During Richard Dawkins' American tour in March 2009, he gave a talk titled "The Purpose of Purpose". I travelled with Richard to these cities and filmed the talks, which I've edited together here. The content of the talk remains intact, while the editing moves between the different locations and Richard's Keynote presentation.
Produced by The Richard Dawkins Foundation and R. Elisabeth Cornwell Filmed and edited by Josh Timonen See more about Richard Dawkins' upcoming book "The Greatest Show on Earth" here: http://richarddawkins.net/thegreatest...
This talk was given in Michigan, Minneapolis, Oklahoma and Nebraska. Filmed at: University of Minnesota - Minneapolis, Minnesota University of Oklahoma - Norman, Oklahoma Holland Performing Arts Center - Omaha, Nebraska
Introductions by: PZ Myers - Minneapolis, Minnesota Barry Weaver - Norman, Oklahoma Richard Holland - Omaha, Nebraska Filmed and Edited by Josh Timonen Shot on Red One #4809
21:55 "It's a nice example of the fact that evolution can be a predictive science..." I love that sentence. It shows how knowing something that is indeed true leads to better decisions, because better decisions require the ability to predict outcomes. And that, in my opinion is the purpose of human's curiosity in the first place.
If we didn't want to know things, we could've died out by now. This is also the reason for why religion must be stopped. Religion is made to block questioning. It substitutes answers with fake ones and corrupts our basic tool for survival and comfortable life.
Thanks for the video! I got my copy of The Greatest Show on Earth signed by him when it came out, back in 2009, when he came to Indiana University to speak. Later that year, when I was driving back to college, my car caught on fire (a shortage in the cruise control) and after the firefighters hosed it down my backback containing this book and my laptop was the only thing that didn't get scorched.
It took a little water damage (my laptop ended up needing to be replaced) but I still have that book to this day and it always cracks me up because I think of the stories where people say a bedside bible was the only thing to survive a house fire and how it was a miracle, etc.
@ Xavier Arriaga, Any arguments that you put forward? Besides the petty insults? This man has own awards from top notch universities, Berkeley Oxford, Sanford..and so on. He is regarded has one of the preeminent scientists in his field. In 1977 when he wrote the selfish gene, the virus and gene transmission description he gave were all validated in the next 10 to 20 years.
Not even one scientist , his peers, have repudiate his works. He is only attacked by religious people that feel offended ...like you apparently...so yes he is widely attacked for his positions about religion.
The academic reputation of this man is intact. You get offended because he offended you imaginary friend. Anyone with the ability of reasoning can get to the same conclusions. Evolution theory is has true has the heliocentric theory....or do you disagree also that the earth revolves around the sun.
Calling names is what you do best....arguments, not your strong feature huh?
I don't consider Dawkins to be a great debater (possibly because he is to honest and nice to realize the shit that his opponents will pull) and not even the best spokesman for atheism. But if you can watch a lecture by this man and not feel some level of awe at his intellect, you should be removed from the human gene pool.
**
the 2001 and 2012 Emperor Has No Clothes Award
Dawkins topped Prospect magazine's 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals.
he was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2007,[190] and was ranked 20th in The Daily Telegraph's 2007 list of 100 greatest living geniuses.[191]
Dawkins was voted the world's top thinker based on 65 names chosen by a largely US and UK-based expert panel.[188]
**
The phrase "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" was popularized by Carl Sagan.
Dawkins missed a really obvious reply to that girl's question about why atheism over agnosticism, why certainty over uncertainty? It's fucking infuriating how so many people STILL don't get that atheism is NOT the absolute assertion that no God exists. It is simply the lack of a belief that one does. Theism, agnosticism and atheism are not three points on the same curve. There are only two points on the belief curve, theism and atheism. If you are not a theist, that means you lack a positive belief in a God, which makes you an atheist. End of story. Gnosticism or agnosticism deals with knowledge, a completely different question. How do so many people still misunderstand this really basic sh*t?
I'd like to add something to help answer the question from the girl at 1:12:33. In a general sense, there isn't really a difference between an agnostic and an atheist. However, just as with a strong vs. weak anthropic principle, there is a strong and weak atheism.
The weak atheistic position is the typical agnostic stance that says one is not convinced that there is a god, but they don't know it to be certain that there isn't a god. The strong atheistic position is the one the girl assumed was the only interpretation of atheism, where they are absolutely certain that no god can exist. The typical atheist is a weak atheist, and I would argue that the generalization of atheism would better be suited to that interpretation. However, on another note, I am a strong atheist.
