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Is Love The Default Mode Of Humanity?
32 Answers
I believe that compassion, altruism, co-operation, sharing and communication form an evolutionarily conserved cassette of default states of the human mind-set. Examples of such traits are also clearly demonstrated elsewhere in the animal kingdom.
I suggest that mutations led to abnormal genetic expression of the default state which were non-advantageous in early human societies and thus had no impact on human behaviour until the dawn of civilization.
After that with agriculture and other advances the mutated genotype, represented in its most extreme manifestation in the form of the stereotypical movie psychopath began to flourish.
Like all things in nature there is a spectrum like the spectrum of height, skin colour and mentation.
I believe that the psychopathic spectrum increased its influence on human individual and collective behaviour during our transformation from a hunter-gatherer, subsistence effort based way of life into the sophisticated global civilisation of the present day.
Swiss research published in Nature has given a strong indication that the original cassette is still the default mode. It seems that in all but the most extreme manifestations of psychopathy it is in puberty, almost certainly under the influence of testosterone, that the mutated form of the human ‘moral’ cassette begin to exert its influence on human behaviour.
Furthermore this concept explains why it has always seemed so important to indoctrinate children into an ideologically rigid mind-set as per Hitler Youth. The default setting of the cassette has no mechanism within it not to trust the influence of those around them. Pre-civilisation any alternative would have endangered the survival of the population.
This naïve trust of the young in their elders is now a risk factor due to the increasing prevalence and influence of the psychopathic spectrum.
The paradox of humanity arises from civilisation. The original default cassette and its mutation have been hi-jacked by religions. Failure of this initial position to give total authority, because it is not the default state of the human mind, soon led to the additional controlling concept of the afterlife and the heavens and hells.
What progress in science and rational, non- superstitious thought in general has amply demonstrated is that religious and political ideologies are highly suspect in terms of their being post-civilization and thus likely to be the product of the psychopathic spectrum.
To me it seems that religions are now exposed, at least to those who weren’t got at when they were children, as nothing more than afterlife protection rackets, a means by which impoverished and deliberately undereducated humans would do the bidding of their psychopathic masters.
In many ways afterlife based religions are the perfect con trick. By the time you get to realise that you have been conned you’re dead. You can’t warn anybody!
What hope have we of restoring the default mode?
I suggest that mutations led to abnormal genetic expression of the default state which were non-advantageous in early human societies and thus had no impact on human behaviour until the dawn of civilization.
After that with agriculture and other advances the mutated genotype, represented in its most extreme manifestation in the form of the stereotypical movie psychopath began to flourish.
Like all things in nature there is a spectrum like the spectrum of height, skin colour and mentation.
I believe that the psychopathic spectrum increased its influence on human individual and collective behaviour during our transformation from a hunter-gatherer, subsistence effort based way of life into the sophisticated global civilisation of the present day.
Swiss research published in Nature has given a strong indication that the original cassette is still the default mode. It seems that in all but the most extreme manifestations of psychopathy it is in puberty, almost certainly under the influence of testosterone, that the mutated form of the human ‘moral’ cassette begin to exert its influence on human behaviour.
Furthermore this concept explains why it has always seemed so important to indoctrinate children into an ideologically rigid mind-set as per Hitler Youth. The default setting of the cassette has no mechanism within it not to trust the influence of those around them. Pre-civilisation any alternative would have endangered the survival of the population.
This naïve trust of the young in their elders is now a risk factor due to the increasing prevalence and influence of the psychopathic spectrum.
The paradox of humanity arises from civilisation. The original default cassette and its mutation have been hi-jacked by religions. Failure of this initial position to give total authority, because it is not the default state of the human mind, soon led to the additional controlling concept of the afterlife and the heavens and hells.
What progress in science and rational, non- superstitious thought in general has amply demonstrated is that religious and political ideologies are highly suspect in terms of their being post-civilization and thus likely to be the product of the psychopathic spectrum.
To me it seems that religions are now exposed, at least to those who weren’t got at when they were children, as nothing more than afterlife protection rackets, a means by which impoverished and deliberately undereducated humans would do the bidding of their psychopathic masters.
In many ways afterlife based religions are the perfect con trick. By the time you get to realise that you have been conned you’re dead. You can’t warn anybody!
