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Jean BaudrillardFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Baudrillard)
Jean Baudrillard (27 July 1929 – 6 March 2007) (French pronunciation: [ʒɑ̃� bodʁijaʁ])[2] was
a French sociologist,philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, and photographer. His work is
frequently associated withpostmodernism and post-structuralism.
[edit]Life
Baudrillard was born in Reims, northeastern France, on July 27, 1929. He told interviewers that his
grandparents werepeasants and his parents were civil servants. During his high school studies at the Reims
Lycée, he came into contact with pataphysics (via the philosophy professor Emmanuel Peillet), which is
said to be crucial for understanding Baudrillard's later thought.[3] He became the first of his family to attend
university when he moved to Paris to attendSorbonne University.[4] There he studied German language and
literature, which led to him to begin teaching the subject at several different lycées, both Parisian and
provincial, from 1960 until 1966.[3] While teaching, Baudrillard began to publish reviews of literature and
translated the works of such authors as Peter Weiss, Bertolt Brecht, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and
Wilhelm Emil Mühlmann.[5]
During his time as a teacher of German language and literature, Baudrillard began to transfer to sociology,
eventually completing his doctoral thesis Le Système des objets (The System of Objects) under the
dissertation committee of Henri Lefebvre, Roland Barthes, and Pierre Bourdieu. Subsequently, he began
teaching sociology at the Université de Paris-X Nanterre, a university campus just outside of Paris which
would become heavily involved in the events of May 1968.[6]During this time, Baudrillard worked closely with
Philosopher Humphrey De Battenburge, who described Baudrillard as a "visionary".[7] At Nanterre he took
up a position asMaître Assistant (Assistant Professor), then Maître de Conférences (Associate Professor),
eventually becoming a professor after completing his accreditation, L'Autre par lui-même (The Other by
Himself).
In 1970, Baudrillard made the first of his many trips to the USA (Aspen), and in 1973, the first of several
trips to Japan (Kyoto). He was given his first camera in 1981 in Japan, which led to his becoming a
photographer.[8]
In 1986 he moved to IRIS (Institut de Recherche et d'Information Socio-Économique) at the Université de
Paris-IX Dauphine, where he spent the latter part of his teaching career. During this time he had begun to
move away from sociology as a discipline (particularly in its "classical" form), and, after ceasing to teach full
time, he rarely identified himself with any particular discipline, although he remained linked to the academic
world. During the 1980s and 1990s his books had gained a wide audience, and in his last years he became,
to an extent, an intellectual celebrity,[9] being published often in the French- and English-speaking popular
press. He nonetheless continued supporting the Institut de Recherche sur l'Innovation Sociale at the Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique and was Satrap at the Collège de Pataphysique. Baudrillard taught at
theEuropean Graduate School in Saas-Fee[10] and collaborated at the Canadian theory, culture and
technology review Ctheory, where he was abundantly cited. In 1999-2000, his photographs were exhibited
at the Maison européenne de la photographie in Paris.[11] In 2004, Baudrillard attended the major
conference on his work, "Baudrillard and the Arts," at the Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe in Karlsruhe,
Germany.[12]
[edit]Core ideas
Baudrillard was a social theorist and critic best known for his analyses of the modes of mediation and
technological communication. His writing, though mostly concerned with the way technological progress
affects social change, covers diverse subjects — including consumerism, gender relations, the social
understanding of history, journalistic commentaries about AIDS, cloning, the Rushdie affair, the first Gulf
War and the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.
His published work emerged as part of a generation of French thinkers including Gilles Deleuze, Jean-
François Lyotard,Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida and Jacques Lacan who all shared an interest
in semiotics, and he is often seen as a part of the poststructuralist philosophical school.[13] In common with
many poststructuralists, his arguments consistently draw upon the notion that signification and meaning are
both only understandable in terms of how particular words or "signs" interrelate. Baudrillard thought, as
many post-structuralists, that meaning is brought about through systems of signs working together.
Following on from the structuralist linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, Baudrillard argued that meaning (value)
is created through difference - through what something is not (so "dog" means "dog" because it is not-"cat",
not-"goat", not-"tree", etc.). In fact, he viewed meaning as near enough self-referential: objects, images of
objects, words and signs are situated in a web of meaning; one object's meaning is only understandable
through its relation to the meaning of other objects; in other words, one thing's prestige relates to another's
mundanity.
From this starting point Baudrillard constructed broad theories of human society based upon this kind of
self-referentiality. His pictures of society portray societies always searching for a sense of meaning — or a
"total" understanding of the world — that remains consistently elusive. In contrast to poststructuralists such
as Foucault, for whom the formations of knowledge emerge only as the result of relations of power,
Baudrillard developed theories in which the excessive, fruitless search for total knowledge lead almost
inevitably to a kind of delusion. In Baudrillard's view, the (human) subject may try to understand the (non-
human) object, but because the object can only be understood according to what it signifies (and because
the process of signification immediately involves a web of other signs from which it is distinguished) this
never produces the desired results. The subject, rather, becomes seduced (in the original Latin
sense, seducere, to lead away) by the object. He therefore argued that, in the last analysis, a complete
understanding of the minutiae of human life is impossible, and when people are seduced into thinking
otherwise they become drawn toward a "simulated" version of reality, or, to use one of his neologisms, a
state of "hyperreality." This is not to say that the world becomes unreal, but rather that the faster and more
comprehensively societies begin to bring reality together into one supposedly coherent picture, the more
insecure and unstable it looks and the more fearful societies become.[14] Reality, in this sense, "dies out."[15]
Accordingly, Baudrillard argued that the excess of signs and of meaning in late 20th century "global" society
had caused (quite paradoxically) an effacement of reality. In this world neither liberal nor Marxist utopias are
any longer believed in. We live, he argued, not in a "global village," to useMarshall McLuhan's phrase, but
rather in a world that is ever more easily petrified by even the smallest event. Because the "global" world
operates at the level of the exchange of signs and commodities, it becomes ever more blind
to symbolic acts such as, for example, terrorism. In Baudrillard's work the symbolic realm (which he
develops a perspective on through the anthropological work of Marcel Mauss and Georges Bataille) is seen
as quite distinct from that of signs and signification. Signs can be exchanged like commodities; symbols, on
the other hand, operate quite differently: they are exchanged, like gifts, sometimes violently as a form
of potlatch. Baudrillard, particularly in his later work, saw the "global" society as without this "symbolic"
element, and therefore symbolically (if not militarily) defenseless against acts such as the Rushdie
Fatwa[16] or, indeed, the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States and its military
establishment (see below).
In 2004, the International Journal of Baudrillard Studies was launched.
[edit]The object value system
In his early books, such as The System of Objects, For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign,
and The Consumer Society, Baudrillard's main focus is upon consumerism, and how different objects are
consumed in different ways. At this time Baudrillard's political outlook was loosely associated
with Marxism (and situationism), but in these books he differed from Marx in one significant way. For
Baudrillard, it was consumption, rather than production, which was the main drive in capitalist society.
Baudrillard came to this conclusion by criticising Marx's concept of "use-value." Baudrillard thought that both
Marx's and Adam Smith's economic thought accepted the idea of genuine needs relating to genuine uses
too easily and too simply—despite the fact that Marx did not use the term 'genuine' in relation to needs or
use-values. Baudrillard argued, drawing from Georges Bataille, that needs are constructed, rather than
innate. He stressed that all purchases, because they always signify something socially, have their fetishistic
side. Objects always, drawing from Roland Barthes, "say something" about their users. And this was, for
him, why consumption was and remains more important than production: because the "ideological genesis
of needs"[17] precedes the production of goods to meet those needs.
He wrote that there are four ways of an object obtaining value. The four value-making processes are as
follows:[18]
1. The first is the functional value of an object; its instrumental purpose. A pen, for instance, writes;
and a refrigerator cools.
2. The second is the exchange value of an object; its economic value. One pen may be worth three
pencils; and one refrigerator may be worth the salary earned by three months of work.
3. The third is the symbolic value of an object; a value that a subject assigns to an object in relation to
another subject. A pen might symbolize a student's school graduation gift or a commencement
speaker's gift; or a diamond may be a symbol of publicly declared marital love.
