Understanding Evolution And Its Implications

Evolution has innumerous implications for modern philosophy.

1. Why Life Exists
2. What Evolution Is and Why It Happens
3. Understanding Evolutionary Explanations for the Characteristics of All Living Things
4. The Egoism and the Intrinsic Selfishness of Life (Corollary)
5. The Validity of the Senses (Corollary)
6. The Validity of Reason (Corollary)
7. The Relationship Between Emotions and Reproduction (Corollary): Emotions drive people to do things that cause them to reproduce. Emotions exist on a spectrum, and people’s behaviors are prioritized in accordance to the different relative strengths of their emotions.
8. The Moral Accounting System (Corollary): Emotions keep track of what we owe and are owed within our personal relationships.
9. The Flow of Energy (Corollary): Energy is Transferred from Father to Mother to Children.
10. Understanding Why Humans Rule the World (Corollary): High Reasoning and Intelligence, Volition, Sophisticated Methods of Communication, Emotions, Optimal Limbs, Sufficiently Long Lifespan
11. The Origins of All Value: Value is generated by sentient beings.

As humans, we are biological organisms, and highly intelligent ones at that, who evolved from the first living organism on Earth over the past 4+ billion years. A complete theory of epistemology must relate the implications of Evolutionary Theory to how the human brain works, and how humans work more generally if we are to have an unabridged philosophy.

Additionally, evolutionary biology is the least arbitrary starting point for forming a societal framework(s), since sociology, psychology, economics, etc are all essentially applied biology. In a sense, biology is more “pure” than starting from a sociological, psychological, etc point of view. And it’s not biased with morality either, the world’s greatest delusion.

It’s difficult to predict the evolution of the Future because a single, unpredictable mutation has the potential to completely change all the outcomes within an ecosystem. The best approach for gaining predictive power about an unpredictable system is to come up with a theory of stability and instability where there are stable states and unstable states. That will have predictive power because systems will be in a stable state most of the time by definition, whereas the system will not be in unstable states for long periods of time. This method of reasoning can be more generally applied to:

• Biology when there are evolutionarily unstable states and evolutionarily stable states
• Game Theory when there are Nash Equilibriums
• Economics when there are economically stable states and economically unstable states
• Geopolitics when there are stable geopolitical maps and unstable geopolitical maps
• Chaos Theory and Differential Equations with equilibrium solutions (e.g. asymptotically stable, unstable, and semi-stable)
• Historical and Social Change

The goal of this section is to affirm empiricism using evolutionary reasoning. The more ways we have to prove anything, the better.

1. The senses deliver valid information about reality when they are not impaired (Corollary of Evolution).
2. All the concepts we know are derived from sensual experiences.
3. Thus, sensory input is the first step of the reasoning process (the input sub-process).
4. Evolution designed how the senses work.
   1. Although they give us information about reality, the available information and how it’s presented are first and foremost designed to reach the next stage of evolution.
   2. Thus, senses aren’t necessarily designed to be infallible unless it’s necessary for evolutionary fitness.
   3. Likewise, the senses are only designed to give us sufficient information about how reality works so that we can survive long enough to produce and foster offspring.

The first developments of consciousness on Earth were aimed towards enabling organisms to understand their environment, in an effort to gather more food. This should be indicative that intelligence is first and foremost, the ability of one to understand reality.

• First, sensory input developed, then memory/concepts, then logic. This order of development is consistent with the theory of reason.
• Further evolution of intelligence required the ability to reason.
• Today, intelligence is aimed towards solving problems. Of course, reason has always been used to solve problems (that’s why it developed in the first place), but today it is used to solve significantly more abstract ones.

See: What Is Biological Realism?

This section contains a list of links to essays by Blithering Genius about Biological Realism and Evolution, which I consider to be the best material there is on the Internet for fully understanding Evolution.

• Life is Intrinsically Violent

  Violence is inescapable from life due to the war, disease, and famine that are inevitably caused when a population reaches its carrying capacity.

• Debunking the Selfish Gene by T. K. Van Allen

  This book debunks the Richard Dawkins’ concept of the selfish gene, which situates biological purpose in genes, rather than the organism as a whole. The author also presents an alternative theory of biological purpose: the phenocentric view. Van Allen has also written a summary of his book, for those who want a preview.

