509 lines
36 KiB
HTML
509 lines
36 KiB
HTML
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
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<html>
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<head>
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<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
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<title> </title>
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<meta name="generator" content="LibreOffice 4.2.8.2 (Linux)">
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<meta name="author" content="Amr Gharbeia">
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<meta name="created" content="20010831;0">
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<meta name="changed" content="20150722;225055728296647">
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<style type="text/css">
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p.ctl { font-family: "Simplified Arabic"; font-size: 10pt; so-language: ar-EG }
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</head>
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<body lang="en-GB" text="#99ccff" dir="ltr" style="background: transparent">
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif">T<img src="data:image/png;base64,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" name="TtsOtkCRS09_08" align="right" hspace="5" width="175" height="20" border="0">he
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origin of the reflective level of neurological organization. </font>The
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only reason to doubt that the reflective state of evolution is
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inevitable have to do with its origin, that is, how a simple and weak
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form of rational imagination tried out as a random variation on
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linguistic brains could make reflective brains powerful enough to
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control some new condition for which they would be natural selected. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">There
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was, however, an original function for the reflective level of
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neurological organization. It comes from a uniquely demanding form of
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natural selection that primitive spiritual animals eventually imposed
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on themselves. They waged war on one another. The advent of war meant
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spiritual animals had to make a new kind of choice between
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incompatible kinds of behavior. That choice could not be made very
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reliably with naturalistic imagination. But it could be made much
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more reliably with rational imagination, even if it were not very
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reliable and occurred only in the leader of the group. Thus, since
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the capacity to use psychological sentences was a possible random
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variation on linguistic brains, it was tried out, and it was quickly
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selected for controlling an urgent new condition affecting their
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reproduction. That began a stage of evolution that made the members
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reflective subjects and eventually gave them the enormous power of
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reason. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif">The
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advent of war. </font>Since the use of natural sentences originally
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evolved to coordinate individual behavior mainly in hunting animals,
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it is not surprising that primitive spiritual animals would
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eventually use it to control the outcome of their interactions with
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other groups of non-linguistic hominids. The new sources of free
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energy opened up by the use of natural sentences would eventually be
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exhausted, because there is only a finite amount of free energy they
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can use in any region and their reproduction would multiply the
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number of spiritual animals consuming it. Like all reproducing
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organisms, spiritual animals would eventually impose natural
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selection on themselves. But spiritual animals had a new way of
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overcoming scarcity. They could turn their hunting skills on nomadic
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bands of hominids, either simply killing them so that they could take
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over the supply of usable energy in the territory or, perhaps, even
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preying on them, that is, consuming them for the energy such living
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organisms contain.</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
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use of language was the origin of war, because such behavior could
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not evolve before the use of natural sentences. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">War could
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not be tried out as a random variation by their biological behavior
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guidance systems. Membership in hominid societies was, like other
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animal societies, rather fluid. Some exchange of members was normal,
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if only as an adaptation of the instinct of young primates to mate
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outside the group in which they are born. When necessary, nomadic
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hominid bands could accept new members, combine with one other to
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form new groups, or redistribute members, and fights between single
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hominids (or between leaders of coalitions) would determine a
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dominance hierarchy within any animal society. Thus, when resources
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were scarce and nomadic bands of hominids encountered one another,
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there might have been fights among individuals, or even among
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coalitions, but no group would systematically kill off all the
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members of the other group. Dominance battles do not usually end in
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death, and since social level behavior was still instinctive, the
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evolution of violent behavior toward all the members of another group
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would require the same random variation to occur simultaneously in
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nearly all the members of some group. Only if they all happened to
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have the new desire to kill all the members of another group (or to
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follow their leader in doing so), this social level trait would never
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be tried out and, thus, never selected. Such a combination of random
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variations is so unlikely as to be impossible, especially if hominids
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had the normal inhibition about using other members of their own (or
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kindred) species as a source of free energy. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">No such
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improbable random variation is required, however, to explain how
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spiritual animals could behave in such a violent way toward groups of
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non-linguistic hominids. No changes in their desires would be