4. The last is the sign value of an object; its value within a system of objects. A particular pen may,
while having no added functional benefit, signify prestige relative to another pen; a diamond ring
may have no function at all, but may suggest particular social values, such as taste or class.
Baudrillard's earlier books were attempts to argue that the first two of these values are not simply
associated, but are disrupted by the third and, particularly, the fourth. Later, Baudrillard rejected Marxism
totally (The Mirror of Production and Symbolic Exchange and Death). But the focus on the difference
between sign value (which relates to commodity exchange) and symbolic value (which relates
to Maussian gift exchange) remained in his work up until his death. Indeed it came to play a more and more
important role, particularly in his writings on world events.
[edit]Simulacra and Simulation
Main article: Simulacra and Simulation
As he developed his work throughout the 1980s, he moved from economically based theory to the
consideration of mediation and mass communications. Although retaining his interest
in Saussurean semiotics and the logic of symbolic exchange (as influenced by anthropologist Marcel
Mauss), Baudrillard turned his attention to Marshall McLuhan, developing ideas about how the nature of
social relations is determined by the forms of communication that a society employs. In so doing,
Baudrillard progressed beyond both Saussure's and Roland Barthes' formal semiology to consider the
implications of a historically understood (and thus formless) version of structural semiology. The concept of
Simulacra [19][20] also involves a negation of the concept of reality as we usually understand it. Baudrillard
argues that today there is no such thing as reality.
Simulation, Baudrillard claims, is the current stage of the simulacrum: All is composed of references with no
referents, a hyperreality. Progressing historically from the Renaissance, in which the dominant simulacrum
was in the form of the counterfeit—mostly people or objects appearing to stand for a real referent (for
instance, royalty, nobility, holiness, etc.) that does not exist, in other words, in the spirit of pretense, in
dissimulating others that a person or a thing does not really "have it" -- to the industrial revolution, in which
the dominant simulacrum is the product, the series, which can be propagated on an endless production line;
and finally to current times, in which the dominant simulacrum is the model, which by its nature already
stands for endless reproducibility, and is itself already reproduced.
Some examples Baudrillard brings up of the simulacrum of the model are: 1) the development of nuclear
weapons as deterrents—useful only in the hyperreal sense, a reference with no real referent, since they are
always meant to be reproducible but are never intended to be used—2) the (former) Twin Towers of the
World Trade Center, which replaced a New York of constantly competing, distinct heights with a singular
model of the ultimate New York building: already doubled, already reproduced, itself a reproduction, a
singular model for all conceivable development, and 3) a menage-a-trois with identical twins where the
fantasy comprises having perfection reproduced in front of your eyes, though the reality behind this
reproduction is nil and impossible to comprehend otherwise, since the twins are still just people. The very
act of perceiving these, Baudrillard insists, is in the tactile sense, since we already assume the
reproducibility of everything, since it is not the reality of these simulations that we imagine (in fact, we no
longer "imagine" in the same sense as before; both the imagined and the real are equally hyperreal, equally
both reproducible and already reproductions themselves), but the reproducibility thereof. We do not imagine
them reproduced for us, since the original image is itself a reproduction—rather, we perceive the model, the
simulation.
[edit]The end of history and meaning
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, one of Baudrillard's most common themes was historicity, or, more
specifically, how present day societies utilise the notions of progress and modernity in their political choices.
He argued, much like the political theorist Francis Fukuyama, that history had ended or "vanished" with the
spread of globalization; but, unlike Fukuyama, Baudrillard averred that this end should not be understood as
the culmination of history's progress, but as the collapse of the very idea of historical progress. For
Baudrillard, the end of the Cold War was not caused by one ideology's victory over the other, but the
disappearance of the utopian visions that both the political Right and Left shared. Giving further evidence of
his opposition toward Marxist visions of global communism and liberal visions of global civil society,
Baudrillard contended that the ends they hoped for had always been illusions; indeed, as his book The
Illusion of the End argued, he thought the idea of an end itself was nothing more than a misguided dream:
The end of history is, alas, also the end of the dustbins of history. There are no longer any dustbins
for disposing of old ideologies, old regimes, old values. Where are we going to throw Marxism,
which actually invented the dustbins of history? (Yet there is some justice here since the very
people who invented them have fallen in.) Conclusion: if there are no more dustbins of history, this
is because History itself has become a dustbin. It has become its own dustbin, just as the planet
itself is becoming its own dustbin.[21]
Within a society subject to and ruled by fast-paced electronic communication and global information
networks the collapse of this façade was always going to be, he thought, inevitable. Employing a quasi-
scientific vocabulary that attracted the ire of the physicist Alan Sokal, Baudrillard wrote that the speed
society moved at had destabilized the linearity of history: "we have the particle accelerator that has
smashed the referential orbit of things once and for all."[22]
In making this argument Baudrillard found some affinity with the postmodern philosophy of Jean-
François Lyotard, who famously argued that in the late Twentieth Century there was no longer any
room for "metanarratives." (The triumph of a coming communism being one such metanarrative.) But,
in addition to simply lamenting this collapse of history, Baudrillard also went beyond Lyotard and
attempted to analyse how the idea of forward progress was being employed in spite of the notion's
declining validity. Baudrillard argued that although genuine belief in a universal endpoint of history,
wherein all conflicts would find their resolution, had been deemed redundant, universality was still a
notion utilised in world politics as an excuse for actions. Universal values which, according to him, no
one any longer believed universal were and are still rhetorically employed to justify otherwise
unjustifiable choices. The means, he wrote, are there even though the ends are no longer believed in,
and are employed in order to hide the present's harsh realities (or, as he would have put it, unrealities).
"In the Enlightenment, universalization was viewed as unlimited growth and forward progress. Today,
by contrast, universalization is expressed as a forward escape."[23]
Ernst Walter Mayr (July 5, 1904 – February 3, 2005)[1][2] was one of the 20th century's leading
evolutionarybiologists. He was also a renowned taxonomist, tropical explorer, ornithologist, historian of
science, and naturalist.[3]His work contributed to the conceptual revolution that led to the modern
evolutionary synthesis of Mendelian genetics,systematics, and Darwinian evolution, and to the
development of the biological species concept.
Neither Charles Darwin nor anyone else in his time knew the answer to the species problem: how
multiple speciescould evolve from a single common ancestor. Ernst Mayr approached the problem
with a new definition for the concept of species. In his book Systematics and the Origin of
Species (1942) he wrote that a species is not just a group of morphologically similar individuals, but a
group that can breed only among themselves, excluding all others. When populations within a species
become isolated by geography, feeding strategy, mate selection, or other means, they may start to
differ from other populations through genetic drift and natural selection, and over time may evolve into
new species. The most significant and rapid genetic reorganization occurs in extremely small
populations that have been isolated (as on islands).
His theory of peripatric speciation (a more precise form of allopatric speciation which he advanced),
based on his work on birds, is still considered a leading mode of speciation, and was the theoretical
underpinning for the theory ofpunctuated equilibrium, proposed by Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay
Gould. Mayr is sometimes credited with inventing modern philosophy of biology, particularly the part
related to evolutionary biology, which he distinguished from physics due to its introduction of (natural)
history into science.
Mayr's ideas
As a traditionally trained biologist with little mathematical experience, Mayr was often highly critical of
early mathematical approaches to evolution such as those of J.B.S. Haldane, famously calling in 1959
such approaches "beanbag genetics". He maintained that factors such as reproductive isolation had to
be taken into account. In a similar fashion, Mayr was also quite critical of molecular
evolutionary studies such as those of Carl Woese.
In many of his writings, Mayr rejected reductionism in evolutionary biology, arguing that evolutionary
pressures act on the whole organism, not on single genes, and that genes can have different effects
depending on the other genes present. He advocated a study of the whole genome rather than of
isolated genes only. Current molecular studies in evolution and speciation indicate that
although allopatric speciation seems to be the norm in groups (such as in many invertebrates—
especially in the insects), there are numerous cases of sympatric speciation in groups with greater
mobility (such as the birds).
After articulating the biological species concept in 1942, Mayr played a central role in the species
problem debate over what was the best species concept. He staunchly defended the biological
species concept against the many definitions of "species" that others proposed.
Mayr was an outspoken defender of the scientific method, and one known to sharply critique science
on the edge. As a notable recent example, he criticized the search for aliens as conducted by fellow
Harvard professor Paul Horowitz as being a waste of university and student resources, for its inability
to address and answer a scientific question.
