the false ontology of a money economy, with its singular way of forcing you into a helpless role, to ever be something thought of together with being fit. If anything, this has made the entire species unfit for survival (save the few who have felt too vulnerable in this system and gone on to learn the work of living according to what is). Intellectual honesty screams its way into this conversation. The usual questions of what is real? and what does it mean to adapt? are relevant here.

Our human traits are a product of natural selection, made for surviving and reproducing. If you are unable to survive very long and/or reproduce, now what? How similar are you to that worker ant who loses the queen? What should you do now? — Purple Pond

Society sets out roles that people fall into due to either convenience or pressure (from peers or family, for instance). Sime people choose who they are at an early age, but that's not super common.

The role is like clothes, and you can change. For example, Nazis at the Nuremburg trials said they were soldiers and so were doing what they were told. They were talking about the role of soldier as if that's all they were. Each of them could have morphed out of that role, though it may have been dangerous to do it.

Morphing usually involves a sense of danger, even if its because of the unknown.

Where morphing isnt possible at all, it's death.

I’m not sure our traits are made for surviving and reproducing, as that assumes some sort of teleology. Unlike the worker ant, we are able to furnish ourselves with our own purpose. Even the ill and childless can reach greatness.

Our human traits are a product of natural selection, made for surviving and reproducing. If you are unable to survive very long and/or reproduce, now what? How similar are you to that worker ant who loses the queen? What should you do now? — Purple Pond

Survival of the "fittest" or "fit" is just nonsense used by lazy people to feel better about themselves; no doubt the people at the lowest denominator.

It's just distorted into a radical ideology - almost religiously so (consisting of a great deal of intellectual dishonesty, pseudo-scientific magical-thinking, biological reductionism and biological deterministic fetishes while making weak justifications for proliferating the stupidity gene by simultaneously trying to eliminate it through reproduction, it's usually held by edgy 19 year olds addicted to jerking their dicks to cartoon animations).

By this logic, all women are "fittest" because let's get real here, women do not have a problem proliferating their genes outside of (medical conditions) that deem them infertile; even the lowest of all women and "unfit" of them all. And no, infertile women are not going to die off as unfit.

Survival is not dependent on anything these nutjobs talk about. It's very easy to stay out of trouble.

your post seems to suggest that reproducing is the meaning of life? You imply without it, what is the point. Many humans CHOOSE not to have children. Evolutionarily (is that a word, haha), those people (me) are unfit. But so what? — ZhouBoTong

I recognize you aren't endorsing@Purple Pond's position. I am responding to your summary of PP's ideas. The meaning or purpose of life is an expression of human values. Evolutionary processes have nothing to do with values - it's just the old universe chugging along. One of the big battles fought on the fields of the evolutionary wars is the fight to keep teleology (The explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve) out of evolutionary theory.

Most of the work the average person does has nothing to do with their survival. With this being the case, it doesn't make sense to talk about survival of the fittest/fit, or whatever. — Anthony

Right and wrong. From the individual's point of view, our efforts at work or education have approximately NOTHING to do with our individual survival, as you said. But... From the view of collective society, it does. The account clerk at a brokerage, a social worker, a housewife, a city street worker, the check out at Target, etc. are all engaged in the maintenance and reproduction of society as a whole.

Individual bees and birds aren't in the race to survive; it's their species that survive or not. Same with humans--which is not to say that individual humans are at all indifferent to their personal situations. We are quite concerned about it. But individually, we, birds, and bees will all die. Collectively, we endure -- or not.

'Evolution' applies to groups, not individuals -  genes, species & ecologies (Darwin), not organisms & persons (Spenser) - the latter merely expressing traits adapted to proliferating the former. — 180 Proof

To clarifiy - natural selection acts only on organisms. That action may or may not manifest itself as an evolutionary change in a species or other taxonomic grouping.