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necessary, because the desire to submit to their leader inclined
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every member to do his part in the group plan pronounced by the
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leader. Since the use of a primitive language would enable them all
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to see how their joint behavior would work together in bringing about
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a goal they all desired, they could act with the same intention. They
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had practice in the use of language to coordinate violent behavior
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from hunting other kinds of animals. They may have felt some
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reluctance to take such actions against a kindred species, but it
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could be overcome, at least in times of scarcity, by their
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disposition to submit to a leader and cooperate in social level
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behavior, especially if they were starving and the desire for food
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was intense. Even if they could not bring themselves to eat hominid
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bodies, they would be motivated by seeing how a plan of attack that
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killed all the members of the other group would give them access to
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what food there was in the region. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
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use of natural sentences, therefore, made war against groups of
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hominids inevitable. Though war derived from hunting, it was
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basically different, because members of hominid bands were disposed
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to protect one another. They would fight back as best they could,
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when they had no other option (because as we have seen, individuals
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on their own were still usually doomed by predatory beasts, such as
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lions and packs of wolves). But even with the use of tools to fight
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back, hominids were no match for spiritual animals. They had no
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defense against attack by a spiritual animal that could adapt the
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spatial aspects of its social level animal behavior to spatial
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aspects of the situation in imagination prior to acting. Hominids
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could be surprised and trapped by the spiritual animal’s capacity
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to impose a geometrical structure on the motion and interaction of
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objects in space. (After all, warfare is just a special case of
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controlling the thermo­dynamic flow of free energy toward evenly
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distributed heat in the region). Nomadic hominids may sometimes have
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chosen to run away from their attackers, but even if they survived
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predation by other animals, that still deprived them of access to the
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food available by hunting in the region. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The new
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behavior of spiritual animals was not merely ritualized fighting of
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the kind that evolves within a species to divide up limited sources
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of energy in a region. They killed all the members of other hominid
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groups in order to take over their territory. It was inevitable, when
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their own reproduction made resources scarce, because war was a new
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way of controlling this most basic condition affecting their
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reproduction and it was possible for them. In the end, therefore,
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their new means of acquiring energy meant the extinction of
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non-linguistic hominids.</font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">This
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kind of behavior was not long reserved, however, for use against mere
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hominid societies. Adapting to warfare gave linguistic animals
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aggressive desires, like anger and hatred, that made it easy for them
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to kill animals like themselves. Thus, once all the non-linguistic
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hominid societies in their region had been wiped out, spiritual
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animals had enough experience with violence against other groups
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that, when their own continuing population growth once again made
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resources scarce enough, some spiritual animals, at least, would try
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the same means against other spiritual animals. It may eventually
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have involved yet further changes in the desires they felt towards
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other members of their own species. But it would not require all the
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members to try out simultaneously the same random variation, because
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a leader with a suitable random variation could motivate his
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followers. Since war again other spiritual animals was a possible
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means of controlling a relevant condition, reproductive causation
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inevitably made it actual. That is simply how reproductive cycles of
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spiritual animals add up in space over time. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">War against
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other spiritual animals was not just predation, for it would usually
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result in death for all the members of the other group (except
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possibly some women who were kept alive for other purposes). That was
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the only safe way for spiritual animals to protect themselves from
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members of other spiritual animals who were accustomed to cooperating
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in violent behavior. But there is no reason to rule out cannibalism
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(if that term applies in this case), because eating the victims of
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their killing was a possible source of food. Predation was not,
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however, the original function of war even against non-linguistic
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hominids. War supplied much more food all at once than could be
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consumed, and the risks of battle made it more costly than hunting
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other animals. Furthermore, spiritual animals would have engaged in
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war, even if they did not eat their victims, since it had the effect
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of removing competitors for the energy available in the region. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif">The
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need for a better behavior guidance system. </font>Though war was
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inevitable, it was a fateful juncture in evolution. It changed
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radically the world in which spiritual animals lived. The environment