What hope have we of restoring the default mode?
Answers
Is Love The Default Mode Of Humanity? It might be of humans, but not of humanity in general, i.e. Universal love, everyone for everyone else. The default state is love of a small group; the family or tribe. Unfortunatel
12:09 Mon 23rd Nov 2015
@Colmc54
My only immediate contention with that is on a technical issue: we have no firm basis for linking behaviours to genes. Yet.
But my knowledge is probably 20 years out of date. YMMV.
I could accept that genes can influence the layout of major neural pathways or the degree to which the over-connected neonate's brain selectively disconnects pathways until it can start to get a coherent picture of reality from its sensory inputs.
I can accept that neural networks can give rise to complex emergent behaviour and therefore mistakes _with a genetic basis_ could lead to maladapted behaviour.
But saying "this gene goes with that behaviour" is an overreach, in my opinion. We have to make do with genetic markers and their statistical associations with behaviour harmful to society. Correlations don't deliver the actual mechanisms of action.
My only immediate contention with that is on a technical issue: we have no firm basis for linking behaviours to genes. Yet.
But my knowledge is probably 20 years out of date. YMMV.
I could accept that genes can influence the layout of major neural pathways or the degree to which the over-connected neonate's brain selectively disconnects pathways until it can start to get a coherent picture of reality from its sensory inputs.
I can accept that neural networks can give rise to complex emergent behaviour and therefore mistakes _with a genetic basis_ could lead to maladapted behaviour.
But saying "this gene goes with that behaviour" is an overreach, in my opinion. We have to make do with genetic markers and their statistical associations with behaviour harmful to society. Correlations don't deliver the actual mechanisms of action.
Ugh... Too much to read/take in this time if the morning. But I am unsure there is a default state for all humanity. Nor do I think one can claim religion perverts it. Gene strains will be varied. As will be life experiences. One person's view on spiritual matters as valid and available for discussion as another's.
Altruism is the test case for Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene hypothesis because he needs to explain a real-life behaviour in which individuals assist a sibling or cousin in raising young but, in doing so, fail to raise young of their own. The altruism gene has to be among the related offspring's genes, for which there are odds for and against, which means that, sometimes, it will fail, despite the effort. This makes it difficult to imagine how the initial mutation can propagate amongst the population, against dilution by the previous variant.
That said, evolutionary genetic changes sometimes do not come to the fore until the entire population is put under severe stress, by disease, famine, drought or other widespread crisis, resulting in a massive population crash. The family groups carrying the altruism gene will be the only ones able to gather enough food (plus mutual protection against predation) to rear one set of offspring, from the efforts of multiple adults. (eg with meerkats, only the dominant female breeds and any 'illicit' pregnancies result in ejection from the group).
Rather than propagating in competition with other genes, they end up in the whole population because only a small remnant population survived, thanks to carrying it. So evolution, to my mind, is at least partially dependent on catastrophe and mass death. (We never said it was a nice process).
That said, evolutionary genetic changes sometimes do not come to the fore until the entire population is put under severe stress, by disease, famine, drought or other widespread crisis, resulting in a massive population crash. The family groups carrying the altruism gene will be the only ones able to gather enough food (plus mutual protection against predation) to rear one set of offspring, from the efforts of multiple adults. (eg with meerkats, only the dominant female breeds and any 'illicit' pregnancies result in ejection from the group).
Rather than propagating in competition with other genes, they end up in the whole population because only a small remnant population survived, thanks to carrying it. So evolution, to my mind, is at least partially dependent on catastrophe and mass death. (We never said it was a nice process).
http://
There's quite a lot out there worth looking at if your interested. As a species we have spent more evolutionary time pre-civilisation than post. This is where the default mode evolved. With civilisation other variants had opportunities to thrive and pass on these traits.
There's quite a lot out there worth looking at if your interested. As a species we have spent more evolutionary time pre-civilisation than post. This is where the default mode evolved. With civilisation other variants had opportunities to thrive and pass on these traits.
@Colmc54
Thanks for that link. Interesting as it was, it didn't appear to contain the phrase "default state", nor did it touch on evolution or how selection pressure could have driven psychopathy to come about.