I have discovered ways to determine that there can be no god. A scientific approach would generally not accept such a claim of certainty, and this is because most of science operates on the premise of observable evidence and the analysis thereof. However, science also operates from the basis of reason, and statements such as "inquiring as to the color of height would be invalid" are true statements.
This statement is true because there is an inherent incompatibility between color and height. Asking such a question is simply incoherent. There is importance to this method of reasoning. It establishes a priori truths, absent observation, which are certain. I have used this same method to discover that there is no space (domain space; not position space) for any god to exist. This is an a priori conclusion, and it is acquired without observation.
A priori: knowledge deduced through pure reason and justified independently from that of experience or observation. I would argue that this is the only means by which such a strong position could be achieved, and I don't intend to undermine the very real application of the scientific method. There are extremely useful applications based on levels of certainty that are understood via the scientific method, and much of our technology functions because of these scientific facts.
However, an issue of such importance as the mechanism which grants my presence is far too important for me to be content with probabilities, however great they might be. Dawkins has stated that he couldn't be fully convinced of anything by observation, even if a 500-foot-tall Jesus appeared before him and pledged the existence of a god. He would still have some level of doubt because of theoretical possibilities like hallucinations and simulated universes.
This is what makes a priori understandings such a unique tool of reason. They simply don't require observation to be true. I can reply with more information on my process if anybody is interested.
The Theory of Evolution does not impose any restrictions on any characteristics of Life, including the characteristic of Intelligence. Nor does it impose any restrictions on what Life, using its potentially unlimited Intelligence, could create, including what we may commonly refer to as a 'creator'.
And even though the process of Evolution may not require a Creator, Evolution itself poses no restrictions on one being created by the Evolutionary process itself. This theory does not impose any restrictions on how or where Life can be created.
The first life could have been created long before the Earth was ever formed, allowing adequate time for the evolving of such super Intelligence. Nothing in the Theory of Evolution restricts this from happening. Even if this may be an extremely rare event, remember that Evolutionist themselves consider the creation of Life to be exactly that, an extremely rare event.
'An Appetite for Wonder' Fall 2013 Tour- Stanford University on 6 Oct. 2013. Richard Dawkins is interviewed by Greg Stikeleather about his book "An Appetite for Wonder: The Making of Scientist", part one of his memoir, starting from his birth to the publication of "The Selfish Gene" in 1979. Brought to you by: The Secular Coalition of America (http://www.secular.org) Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science (http://www.richarddawkins.net) The Humanist Connection (http://www.stanfordhumanist.org/) AHA@Stanford (http://www.aha.stanford.edu/)
Richard Dawkins FRS FRSL (born 26 March 1941)[3] is a British evolutionary biologist, zoologist, and author.[4] He is an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and was Professor for Public Understanding of Science in the University of Oxford from 1995 to 2008. His 1976 book The Selfish Gene popularised the gene-centred view of evolution, as well as coining the term meme. Dawkins has won several academic and writing awards.[5]
Dawkins is well known for his criticism of creationism and intelligent design as well as for being a vocal atheist.[6] Dawkins wrote The Blind Watchmaker in 1986, arguing against the watchmaker analogy, an argument for the existence of a supernatural creator based upon the complexity of living organisms. Instead, he describes evolutionary processes as analogous to a blind watchmaker, in that reproduction, mutation, and selection are unguided by any sentient designer. In 2006, Dawkins published The God Delusion, writing that a supernatural creator almost certainly does not exist and that religious faith is a delusion. He founded the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science in 2006.[7][8] Dawkins has published two volumes of memoirs, An Appetite for Wonder (2013) and Brief Candle in the Dark (2015). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins
Transcript
it's an honor to introduce a scientist and author whose work I've been following since my undergraduate days Iknow that I'm not alone in being inspired by his books The Selfish Gene
for instance was a lightning bolt of clarity and forceful argument and represents an ideal good science writing
his many books since have just gotten better his next book which will be
published later this year is the greatest show on earth the evidence for evolution which comes out in September
he possesses those virtues of being both eloquent and forthright never hesitating
to say directly what he means he will probably say things which you may
disagree and of course he will offer ideas with which you can cheer and so
without further ado Richard Dawkins Richard Dawkins dr. Richard Dawkins
for me coming back to America after a year's absence was exhilarating after
the recent November election the whole world seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief
it was as though a dear friend had returned to the fold of civilization and
the world of science - feels a new sense of hope the ban on stem cell research
has been lifted from what I understand there will be more funding for science
for science and other research that has no connection with homeland defense and
