Philosophical musings on Quanta & Qualia;  Materialism & Spiritualism; Science & Religion; Pragmatism & Idealism, etc.

Acts of God
are
Natural Evil

   Post 106.  February 16, 2020 continued  . . .

  The Lucifer Principle

   Natural versus Moral Evil

 In most creatures, adolescent males are motivated by instinctive urges to gain access to females, usually by challenging the alpha males to mano a mano battles, often to the death. Thus, the author concludes that “modern civilization is not the generator of violence. Nor is brutality limited to the ‘patriarchal’ male. The creator of of human savagery is Nature.” Originally, genetic instincts were assumed to be limited to the individuals directly influenced by the encoded instructions in their units of heredity. That was the primary implication of Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection, whereby those singular organisms who reproduce will be successful at influencing the future with their personal essence.

And yet, even Darwin argued that some form of Group Selection could affect the future prospects of social groups, which Bloom refers to as “superorganisms”. However, it was left to Richard Dawkins to postulate that the agents of group evolution were not physical chromosomes, or even helical strings of amino acids, but metaphysical bits of information that he called “Memes”3, as a mashup of Genes and Memory. Nevertheless, these invisible intangible mind-viruses5 have similar effects – on gangs, tribes, and nations – to those of genes on individuals. Just as genetic promptings are experi-enced as Instincts, memetic urges are felt as Intuitions6.

Even though superorganisms (SOs) are not physical objects, they function as agents in a manner similar to individual humans. That’s why Business Corporations were defined as “legal persons” by the Supreme Court of the US. Ant colonies of millions seem to have group memories and act single-mindedly even though they don’t have a central nervous system. What they do have is genetic commonality – their biochemistry speaks the same language. But human SOs function holistically because they are integrated by Memes, not Genes. Their memes are shared belief systems. relevant to business or cultural or religious practices and proprieties. When a particular belief system is held “in common” by a group, it serves to distinguish Us from Them (example : Jews versus Gentiles). Then they develop rules-of-engagement to govern their interactions with Them (non-us). Margaret Mead expressed the basic tribal rule rather starkly : every human group makes a simple rule, “thou shalt not kill members of our gang, but everybody else is fair game”.

Bloom devotes a chapter to the “social value of having an enemy”. Being challenged by others enhances social cohesion. So when group leaders begin to lose the confidence of their followers, they typically look around for an outsider to focus the group’s discontent on. He gives the example of Fidel Castro, who preached Social Democracy during the Cuban revolution, then instituted a Communist dictatorship. When people complained about the weak economy and lack of individual freedoms, Fidel distracted them by accusing the anti-communist Americans of undermining his social and economic reforms. Such finger-pointing is so effective, that it is used by almost all embattled leaders at one time or another. That’s also how “teflon Don” avoids being held accountable for his mistakes and crimes — he’s surrounded by lots of enemies and incompetents that he can blame.

                   Post 106 continued . . . click Next

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/apr/16/a-real-life-lord-of-the-flies-the-troubling-legacy-of-the-robbers-cave-experiment

5. Mind Viruses :
   In a further development of his Meme concept, Dawkins postulated that they replicate like viruses, by leaping from mind to mind among social groups. Thus forming complex belief systems from otherwise unrelated ideas.    
 “The essay discusses how religion can be viewed as a meme, an idea previously expressed by Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976). Dawkins analyzes the propagation of religious ideas and behaviors as a memetic virus, analogous to how biological and computer viruses spread.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viruses_of_the_Mind

6. Intuition :
   Belief systems are stored in memory, some for deliberate, particular, con-scious recall, and some for instantaneous, holistic, sub-conscious “gut-feelings”. The latter are usually felt to be obvious unquestionable “truths”.

The Lucifer Principle

A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History

Howard Bloom

Psychology; Sociology; Political Science

The Problem of Evil

The creator of human savagery is Nature

Lord of the Flies
savagery in scout camp