Jeff Hawkins (2021)
Joel Deerwester, 2024-04-27
"We have the opportunity to choose between a future where the primary driver is the creation and dissemination of knowledge and a future where the primary driver is the copying and disseminating of genes." (Hawkings 2021, p.231)
I suspect that the majority of people who read this sentence and understand it will recoil as I did. Not that I disagree. Yet. But it's shocking in the subtle way that accompanies a shift in perspective on something that, under a minute ago, didn't appear to be the subject of a question.
[assumptions about behavior - all ties back to my selfish guarding of my genetic hand me downs]
I love my wife and kids. I also assume this to be a given, self-evident to others as a leading factor in my behavior, whether during school field day or in the company of an aggressive animal.
[some bad examples of dissemination of copying genes]
[creation and dissemination of knowledge ... maybe paired with scientific method rather than just ideas/memes, e.g. religion, superstition, hate, racism]
Personally, I don’t see why the path of unguided evolution is preferable over a path of our own choosing. We can be thankful that evolutionary processes got us here. But now that we are here, we have the option to use our intelligence to take control of the future. Our survival as a species and the survival of our knowledge might be more secure if we do. (p.233)
Genes vs knowledge
Why are we worth saving?
Emotional attachment relates to mechanisms in old brain
But intelligence and neocortex also serve old brain function, evolutionarily
We have the opportunity to choose between a future where the primary driver is the creation and dissemination of knowledge and a future where the primary driver is the copying and disseminating of genes. (p.231)
I suspect that many people who read this will recoil and I have a similar feeling. I love my wife and kids.