once again the United States can as you might say in these parts step up to the
plate as leaders in the world of science but I have also been greeted with
stronger reactions against science and reason some of my American colleagues
have suggested that those theocrats whose sole mission apparently is to
destroy the secular dream of the founding fathers and replace it with the
nightmare of Stone Age morals and mysticism are behaving like cornered and
wounded animals organizations such as the so-called Discovery Institute ill
named and Answers in Genesis they long ago lost in the halls of science
they've lost again and again in the courts of law so fear tactics and
whinging about being offended is all that they have left
they have hijacked terms such as academic freedom to push their own agenda they do everything they can to
intimidate science teachers and professors in both public schools and universities bills have been put to
numerous state legislatures in Louisiana Texas Missouri Oklahoma Florida Iowa
Alabama Mississippi New Mexico Michigan but apparently not in Nebraska
congratulations
the wording of these bills vary but they all hit the same hot buttons academic freedom teach the controversy diversity
of opinion views of the people the Discovery Institute I just mentioned a
very well financed lobby for creationism has published no research papers in
defense of their position they shamelessly bypass the peer review process and appealed directly to a
public which is unqualified to assess the matter unqualified precisely because
the very same activists deny them a proper education in science and the
scientific method teach the controversy what controversy academic freedom will
listen to what just happened in Oklahoma this is a portion of House Resolution
1014 to be introduced into the Oklahoma State Legislature I think it may be
introduced this very day be it resolved
whereas the University of Oklahoma as part of the Darwin 2009 project has
invited as a public speaker on campus Richard Dawkins who's published opinion
as represented in his 2006 book The God Delusion and in public statements on the theory
of evolution demonstrate an intolerance for cultural diversity
and diversity of thinking diversity of
thinking assumedly that would include
I hope you can read what it says on the blackboard of this intelligent falling
theory of gravity lecture DX over DT
equals 1 Corinthians 1:10 or diversity
of thinking what about the stork theory of human reproduction I was viewed as an
intellectual terrorist if you have questions sex theory that's it your
career is over I have been told to shut up as a sex maniac I'm pretty hostile to
the rival stork theory just stand up in
question sex theory you'll find out how risky that is there are people out there
who want to keep science in a little box where it can't possibly touch stores
stork theory I mean it's a just fantasy basically scientists are not allowed to
even think thoughts that involve storks delivering babies we cannot accept to
treat the stork theory as an alternative scientific theory frightened by this but
I'm not gonna let it stop me from investigating from speaking about it
you
what I call the ultimate stalk theory it's all very well to say that the stork
delivers the baby but who delivers the stalk
some of you may have seen the original film called expelled in which that
parody is based should we invite astrologers to speak to the student
studying astronomy alchemist to speak to chemistry students flat-earthers to
speak to geography students in the interests of teaching the controversy
contrary to the contrary and offensive to the views and opinions of most
citizens of Oklahoma what's really offensive is the bizarre idea that a
State University should only ever hear opinions that its citizens agree with if
that principle is ever accepted you can kiss goodbye to everything that a university stands for what on earth is a
university for if it only reinforces opinions that students and the public already hold
and as it happens evolution is a scientific fact has securely established
as anything known in science what is the
purpose of purpose my Oxford colleague
Peter Atkins author of a textbook of physical chemistry which is sold by the
cubic yard in university campus bookstores was once invited to give a
lecture in Windsor Castle which as you know is one of the official residences of the Queen Prince Philip was in the
audience at the end he asked that question which has become so familiar to
me as a cliche he said science can answer the Howell questions but what
about the why question dr. Atkins was briefed in his reply sir the why
question is just a silly question
we are obsessed with the why question as a species we humans obsessed with
purpose it seems perfectly natural and presented with an object to ask various questions about it what color is it how
much does it weigh how did it come to be the way it is how does it work but not
all questions are suitable for all objects what is the color of jealousy
might mean something to a poet but not to a scientist how does it work
might seem suitable for a machine but not for a lump of clay but the question
of purpose which doesn't necessarily have to have an answer is one that leaps
to the front of the human mind whether it's appropriate or not it does work for
some things it works for any machine anything designed by a human with an aim in mind it's a sensible question for a
tin-opener a mill wheel a rain gauge telescope toboggan a shoe a bicycle for
some artifacts like a digital computer it is a sensible question but it has a very large number of answers because
it's a very versatile machine other objects like a sextant has only one
answer anyway where human artifacts are concerned no one has any trouble
understanding the why question what is it for it's for whatever the designer or
the manufacturer intended for objects that are neither manufactured nor living
the question of purpose is simply inappropriate if not downright silly what is Ayers Rock for is as