As a hypothetical imperative, I suppose, if one's goal is to "survive very long and/or reproduce", then one should work, or collaborate with others, to bricole (or engineer) tools which help facilitate that goal. This is irrelevant, however, to "fitness" or the lack of it with respective to the adaptive pressures of natural selection. (vide Dennett, Dawkins, Gould, et al). — 180 Proof

Helping your brother or niece survive and reproduce, even if you don't, is a way of ensuring the survival of your bloodline. As such, it should be worth evolution's attention as much as if you had had children of your own. I'm not sure, it sounds as if you aren't taking that into account. Maybe I misunderstood.

'Fitness' is a species-level designation in evolutionary theory, and not an individual one (or species-in-an-ecological-niche if one is being strict). If you're asking about the 'fitness' of individuals, one is no longer talking about evolutionary theory, but something else. Per that theory, if the species is not fit, it is extinct, or on its way to extinction. That's it. — StreetlightX

As I indicated in another post, the primary mechanism of evolution, natural selection, acts only on individuals. I'm not sure if that contradicts what you are saying or not.

Most of the work the average person does has nothing to do with their survival. With this being the case, it doesn't make sense to talk about survival of the fittest/fit, or whatever. Some hayseed living close to the land, self-reliant, will out survive the infants consummately dependent on each other through the market/boob lactating its milk/money. — Anthony

Ahem...Hayseed?

It's perfectly reasonable to consider the effects of natural selection on people living in a technological society, even if people live and reproduce with weaknesses that would have killed them in past times. Our current society seems to be a pretty stable one. Obviously, it could be disturbed by many factors, e.g. climate change or nuclear war, the way the dinosaurs seem to have been killed off by an asteroid. That's life...er...evolution.

From the view of collective society, it does. — Bitter Crank

How would such a view be described? How a collective could have a view or be viewed is a mystery to me. The kind of conversation one can have tete a tete compared to the kind he can have with everyone or more than one person at a time may be revealing. Then it may be discovered whether it is possible to have a meaningful conversation with more than one person at a time. How does the individual relate to this supposed collective? Is it by following standards of some sort? When "everyone" follows the same standards, everyone has the same unexamined areas of life, a problem which indexes illusion, and social decay.

Individual bees and birds aren't in the race to survive; it's their species that survive or not. Same with humans--which is not to say that individual humans are at all indifferent to their personal situations. We are quite concerned about it. But individually, we, birds, and bees will all die. Collectively, we endure -- or not. — Bitter Crank

Yet what is the collective without the individual?...an impossibility/nothing. What is the individual without the collective?...possible/something (depending on the degree of mental and physical autonomy reached by the person). Can the human collective know anything? Or can something only be known by each separate individual.

by "collective" I meant all the members of the species who do whatever they do from day to day. If "we" go extinct, it will be because "we" all died without leaving successors. We didn't "fit". We were not fit. it would not be any one, two, ten, a million or a billion persons' fault. However, if you'd like to blame somebody for our being closer to extinction than we would like, here's a very partial list;

The Koch Bros. (David Koch is as dead as a doornail; Charles Koch has sadly not achieved that state yet. However, there are more Koches where they came from.
Donald Trump (whatever is wrong, blame him)
influential climate change deniers
the stockholders and BODs of coal, petroleum, gas, autos, tires, airlines, and power generation industries.
Agricultural multinationals like

BASF. Country: Germany. ... Part of the old I.G. Farben (forced labor camps in Nazi Germany)
CNH Industrial NV. Country: The Netherlands. Revenue: US$10.12 billion. ... (aka, New Holland)
Bayer AG. Country: Germany. ... Part of the old I.G. Farben (forced labor camps in Nazi Germany)
Syngenta AG. Country: Switzerland. ...
Monsanto Company. Country: USA. ...
Nutrien (Formerly Agrium Inc. and PotashCorp) Country: USA. ...
DowDuPont. Country: USA. ...
Deere & Company. Country: USA.

All capitalists and commie dictators