Yes, but wouldn’t it be useful to have an effective, straightforward detector, to complement any detection by deductive methods of reasoning?
I’m not saying other methods don’t exist, just describing what I believe to be the one most often used.
To be honest I am really dubious that DNA can code for the responses to products of high level deductive reasoning. It can code for overall proneness to depression, and proneness to anger. The deductive skills are learnt, why won’t be the response learnt as well?
Then how come people are much more likely to get depressed in response to certain high level stimuli (e.g., loosing a job) than others (e.g., getting a promotion)?
It’s impossible to have a learning system without inductive biases. Thus our initial inductive biases must be genetic. So why is it unreasonable to suppose that they’ve been adapted to some ancestral environment?
Then how come people are much more likely to get depressed in response to certain high level stimuli (e.g., loosing a job) than others (e.g., getting a promotion)?
Because the learned meaning of ‘losing a job’ and ‘getting a promotion’ includes learned reference to the systems that should be activated (feel good / feel bad).
Let’s pick example towards which we are neutral but majority of the world isn’t: the future wife not being a virgin. Some cultures outright kill for that. edit: and another example: no underage sex, which we feel ultra strongly about but many other cultures (especially the ones that kill for not being a virgin) couldn’t care less. edit: and to top that off, there’s participation in killing of your own children for this reproductive ‘offence’, in some cultures. Note that it is not some infanticide by a male. That’s destruction of a descendant on which massive amount of resources have already been spent.
So are you trying to argue that male sexual jealousy is a learned behavior?
My argument for it being genetic is that it makes sense that a selfish gene wouldn’t want you to waste resources raising children that aren’t your own, whereas there is no reason for selfish memes to care.
The selfish gene could try not to waste resources raising children that are not possessing the gene. That works even better.
I think it is mostly learned what to be jealous about, possibly with some evolutionary assist that is nowhere as specific as jealousy, and has a lot of side effects. Furthermore, there are cultures where the host offers wives to strangers, as a form of hospitality. Possibly to breed more wives (I just came up with evo psych explanation for this on spot).
It’s awful easy to rationalize any moral system evolutionarily, that’s why it isn’t good science.
I’m not sure Green-beard effects can actually occur in practice since a mutation that kept the Green beard while destroying the pathway for self-altruism would out-compete the original Green beards.
What’s about disliking trespass on your property in general? (edit: and use of your property) Now that definitely has evolved in animals long before serious pair bonding, and can serve the function just fine.
edit: The crux of the issue is that saying ‘jealousy is evolved’ is a fake explanation like phlogiston, that stops further inquiry (when further enquiry is still well warranted via the ‘difficulty to evolve’ based prior that is not unlike occam’s razor).
edit: ahh, by the way, consider female jealousy, and the jealousy for the sake of not losing the partner.
I’m not saying other methods don’t exist, just describing what I believe to be the one most often used.
Then how come people are much more likely to get depressed in response to certain high level stimuli (e.g., loosing a job) than others (e.g., getting a promotion)?
It’s impossible to have a learning system without inductive biases. Thus our initial inductive biases must be genetic. So why is it unreasonable to suppose that they’ve been adapted to some ancestral environment?
Because the learned meaning of ‘losing a job’ and ‘getting a promotion’ includes learned reference to the systems that should be activated (feel good / feel bad).
edit: here. http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3812538?uid=3738480&uid=2&uid=4&sid=47698770891867
Let’s pick example towards which we are neutral but majority of the world isn’t: the future wife not being a virgin. Some cultures outright kill for that. edit: and another example: no underage sex, which we feel ultra strongly about but many other cultures (especially the ones that kill for not being a virgin) couldn’t care less. edit: and to top that off, there’s participation in killing of your own children for this reproductive ‘offence’, in some cultures. Note that it is not some infanticide by a male. That’s destruction of a descendant on which massive amount of resources have already been spent.
So are you trying to argue that male sexual jealousy is a learned behavior?
My argument for it being genetic is that it makes sense that a selfish gene wouldn’t want you to waste resources raising children that aren’t your own, whereas there is no reason for selfish memes to care.
The selfish gene could try not to waste resources raising children that are not possessing the gene. That works even better.
I think it is mostly learned what to be jealous about, possibly with some evolutionary assist that is nowhere as specific as jealousy, and has a lot of side effects. Furthermore, there are cultures where the host offers wives to strangers, as a form of hospitality. Possibly to breed more wives (I just came up with evo psych explanation for this on spot).
It’s awful easy to rationalize any moral system evolutionarily, that’s why it isn’t good science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green-beard_effect
I’m not sure Green-beard effects can actually occur in practice since a mutation that kept the Green beard while destroying the pathway for self-altruism would out-compete the original Green beards.
If a single gene could do that, it probably would.
You still haven’t presented any plausible explanation for why the meme of jealousy would arise at all.
What’s about disliking trespass on your property in general? (edit: and use of your property) Now that definitely has evolved in animals long before serious pair bonding, and can serve the function just fine.
edit: The crux of the issue is that saying ‘jealousy is evolved’ is a fake explanation like phlogiston, that stops further inquiry (when further enquiry is still well warranted via the ‘difficulty to evolve’ based prior that is not unlike occam’s razor).
edit: ahh, by the way, consider female jealousy, and the jealousy for the sake of not losing the partner.