Mind, ideas, evolution, freedom

For a moment here, let's switch gears, or jump tracks, or however you, the reader wish to term this break from form. What follows is an essay--a personal essay, utterly unqualified for obtaining academic standing--on freedom and the impossibility thereof, a rambling sketch, neccessarily tentative:

I. On What is and What Could Never Be

I find it ironic that the human mind (and surely other mammal minds) believe so fervently in their generative capacity, their power to create (images, sentences, ideas, essays like this one). They carry on as if originality were the crowning achievement of existence, the glorious golden maypole around which we and our progeny will dance around, revelling in the gift of consciousness until the very last suns have burned out, blighting the last atmospheres. But I digress. It's a matter of perspective, a thesis that changes with fickle moods, but refuses to go away: that the so-called powers of mind are nothing but a simple set of combining principles working on a simple set of substrates. The mind is thus a combinatorial machine of the highest order--on my better days a marvellous machine--but not much more.

A troubling consideration comes from evolution. Our mind is a physical object, for the most part unconscious, that evolved physically before cultural transmission had enough mind to work its own peculiar brand of evolution. Evolution never exalted the individual, and neither does culture (merely another form of evolution). We might argue endlessly about the assumption-ladenness of scientific observations, but I accept all but the most egregiously ideology-driven, the work that tells us our utopian ambitions crash and butn on the evolutionary timescale. This is, sadly, intuitive. The example of Doves and Hawks is telling,

Doves and Hawks in this case do not refer to the species themselves, but are names for two srategies that a given organims might use to gain fitness in an way; these are genetically based. Doves are cooperators, while Hawks are fighters. Supposing a Hawk and a Dove encounter a resource, the Hawk will attack and a Dove will flee. The Hawk keeps the resource. Now, if two Hawks encounter a resource, they fight, and in the end, they are worse off for it. If two Doves encounter a resource, they will split it. What happens if a population contains a mixture of these strategies. What ends up happening is that the population ends up at some stable mixture of the two strategies. There is more to it than that, but the point here is that a population of Doves would be desirable (in fact, desirable for the species as a whole), but that state is not stable against invasion by a Hawk. A single Hawk would inexorable spread in such a population. The opposite is not true. A Dove in a population of Hawks would not survive. There needs to be a critical mass of Doves before they are driven to extinction. I've been belabouring the point somewhat to illustrate that perfect co-operation is not stable against cheaters, and also that it is much easier for violent self-interest to aries than co-operation. Of course, the actual situation in the world is much more complicated. There exist more than the two basic strategies.

It might be helpful to note that nature is noe "red in tooth and claw" all the time, ubt neither is it hopeful.

Cultural evolution in the form of ideas propagating themselves across the crania of humans (known as "memetics", analogous to genetics, where the "meme" is defined, somewhat abstractly, as a "unit of imitation") is much faster than the physical selective pressured on out bodies. We are no longer pushed about by lions and leopards leaping from behind rocks which shape our bodies and reflexes and emotions and predispositions (though we are not entirely free of nature's grip: tornadoes, hurricanes, fires, snowstorms, floods, volcanoes etc.); the majority of the pressures we feel are the appeals of religions, cults, diet fads, infectious pop tunes, political affiliations. These operate on essentially the same principles as evolution (how could they not? An idea that can propagate more efficiently than another idea cannot but spread through the population; it's almost tautological). This is why human stupidity and mindlessness and sameness and conformity hold such sway: they are either appealingly infectious, or the counter to them cannot spread itself quickly enough (like a Dove in a population of Hawks). Consider that it might take a decade or more of learning or argument or experience or moral struggle to eradicate the sadly ingrained fear of the "other". So, what is the likely status of most human minds? Darfur, anyone?

It is not ridiculous to speak of a taxonomy of ideas, or at least their methods of propagating themselves. Ideas are similar to viruses; indeed, modern marketing and propaganda is making excellent use of such metaphors.

II. On what Can Be

But there is a modicum of hope, and it lies in the potential survival of a non-orthodox idea, an idea that is difficult, that does not spread instantly to billions of minds but may nonetheless survive at the margins. If I were able to fly but never reproduced, that ability is dead to evolution. Humanity will have to wait for it to pop up randomly through random mutation. This is not so with ideas, especially moral or intellectual ideas. We do not have to rediscover Calculus every generation. This difference is where the hope lies. The category of marginal ideas includes most of the ideas that I believe offer the possibility of a unified world where humainity can work as a unit and cooperate as such, not as a disparate set of nations, cultures, blocs or any other quasi-futuristic dividing bullshit (John Lennon - Imagine.mp3). But our divisions are not all bullshit. They hangovers from our not-altogether-peaceful past. But, there is (I shudder at the word) hope.

Once an idea is produced, it becomes nearly impossible to eradicate (particuarly in the Internet age). Sure, libraries burned and scholars felt the point of ignorant swords at all ages in history (recall the destruction of scholarship by one of China's first emperors; I wish I had the reference or could post links), but minority ideas persisted and bided their time, waiting for the right conditions to carry out something very similar to a biological invasion on the space of ideas, an intellectual millieu, a public gathering, a culture, whatever. (Naturally, this also applies to the "default" ideas: observe the rising tide of religious fundamentalism; cultural evolution is not a one-way process. Complexity does not equal success.)

To that end, every freedom should be nurtured: artistic expression, sexual liberation, free speech, experimentation with drugs, seemigly purposeless tomfoolery, freedom to read, to write, to make endless varieties of music, to judge, to not judge, to preach, to fight other ideas, to advocate, etc. This should not be seen as my apology for my views or my lifestyle: I accept the possibility that I may be very wrong, but I do believe that my views contain a kernel of something greater. Evolution works its effects on variation, and the more variation there is, the more likely we are to strike on that elusive "answer". Or, more likely our progeny in the uncontemplatable future might reach a holy synthesis.

III. Freedom as an Idea

What I just said in the last paragraph is an idea. It got to me through others, and I hope to spread it to others. But there is no guarantee that this will happen. As of right now, it does not exist everywhere in the world; it is suppressed by our ancestral fears of destablilizing society and opening the door to the "other". Even where this idea has been spreading and holds appeal, it may collapse under the weight of fear. It is a young idea in human history; there is not enough data (nor will there ever be) to determine if it is an Evolutionarily Stable Strategy. With that fundamental uncertainty in mind, my claims exit the realm of reason and enter the one of hope. I certainly hope this idea--which I have purposely refrained from labelling--continues to spread, or at least survive.

Consider: "I tried to say so much that I might very well have said nothing at all."