From: entropy@farviolet.com
Date: Thu Mar 24 2005 - 18:34:29 MST
On Thu, 24 Mar 2005, David Massoglia wrote:
> Interesting replies to altruism. Ettinger's whole book (Youniverse) is
> based upon that we do everything, and he means everything, for ourselves to
> feel good (me first, feel good). That premise seems reasonable.
Thats at a different level than altruistic action. The altruism instinct
is implemented via the "wiring" that makes altruistic acts and thoughts
feel good.
This is probably some mix of learning and genetic instinct. An interesting
example is the fear of spiders and snakes. People and apes for that matter
are very easily taught to fear spiders and snakes, much more easily than
they are taught fear of other objects. It is amazing in a way that so much
pattern recognition can be coded genetically.
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