The traits it mentions, such as fearlessness and low anxiety were no doubt of use when it came to inter-tribal conflict but, if you are fearless in face of a pride of lions then you are going to be lunch, to be frank.
In fewer words: it doesn't appear to support your hypothesis. If, instead, it inspired your idea then by all means tell us tell us how.
Thanks for that link. Interesting as it was, it didn't appear to contain the phrase "default state", nor did it touch on evolution or how selection pressure could have driven psychopathy to come about.
The traits it mentions, such as fearlessness and low anxiety were no doubt of use when it came to inter-tribal conflict but, if you are fearless in face of a pride of lions then you are going to be lunch, to be frank.
In fewer words: it doesn't appear to support your hypothesis. If, instead, it inspired your idea then by all means tell us tell us how.
The term 'default state' is my own term.
If you can hunt down a BBC series on the history of women you might find the description of the human emergence of civilisation that begins the first episode of interest.
Also they did a series on early South American civilisations which demonstrates the same transition. In Orkney Skara Brae http://
has been commented on (albeit by socialist anothropologists) as an example of an egalitarian commune where all inhabitants enjoyed equal status, (there was no big house on the hill) and the only defences were to protect from the weather.
Something changed then in the selection process to favour the less empathic, the agressive and the ambitious.
I'm not saying that all people on what is now called the psychopathic spectrum are undesirable in a society (far from it), or indeed that I'm right or wrong about any of this. I just felt it was an interesting question worth discussing.
If you can hunt down a BBC series on the history of women you might find the description of the human emergence of civilisation that begins the first episode of interest.
Also they did a series on early South American civilisations which demonstrates the same transition. In Orkney Skara Brae http://
has been commented on (albeit by socialist anothropologists) as an example of an egalitarian commune where all inhabitants enjoyed equal status, (there was no big house on the hill) and the only defences were to protect from the weather.
Something changed then in the selection process to favour the less empathic, the agressive and the ambitious.
I'm not saying that all people on what is now called the psychopathic spectrum are undesirable in a society (far from it), or indeed that I'm right or wrong about any of this. I just felt it was an interesting question worth discussing.
I think I understand what you think I'm doing. I thought I was debating by answering some of the responses to my question e.g. Hypognosis commenting that there was no mention of a 'default state' in the paper I gave a lead to above.
You're of course welcome to your opinion and to debate the question I asked.
You're of course welcome to your opinion and to debate the question I asked.
@Answerprancer
//We take care of our weak rather than allowing 'survival of the fittest' to take its natural course - well most of us do.//
I think part of what Darwin was aiming for was to paint nature as "red in tooth and claw" so as to explain how life forms diverged and why they had to evolve but then contrast humanity with all of that by what was obvious to all and sundry which was that looking after one another was what made us the most advanced of all species.
I think he would have been horrified by what eugenecists did with his theories. I only hope that, by publishing as late in life as he did, he managed to avoid witnessing much of what they did, by way of twisting his words to suit their aims.
//We take care of our weak rather than allowing 'survival of the fittest' to take its natural course - well most of us do.//
I think part of what Darwin was aiming for was to paint nature as "red in tooth and claw" so as to explain how life forms diverged and why they had to evolve but then contrast humanity with all of that by what was obvious to all and sundry which was that looking after one another was what made us the most advanced of all species.
I think he would have been horrified by what eugenecists did with his theories. I only hope that, by publishing as late in life as he did, he managed to avoid witnessing much of what they did, by way of twisting his words to suit their aims.
I hold the belief, arrived at through much contemplation, that what makes us a distinct species as humans is our potential, at least, through a process of reason, to rise above our genes, to realise it is in our mutual rational best interest to form mutually agreeable, mutually beneficial relationships to our mutual advantage.
Love is that which ultimately makes each of us worthy of a reciprocal love from those who share our appreciation of love's inherent value, a value obtained not by altruism but rather a value we have earned and deserve by virtue of a mutual respect for and honour of the value it is.
Comments welcome.
Love is that which ultimately makes each of us worthy of a reciprocal love from those who share our appreciation of love's inherent value, a value obtained not by altruism but rather a value we have earned and deserve by virtue of a mutual respect for and honour of the value it is.
Comments welcome.
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