inappropriate as what is the color of jealousy what's the purpose of the matterhorn sand dunes mud the universe
the Grand Canyon these are not questions that should be put it hasn't always been
the case that people have refrained from questions of this sort in medieval times I suspect that you two found people
struggling after serious answers to all those questions the answers would mostly
have been concerned with benefits to people the stars are there to beautify
the night sky streams are to provide water to quench
the thirst of travellers this obsession with purpose was especially true for
living things animals and plants were placed here for our use anymore in 1653
believe that cattle and sheep had only been given life in the first place so as
to keep their meat fresh till we shall have need to eat them and those animals
that we can't eat were placed there in some cases for the purpose of elevating our morals as late as the 19th century
the Reverend William Kirby thought that the Laos was an independent was an indispensable incentive to cleanliness
savage beasts according to the Elizabethan Bishop James Pilkington fostered human courage and provided
useful training for war horse flies for one 18th century writer were created so
that men should exercise their wits and industry to guard themselves against them lobsters were furnished with hard
shells so that before eating them we could benefit from the improving exercise of cracking their claws another
pious medieval writer thought that weeds were there to benefit us it is good for our spirit to have to work hard pulling
them up and it's not difficult to imagine this mindset finding a purpose
in mountains and margins deserts and stars as I said in my opening the human
mind is obsessed with purpose and this kind of thing persists to this day you
study a well-made banana you'll find on the far side thrust me ridges on the close side to ridges if you get your
hand ready to grip a banana you'll find on the far side there are three grooves on the close side two grooves for banana
and the hand are perfectly made one for the other you'll find a major of the banana Almighty God has made it with a
non-slip surface there's Albert indicators of inward contents green to
early yellow just right black too late now if you go to the top of the banana
Yule financed with a soda can because they placed a tab at the top so God has placed tab at the top when you pull the tab the
contents don't screw it in your face you'll find a wrapper which is biodegradable has perforations notice
how gracefully it sits over the human hand notice has a point at the top for ease of entry just the right shape the
human mouth is chilly easy to digest there's even curve toward the place to make the whole process so much easier
seriously cook the whole of creation testifies to the genius of God's creative
you probably think that some kind of spoof it's not this pair Ray Comfort and
Kirk Cameron are deadly serious I how do you need to point out it's rather an
unfortunate example because the modern banana is heavily modified by domestic breeding this is what a wild banana
looks like you might be interested to
hear that a couple of weeks ago Ray Comfort it issued a public challenge to me offering me $10,000 to have a
debate with him I declined on the grounds that I was too busy debating the
Flat Earth theory and and of course the stalk theory of reproduction but but I
added that I would debate mr. comfort if he would make a charitable donation of $100,000 to the Richard Dawkins
foundation for reason and science which exists precisely to fight wing nuts like
him some creatures pretty much are for the
benefit of humans because we have bred them so as indeed the banana the other of a modern dairy cow is grotesquely
enlarged compared to its wild ancestor its purpose has become a human purpose a
dairy cows other makes no sense from the point of view of natural selection it certainly doesn't enhance individual
survival far from it a modern dairy car would be far more vulnerable to predators than a wild one largely
because it would be so difficult to run with the other between its hind legs
domestication is very much a special case and it will serve me as it served Darwin as a kind of transition to
natural selection Darwin made great use of domestication in his books the first
chapter of the Origin of Species is devoted to the power of selection in this case artificial selection domestic
selection to change the form of animals if artificial selection can achieve such
dramatic results in just centuries think what natural selection might do in millions of years I'm going to use
artificial selection as a kind of softening up process to explain natural selection if you wanted to do an
experimental test of natural selection what would you do well the essence of
experiment is that you the experimenter artificially intervene you act as the
selecting agent this is a an experiment carried out over some 70 years of
artificial selection of maize corn for high oil content versus low oil content
in the two lines on the graph that you see and you can see that in a mere 70
years there's a more or less linear increase in oil content in the high selected line and a shallower decrease
does not very far to go towards zero oil humans are molding corn cobs to our own
purpose nature does something very similar and doesn't that begin to suggest a special
meaning of the word purpose there's a wild rose
it's a pretty little flower but nothing to write home about in the terms that we might lavish on a domestic rose like
peace or lovely lady or a philia and wild roses have a delicate smell
unmistakable but not to swoon for like Memorial Day or Elizabeth Harkness or
fragrant cloud the human eye and the human nose went to work on wild roses
enlarging them shaping them doubling up the petals tinting them refining the bloom boosting natural fragrances
adjusting habits of growth eventually entering them in sophisticated hybridization programs until today after
decades of skillful breeding we have hundreds of prized varieties each with its own evocative name the flower of the