Mayr rejected the idea of a gene-centered view of evolution and starkly but politely criticized Richard
Dawkins' ideas:
The funny thing is if in England, you ask a man in the street who the greatest living Darwinian is, he
will say Richard Dawkins. And indeed, Dawkins has done a marvelous job of popularizing Darwinism.
But Dawkins' basic theory of the gene being the object of evolution is totally non-Darwinian. I would
not call him the greatest Darwinian.[13]
Mayr insisted throughout his career that the gene as the target of selection cannot and should not be
considered a valid idea in modern evolutionary thought.
The idea that a few people have about the gene being the target of selection is completely impractical;
a gene is never visible to natural selection, and in the genotype, it is always in the context with other
genes, and the interaction with those other genes make a particular gene either more favorable or less
favorable. In fact, Dobzhanksy, for instance, worked quite a bit on so-called lethal chromosomes which
are highly successful in one combination, and lethal in another. Therefore people like Dawkins in
England who still think the gene is the target of selection are evidently wrong. In the 30s and 40s, it
was widely accepted that genes were the target of selection, because that was the only way they
could be made accessible to mathematics, but now we know that it is really the whole genotype of the
individual, not the gene. Except for that slight revision, the basic Darwinian theory hasn't changed in
the last 50 years.[13]
Mayr also had reservations about evolution:
"It must be admitted, however, that it is a considerable strain on one’s credulity to assume that finely
balanced systems such as certain sense organs (the eye of vertebrates, or the bird’s feather) could be
improved by random mutations." [14]
GOULDControversies
Gould received many accolades for his scholarly work and popular expositions of natural history,[14]
[50] but was not immune from criticism by those in the biological community who felt his public
presentations were, for various reasons, out of step with mainstream evolutionary theory.[51] The public
debates between Gould's supporters and detractors have been so quarrelsome that they have been
dubbed "The Darwin Wars" by several commentators.[52][53][54][55]
John Maynard Smith, an eminent British evolutionary biologist, was among Gould's strongest critics.
Maynard Smith thought that Gould misjudged the vital role of adaptation in biology, and was also
critical of Gould's acceptance of species selection as a major component of biological evolution.[56] In a
review of Daniel Dennett's book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, Maynard Smith wrote that Gould "is giving
non-biologists a largely false picture of the state of evolutionary theory."[57] But Maynard Smith has not
been consistently negative, writing in a review of The Panda's Thumb that "Stephen Gould is the best
writer of popular science now active. . . . Often he infuriates me, but I hope he will go right on writing
essays like these."[58] Maynard Smith was also among those who welcomed Gould's reinvigoration of
evolutionary paleontology.[20]
One reason for such criticism was that Gould appeared to be presenting his ideas as a revolutionary
way of understanding evolution, and argued for the importance of mechanisms other than natural
selection, mechanisms which he believed had been ignored by many professional evolutionists. As a
result, many non-specialists sometimes inferred from his early writings that Darwinian explanations
had been proven to be unscientific (which Gould never tried to imply). Along with many other
researchers in the field, Gould's works were sometimes deliberately taken out of context
by creationists as a "proof" that scientists no longer understood how organisms evolved.[59] Gould
himself corrected some of these misinterpretations and distortions of his writings in later works.[60]
Gould also disagreed with Richard Dawkins over the importance of gene selection in evolution.
Dawkins argued that evolution is best understood as competition among genes (or replicators), while
Gould advocated the importance of multi-level selection, including selection amongst genes, cell
lineages, organisms, demes, species, andclades.[55] Criticism of Gould and his theory of punctuated
equilibrium can be found in chapter 9 of Dawkins' The Blind Watchmaker and chapter 10 of
Dennett's Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Dawkins subsequently offered a concession via an endnote in a
new edition of his book The Selfish Gene, where he states:
p.86 Progressive evolution may be not so much a steady upward climb as a series of discrete steps
from stable plateau to stable plateau
This paragraph is a fair summary of one way of expressing the now well-known theory of punctuated
equilibrium. I am ashamed to say that, when I wrote my conjecture, I, like many biologists in England
at the time, was totally ignorant of that theory, although it had been published three years earlier. I
have since, for instance in The Blind Watchmaker, become somewhat petulant - perhaps too much so
- over the way the theory of punctuated equilibrium has been oversold. If this has hurt anybody's
feelings, I regret it. They may like to note that, at least in 1976, my heart was in the right place.[61]
[edit]Opposition to sociobiology and evolutionary psychology
Gould also had a long-running public feud with E. O. Wilson and other evolutionary biologists
over human sociobiology and its later descendant evolutionary psychology(which Gould, Lewontin,
and Maynard Smith opposed, but which Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Steven
Pinker advocated).[62] These debates reached their climax in the 1970s, and included strong opposition
from groups like the Sociobiology Study Group and Science for the People.[63] Pinker accuses Gould,
Lewontin, and other opponents of evolutionary psychology of being "radical scientists," whose stance
on human nature is influenced by politics rather than science.[64] Gould stated that he made "no
attribution of motive in Wilson's or anyone else's case" but cautioned that all human beings are
influenced, especially unconsciously, by our personal expectations and biases. He wrote:
I grew up in a family with a tradition of participation in campaigns for social justice, and I was active, as
a student, in the civil rights movement at a time of great excitement and success in the early 1960s.
Scholars are often wary of citing such commitments. … [but] it is dangerous for a scholar even to
imagine that he might attain complete neutrality, for then one stops being vigilant about personal
preferences and their influences—and then one truly falls victim to the dictates of prejudice. Objectivity
must be operationally defined as fair treatment of data, not absence of preference.[65]
Gould's primary criticism held that human sociobiological explanations lacked evidential support, and
argued that adaptive behaviors are frequently assumed to be genetic for no other reason than their
supposed universality, or their adaptive nature. Gould emphasized that adaptive behaviors can be
passed on through culture as well, and either hypothesis is equally plausible.[66] Gould did not deny the
relevance of biology to human nature, but reframed the debate as "biological potentiality vs. biological
determinism." Gould stated that the human brain allows for a wide range of behaviors. Its flexibility
"permits us to be aggressive or peaceful, dominant or submissive, spiteful or generous… Violence,
sexism, and general nastiness are biological since they represent one subset of a possible range of
behaviors. But peacefulness, equality, and kindness are just as biological—and we may see their
influence increase if we can create social structures that permit them to flourish."[66]
MEANING OF LIFE
The meaning of life constitutes a philosophical question concerning
the purpose and significance oflife or existence in general. This concept can be expressed through a
variety of related questions, such as "Why are we here?", "What is life all about?", and "What is the
meaning of it all?" It has been the subject of much philosophical, scientific, and theological speculation
throughout history. There have been a large number of theories to these questions from many
different cultural and ideologicalbackgrounds.
The meaning of life is deeply mixed with the philosophical and religious conceptions
of existence, social ties, consciousness, and happiness, and touches many other issues, such
as symbolic meaning,ontology, value, purpose, ethics, good and evil, free will, conceptions of God,
the existence of God, thesoul, and the afterlife. Scientific contributions focus more on describing
related empirical facts about theuniverse; they largely shift the question from "why?" to "how?" and
provide context and parameters for meaningful conversations on such topics. Science also provides its
own recommendations for the pursuit of well-being and a related conception of morality. An
alternative,humanistic (rather than religious) approach is the question "What is the meaning
of my life?" The value of the question pertaining to the purpose of life may coincide with the
achievement of ultimate reality, or a feeling of oneness, or a feeling of sacredness.
20th century philosophy
Further information: 20th century philosophy
The current era has seen radical changes in conceptions of human nature. Modern science has
effectively rewritten the relationship of humankind to the natural world, advances in medicine and
technology have freed us from the limitations and ailments of previous eras, and philosophy—
particularly following the linguistic turn—altered how the relationships people have with themselves
and each other is conceived. Questions about the meaning of life have seen equally radical changes,
from attempts to reevaluate human existence in biological and scientific terms (as
in pragmatism and logical positivism), to efforts to meta-theorize about meaning-making as an activity
(existentialism, secular humanism).
