The Evolution of Morality

[nuttypiglet]

Obviously no such thing. The brain is an amazing thing, I wouldn't deny that.



Not sure. But I know where to look for those answers.

Building Memories: Remembering and Forgetting of Verbal Experiences as Predicted by Brain Activity

http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayRecord&uid=2000-00111-015

http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1991-03417-001

For starters. It's an interesting topic, to be sure, and I'll freely concede there are many things about the brain and memory that aren't completely understood...but that doesn't mean we need to invoke mystical memory juju.

invoke mystical memory west african religions? now that's a new one and I have no idea what it means to infer.

 

[lasthero]

juju [ˈdʒuːdʒuː]
n
1. (Social Science / Anthropology & Ethnology) an object superstitiously revered by certain W African peoples and used as a charm or fetish
2. (Individual Sports & Recreations / Martial Arts (other than Judo & Karate) & Combat Sports) the power associated with a juju
3. (Social Science / Anthropology & Ethnology) a taboo effected by a juju
4. any process in which a mystery is exploited to confuse people
[probably from Hausa djudju evil spirit, fetish]
jujuism n
jujuist n

Words don't always mean one thing.

 

[nuttypiglet]

Only in the fact that God ingrained the intelligence within the living forms. There is nothing in evolution that would create mindfulness from mindlessness. Just doesn't work. Hierarchy had to begin with some intelligence to evolve from.

The first kiss, the smell of mother's cooking or the vision of a beautiful landscape; memories such as these are etched firmly into our brains for recall in vivid detail, even decades later. Memories and experience influence our decisions throughout life, both consciously and subconsciously—in a sense, our memories make us what we are. Yet, understanding how information is encoded in our brains and how memories are maintained, both at the conceptual and molecular levels, remains one of the greatest challenges in the life sciences. Through decades of research, biologists have answered many fundamental questions about the brain, and more recent work has revealed the identity of several crucial molecules involved in the storage and retrieval of information. This has at last begun to shed light on the major scientific puzzle: how do we form and maintain long-term memories?

Ancient rules of memory. The molecules and mechanisms of memory evolved long before their ‘modern' use in the brain




Indeed, I would also learn what we don't know. Granted we know a great deal and learn more all the time. However, it is not as complete and said and done as you would like lead me to believe. Are you a neurologist?



Do you have a degree in neurology?



What intermediates. I don't want your copy and paste usual response. What intermediates are there?



Bring on the intermediates.


Why would you think that's after the fact? It's the same situation millions of animals are in, in the wild today. It's shows how morality evolved.

Fairness Experiment: Moral behaviour in Monkeys - YouTube​

What does that say about fairness or morality?



They all have the same goal? The video was said to show that the monkey was upset due to the unfairness of the reward. However, that is a subjective conclusion. It is in fact subjective in all cases due to the monkey's motive or intent.

​

Why not?




According to the study, yes.





Why would He necessarily need to poof into existence?



We agree that God did the creating, He is powerful enough to do anything He wishes. We are just looking at that differently.​

If morality evolved, you would expect some of this to be hard coded, like the way an infant has to learn to distinguish sight from sound because the two are linked at birth. Like the way an infant is hard coded to learn to use its limbs and grasp things. Pretty much everything else must be learned, surely? Just as we have to learn what pain feels like. We all have the ability to feel pain, but we still need to experience it to know what it is. Even among the same society, morals are across a huge scale. You have those at one extreme who can rape and murder while feeling no remorse. At the other end you have those who spend most of their time helping the elderly or sick. It's obviously something greatly influenced as it develops, while we grow up. It can change at any time in life too, depending on circumstances. Even the nicest people can suddenly become the worst nightmare for a society. This makes me strongly believe that it's simply CHOICE we are dealing with here. Nothing to do with having evolved, it's simply choosing the type of person we would like to be. It can be seen as having to do with the best way to protect our species, or at least our loved ones, but it's also a very individual thing. If a man held a gun to your childs head and you knew he would pull the trigger, would you shoot him to stop this? A huge number of people would shoot, but then you will always get those who wouldn't. In such a case it seems we need to override certain values washed into us, such as you must respect life and not kill. Some seem to find this very difficult to overcome, no matter the circumstances, and would find it hard to live with themselves if they killed someone. Perhaps this is a form of hard wiring behavioural pattern which we develop when growing up, which can be broken apart if forced enough. We also see many suicides which would go against morals in reality. If someone feels they can't be accepted by a society or have too many mishaps to deal with, we have some kind of self destruct button built in. Again many can override this, but there are a few who cannot. I can't believe it has anything to do with evolution, I think it's just a learning process which many life forms perform. Nearly all mammals for example, and birds, watch their parents to learn how they react to different circumstances and deal with them. We learn what is acceptable and what is not. Very interesting topic though.​

 

[Oncedeceived]