• The Life Engine

  This website is an Evolution Simulator. You can play and experiment with it to improve your understanding of evolution.

• Why Selfishness Always Beats Altruism

  People will use and define “altruism” and “selfishness” in confusing ways, but the most coherent definition of “altruism” always loses to the most coherent definition of “selfishness”, energetically, biologically, and psychologically.

• Pathological Altruism

  Pathological Altruism is a phenomenon of collective irrationality caused by social delusion, and a virtue-signaling tragedy of the commons.

• Understanding Evolutionary Reasoning and why r/K Selection Theory is Bogus

  r/K Selection Theory is fallacious and has no explanatory power. The second half of this essay gives a great explanation of how evolution actually works.

• Why Kin Selection Theory is Wrong

  There is very little evidence of kin altruism in nature, other than parental care of offspring. Kin Altruism is a myth used to justify utopian ideologies.

• We Cannot Transcend Evolution

  We can never escape from the evolutionary process that creates and maintains the human form. We can change the environment in which this process operates, but we cannot escape from the process itself.

• Bees are not Social, Debunking Altruism Myths, and the Organism Unit of Selection

  An insight into bee biology. Moreover, bees are not altruistic, and the primary unit of selection for bees is the Queen since all genes flow through her.

• The Balance of Nature

  Ecosystems and organisms always tend towards evolutionary stable states.

• Competition in Nature

  Competition in Nature exists between individuals, types/populations, genes/traits, and social groups. This essay talks about each of them.

• A Framework for Memetic Theory

  Memes can be divided into Traditions and Fashions / Cults, based on how they usually spread from one person to another.

• Adaptive Coherence

  Genes and memes work together hand-in-hand, and different biologies will produce different kinds of societies.

• Family, Transfers of Energy, and Exchanges of Labor

  How net energy flows from father to mother to children; and the evolution of exchanges of labor within human tribes (moral accounting systems).

• Game Theory & Society

  An Introduction To Game Theory And How It Shapes Society.

• A Paradox of Rationality & Cooperation

  A narrative about the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma.

• Understanding What Race Is and Isn’t

  A racial category is a statistical cluster of correlations among genetic variants. Blithering Genius talks about the implications of this, and debunks myths about race.

• Why Most Racial Disparaties Are Probably Mostly Genetic

  Blithering Genius argues why the environmental factors affecting racial disparities are highly dependent on genes, especially since most people in the Modern West are not lacking any important environmental input to their development.

• Sex, Death, and Complexity

  Sex, death and complexity are all linked. Not all complex systems are organized around reproductive bottlenecks. But some are, and you are one of them.

• Diet and Human Evolution 1

  Cooking was a very important part of human evolution, and Blithering Genius talks about this, with some external links to reliable sources.

• Diet and Human Evolution 2

  The key traits that set humans apart from other great apes (bipedalism, tool use, social organization, and a larger brain) are all linked to changes in the human diet and the evolution that resulted from it.

• Evolution and Its Implications on Morality

  The simplest resolution to the conflicts between evolution and morality is to discard morality, but unfortunately it is easier for most people to reject the truth about life than to reject morality.

• Recent Human Evolution - Wikipedia
• Four Beneficial Evolutionary Mutations That Humans Are Undergoing Right Now
• At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity by Stuart Kauffamn

• Talk Origins: A Comprehensive FAQs About Evolution For Creationists

  This page explains anything a creationist could ever want to know about evolution. It also has answers and explanations that may be of interest to non-creationists who want to learn more specific evolutionary topics.

• FAQs About Population Dynamics, Overpopulation, and Population Control

  The only ways to avoid overpopulation are mass death or low birth rates (population control). Overpopulation is otherwise inevitable. Once there’s overpopulation, it’s game over for civilization.

• FAQs About Eugenics And Reproduction Licenses

  Reproduction licenses are the most reasonable and effective way to implement eugenics. Laissez-Faire Eugenics protects human rights and will be necessary to sustain modern civilization.

• Race Realism and Philosophy of Race FAQs

  Addressing the common misconceptions and implications of race, race realism, race-mixing, and ethnostates from a biological realist perspective. Race realism is a scientific position that acknowledges evolutionary differences and does not imply racism nor tribalism.

• Morality and Selfishness FAQs

  These are mostly intended to be a set of follow-up questions that people may ask after reading: What is Morality