[edit]Pragmatism
Pragmatism, originated in the late-19th-century U.S., to concern itself (mostly) with truth, positing that
"only in struggling with the environment" do data, and derived theories, have meaning, and
that consequences, like utility and practicality, are also components of truth. Moreover, pragmatism
posits that anything useful and practical is not always true, arguing that what most contributes to the
most human good in the long course is true. In practice, theoretical claims must be practically
verifiable, i.e. one should be able to predict and test claims, and, that, ultimately, the needs of mankind
should guide human intellectual inquiry.
Pragmatic philosophers suggest that the practical, useful understanding of life is more important than
searching for an impractical abstract truth about life. William Jamesargued that truth could be made,
but not sought.[35][36] To a pragmatist, the meaning of life is discoverable only via experience.
[edit]Existentialism
Main article: Meaning (existential)
Edvard Munch's The Scream, a representation of existential angst.
Each man and each woman creates the essence (meaning) of his and her life; life is not determined
by a supernatural god or an earthly authority, one is free. As such, one's ethical prime directives
are action, freedom, and decision, thus, existentialism opposes rationalismand positivism. In seeking
meaning to life, the existentialist looks to where people find meaning in life, in course of which using
only reason as a source of meaning is insufficient; the insufficiency gives rise to the emotions
of anxiety and dread, felt in facing one's radicalfreedom, and the concomitant awareness of death. To
the existentialist, existence precedes essence; the (essence) of one's life arisesonly after one comes
to existence.
Søren Kierkegaard coined the term "leap of faith", arguing that life is full of absurdity, and one must
make his and her own values in an indifferent world. One can live meaningfully (free of despair and
anxiety) in an unconditional commitment to something finite, and devotes that meaningful life to the
commitment, despite the vulnerability inherent to doing so.[37]
Arthur Schopenhauer answered: "What is the meaning of life?" by determining that one's life reflects
one's will, and that the will (life) is an aimless, irrational, and painful drive. Salvation, deliverance, and
escape from suffering are in aesthetic contemplation, sympathy for others, and asceticism.[38][39]
For Friedrich Nietzsche, life is worth living only if there are goals inspiring one to live. Accordingly, he
saw nihilism ("all that happens is meaningless") as without goals. He discredited asceticism, because
it denies one's living in the world; denied that values are objective facts, that are rationally necessary,
universally binding commitments: Our evaluations are interpretations, and not reflections of the world,
as it is, in itself, and, therefore, all ideations take place from a particular perspective.[31]
[edit]Absurdism
Main article: Absurdism
"... in spite of or in defiance of the whole of existence he wills to be himself with it, to take it along, almost defying
his torment. For to hope in the possibility of help, not to speak of help by virtue of the absurd, that for God all
things are possible – no, that he will not do. And as for seeking help from any other – no, that he will not do for all
the world; rather than seek help he would prefer to be himself – with all the tortures of hell, if so it must be."
Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death [40]
In absurdist philosophy, the Absurd arises out of the fundamental disharmony between the individual's
search for meaning and the apparent meaninglessness of the universe. As beings looking for meaning
in a meaningless world, humans have three ways of resolving the dilemma. Kierkegaard and Camus
describe the solutions in their works,The Sickness Unto Death (1849) and The Myth of
Sisyphus (1942):
Suicide (or, "escaping existence"): a solution in which a person simply ends one's own life. Both
Kierkegaard and Camus dismiss the viability of this option.
Religious belief in a transcendent realm or being: a solution in which one believes in the existence
of a reality that is beyond the Absurd, and, as such, has meaning. Kierkegaard stated that a belief
in anything beyond the Absurd requires a non-rational but perhaps necessary religious
acceptance in such an intangible and empirically unprovable thing (now commonly referred to as a
"leap of faith"). However, Camus regarded this solution as "philosophical suicide".
Acceptance of the Absurd: a solution in which one accepts and even embraces the Absurd and
continues to live in spite of it. Camus endorsed this solution, while Kierkegaard regarded this
solution as "demoniac madness": "He rages most of all at the thought that eternity might get it into
its head to take his misery from him!"[41]
[edit]Secular humanism
Further information: Secular Humanism
The "Happy Human" symbol representing Secular Humanism.
Per secular humanism, the human race came to be by reproducing in a progression of
unguided evolution as an integral part of nature, which is self-existing.[42][43] Knowledge does not come
from supernatural sources, but from human observation, experimentation, and rational analysis
(the scientific method): the nature of the universe is what people discern it to be.[42] Likewise,
"values and realities" are determined "by means of intelligent inquiry"[42] and "are derived from human
need and interest as tested by experience", that is, by critical intelligence.[44][45] "As far as we know, the
total personality is [a function] of the biological organism transacting in a social and cultural context."[43]
People determine human purpose, without supernatural influence; it is the human personality (general
sense) that is the purpose of a human being's life; humanism seeks to develop and fulfill:[42] "Humanism affirms our ability, and responsibility, to lead ethical lives of personal fulfillment that
aspire to the greater good of humanity".[44] Humanism aims to promote enlightened self-interest and
the common good for all people. It is based on the premises that the happiness of the individual
person is inextricably linked to the well-being of humanity, as a whole, in part, because humans are
social animals, who find meaning in personal relations, and because cultural progress benefits
everybody living in the culture.[43][44]
The philosophical sub-genres posthumanism and transhumanism (sometimes used synonymously)
are extensions of humanistic values. One should seek the advancement of humanity and of all life to
the greatest degree feasible, to reconcile Renaissance humanism with the 21st
century's technoscientific culture, thus, every living creature has the right to determine its personal and
social "meaning of life".[46]
From a humanistic-psychotherapeutic point of view, the question of the meaning of life could also be
reinterpreted as "What is the meaning of my life?"[47] Instead of becoming focused on cosmic or
religious questions about overarching purpose, this approach suggests that the question is intensely
personal. There are many therapeutic responses to this question, for example Viktor Frankl argues for
"Dereflection", which largely translates as ceasing to endlessly reflect on the self, instead of engaging
in life. On the whole, the therapeutic response is that the question of meaning of life evaporates if one
is fully engaged in life. The question then morphs into more specific worries such as "What delusions
am I under?", "What is blocking my ability to enjoy things?", "Why do I neglect loved-ones?". See
also: Existential Therapy and Irvin Yalom
[edit]Logical positivism
Logical positivists ask: "What is the meaning of life?", "What is the meaning in asking?"[48][49] and "If
there are no objective values, then, is life meaningless?"[50] Ludwig Wittgenstein and the logical
positivists said:[citation needed] "Expressed in language, the question is meaningless"; because, in life the
statement the "meaning of x", usually denotes the consequences of x, or the significance of x, or what
is notable about x, etc., thus, when the meaning of life concept equals "x", in the statement the
"meaning of x", the statement becomes recursive, and, therefore, nonsensical, or it might refer to the
fact that biological life is essential to having a meaning in life.
The things (people, events) in the life of a person can have meaning (importance) as parts of a whole,
but a discrete meaning of (the) life, itself, aside from those things, cannot be discerned. A person's life
has meaning (for himself, others) as the life events resulting from his achievements, legacy, family,
etc., but, to say that life, itself, has meaning, is a misuse of language, since any note of significance, or
of consequence, is relevant only in life (to the living), so rendering the statement erroneous. Bertrand
Russell wrote that although he found that his distaste for torture was not like his distaste for broccoli,
he found no satisfactory, empirical method of proving this:[26]
When we try to be definite, as to what we mean when we say that this or that is "the Good," we find
ourselves involved in very great difficulties. Bentham's creed, that pleasure is the Good, roused furious
opposition, and was said to be a pig's philosophy. Neither he nor his opponents could advance any
argument. In a scientific question, evidence can be adduced on both sides, and, in the end, one side is
seen to have the better case — or, if this does not happen, the question is left undecided. But in a
question, as to whether this, or that, is the ultimate Good, there is no evidence, either way; each
disputant can only appeal to his own emotions, and employ such rhetorical devices as shall rouse
similar emotions in others ... Questions as to "values" — that is to say, as to what is good or bad on its
own account, independently of its effects — lie outside the domain of science, as the defenders of
religion emphatically assert. I think that, in this, they are right, but, I draw the further conclusion, which
they do not draw, that questions as to "values" lie wholly outside the domain of knowledge. That is to
say, when we assert that this, or that, has "value", we are giving expression to our own emotions, not
to a fact, which would still be true if our personal feelings were different.[51]
[edit]Postmodernism
Further information: Postmodernism
Postmodernist thought—broadly speaking—sees human nature as constructed by language, or by
structures and institutions of human society. Unlike other forms of philosophy, postmodernism rarely
seeks out a priori or innate meanings in human existence, but instead focuses on analyzing or
critiquing given meanings in order to rationalize or reconstruct them. Anything resembling a "meaning
of life", in postmodernist terms, can only be understood within a social and linguistic framework, and
must be pursued as an escape from the power structures that are already embedded in all forms of
speech and interaction. As a rule, postmodernists see awareness of the constraints of language as
necessary to escaping those constraints, but different theorists take different views on the nature of
this process: from radical reconstruction of meaning by individuals (as in deconstructionism) to
theories in which individuals are primarily extensions of language and society, without real autonomy
(as inpoststructuralism). In general, postmodernism seeks meaning by looking at the underlying
structures that create or impose meaning, rather than the epiphenomenalappearances of the world.