rose even before human eyes and noses took up their work of genetic chiseling
owed its very existence to millions of years a very similar chiseling very
similar sculpting by insect eyes and noses well actually insect antennae because
that's what insects smell with and the same is true of all the flowers that beautify our gardens we already find
wildflowers attractive because insects and in some cases hummingbirds or other
animals have been there before us generations of selective breeders were
there before us long before human gardeners came on the scene why do the
flowers do it well I'm sure you all know the answer it's of the essence of sexual reproduction that you shouldn't
fertilize yourself if you did that there'd be no point in having sex at all so
the flowers have somehow got to engineer that the pollen doesn't land on their own stigma and there are various ways of
doing this wind pollination is an obvious way and some plants indeed do it pollen is a fine light powder and if you
pump enough of it out into the air then in the breeze some of it will probably
for action will probably land on the right target which is a stigma of a
flower of your own species but wind pollination is wasteful a huge surplus
of pollen needs to be manufactured as hay fever sufferers no need to well as
you know there's a much more ingenious solution bribe an insect or a
hummingbird which has got wings to carry it for you directly to the right target
bribe them with nectar nectar is costly to make and it's highly prized by
insects they use it as sort of aviation fuel and the way it works of course is
that the insect is far more likely to carry the pollen to another flower and
the other flower may indeed be one of the same species the ultimate the ideal Magic Bullet is an insect that only
visits one kind of flower or only can visit one kind of flower this is an
orchid in Madagascar and you can see that it has an enormous Lea long nectary
dangling down below the flower the nectar II contains the nectar both
Darwin and Wallace his co-discoverer of natural selection knew about this Madagascan flower and both these great
naturalists independently predicted that there must exist in madagascar an insect
that has a tongue at least 11 inches long otherwise the flower wouldn't have
the nectar II like that it's a nice example of the fact that evolution can
be a predictive science contrary to what some people say after Darwin's death but
Wallace was still alive because he lived a very long time the moth was indeed discovered and its name
as you see is Xanthippe Anne Morgan I predict ah if only Darwin had lived to
see his prediction fulfilled I've been
softening you up for natural selection humans use their eyes to breed roses dogs bees and hummingbirds use their
eyes to breed flowers peahens use their eyes to breed peacocks in every case the result is that some genes
disproportionately find themselves in the next generation but this non-random survival of genes
doesn't have to be brokered by an eye choosing it was Darwin's great insight
to see that non-random death non-random survival non-random success in doing all
the things that living creatures do is another way in which evolution can be
guided towards improvement in modern
terms we would say that a body is a survival machine programmed to preserve
and propagate the genes that write inside it the rationale is very simple the genes that exist in the present are
copies of genes that succeeded in the past in surviving and making copies of
themselves the vehicles of that success were ancestral bodies modern bodies have
therefore inherited the very characteristics that made ancestral bodies successful in passing on their
genes that's why bodies work for their own survival and the survival of their offspring another close kin for the
simple reason that the offspring and kin themselves have a good chance of containing the same genes so we can call
an organism a machine that's there to preserve and propagate the genes that
built it notice has not the slightest implication of deliberate premeditated
purpose nobody saying the genes want to survive it's just that the world
automatically becomes full of those genes that as a matter of fact do survive they're the
ones that we see in the animals that we look at and every species preserves its
genes in a different way birds are good at flying dolphins are good at swimming molds and aardvarks
digging squirrels at climbing Gibbons at swinging through the treetops and humans
perhaps at thinking we too are animals we too are survival machines for our
genes we do have extremely big brains for our size and presumably that must
mean that we used our big brains for survival possibly for wooing mates
there's a very interesting theory that we evolved big brains to outsmart each other in social competition maybe
specifically we might have evolved big brains as a kind of mental peacocks tail
braininess is attractive
so the purpose of a wild animal is to preserve and propagate the genes that write inside it and wild animals don't
waste time when they could be working at gene survival they don't indulge in
self-centered hedonistic pleasures except insofar as those pleasures contribute directly to gene survival
they work hard to survive they work hard to feed and protect their children often at great cost to themselves but now
let's look at ourselves
on the face of it we seem to be very different we do waste our time we do
indulge in hedonistic pleasures and recreations which may even be risky and have no obvious connection with
individual or gene survival we appear to be a serious exception to the Darwinian
law it just doesn't seem to be true that we spend our time working energetically
for our genes we are of course concerned with survival concern without children
but we don't always work hard to get children as naive Darwinism should predict and naive Darwinism has no
explanation for the widespread practice of contraception or Werth's from the
