ravens can't rave. — unenlightened

Oh, I don't know: A dancing crow

Peckish maybe, but hardly ravenous. Looks a bit tame for a rave anyway, I mean rave - on carpet?

Yes, but what is the rule that ensures survival? — Roy Davies

Seriously, for a moment... Dawkins played with this, talking about memes. But look at nature and see if you can find a rule. The only one I can think of is 'don't destroy the environment you depend on.'

It would be nice if truth or usefulness or intelligence were aids to survival, but dogmatic simplicity and narrative empathy do pretty well too. Perhaps ideas that can stick together and make a coherent whole have an advantage in forming a stable ideo-system.

Think rhymes and rule of three, think rhetoric. I imagine science as a top predator; powerful against weaker less substantial religious ideas, but sadly unaware of its total dependence on the complex web of morals and customs that make education to such heights possible.

But look at nature and see if you can find a rule. The only one I can think of is 'don't destroy the environment you depend on.' — unenlightened

The problem with a collection of self-interested persons or self-conserving structures is that they always seek to conserve their local environments and autonomy (power) at someone/thing else's expense. This works as much in a symbiotic relationship as a parasitic one.

I bite into a KitKat bar with no knowledge of the physical/social monstrosity behind it because to some extent it is irrational to think about with regard to the priorities of self-interest. It is not in my interest to justify what I do. I want a KitKat bar. I want a job at the KitKat bar factory... in the white collar part... so I can buy more KitKat bars.

of self-interested persons or self-conserving structures — Nils Loc

Bloody Dawkins. Utter not these terms in the same breath. The notion that genes are selfish is an analogy. Accordingly, take note that a self- interested person is not necessarily self-conserving, and vice versa. If you eat too many KitKats you will get fat and die young.

The notion that genes are selfish is an analogy. — unenlightened

Genes are selfish like dogs are selfish. To call a dog selfish is an analogy because a dog has no self to conserve. :sad:

Genes are selfish like dogs are selfish. To call a dog selfish is an analogy because a dog has no self to conserve. :P — Nils Loc

But nobody calls dogs selfish; cats, maybe. Anyway dogs think they are humans so they must think they have selves, and as Descartes demonstrated, there is nothing more to being a self than the thought.

The notion that genes are selfish is an analogy. Accordingly, take note that a self-interested person is not necessarily self-conserving, and vice versa. If you eat too many KitKats you will get fat and die young. — unenlightened

Dying young from KitKat gluttony expresses mindless self-conservatism (analogical selfishness) which is only distinguishable from self-interest in that the latter rationalizes after the fact with a personal narrative, it seems to me.

Philosophy is like a bull that asks ideas out, entertains them, has a few drinks with them, dances with them in the dark, then f them brutally, without any regard whether it was good for the idea as well or not.

Genes are selfish like dogs are selfish. To call a dog selfish is an analogy because a dog has no self to conserve. — Nils Loc

But surely you can call a shellfish selfish. Or a shelf-ish piece of furniture shelfish. Or a selfish person when you are drunk shelfish.

EDIT: Maybe this is what you referred to as "trashing threads" in your post to me? Here I am not intending to trash... instead, make a play on words. It's not germane to the topic, so you can ask the mods to delete this post. Mine here is an innocuous fancy of word play. To say I am trashing your post is a misinterpretation. If not of the fact, at least of my intention.

I’m interested in the nature of ideas. I have a theory that ideas can be modelled as organisms and evolve according to the process of survival of the fittest. From a cognitive science point of view, this makes some sense because an idea is taken into someone’s mental framework if it fits in some way with what they already believe. So, if we consider human minds to be the environment in which ideas breed and grow, then I wonder what the measure of fitness is for an idea? — Roy Davies

Interesting proposition. Ideas are not reproducing by themselves; it is the mind that makes similar, but not identical, replicas of an idea when it progresses it in a line of thought. So if you insist that it's an evolution, of an organism, ideas are, then I suggest that ideas are parasites that completely depend on their hosts for survival, and their transmission from host to host happens by way of language and communication of thought.

If you think, @Nils Loc, that my bull-example or analogy of what philosophy is, I patterned after the quote below. I carried the joke and the analogy to a different field of biological and social similarity to philosophy. That's all. I wasn't trashing anything or anyone. I responded with a jokular joke to another previous joke.

Philosophy is like a cow that eats ideas and shits all over them and also enriches the soil.
— unenlightened

I think this has to be the quote of year... Though perhaps one could even say that "Philosophy is like a cow that eats ideas, chews over them again and again like it chews its cud, digests them, and shits them out thus enriching the soil to grow new ideas." — Roy Davies

Accordingly, take note that a self- interested person is not necessarily self-conserving, and vice versa. — unenlightened

The basic fact though is organisms use up scarce resources to sustain themselves and that this adaptive functionality is mediated by genes through natural selection. All creatures are self-conserving insofar as they are living things. How long does one need to live in order to be called "self-interested"? Do we require theory of mind? To be interested in others is to be self-interested insofar as one depends on others to survive or not.

If you were a three headed person and I was one of the heads we might need to coordinate ourselves to go buy a KitKat. It would depend on who controls what and the consequence of a distribution of other traits. Would I have the freedom to eat as many KitKats as I wanted?