[edit]Evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology holds that the ultimate meaning of life is to seek the fulfillment of the
human instincts, and that all actions in life are results of instincts and in particular reproductive needs.
Evolutionary psychology (EP) (intro) is an approach in the social and natural sciences that
examines psychological traits such asmemory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary
perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the
functional products of natural selection or sexual selection. Adaptationist thinking about physiological
mechanisms, such as the heart, lungs, and immune system, is common in evolutionary biology.
Evolutionary psychology applies the same thinking to psychology, arguing that the mind has a modular
structure similar to that of the body, with different modular adaptations serving different functions.
Evolutionary psychologists argue that much of human behavior is the output of psychological
adaptations that evolved to solve recurrent problems in human ancestral environments.[1]
The adaptationist approach is steadily increasing as an influence in the general field of psychology.[2][3]
Evolutionary psychologists suggest that EP is not simply a subdiscipline of psychology but that
evolutionary theory can provide a foundational, metatheoretical framework that integrates the entire
field of psychology, in the same way it has for biology.[4][5]
Evolutionary psychologists hold that behaviors or traits that occur universally in all cultures are good
candidates for evolutionary adaptations[3] including the abilities to infer others' emotions, discern kin
from non-kin, identify and prefer healthier mates, and cooperate with others. They report successful
tests of theoretical predictions related to such topics as infanticide, intelligence, marriage patterns,
promiscuity, perception of beauty, bride price and parental investment.[6]
The theories and findings of EP have applications in many fields,
including economics, law, psychiatry, politics, andliterature.[7][8]
Controversies concerning EP involve questions of testability, cognitive and evolutionary assumptions
(such as modular functioning of the brain or the ancestral environment), importance of non-genetic
and non-adaptive explanations, as well as political and ethical issues due to interpretations of research
results.[9]
The modern evolutionary synthesis (intro) is a union of ideas from several biological specialties
which provides a widely accepted account of evolution. It is also referred to as the new synthesis,
the modern synthesis, the evolutionary synthesis,millennium synthesis and the neo-darwinian
synthesis.
The synthesis, produced between 1936 and 1947, reflects the current consensus.[1] The previous
development of population genetics, between 1918 and 1932, was a stimulus, as it showed that
Mendelian genetics was consistent with natural selection and gradual evolution. The synthesis is still,
to a large extent, the current paradigm in evolutionary biology.[2]
The modern synthesis solved difficulties and confusions caused by the specialisation and poor
communication between biologists in the early years of the 20th century. At its heart was the question
of whether Mendelian genetics could be reconciled with gradual evolution by means of natural
selection. A second issue was whether the broad-scale changes (macroevolution) seen by
palaeontologists could be explained by changes seen in local populations (microevolution).
The synthesis included evidence from biologists, trained in genetics, who studied populations in the
field and in the laboratory. These studies were crucial to evolutionary theory. The synthesis drew
together ideas from several branches of biology which had become separated,
particularly genetics, cytology, systematics, botany, morphology, ecology and paleontology.
Julian Huxley invented the term, when he produced his book, Evolution: The Modern
Synthesis (1942). Other major figures in the modern synthesis include R. A. Fisher, Theodosius
Dobzhansky, J. B. S. Haldane, Sewall Wright, E. B. Ford, Ernst Mayr,Bernhard Rensch, Sergei
Chetverikov, George Gaylord Simpson, and G. Ledyard Stebbins.
[edit]Naturalistic pantheism
According to naturalistic pantheism, the meaning of life is to care for and look after nature and the
environment.
[edit]Eglis Observation
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adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may
be challenged and removed. (November 2011)
The physicist David Egli proposes an Observation that there are only two possibilities for the meaning
of life:
1. Everything is the product of coincidence.
2. There is a higher power or, if you want to call it like this, a God who is behind some of the
coincidences, and not everything is coincidence.
The first case leads to Absurdism, meaning that nothing makes sense at all, because coincidences
never make sense. This would mean that every life of every human being is senseless. Also things like
love or preserving human life or a good conscience.
In the second case, the question remains of what nature this God is in order to speculate what the
meaning of life could be. If this God is a person, it implies, that the meaning of life is, what this God
intends it to be. In this case it is also natural to suppose that all life came into existence by intention of
that God. It then is quite obvious, that the meaning of life must have something to do with this God, or
that even He himself is the meaning of life. But still the question of the character of that God remains.
The first conclusion could be that God is a devil because of all the terrible things in this world. But
there are also things in this world only a loving and holy God would create like love, forgiveness,
mercy, grace, joy, beauty, nature. Suppose God is evil, then the meaning of live would be to be evil. It
is quite natural to conclude that this can't be the meaning of life, and if it would be, life would not be
worth living, and therefore the conclusion is that God is perfectly good and there is absolutely no evil in
the character of God, because otherwise God would still be evil. But if God is absolutely good, why
does He expose man to evil, or what is the meaning of this life where both the good and the evil
coexist? Obviously if God is perfectly good, then the evil cannot be the final thing, but still the evil is
here, why? If we think further, even we ourselves are evil, because we all do evil things everyday. So if
we are evil and God is perfectly good, it is obvious that God wants to deliver us from evil, but there
must be a purpose in creating us evil first. If God is perfectly good, He wants us to love him. But love is
based on free will. A robot cannot have true love. Therefore love cannot exist, if there is not the
possibility for hatred. Even our love will be proven the most, if we love in spite of evil. Like the love of
Jesus for God and mankind in spite of his crucifixion. It seems natural, that the meaning of life is to
choose. Either choose evil or either choose love and good. In this case the meaning of life is to choose
the good in spite of evil. If God is perfectly good, then the good is actually God. This means the sense
of life is to choose God in spite of evil. This also explains the purpose of evil. The purpose of evil is to
prove and mature our love and our mercy.
Scientific inquiry and perspectives
DNA, the substance containing the genetic instructions for the development and functioning of all knownliving
organisms.
Members of the scientific community and philosophy-of-science communities believe that science may
be able to provide some context, and set some parameters for conversations on topics related to
meaning in life. This includes offering insights from the science of happiness or studies of death
anxiety. This also means providing context for, and understanding of life itself through explorations of
the theories related to the big bang, abiogenesis and evolution.
[edit]Psychological significance and value in life
Science may or may not be able to tell us what is of essential value in life (and various materialist
philosophies such as dialectical materialism challenge the very idea of an absolute value or meaning
of life), but some studies definitely bear on aspects of the question: researchers in positive
psychology (and, earlier and less rigorously, in humanistic psychology) study factors that lead to life
satisfaction,[90]full engagement in activities,[91] making a fuller contribution by utilizing one's personal
strengths,[92] and meaning based on investing in something larger than the self.[93]
One value system suggested by social psychologists, broadly called Terror Management Theory,
states that all human meaning is derived out of a fundamental fear of death, whereby values are
selected when they allow us to escape the mental reminder of death.
Neuroscience has produced theories of reward, pleasure, and motivation in terms of physical entities
such as neurotransmitter activity, especially in the limbic system and the ventral tegmental area in
particular. If one believes that the meaning of life is to maximize pleasure, then these theories give
normative predictions about how to act to achieve this. Likewise, some ethical naturalists advocate
a science of morality - the empirical pursuit of flourishing for all conscious creatures.