literal-minded Darwinian point of view many people adopt the children of others in nature any genetically inherited urge
to adopt Andrea unrelated offspring would rapidly disappear from the population ruthlessly weeded out by
Darwinian selection in nature the only way to persuade another animal to look after your child is to deceive it
elaborately into thinking it's their own and that's of course how cuckoos make their genetic living yet in some human
civilizations the desire to adopt is so strong that the mother of an unwanted
baby can sell it for money I don't for a moment wish to knock adoption by the way
I'm delighted that people do adopt I'm sure there are many people here who have been adopted or who have adopted I think
it's a wonderful unique feature of the human species but it's not very Darwinian there is an ambiguity in the
way we use the language of purpose when we say something like the purpose of an
aeroplanes tail is to stabilize it we're saying something about the intention of
the designer but a bird's tail does much the same thing if a bird didn't have a
tail it would pitch and roll like an aeroplane without a tail so it's natural
to use the same kind of language the purpose of a bird's tail is to stabilize it the purpose of a hedgehog spines is
to protect it the purpose of rabbits furs to keep it warp ins and so on but of course everything about
animals and plants that looks as if it's been designed for a purpose has in fact
been shaped by the slow sculpting of natural selection and I'm calling this
kind of pseudo purposiveness archeo purpose it's the ancient kind of purpose
before the human kind of purpose or the nervous system kind of purpose evolved
it resembles deliberate intentional purpose but it is not there is no
intention there the archeo purpose of a bird's wing is
to aid flight and you see there for beautiful flying machines which in their different ways would excite the
admiration of any aerodynamic engineer who might have designed these things
these are man-made flying machines with a neo purpose the neo purpose of a wing
in a plane is to aid flight neo purpose as opposed to archeo purpose is the kind
of purpose we are all familiar with from our own designs and schemes and goals
and my thesis tonight is that neo purpose is itself an evolved adaptation
with a survival value or archaeal purpose in the same sense as a feather
and I a tail or a backbone has an RKO purpose brains have evolved with various
capacities that assists the survival of the genes that made them among these evolved capacities is the ability to set
up goals or purposes and the ability to design machines and other artifacts that
resemble naturally evolved organs like Tails wings eyes and hearts and of
course artifacts that resemble brains themselves computers
the brain is a kind of on-board computer used to control the body's behavior in
ways that are beneficial to the genes that built it it perceives the outside world it remembers things it learns the
consequences of its actions good and bad it sets up simulated models in imagination and here's the point of my
argument today it sets up purposes or goals in the sense of neo purpose the capacity to
have a mental goal or neo purpose is an adaptation with a survival value or
archeo purpose do manmade electronic
machines have a kind of neo purpose over and above the purpose of the designer
who made them yes they do guided missiles track a moving target like a
plane the missile is controlled by its own on-board computer which detects the
position of the target by some kind of sense organ maybe a heat sensor maybe
uses radar the discrepancy between the present position of the target and the
missile is measured and the motions and steering surfaces of the missile are controlled and manipulated to reduce the
discrepancy between the target and the missile intercept and if the target plane takes evasive action twisting and
turning then a good missile automatically takes countermeasures it shows flexible versatile behavior to
close the gap between itself and the target it behaves the missile behaves as
if its computer contains a mental picture of its goal a neo purpose
cannonballs didn't have that property they were simply logged in the general direction of the target once on their
way they didn't change direction they just went ballistic Lee the cannons of
course were designed by humans with a purpose in mind but the Cannonball itself is just a lump of iron it doesn't
have the the the neo purpose property that a guided missile does and that
about does so a bad is a guided missile
it tracks targets such as insects using in this case sonar sound echoes it can
home in on a moving target a target that is taking evasive action in just the same sort of way as a guided missile and
so I would want to say that a bat has a neo purpose in the same sense at least
as a guided missile does but that the bats neo purpose also has an RKO purpose
which was previously quote designed by natural selection of ancestral bats
working on ancestral bat genes even very
simple living things behave in some ways as though they have neo purposes maggots
move away from light their photo phobic and the way they do it is by swinging
the head from side to side rhythmically and comparing the light intensity on the
left side with the right side and if you have a light in the room you switch on the room in that a light in the room
every time the maggot happens to be swinging to the left and switch off the light every time it happens to be swinging to the right then you can fool
it into moving away from where it thinks the light is which is the left in this case I use the word think somewhat
ill-advisedly animals employ a range of increasingly
sophisticated guidance systems paralleling the techniques developed by human engineers dragonflies hunt rather
like bats hunt ant flying insects swooping and diving on them with all the
flexibility of a man-made guided missile views their large eyes their large compound eyes to detect the position of
the moving target and compute in the brain the necessary adjustments to the wings in order to home in on the target
