Dystopias and evolution

@Holiday20310401,

You may have an individual who has a capacity for learning love.

And if that individual practised that love, with Big Brother as the object, then they would probably increase their chances of survival.

Their offspring might inherit their capacity for learning, but may not necesarily direct it towards the same source.

In the book Winston is traumatised into loving Big Brother - but his love, though learned, is really nothing to do with his genetics. It is just that the torturers in the Ministry of Love understand human nature and limitations well enough to manipulate him in this way. He would probaly not make a good parent as he apparently had a natural prediliction for subversive behaviour.

So I doubt practising love would cause your offspring to be loving any more than practising guitar makes your offspring good guitarists. Of course you may have traits that help you learn the guitar that you might also pass to your offspring ... but that would be accidental.

I think other than that we agree. Humans may be homeostatic - but humanity is not, and a totalitarian regime may well exert evolutionary pressures, given enough time, as a more natural change in the environment might. I think it would take many millennia - as humans are good at disguising their natures and adapting - but I generally agree with the idea.

@Dave Allen,

Dave Allen wrote:

And if that individual practised that love, with Big Brother as the object, then they would probably increase their chances of survival.

Yes the survival of the individual, yes. So natural selection concurs with this in the societal conditions correspond. But what of the homeostasis of the individual when the ideal shifts? (assuming it does)

Dave Allen wrote:

Their offspring might inherit their capacity for learning, but may not necesarily direct it towards the same source.

Yes of course.

Dave Allen wrote:

In the book Winston is traumatised into loving Big Brother - but his love, though learned, is really nothing to do with his genetics. It is just that the torturers in the Ministry of Love understand human nature and limitations well enough to manipulate him in this way. He would probaly not make a good parent as he had a natural prediliction for subversive behaviour.

Yes this all makes sense, it doesn't contradict anything.

Dave Allen wrote:

So I doubt practising love would cause your offspring to be loving any more than practising guitar makes your offspring good guitarists. Of course you may have traits that help you learn the guitar that you might also pass to your offspring...

Well that's the way it'd be passed down right? I'm not suggesting the immaterial passes down immaterial virtues. This is simply nonsense, as there may not even be an immaterial to speak of, just a concept. I mean that you version of an immaterial is passed down in material form and when the offspring grows up the immaterial virtues emerge. Traits=material, practicing love=immaterial.

Dave Allen wrote:

I think other than that we agree. Humans may be homeostatic - but humanity is not, and a totalitarian regime may well exert evolutionary pressures, given enough time, as a more natural change in the environment might. I think it would take many millennia - as humans are good at disguising their natures and adapting - but I generally agree with the idea.

Yes I think I can agree here. It's an interesting way of putting it. as the system goes further in the macro (upward causation I suppose it would be called) the system becomes less balanced, yet less entropy, and this balance between the two becomes more defined--> from -1,1 to -2,2 to -3,3 and so on... and once separated enough it becomes noticeable and the balance between the two are an emergence. It is always there but it just takes enough upward causation to be noticeable. The emergence in this case is the symbiosis between the individual and society.

@Aedes,

Aedes wrote:

Manored,
The problem with speculating about this is that evolution doesn't idealize -- it compromises for the sake of reproductive fitness. So if you did an experiment where you oppressed people for millions of years under some kind of constant system, evolution might actually make them regress and become dumber and more concrete because it's maladaptive to spend their lives lamenting their hardship.

Well, thats evolving towards enduring and accepting more, isnt it? Smile

@Holiday20310401,

Evolution's whatever wins and stuff. It does select for stability, but it also selects for small chinks which can exploit the weaknesses in certain stable structures, so I think change is inevitable due to that.

@tyciol,

I have a question relating to cultural evolution. Is there any studies out there that measure the progress-ional speed of cultural change? I wonder because I remember having a conversation with someone about the rate of change cultures go through today.

@Joe,

Joe;54494 wrote:

I have a question relating to cultural evolution. Is there any studies out there that measure the progressional speed of cultural change? I wonder because I remember having a conversation with someone about the rate of change cultures go through today.

If there are, I doubt they'd be generalizable. It's also not a quantitative science, for the most part. A rate, as mathematically expressed, is delta x over time. In other words, we need something to plug into x.

But the problem would be mainly one of generalizability. The rate of change of religious culture among the Aztecs is not going to correspond to the rate of artistic change among ancient Greeks. There are many influences.

The one area that HAS been studied, including quantitatively, is the evolution of language. But this as a quantitative science is nearly identical to evolutionary genetics.

tyciol;54487 wrote:

Evolution's whatever wins and stuff. It does select for stability, but it also selects for small chinks which can exploit the weaknesses in certain stable structures, so I think change is inevitable due to that.

Right, it selects for expediency, but this comes at a price of vulnerability to new conditions.

There are "terminally differentiated" organisms -- they are so specialized that they just can't be very adaptable as the world changes around them. Omnivorous animals are more likely to be adaptable than animals that only eat one type of plant.

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