Sociology examines value at a social level using theoretical constructs such as value theory,
norms, anomie, etc.
[edit]Origin and nature of biological life
The exact mechanisms of abiogenesis are unknown: notable theories include the RNA world
hypothesis (RNA-based replicators) and theiron-sulfur world theory (metabolism without genetics). The
theory of evolution does not attempt to explain the origin of life but the process by which different
lifeforms have developed throughout history via genetic mutation and natural selection.[94] At the end of
the 20th century, based upon insight gleaned from the gene-centered view of evolution,
biologists George C. Williams, Richard Dawkins, David Haig, among others, conclude that if there is a
primary function to life, it is the replication of DNA and the survival of one's genes.[95][96]
However, though scientists have intensively studied life on Earth, defining life in unequivocal terms is
still a challenge.[97][98] Physically, one may say that life "feeds onnegative entropy"[99][100] which refers to
the process by which living entities decrease their internal entropy at the expense of some form
of energy taken in from the environment.[101][102] Biologists generally agree that lifeforms are self-
organizing systems regulating the internal environment as to maintain this organized
state,metabolism serves to provide energy, and reproduction causes life to continue over a span of
multiple generations. Typically, organisms are responsive to stimuli and genetic information tends to
change from generation to generation resulting in adaptation through evolution, these characteristics
optimizing the chances of survival for the individual organism and its descendants respectively.[103]
Non-cellular replicating agents, notably viruses, are generally not considered to be organisms because
they are incapable of "independent" reproduction or metabolism. This controversy is problematic,
though, since some parasites and endosymbionts are also incapable of independent
life. Astrobiology studies the possibility of different forms of life on other worlds, such as replicating
structures made from materials other than DNA.
[edit]Origins and ultimate fate of the universe
The metric expansion of space. The inflationary epoch is the expansion of the metric tensor at left.
Though the Big Bang model was met with much skepticism when first introduced, partially because it
appears to contradict some models of the religious concept of creation, it has become well-supported
by several independent observations.[104] However, current physics can only describe the early
universe from 10−43 seconds after the Big Bang (where zero time corresponds to infinite temperature);
a theory of quantum gravity would be required to go further back in time. Nevertheless, many
physicists have speculated about what would have preceded this limit, and how the universe came
into being.[105] Some physicists think that the Big Bang occurred coincidentally, and when considering
the anthropic principle, it is most often interpreted as implying the existence of a multiverse.[106]
The ultimate fate of the universe, and implicitly humanity, is hypothesized as one in which biological
life will eventually become unsustainable, be it through a Big Freeze, Big Rip, or Big Crunch. However,
there are conceivable ways in which these fates can be avoided, as it may be possible given
sufficiently advanced technology to survive indefinitely by directing the flow of energy on a cosmic
scale and altering the fate of the universe.[105][page needed]
[edit]Scientific questions about the mind
The true nature and origin of consciousness and the mind itself are also widely debated in science.
The explanatory gap is generally equated with the hard problem of consciousness, and the question
of free will is also considered to be of fundamental importance. These subjects are mostly addressed
in the fields of cognitive science,neuroscience (e.g. the neuroscience of free will) and philosophy of
mind, though some evolutionary biologists and theoretical physicists have also made several allusions
to the subject.[107][108]
Hieronymus Bosch's Ascent of the Blessed depicts a tunnel of light and spiritual figures, often described in reports
ofnear-death experiences.
Reductionistic and eliminative materialistic approaches, for example the Multiple Drafts Model, hold
that consciousness can be wholly explained by neuroscience through the workings of the brain and
its neurons, thus adhering to biological naturalism.[108][109][110]
On the other hand, some scientists, like Andrei Linde, have considered that consciousness, like
spacetime, might have its own intrinsic degrees of freedom, and that one's perceptions may be as real
as (or even more real than) material objects.[111] Hypotheses of consciousness and spacetime explain
consciousness in describing a "space of conscious elements",[111] often encompassing a number of
extra dimensions.[112] Electromagnetic theories of consciousness solve the binding problem of
consciousness in saying that the electromagnetic field generated by the brain is the actual carrier of
conscious experience, there is however disagreement about the implementations of such a theory
relating to other workings of the mind.[113][114] Quantum mind theories use quantum theory in explaining
certain properties of the mind. Explaining the process of free will through quantum phenomena is a
popular alternative todeterminism, such postulations may variously relate free will to quantum
fluctuations,[115] quantum amplification,[116] quantum potential[115] and quantum probability.[117]
Based on the premises of non-materialistic explanations of the mind, some have suggested the
existence of a cosmic consciousness, asserting that consciousness is actually the "ground of all
being".[15][116][118] Proponents of this view cite accounts of paranormalphenomena,
primarily extrasensory perceptions and psychic powers, as evidence for an incorporeal higher
consciousness. In hopes of proving the existence of these phenomena, parapsychologists have
orchestrated various experiments. Meta-analyses of these experiments indicate that the effect size
(though very small) has been relatively consistent, resulting in an overall statistical significance.[119][120]
[121] Although some critical analysts feel that parapsychological study is scientific, they are not satisfied
with its experimental results.[122][123] Skeptical reviewers contend that apparently successful results are
more likely due to sloppy procedures, poorly trained researchers, or methodological flaws than to
actual effects.[124][125][126][127]
[edit]In popular culture
Charles Allan Gilbert's All is Vanity,an example of vanitas,depicts a youngwoman gazing at her reflection in
a mirror, but all is positioned in such a way as to make the image of a skullappear.
The mystery of life and its meaning is an often recurring subject in popular culture, featured
in entertainment media and various forms ofart.
In Douglas Adams' popular comedy book, movie, television, and radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy, the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything is given the
numeric solution "42", after seven and a half million years of calculation by a
giant supercomputer called Deep Thought. When this answer is met with confusion and anger from
humanity, Deep Thought explains that "I think the problem, to be quite honest with you, is that you've
never actually known what the question is."[5][7][11][128] In the continuation of the book, the question is
proposed to be the song of Bob Dylan "How many roads must a man walk down, before you can call
him a man.". The book later states that the question is 6x9 which of course does not equal 42 and
does in fact answer 54. Coincidentally, in the genealogy of Jesus from Matthew 1 in the Christian Bible
states that there were 42 generations from Abraham to Jesus.
Hamlet with Yorick's skull
In Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, there are several allusions to the meaning of life. At the end of
the film, a character played by Michael Palin is handed an envelope containing "the meaning of life",
which he opens and reads out to the audience: "Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try to be nice to
people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live
together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations."[129][130][131] Many other Python
sketches and songs are also existential in nature, questioning the importance we place on life
("Always Look on the Bright Side of Life") and other meaning-of-life related questioning. John Cleese
also had his sit-com character Basil Fawlty contemplating the futility of his own existence in Fawlty
Towers.
In The Simpsons episode "Homer the Heretic", a representation of God agrees to tell Homer what the
meaning of life is, but the show's credits begin to roll just as he starts to say what it is.[132]
Sociocultural evolution(ism) is an umbrella term for theories of cultural evolution and social
evolution, describing how culturesand societies have changed over time. Note that "sociocultural
evolution" is not an equivalent of "sociocultural development" (unified processes of differentiation and
integration involving increases in sociocultural complexity), as sociocultural evolution also
encompasses sociocultural transformations accompanied by decreases of complexity (degeneration)
as well as ones not accompanied by any significant changes of sociocultural complexity
(cladogenesis).[1] Thus, sociocultural evolution can be defined as "the process by which structural
reorganization is affected through time, eventually producing a form or structure which is qualitatively
different from the ancestral form.
Most 19th century and some 20th century approaches aimed to provide models for the evolution
of humankind as a whole, arguing that different societies are at different stages of social development.
The most comprehensive attempt to develop a general theory of social evolution centering on the
development of socio-cultural systems was done by Talcott Parsons on a scale which included a
theory of world-history. Another attempt both on a less systematic scale was attempted by World
System approach.
Many of the more recent 20th-century approaches focus on changes specific to individual societies
and reject the idea of directional change, or social progress. Most archaeologists and cultural
anthropologists work within the framework of modern theories of sociocultural evolution. Modern
approaches to sociocultural evolution include neoevolutionism, sociobiology, the theory of
modernization and the theory of postindustrial society.