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posed a new kind of danger for spiritual animals, and they had to
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make a new kind of choice between fundamentally different kinds of
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behavior. Every time they encountered a society of language-using
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animals like themselves, spiritual animals were forced to choose
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between war and peace. It was a crucial decision, for if they chose
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to be friendly toward a group that was planning to kill them, they
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could all die. But if they chose to war against a society that was
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willing to be peaceful, they would suffer the losses that such
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activities involve. Even if they won, the costs would be unnecessary,
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if resources were not scarce. They could, of course, choose to move
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out of the way, but that alternative would often mean going without
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food as others took over the territory from which they had expected
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to acquire energy. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">It
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was as important for spiritual animals to be able to make this choice
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correctly as it was for the first animals to choose correctly between
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ingesting other objects or not — or for the first living organisms
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to choose between periods of growth and reproduction. In all three
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cases, choosing between the incompatible alternatives was required
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for the very existence of organisms of their kind. A wrong choice
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could mean the end of their reproductive cycles. In short, spiritual
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animals <i>needed </i>a behavior guidance system in the same sense
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that living organisms needed a biological behavior guidance system
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and heterotrophs needed an animal behavior guidance system. Spiritual
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animals already had a behavior guidance system for their social level
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animal (and biological) behavior. It was the use of a primitive
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language, and we have seen how it is a unique spiritual structural
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cause of their social level behavior. Since the animal behavior
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guidance system primitive spiritual animals already had was
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inevitably the locus of further evolution changes, it would take on
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the new behavior guiding function of making choices about war and
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peace. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">What makes
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this possible, as we shall see, is a higher level of part-whole
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complexity in the linguistic representations (due to a higher level
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of neurological organization) that were used to coordinate the
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members behavior to act on other objects as a whole. That gave them
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the capacity for reflection, and since that is the mechanism of
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reason, reason might be called a new kind of behavior guidance
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system, with the function of making choices about war and peace. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">But reason
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takes over the function of guiding the animal and biological behavior
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of spiritual animals, and thus, it is basically the same behavior
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guidance system that make spiritual animals possible in the first
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place. And since the higher level of neurological organization occurs
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within the spiritual animal’s behavior guidance system, the
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evolution of reason is more like the evolution of higher levels of
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neurological organization in the subjective and manipulative animal
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behavior guidance systems. In both cases, is a substantial increase
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in the power of the animal behavior guidance system. Thus, choices
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about war and peace will be treated as just a new kind of choice that
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is made by the spiritual animal’s behavior guidance system, much as
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it also found itself making biological choices, about growth and
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reproduction, for the beginning. </font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">To
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be sure, it would not always have been difficult to make the right
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choice. There was no need to think twice about any remaining
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nonlinguistic hominids they may have encountered when resources
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became scarce. And as long as there were plenty of resources,
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spiritual animals could live at peace with one another — perhaps,
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under favorable conditions, for many generations of population
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growth. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Moreover,
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some other societies, at least, could be assumed to be friendly, for
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they were closely related biologically. Nomadic bands had to divide
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when their populations became too large to gather enough energy by
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wandering around, and individuals from such groups would recognize
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one another. Sometimes they would have strong attachments, which
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would lead them to treat members of other groups like members of
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their own group. And mating would give them a motive to maintain
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friendly relations with at least some other groups. They had
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inherited the primate instinct of mating outside the group, and it
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would continue to be naturally selected because of the advantages of
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avoiding inbreeding. However, since animal predators made it
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dangerous for solitary animals to travel alone, mating would take the
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form of exchanges of members between friendly groups that encountered
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one another.</font></font></font></p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
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<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">There
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were, however, other spiritual animals around that would wage war on
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them. Thus, when they came upon other members of their own species,
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spiritual animals would inevitably make a distinction between <i>Us
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</i>and <i>Them</i>. It marked a fundamentally different attitude