and it's a sensible way to interpret their behavior to say that their brain is set up as if it had a goal or neo
purpose they're not saying they're conscious of it they might be but we don't know that but they behave like a
guided missile as if they're programmed with a purpose probably in much the same
way as a guided missile one of the most advanced things that any computer can do
that includes the on-board computer in the skull is simulation of the future
computer programs playing chess have reached grandmaster standard and this is
largely done by simulating alternative futures whales as you probably know use
sonar just like bats and just like submarines I don't know who as as I said
whether dragonflies are conscious I suspect that bats may be I'm almost sure that whales are but that's not the
question I'm raising tonight they all of them are using some kind of goal seeking
machinery some kind of neo purpose which has been put there by natural selection
with an RKO
one of the main virtues of advanced goal seeking machines with a neo purpose is
flexibility these machines are easy to reprogram to
seek a different goal a captured enemy missile may be reprogrammed to seek out
and destroy its original creators the very property that makes the missile so
effective in achieving its goal it's very flexibility and versatility that very
property makes the machinery easy to subvert to a new purpose which brings me
back to the problem I raised earlier why is it that humans appear to seek goals
that have nothing to do with the survival and propagation of their own genes why do we set up goals like making
money composing a cantata winning a war on election a game of chess or tennis why aren't all our goals related to the
one central goal of propagating our genes and the answer is that it's our
capacity to set up goals and to reprogram our goal seeking machinery
rapidly and flexibly that's been built into us by natural selection this goal seeking capacity and its inherent
properties of flexibility and reprogram ability is an immensely useful piece of
brain technology useful in propagating genes that's why it evolved in the first
place but by its very nature it carries the seeds of its own subversion
precisely because of its flexible reprogram ability it's highly prone to
seek new goals there's a paradox in this virtue of flexible reprogram ability if
a machine is too ready to change its goals it will never achieve any of them
what's required is some mixture of flexibility in setting up new goals
coupled with tenacity and in flexibility in pursuing them
our brains are flexible enough to be reprogrammed away from goals that are
directly concerned with gene survival and individual survival and towards a new and arbitrary purpose which might be
inspired by religion by patriotism by sense of duty by loyalty to the party
loyalty to the country but they are inflexible enough once reprogrammed to
spend an entire lifetime seeking the new goal and yet another paradox they can
show great versatility and flexibility in the setting up of new sub goals in
the service of an inflexibly pursued superior goal which may yet not be the
Darwinian goal of survival it may yet be the welfare of the party of the faith of
the country or whatever it is there's a hierarchy of goals within goals this
subtle interplay between flexibility and in flexibility is something we need to
work hard to understand because it has vitally important consequences does this
posture of a hunting wolf remind you of anything sheep dog has been bred to herd
sheep or other a lot of other animals making use of a hunting behavior pattern
derived from the wolf ancestor the hunting behavior of the ancestral wolf
has been subverted by human breeding to
a new purpose there's a hunting wolf and you can see exactly the same movement as
a herding sheep dog
subversion of girls the patron saint of goal subversion is the Alec Guinness
character in the film bridge on the river kwai Colonel Nicholson was a
prisoner of war the Japanese he was a loyal British soldier he showed great bravery in the face of Japanese torture
but he was also an army officer and an engineer and once he had finally been
persuaded to undertake the building of a bridge for reasons that I won't go into a bridge that was for the Japanese war
effort he became doggedly determined to finish the bridge er to make it the best bridge
ever built he proudly imagines that the bridge now almost completely a British endeavor will last 600 years he declares
we can teach these barbarians a lesson in Western methods and efficiency that will put them to shame will show them
what the British soldier is capable of doing amazingly he doesn't seem to
realize that he's helping the barbarians achieve a key war objective he has set up a new goal in total contradiction to
the official goal of defeating the Japanese and once he set up that goal he
pursued it tenaciously with intelligence versatility engineering skill all the
qualities that he should have been using against the enemy the story of the
bridge on the river kwai is of course fiction but the fact that audiences can empathize with Colonel Nicholson
suggests that it conveys an important psychological truth we can imagine
behaving as he does we can imagine setting up a sub-goal which completely
subverts the main goal that we ought to be pursuing insane as that is what are
some of the biological girls the natural biological girls the archeo purposes
that are susceptible to subversion by neo purposes listed a few here there
isn't more hunger our evolved desire for sweeps ripe fruit and fat has been
hijacked to seek out super sweet and fatty foods we didn't evolve with
machines and McDonald's so we have no evolved protection against overeating we
eat when food is available because that would have been a good idea in our wild state now in the Western world it is
always available a biologically sensible lust for sweet things is easily
subverted we eat too much of it it rots our teeth and makes us fat subversion of