Sociobiology
Main article: Sociobiology
Sociobiology departs perhaps the furthest from classical social evolutionism.[20] It was introduced
by Edward Wilson in his 1975 book Sociobiology: The New Synthesis and followed his adaptation of
evolutionary theory to the field of social sciences. Wilson pioneered the attempt to explain the
evolutionary mechanics behind social behaviours such as altruism, aggression, and nurturance.[20] In
doing so, Wilson sparked one of the greatest scientific controversies of the 20th century.[20]
The current theory of evolution, the modern evolutionary synthesis (or neo-darwinism), explains
that evolution of species occurs through a combination of Darwin's mechanism of natural
selection and Gregor Mendel's theory of genetics as the basis for biological inheritance and
mathematical population genetics.[20] Essentially, the modern synthesis introduced the connection
between two important discoveries; the units of evolution (genes) with the main mechanism of
evolution (selection).[20]
Due to its close reliance on biology, sociobiology is often considered a branch of the biology and
sociology disciplines, although it uses techniques from a plethora of sciences,
including ethology, evolution, zoology, archaeology, population genetics, and many others. Within the
study of human societies, sociobiology is closely related to the fields of human behavioral
ecology and evolutionary psychology.
Sociobiology has remained highly controversial as it contends genes explain specific human
behaviours, although sociobiologists describe this role as a very complex and often unpredictable
interaction between nature and nurture. The most notable critics of the view that genes play a direct
role in human behaviour have been biologists Richard Lewontin and Stephen Jay Gould.
Since the rise of evolutionary psychology, another school of thought, Dual Inheritance Theory, has
emerged in the past 25 years that applies the mathematical standards ofPopulation genetics to
modeling the adaptive and selective principles of culture. This school of thought was pioneered
by Robert Boyd at UCLA and Peter Richerson at UC Davis and expanded by William Wimsatt, among
others. Boyd and Richerson's book, Culture and the Evolutionary Process (1985),[6] was a highly
mathematical description of cultural change, later published in a more accessible form in Not by
Genes Alone (2004). [7] In Boyd and Richerson's view, cultural evolution, operating on socially learned
information, exists on a separate but co-evolutionary track from genetic evolution, and while the two
are related, cultural evolution is more dynamic, rapid, and influential on human society than genetic
evolution. Dual Inheritance Theory has the benefit of providing unifying territory for a "nature and
nurture" paradigm and accounts for more accurate phenomenon in evolutionary theory applied to
culture, such as randomness effects (drift), concentration dependency, "fidelity" of evolving information
systems, and lateral transmission through communication.[21]
Contemporary discourse about sociocultural evolution
The Cold War period was marked by rivalry between two superpowers, both of which considered
themselves to be the most highly evolved cultures on the planet. The USSR painted itself as
a socialistsociety which emerged out of class struggle, destined to reach the state of communism,
while sociologists in the United States (such as Talcott Parsons) argued that the freedom and
prosperity of the United States were a proof of a higher level of sociocultural evolution of its culture
and society. At the same time, decolonization created newly independent countries who sought to
become more developed—-a model of progress and industrialization which was itself a form of
sociocultural evolution.
There is, however, a tradition in European social theory from Rousseau to Max Weber arguing that
this progression coincides with a loss of human freedom and dignity. At the height of the Cold War,
this tradition merged with an interest in ecology to influence an activist culture in the 1960s. This
movement produced a variety of political and philosophical programs which emphasized the
importance of bringing society and the environment into harmony.
Current political theories of the new tribalists consciously mimic ecology and the life-ways
of indigenous peoples, augmenting them with modern sciences. Ecoregional Democracy attempts to
confine the "shifting groups", or tribes, within "more or less clear boundaries" that a society inherits
from the surrounding ecology, to the borders of a naturally occurring ecoregion.
Progress can proceed by competition between but not within tribes, and it is limited by ecological
borders or by Natural Capitalism incentives which attempt to mimic the pressure of natural
selection on a human society by forcing it to adapt consciously to scarce energy or
materials. Gaians argue that societies evolve deterministically to play a role in the ecology of
their biosphere, or else die off as failures due to competition from more efficient societies exploiting
nature's leverage.
Thus, some have appealed to theories of sociocultural evolution to assert that optimizing the ecology
and the social harmony of closely knit groups is more desirable or necessary than the progression to
"civilization." A 2002 poll of experts on Neoarctic and Neotropic indigenous peoples (reported
in Harper's magazine) revealed that all of them would have preferred to be a typical New World person
in the year 1491, prior to any European contact, rather than a typical European of that time.
This approach has been criticised by pointing out that there are a number of historical examples of
indigenous peoples doing severe environmental damage (such as thedeforestation of Easter
Island and the extinction of mammoths in North America) and that proponents of the goal have been
trapped by the European stereotype of the noble savage.
Today, postmodernists question whether the notions of evolution or society have inherent meaning
and whether they reveal more about the person doing the description than the thing being described.
Observing and observed cultures may lack sufficient cultural similarities (such as a
common foundation ontology) to be able to communicate their respective priorities easily. Or, one may
impose such a system of belief and judgment upon another, via conquest or colonization. For
instance, observation of very different ideas of mathematics and physics in indigenous peoples led
indirectly to ideas such as George Lakoff's "cognitive science of mathematics", which asks if
measurement systems themselves can be objective.
Keith E. Stanovich is the Canada Research Chair of Applied Cognitive Science at the Department of
Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto. His research areas are
the psychology of reasoning and the psychology of reading. His research in the field of reading was
fundamental to the emergence of today's scientific consensus about what reading is, how it works and
what it does for the mind. His research on the cognitive basis of rationality has been featured in the
journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences and in recent books by Yale University Press and University of
Chicago Press. His book, What Intelligence Tests Miss, won the 2010 Grawemeyer Award in
Education.
[edit]Academic career
Cognitive scientist and psychologist Keith E. Stanovich has done extensive research on reading,
language disabilities and the psychology of rational thought. His classic article on the Matthew
Effect in Education has been cited over 1000 times in the scientific literature. He is the author of over
175 scientific articles, several of which have become Current Contents Citation Classics. Stanovich
coined the term dysrationalia to refer to the tendency toward irrational thinking and action despite
adequate intelligence. In several recent books he has explored the concept as well as the relation
between rationality and intelligence.
In a three-year survey of citation rates during the mid-1990s (see Byrnes, J. P. (1997). Explaining
citation counts of senior developmental psychologists. Developmental Review, 17, 62-77), Stanovich
was listed as one of the 50 most-cited developmental psychologists. Recently, he was named one of
the 25 most productive educational psychologists (see Smith, M. C., et al., Productivity of educational
psychologists in educational psychology journals, 1997-2001. Contemporary Educational Psychology,
28, 422-430). In a citation survey of the period 1982-1992, he was designated the most cited reading
disability researcher in the world (Nicolson, R. I. Developmental dyslexia: Past, present and future.
Dyslexia, 1996, 2, 190-207).
Stanovich is the only two-time winner of the Albert J. Harris Award from the International Reading
Association for influential articles on reading. In 1995 he was elected to the Reading Hall of Fame as
the youngest member of that honorary society. In 1996 he was given the Oscar Causey Award from
the National Reading Conference for contributions to research, in 1997 he was given the Sylvia
Scribner Award from the American Educational Research Association, and in 2000 he received the
Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading.
Stanovich is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (Divisions 3 [experimental], 7
[developmental], 8 [Personality & Social], & 15 [Educational]), the American Psychological Society, the
International Academy for Research in Learning Disabilities, and is a Charter Member of the Society
for the Scientific Study of Reading. He was a member of the Committee on the Prevention of Reading
Difficulties in Young Children of National Research Council/National Academy of Sciences. From
1986-2000 Stanovich was the Associate Editor of Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, a leading journal of human
development.
He has had two long-term collaborators in his career, Anne Cunningham and Richard West. Stanovich
and West were graduate students at the University of Michigantogether. These relationships had their
roots in the 1970s and the three of them still work together. Another longstanding colleague is Maggie
Toplak, of York University in Toronto.
Neural Darwinism, a large scale theory of brain function by Gerald Edelman, was initially published in
1978, in a book called The Mindful Brain (MIT Press). It was extended and published in the 1989
book Neural Darwinism – The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection.