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toward members of other groups, for those who were one of <i>Us</i>
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would be of the same “tribe” and would be treated in a friendly
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way, like other members of their own group. But members of nomadic
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bands from other tribes would be treated like groups that were (or
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might be) at war with them. </font></font></font>
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</p>
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<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Furthermore,
|
||
war was an extremely strong form of group level natural selection,
|
||
which would adapt individuals more basically to membership in
|
||
spiritual animals. War was dramatically different from the group
|
||
level natural selection imposed on nomadic bands of hominids, for
|
||
that was imposed by the habitat that primates invaded. Hominids had
|
||
to travel in groups in order to protect themselves from the great
|
||
predatory animals of the grasslands. Though hominid bands eventually
|
||
imposed natural selection on themselves by the scarcity caused by
|
||
their own population growth, group selection was not very strong,
|
||
because not all their members died when times were hard. Survivors
|
||
could join other groups or form new groups, as many other social
|
||
animals do. With the advent of war, however, it was more common that
|
||
all the members of a society would die at once. And even if some
|
||
members were not killed, it would not be easy for language using
|
||
subjects to move from group to group, at least, not when they used
|
||
different languages.</font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">The advent
|
||
of war would, therefore, cause changes in the desires of the language
|
||
using primates who adapted to it. They would evolve a pair of strong,
|
||
but opposite desires, mirroring the choice forced on them by their
|
||
spiritual nature. One would make them protective of members of their
|
||
own group and members of others whom they recognized as one of <i>Us</i>,
|
||
whereas the other desire would make them capable of aggression toward
|
||
members of groups who were one of <i>Them. </i>One desire would draw
|
||
them together, and the other would put them at odds with one another,
|
||
making them suspicious and capable of brutality. Both desires would
|
||
be strengthened by group level selection, since groups that lacked
|
||
either desire would tend to be wiped out by losing in war. Thus,
|
||
linguistic animals evolved desires that made them capable of both
|
||
kinds of behavior involved in the choice of their spiritual nature
|
||
forced to make.<sup><a class="sdendnoteanc" name="sdendnote1anc" href="#sdendnote1sym"><sup>i</sup></a></sup></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">With
|
||
strong desires to behave in opposite ways toward other groups, a
|
||
choice between them had to be made every time one spiritual animal
|
||
encountered another. Most of the time, there were at least some other
|
||
groups around they recognized as members of their own tribe. And in
|
||
peaceful regions, for example, where sources of energy had been
|
||
divided up into territories, there was probably some warning of the
|
||
arrival of bands of language-using primates who would wage war
|
||
against them, so that they could be on the look out and prepared to
|
||
fight. Between these extremes, however, the input for the choice they
|
||
had to make was limited and unreliable. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Some
|
||
distantly related spiritual animals might be given the benefit of the
|
||
doubt because of their language. Language would be the main criterion
|
||
for tribal membership among primitive spiritual animals, since the
|
||
sounds, vocabulary, and surface grammars used by a language are
|
||
conventional. And spiritual animals from the same tribe would
|
||
normally be treated as one of <i>Us.</i> </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">However,
|
||
spiritual animals from other tribes would be fair game — and, by
|
||
the same token, quite dangerous. The more remote the relationship,
|
||
the greater the danger, for it would be difficult to tell whether
|
||
another group was of the same tribe. Even nomadic bands from the same
|
||
tribe could be dangerous in special circumstances, such as times of
|
||
extreme scarcity or when a string of easy victories made a group feel
|
||
invincible. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">And
|
||
there would be spiritual animals about which they could not be sure.
|
||
Some spiritual animals might happen on the trick of speaking the
|
||
language of nomadic bands in the territory so that they would be
|
||
treated as members of the same tribe and recognized it as a means to
|
||
victory at war. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
behavior guidance system of spiritual animals had, therefore, to take
|
||
on a new behavior guiding function. Spiritual animals had to choose
|
||
between war and peace. That choice was forced on them by their own
|
||
means of acquiring energy. It was a fateful decision, because
|
||
choosing either war or peace in the wrong situation was a costly
|
||
mistake. But in primitive spiritual animals, the choice was made in
|
||
an animal-like way, by the relative strength of opposite desires, on
|
||
the basis of whatever cues had evolved or been learned as triggers
|
||
for those desires. Even when there was time for a leader to hear what
|
||
everyone had to say, this behavior guidance system was liable to
|
||
disastrous errors. They needed a more reliable way of making the
|
||
basic choice entailed by their spiritual nature.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 1.27cm; margin-right: 2.54cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt"><font face="Verdana, sans-serif">The
|
||
nature of reflection. </font>As linguistic animals, however, the need
|
||
for a better way of choosing about war and peace could be met by a
|
||
mechanism that enabled spiritual animals to “see into the minds”
|
||
of other spiritual animals. Which kind of behavior would control the
|
||
condition affecting their reproduction in the situation depended on
|
||
the plans of the other spiritual animal. If the other spiritual
|
||
animal was intending to wage war to control the territory and its
|
||
resources, it would be necessary to fight or get out of its way. The
|
||
worst mistake would be to take the other spiritual animal to be
|
||
friendly when it is planning war. On the other hand, if the other
|
||
spiritual animal had peaceful intentions, it would be better,
|
||
considering the costs, to avoid war, although fighting might still be
|
||
chosen in order to protect or gain territory from which to gather
|
||
energy. In any case, to make the correct choice more reliably, it
|
||
would have to be able to peer into the mind of the other spiritual
|
||
animal and see the plans behind their behavior.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">All
|
||
any spiritual animal had to go on, however, was the observable
|
||
behavior of the other spiritual animal. The animal system of
|
||
representation had been shaped over eons to be maximally powerful in
|
||
detecting physical aspects of objects. That would make them aware of
|
||
the bodies making up the other spiritual animal, of their behavior
|
||
and motion in space, but it would not always reveal what they needed
|
||
to know about the other spiritual animal’s plans. To be sure,
|
||
observation would sometimes make the choice obvious, for example,
|
||
when they saw victims of a newly arrived group whom they recognized
|
||
as belonging to their own tribe. Or when they were already under
|
||
attack by the other group. But what members of the other group said,
|
||
especially if said <i>to </i>them, would not necessarily be a
|
||
trustworthy guide to the intentions causing their behavior. It might
|
||
be disastrous, since the advantages of deception could be discovered
|
||
by trial and error. But often they would not even be able to
|
||
understand the others’ language.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">It
|
||
was nevertheless possible, in principle, to discover the other
|
||
spiritual animal’s intentions from their behavior, for there is a
|
||
regularity about social level behavior generated according to a plan
|
||
of group action. What members of the other group do at one moment is
|
||
part of a geometrical structure in time and space, and part of it is
|
||
how they will behave in the future and how they would behave in
|
||
certain situations. That is, after all, how social level animal
|
||
behavior structures the thermo­dynamic flow of free energy toward
|
||
increasing entropy to make things happen that would not otherwise
|
||
happen. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">If it were
|
||
up to their naturalistic imagination by itself, the spatio-temporal
|
||
geometrical structure about their behavior might be too complex or
|
||
too subtle to be recognized. But this challenge could be answered.
