Yes, but what is the rule that ensures survival? — Roy Davies
But look at nature and see if you can find a rule. The only one I can think of is 'don't destroy the environment you depend on.' — unenlightened
of self-interested persons or self-conserving structures — Nils Loc
The notion that genes are selfish is an analogy. — unenlightened
Genes are selfish like dogs are selfish. To call a dog selfish is an analogy because a dog has no self to conserve. :P — Nils Loc
The notion that genes are selfish is an analogy. Accordingly, take note that a self-interested person is not necessarily self-conserving, and vice versa. If you eat too many KitKats you will get fat and die young. — unenlightened
Genes are selfish like dogs are selfish. To call a dog selfish is an analogy because a dog has no self to conserve. — Nils Loc
I’m interested in the nature of ideas. I have a theory that ideas can be modelled as organisms and evolve according to the process of survival of the fittest. From a cognitive science point of view, this makes some sense because an idea is taken into someone’s mental framework if it fits in some way with what they already believe. So, if we consider human minds to be the environment in which ideas breed and grow, then I wonder what the measure of fitness is for an idea? — Roy Davies
Philosophy is like a cow that eats ideas and shits all over them and also enriches the soil.
— unenlightened
I think this has to be the quote of year... Though perhaps one could even say that "Philosophy is like a cow that eats ideas, chews over them again and again like it chews its cud, digests them, and shits them out thus enriching the soil to grow new ideas." — Roy Davies
Accordingly, take note that a self- interested person is not necessarily self-conserving, and vice versa. — unenlightened
I responded with a jokular joke to another previous joke. — god must be atheist
Interesting proposition. Ideas are not reproducing by themselves; it is the mind that makes similar, but not identical, replicas of an idea when it progresses it in a line of thought. So if you insist that it's an evolution, of an organism, ideas are, then I suggest that ideas are parasites that completely depend on their hosts for survival, and their transmission from host to host happens by way of language and communication of thought. — god must be atheist
But surely you can call a shellfish selfish. Or a shelf-ish piece of furniture shelfish. Or a selfish person when you are drunk shelfish. — god must be atheist
This is not a morally circumscribed action until it becomes one by an outside concern. The interest of other selves come to bear on your lifestyle and you may not take kindly to the hardship it imposes on you. — Nils Loc
An idea that fits well into a mind induces senses of pleasure in the organism, and thus the idea is accepted and incorporated into existing ideas, and thus it combines with other ideas and becomes part of the a chain of reasoning that propogates. — Roy Davies
the fitness for survival of an idea would be largely determined by it being painful or pleasurable — Pop
It is a great way for biological systems to self organize, but in a world of eight billion people and growing, I feel, it is not going to work. — Pop
Fornicating is still the most pleasurable activity... not idea creation. Hence the overpopulating of the planet. Which in turn causes all our global ecological troubles. — god must be atheist
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