Edelman won the Nobel Prize in 1972 for his work in immunology showing how the population
of lymphocytes capable of binding to a foreign antigen is increased by differential clonal multiplication
following antigen discovery. Essentially, this proved that the human body is capable of
creating complex adaptive systems as a result of local events with feedback. Edelman's interest in
selective systems expanded into the fields of neurobiology and neurophysiology, and in Neural
Darwinism, Edelman puts forth a theory called "neuronal group selection". It contains three major
parts:
1. Anatomical connectivity in the brain occurs via selective mechanochemical events that take
place epigenetically during development. This creates a diverse primary repertoire by
differential reproduction.
2. Once structural diversity is established anatomically, a second selective process occurs
during postnatal behavioral experience through epigenetic modifications in the strength
of synaptic connections between neuronal groups. This creates a diverse secondary
repertoire by differential amplification.
3. Reentrant signaling between neuronal groups allows for spatiotemporal continuity in response
to real-world interactions.
[edit]Degeneracy
With neuronal heterogeneity (by Edelman called degeneracy), it is possible to test the many circuits
(on the order of 30 billion neurons with an estimated one quadrillion connections between them in the
human brain) with a diverse set of inputs, to see which neuronal groups respond "appropriately"
statistically. Functional "distributed" (widespread) brain circuits thus emerge as a result.
Edelman goes into some detail about how brain development depends on a variety of cell adhesion
molecules (CAMs) and substrate adhesion molecules (SAMs) on cell surfaces which allow cells to
dynamically control their intercellular binding properties. This surface modulation allows cell collectives
to effectively "signal" as the group aggregates, which helps govern morphogenesis. So morphology
depends on CAM and SAM function. And CAM and SAM function also depend on developing
morphology.
Edelman theorized that cell proliferation, cell migration, cell death, neuron arbor distribution,
and neurite branching are also governed by similar selective processes.
[edit]Synaptic modification
Once the basic variegated anatomical structure of the brain is laid down during early development, it is
more or less fixed. But given the numerous and diverse collection of available circuitry, there are
bound to be functionally equivalent albeit anatomically non-isomorphic neuronal groups capable of
responding to certain sensory input. This creates a competitive environment where circuit groups
proficient in their responses to certain inputs are "chosen" through the enhancement of the
synaptic efficacies of the selected network. This leads to an increased probability that the same
network will respond to similar or identical signals at a future time. This occurs through the
strengthening of neuron-to-neuron synapses. And these adjustments allow for neural plasticity along a
fairly quick timetable.
[edit]Reentry
Main article: Reentry (neural circuitry)
The last part of the theory attempts to explain how we experience spatiotemporal consistency in our
interaction with environmental stimuli. Edelman called it "reentry" and proposes a model of reentrant
signaling whereby a disjunctive, multimodal sampling of the same stimulus event correlated in time
leads to self-organizing intelligence. Put another way, multiple neuronal groups can be used to sample
a given stimulus set in parallel and communicate between these disjunctive groups with incurred
latency.
[edit]Support for the theory
It has been suggested that Friedrich Hayek had earlier proposed a similar idea in his book The
Sensory Order: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology, published in 1952
(Herrmann-Pillath, 1992). Other leading proponents include Jean-Pierre Changeux, Daniel
Dennett, William H. Calvin, and Linda B. Smith.
[edit]Criticism of the theory
Criticism of Neural "Darwinism" was made by Francis Crick who pointed to the absence of replication
in the theory, a requirement for natural selection. Recent work has proposed means by which true
replication may take place in the brain (Fernando, Karishma & Szathmary, 2008). Furthermore, by
adding Hebbian learning to neuronal replicators the power of neuronal evolutionary computation may
actually be greater than natural selection in organisms (Fernando, Goldstein & Szathmary, 2010).
Freedom Evolves is a 2003 popular science and philosophy book by Daniel C. Dennett. Dennett
describes the book as an installment of a life-long philosophical project, earlier parts of which
were The Intentional Stance, Consciousness Explained andElbow Room. It attempts to give an
account of free will and moral responsibility which is complementary to Dennett's other views
on consciousness and personhood.
[edit]Synopsis
As in Consciousness Explained, Dennett advertises the controversial nature of his views extensively in
advance. He expects hostility from those who fear that a skeptical analysis of freedom will undermine
people's belief in the reality of moral considerations; he likens himself to an interfering crow who
insists on telling Dumbo he doesn't really need the feather he believes is allowing him to fly.
[edit]Free will and altruism
Dennett's stance on free will is compatibilism with an evolutionary twist – the view that, although in the
strict physical sense our actions might be pre-determined, we can still be free in all the ways that
matter, because of the abilities we evolved. Free will, seen this way, is about freedom to make
decisions without duress, as opposed to an impossible and unnecessary freedom from causality itself.
To clarify this distinction, he coins the term 'evitability' as the opposite of 'inevitability', defining it as the
ability of an agent to anticipate likely consequences and act to avoid undesirable ones. Evitability is
entirely compatible with, and actually requires, human action being deterministic. Dennett moves on
to altruism, denying that it requires acting to the benefit of others without gaining any benefit yourself.
He argues that it should be understood in terms of helping yourself by helping others, expanding the
self to be more inclusive as opposed to being selfless. To show this blend, he calls such actions
'benselfish', and finds the roots of our capacity for this in the evolutionary pressures that produced kin
selection. In his treatment of both free will and altruism, he starts by showing why we should not
accept the traditional definitions of either term. This strategy comes down to dissolving problems,
instead of solving them. Rather than try to answer certain flawed questions, he questions the
assumptions of the questions themselves and undermines them.
[edit]Beneficial mutual arrangements
Dennett also suggests that adherence to high ethical standards might pay off for the individual,
because if others know your behaviour is restricted in these ways, the scope for certain beneficial
mutual arrangements is enhanced. This is related to game theoretical considerations: in the
famous Prisoner's Dilemma, 'moral' agents who cooperate will be more successful than 'non-moral'
agents who do not cooperate. Cooperation wouldn't seem to naturally arise since agents are tempted
to 'defect' and restore a Nash equilibrium, which is often not the best possible solution for all involved.
Dennett concludes by contemplating the possibility that people might be able to opt in or out of moral
responsibility: surely, he suggests, given the benefits, they would choose to opt in, especially given
that opting out includes such things as being imprisoned or institutionalized.
[edit]Libet's experiments
Daniel Dennett also argues that no clear conclusion about volition can be derived from Benjamin
Libet's experiments supposedly demonstrating the non-existence of conscious volition. According to
Dennett, ambiguities in the timings of the different events involved. Libet tells when the readiness
potential occurs objectively, using electrodes, but relies on the subject reporting the position of the
hand of a clock to determine when the conscious decision was made. As Dennett points out, this is
only a report of where it seems to the subject that various things come together, not of the objective
time at which they actually occur.
Suppose Libet knows that your readiness potential peaked at millisecond 6,810 of the experimental
trial, and the clock dot was straight down (which is what you reported you saw) at millisecond 7,005.
How many milliseconds should he have to add to this number to get the time you were conscious of it?
The light gets from your clock face to your eyeball almost instantaneously, but the path of the signals
from retina through lateral geniculate nucleus to striate cortex takes 5 to 10 milliseconds — a paltry
fraction of the 300 milliseconds offset, but how much longer does it take them to get to you. (Or are
you located in the striate cortex?) The visual signals have to be processed before they arrive at
wherever they need to arrive for you to make a conscious decision of simultaneity. Libet's method
presupposes, in short, that we can locate the intersection of two trajectories: • the rising-to-
consciousness of signals representing the decision to flick • the rising to consciousness of signals
representing successive clock-face orientations so that these events occur side-by-side as it were in
place where their simultaneity can be noted.
[1][2]
[edit]Robert Kane
Dennett spends a chapter criticising Robert Kane's theory of libertarian free will. Kane believes
freedom is based on certain rare and exceptional events, which he calls self-forming actions or SFA's.
Dennett notes that there is no guarantee such an event will occur in an individual's life. If it does not,
the individual does not in fact have free will at all, according to Kane. Yet they will seem the same as
anyone else. Dennett finds an essentially indetectable notion of free will to be incredible.