|
||
There was a way for them to recognize the pattern, because such
|
||
behavior is guided by the same kind of structural cause as their own.
|
||
By identifying the causes behind the other spiritual animal’s
|
||
behavior, they could anticipate the parts of the spatio-temporal
|
||
structure yet to come. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">The
|
||
mechanism responsible for this remarkable insight is basically the
|
||
ability to use a language with psychological sentences, as well as
|
||
natural sentences. We have seen how this higher level of neurological
|
||
organization gives the linguistic brain a new form of imagination,
|
||
rational imagination, by which they can think about psychological
|
||
states and understand how they cause behavior (and beliefs).
|
||
“Reflection” is an appropriate name for a mechanism that enables
|
||
animals to use their own behavior guiding processes to simulate the
|
||
behavior guiding processes going on in others.</font></font></font></p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">Rational
|
||
imagination can be used to explain or predict the behavior of
|
||
subjects in any situation. Several psychological images may have to
|
||
be predicated of the subject to represent all his relevant beliefs
|
||
about the situation he is in and the various desires (or longer range
|
||
intentions) that are at work in him, but they can all be held
|
||
together as parts of the psychological image that is being predicated
|
||
of a subject in the (perceived or imagined) local scene. They are all
|
||
imposed at once as a temporary modification on one’s own worldview
|
||
and goals, as if one were in the other’s situation. The changes
|
||
that occur in one’s beliefs or intentions are the predictions one
|
||
makes about the other subject, given those premises. The conclusions
|
||
may be just inferences about what the subject would come to believe.
|
||
But when it leads to new intentions, it is a prediction of the
|
||
subject’s behavior. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 3.81cm; margin-right: 2.03cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif">To serve
|
||
the function required by spiritual animals, however, rational
|
||
imagination would have to take a somewhat different form. As
|
||
suggested at the beginning, what is known is the overt behavior of
|
||
the members of the other spiritual animal. Along with common
|
||
background beliefs, they are assumed to have whatever additional,
|
||
relevant beliefs that come from where they are located in the
|
||
territory. In order to predict their future behavior, it is necessary
|
||
to work backwards to their common intention by comparing possible
|
||
sets of desires and beliefs and the intentions to which they would
|
||
lead, for it is basically an inference to the best explanation of
|
||
what is known. Thus, rational imagination would enable reflective
|
||
subject to tell more reliably what they should do about war and
|
||
peace. </font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="western" align="left" style="margin-left: 2.54cm; margin-right: 1.27cm; margin-top: 0.49cm; margin-bottom: 0.49cm; line-height: 100%; widows: 0; orphans: 0">
|
||
<font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, serif"><font size="3" style="font-size: 12pt">Since
|
||
being able to see into the minds of other spiritual animals would
|
||
serve the urgent function of making correct decisions about war and
|
||
peace more reliably, it would help control the condition that affects
|
||
their reproduction so dramatically. Thus, the revolutionary change
|
||
that begins the reflective stage of evolution is inevitable. </font></font></font>
|
||
</p>
|
||
<div id="sdendnote1">
|
||
<p lang="en-US" class="sdendnote-western" style="margin-top: 0cm; margin-bottom: 0.25cm">
|
||
<a class="sdendnotesym" name="sdendnote1sym" href="#sdendnote1anc">i</a>
|
||
Such incompatible desires towards objects of basically the same kind
|
||
required special mechanisms to avoid the enormous harm caused by
|
||
attaching them to the wrong ob­jects. This may have been the
|
||
stage at which the ability to cry evolved, particularly in women and
|
||
children, for it could be a mechanism for suppressing the violent
|
||
dispositions of males disposed toward violence. Their mates and
|
||
offspring were otherwise helpless in the face of male anger.
|
||
</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
</body>
|
||
</html> |