If you were a sheep farmer and wolves were eating your sheep you'd shoot the wolves, law permitting. This is not a morally circumscribed action until it becomes one by an outside concern. The interest of other selves come to bear on your lifestyle and you may not take kindly to the hardship it imposes on you.

I responded with a jokular joke to another previous joke. — god must be atheist

Yes. Just seemed kind of irreverent, mocking and superfluous.

I don't have a dog, but I know that cats can be selfish. If I put a pile of treats between our two cats, they won't stand back to let the other one in first.

Interesting proposition. Ideas are not reproducing by themselves; it is the mind that makes similar, but not identical, replicas of an idea when it progresses it in a line of thought. So if you insist that it's an evolution, of an organism, ideas are, then I suggest that ideas are parasites that completely depend on their hosts for survival, and their transmission from host to host happens by way of language and communication of thought. — god must be atheist

An interesting and valid point. Of course, parasites evolve as well. One area where the analogy breaks down is that ideas are not self ambulatory, and have no mind of their own, so to speak. They don't direct their actions towards survival - there is no will or force to survive, if that is what one can call it. This has to be artificially induced.

I'm coming at this more from an evolutionary algorithms point of view, which is an approximation of the evolutionary process as modelled in a computer. In that instance, one constructs the whole evolutionary process in order to attempt to achieve a desired goal. A key question is always the choice of the 'fitness function' which determines which 'organisms' survive each generation and can 'reproduce'. I put these terms in quotes because thse are numbers in a computer and mathematical functions, but the concepts are the same.

My thesis is that a similar approach could be used to direct people's thinking towards ideas that are beneficial for the planet, societies and each other. But in this case, the computer is 'wetware' (our brains) rather than hardware, and the 'software' is probably managed through the internet. This is already happening, but not to a positive effect with the likes of facebook.

But surely you can call a shellfish selfish. Or a shelf-ish piece of furniture shelfish. Or a selfish person when you are drunk shelfish. — god must be atheist

Sometimes a little humour can help lighten the mood.

This is not a morally circumscribed action until it becomes one by an outside concern. The interest of other selves come to bear on your lifestyle and you may not take kindly to the hardship it imposes on you. — Nils Loc

This is the crux of the dilemma facing decisions made for the best of the planet, societies and people. We are now having the interests of another self (the planet) imposed on us through increased climate variability, and people don't like it.

Another theory of ideas comes more from the cognitive and behavioural science areas. We perceive, and this activates parts of our brains. Through interaction, we learn about the world around us, and formulate more complex ideas, and even abstract concepts. So, a simplified view of that is that all ideas are in essence laid over the top of existing ideas in a framework that exists inside our heads. One can argue that all learning and hence ideas is a part of metaphor building, in that all ideas have to somehow link to other ideas otherwise they don't fit well within the mind.

From a neural network point of view, the same sort of the things happens - one can train a neural network to respond in certain ways to patterns of input. Patterns of input that are close to but not exactly the same would generally produce an output that is some combination of the learned responses for which the input pattern is closest. Further, if one was to retrain a neural network without first wiping it, it will learn more quickly to respond to inputs that are similar to previously trained inputs/output combinations. This seems to be analgous how animals find it easy to learn things that are similar to something they already know (ie metaphors).

Just thinking further about the difference between ideas and organisms. True, an idea doesn't itself have a will, but does it induce a will in the mind that thinks it? An idea that fits well into a mind induces senses of pleasure in the organism, and thus the idea is accepted and incorporated into existing ideas, and thus it combines with other ideas and becomes part of the a chain of reasoning that propogates.

An idea that fits well into a mind induces senses of pleasure in the organism, and thus the idea is accepted and incorporated into existing ideas, and thus it combines with other ideas and becomes part of the a chain of reasoning that propogates. — Roy Davies

What you are describing is a mental algorithm. I have gone as far as to say consciousness works something like this. It is a great way for biological systems to self organize, but in a world of eight billion people and growing, I feel, it is not going to work. One person's pleasurable idea is another person's or something's painful idea. How this plays out on the world stage is going to be mostly painful, as a few powerful people enact pleasurable ideas that are ultimately painful for the great many.

Yes, the fitness for survival of an idea would be largely determined by it being painful or pleasurable, and this would be the underlying algorithm underpinning the ideas that have created the world as we know it. Unfortunately we also know the world to be in a precarious state, and I feel it can not take much more of the same.

the fitness for survival of an idea would be largely determined by it being painful or pleasurable — Pop

The idea of a loving and omnipotent god. Survived and spread like wildfire from day one of its inception.

It is a great way for biological systems to self organize, but in a world of eight billion people and growing, I feel, it is not going to work. — Pop

Fornicating is still the most pleasurable activity... not idea creation. Hence the overpopulating of the planet. Which in turn causes all our global ecological troubles. NO amount of ideation and idea creation without violence will reverse this process. The pleasure difference is way too biassed toward sex over idea harmonization.

Fornicating is still the most pleasurable activity... not idea creation. Hence the overpopulating of the planet. Which in turn causes all our global ecological troubles. — god must be atheist

It is hard to disagree with this. But some people believe there is an even greater pleasure. The first 5mins of the below video would explain.