sex
well it's easy to laugh at the moose trying to copulate with the Statue of the Bison
but we forget how easily human males can become aroused by a crude
computer-generated image and at least the statue of the Bison is in 3d sexual
sexual desires can be subverted to gain power for frustrated young men access to
women is a primary goal an all-consuming purpose how easy it is for those in
power to subvert it and when you think
about it contraception itself is a subversion of sex from the selfish genes point of view has absolutely no virtue
at all as far as passing on your genes are concerned not that I have anything against contraception as Steven Pinker
rightly said of his desire not to have children my selfish genes can go jump in
the lake subversion of parental care
long ago Conrad Lawrence pointed out that our parental instincts are
stimulated by certain young animals that have some stimuli that they that in
common with human babies filial obedience which possibly has some kind
of biological merit and that again can be very easily subverted the idea of God
the Father the authority figure in human culture the father figure other aspects
of kinship kinship is a very important principle in Darwinism natural selection
favors those genes that cause animals to behave in an altruistic way a
cooperative way towards other animals that are likely to contain the same genes which means normally kin brothers
sisters cousins nephews nieces this also can be subverted the kind of in-group
loyalty which you see in these two groups of men the ones on the Left probably really are genetic kin there
will be members of the same tribe probably mostly cousins brothers nephews etc
the ones on the right are not particularly likely to be kin they are exploiting fictive kin they behave as if
they are kin they treat each other as if they are blood brothers it's a well-known tactic in military circles to
try to arouse this feeling of brotherhood among fighting units in
group loyalty and out-group hostility can be seen as a kind of fictive kin
recognition assisted or enhanced by uniform habits of dress language and so
on I always think that's about to turn into a Monty Python sketch
not quite so much so actually is that as the banana man you saw earlier
splendid scene of those two men looking completely dopey sitting on chairs in
the wide open space with a sort of landscape with a lake behind them and you really expect on pleased to appear
and say and now for something completely different
religion consistently uses kinship terms such as father mother brother sister my
child my brother in Christ my brethren exploiting kinship mechanisms that have
evolved over time military organizations use the same trick and so the youth gangs in group loyalty fictive kinship
can be enhanced by subversion of sexual goals an fictive kinship is readily
subverted into patriotic loyalty in time of war an entire nation can be seen as
fictive kin and a rival nation as subject to xenophobic hatred oh we don't
want to but we make you to go for your hand your
country miss you
that's an actual recruiting song in Britain from the first world war it's
all too easy for rival groups of humans fictive kin groups perhaps to adopt
incompatible goals patriotic or sectarian claims over disputed territory
and these can be especially dangerous when implacable faith is involved
imagine if Muhammad Atta and his 18 accomplices of September the 11th 2001
had had nuclear weapons or modern biological weapons remember that for
peculiarly religious reasons these men actively wanted to die people
like that see violence and murder as their righteous obligation in a strange
way they're good people they did horrific things but they genuinely and
sincerely believed they were doing the right thing they believed they were doing what their God wanted they
believed they were going straight to a martyrs heaven it's not all bad news
there's a good side to this a version of purpose are shaking off of prahl done to
the selfish genes can be seen as an exhilarating liberation as exhilarating
as Wordsworth found the French Revolution bliss was it in that dawn to be alive but to be young was very heaven
I suspect that our species is still young in its newfound liberation
although the human brain has been capable of great flexibility for a long time the takeover by the on-board
computers probably ran away with itself in a big way when the rise of language
enabled large groups of people to set up shared goals which could be pursued over
more than one lifetime one inventor may set himself the task of improving
methods of transport and produce the wheel generations of inventors each
building on the accumulated achievements of their predecessors are capable of producing the supersonic airliner
and the Space Shuttle cultural evolution is a new kind of evolution superficially
similar to the old genetic evolution capable of producing advances in technology which mirror the old genetic
advances but at a rate which may be a million times faster the speed of this
new kind of evolution coupled with the ease with which the human brain can be reprogrammed to adopt a new major goal
and the single-minded tenacity with which it can pursue that goal once
adopted are frightening for they could presage great danger there is of course
a downside like advanced guided missiles we pursue our goals with relentless
tenacity and great flexibility in setting up efficient sub goals the sub goals of war the extreme rapidity of
cultural evolution driven by the cumulative pursuit of shared technical
goals makes possible the deployment of devastating technical weapons we must
hope that our species blissful dawn will not turn a sour as the French Revolution
did for Wordsworth there are some grounds for hope that same flexibility
versatility and foresight which threatens us by throwing our steakley
Darwinian evolution into runaway overdrive could also be our salvation
thank you thank you very much thank you very much
you
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