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

Cultural Evolution
Biological?
or
Technological?

 Post 54. October 16, 2018

    Natural Law vs Cultural Morality

    Cultural Selection and Evolution

 For example, sentimental Liberals & Democrats tend to believe that all sentient creatures have a right to survive, even, or especially, if they are handicapped. By allowing them to live and reproduce, though, such artificial standards for Cultural Selection could allow the gene pool for future beings to become weakened with glitches that would normally be filtered out by Natural Selection. Yet, the Liberal concern is not so much for physical superiority, as for spiritual & moral fitness. A Fascist moral standard might instead be aimed at creating a race of super-men, the “übermensch”, by sacrificing bits of humanity.

Ironically, that kind of high-minded counter-evolutionary interference in genetic purging could lead to future humans with frail bodies & immune systems, plus physical deformities. Even so, they might have ever-larger brains, like the stereotypical big-headed small-bodied alien Grays. Or they could increasingly rely on artificial limbs & organs to offset their accumulating physical limitations. Perhaps, though, we will never reach that biological bottle-neck, because we will have transferred our mental heritage to unnatural artificial constructs, such as Robots and Cyborgs. Which will raise another moral question, can humanoid machines be self-directing Selves, or will they remain under the control of a programming cabal of Illuminati pulling their strings?

Anyway, some kind of intentional adaptation might let us off the hook for violating the laws of Nature with our own laws of Culture. In that case, evolution will go on, but on a different course from its biological beginnings. In the short term though, we will have to deal with different interpretations of what is Good and Right and Moral, and with the consequences of our disobedience to Mother Nature. But maybe Mother foresaw this eventuality, when she included the potential for self-conscious moral beings in the Cosmic Code of the creative Singularity. Unlike the World Maker though, we can't predict the future effects of our tampering with universal rules of development. So we don't know for sure what that Second Singularity (Omega Point) might be. Will it be human or machine, or god, or something else unimaginable? Are current human organisms merely temporary stepping stones on the path to something super-human? Even if so, as rungs on the ladder of evolution, we are now essential to the process. We are no longer totally dependent on blind Nature for setting our human destiny.

End of Post 54