If morality evolved, you would expect some of this to be hard coded, like the way an infant has to learn to distinguish sight from sound because the two are linked at birth. Like the way an infant is hard coded to learn to use its limbs and grasp things. Pretty much everything else must be learned, surely? Just as we have to learn what pain feels like. We all have the ability to feel pain, but we still need to experience it to know what it is. Even among the same society, morals are across a huge scale. You have those at one extreme who can rape and murder while feeling no remorse. At the other end you have those who spend most of their time helping the elderly or sick. It's obviously something greatly influenced as it develops, while we grow up. It can change at any time in life too, depending on circumstances. Even the nicest people can suddenly become the worst nightmare for a society. This makes me strongly believe that it's simply CHOICE we are dealing with here. Nothing to do with having evolved, it's simply choosing the type of person we would like to be. It can be seen as having to do with the best way to protect our species, or at least our loved ones, but it's also a very individual thing. If a man held a gun to your childs head and you knew he would pull the trigger, would you shoot him to stop this? A huge number of people would shoot, but then you will always get those who wouldn't. In such a case it seems we need to override certain values washed into us, such as you must respect life and not kill. Some seem to find this very difficult to overcome, no matter the circumstances, and would find it hard to live with themselves if they killed someone. Perhaps this is a form of hard wiring behavioural pattern which we develop when growing up, which can be broken apart if forced enough. We also see many suicides which would go against morals in reality. If someone feels they can't be accepted by a society or have too many mishaps to deal with, we have some kind of self destruct button built in. Again many can override this, but there are a few who cannot. I can't believe it has anything to do with evolution, I think it's just a learning process which many life forms perform. Nearly all mammals for example, and birds, watch their parents to learn how they react to different circumstances and deal with them. We learn what is acceptable and what is not. Very interesting topic though.

What I am understanding from your post is that you don't believe that there is a morality ingrained within us but that we learn the behavior. However, we see that people raised in the same home with the same moral lessons can be very different in their morality. We see people that go against moral constraints which I attribute to free will. I do not agree that morality is an evolved trait but something that God ingrained into our being. That is at least how I see it.

 

[biggles53]

If morality evolved, you would expect some of this to be hard coded, like the way an infant has to learn to distinguish sight from sound because the two are linked at birth. Like the way an infant is hard coded to learn to use its limbs and grasp things. Pretty much everything else must be learned, surely? Just as we have to learn what pain feels like. We all have the ability to feel pain, but we still need to experience it to know what it is. Even among the same society, morals are across a huge scale. You have those at one extreme who can rape and murder while feeling no remorse. At the other end you have those who spend most of their time helping the elderly or sick. It's obviously something greatly influenced as it develops, while we grow up. It can change at any time in life too, depending on circumstances. Even the nicest people can suddenly become the worst nightmare for a society. This makes me strongly believe that it's simply CHOICE we are dealing with here. Nothing to do with having evolved, it's simply choosing the type of person we would like to be. It can be seen as having to do with the best way to protect our species, or at least our loved ones, but it's also a very individual thing. If a man held a gun to your childs head and you knew he would pull the trigger, would you shoot him to stop this? A huge number of people would shoot, but then you will always get those who wouldn't. In such a case it seems we need to override certain values washed into us, such as you must respect life and not kill. Some seem to find this very difficult to overcome, no matter the circumstances, and would find it hard to live with themselves if they killed someone. Perhaps this is a form of hard wiring behavioural pattern which we develop when growing up, which can be broken apart if forced enough. We also see many suicides which would go against morals in reality. If someone feels they can't be accepted by a society or have too many mishaps to deal with, we have some kind of self destruct button built in. Again many can override this, but there are a few who cannot. I can't believe it has anything to do with evolution, I think it's just a learning process which many life forms perform. Nearly all mammals for example, and birds, watch their parents to learn how they react to different circumstances and deal with them. We learn what is acceptable and what is not. Very interesting topic though.

Be careful to distinguish between morality and behaviour....Much of what you mentioned above was about people choosing to behave in a particular way, even though they may have been quite aware that to do so was morally inappropriate.

Better examples would have been where people behave badly, yet think that they were doing the right thing.....

Just like your god on many occasions........

 

[biggles53]

What I am understanding from your post is that you don't believe that there is a morality ingrained within us but that we learn the behavior. However, we see that people raised in the same home with the same moral lessons can be very different in their morality. We see people that go against moral constraints which I attribute to free will. I do not agree that morality is an evolved trait but something that God ingrained into our being. That is at least how I see it.

Yet, there is plenty of evidence for the one and none for the other....

 

[Oncedeceived]

Yet, there is plenty of evidence for the one and none for the other....

What empirical evidence do you find for morality?

 

[nuttypiglet]

Be careful to distinguish between morality and behaviour....Much of what you mentioned above was about people choosing to behave in a particular way, even though they may have been quite aware that to do so was morally inappropriate.

Better examples would have been where people behave badly, yet think that they were doing the right thing.....

Just like your god on many occasions........

But what I said is morality is simply our choice of how we behave. Behaviour is not hard wired. I think what IS hard wired is our ability to make choices on how we behave. Is this through evolution? I personally don't think so.

 

[bhsmte]

What empirical evidence do you find for morality?

Interesting study from the University of Chicago in which the professors have commenting about how evolution has hard wired parts of the brain to react in certain situations that include moral judgements.

The ability to recognize and respond emotionally to the intentional infliction of harm is a critical source of morality that is universal across cultures, researchers believe. “It is part of humans’ evolutionary heritage,” Decety said. “The long history of mammalian evolution has shaped our brains to be sensitive to signs of suffering of others. And this constitutes a natural foundation for morality and sensitivity to justice.” -

Moral evaluations of harm are instant and emotional, brain study shows | UChicago News

 

[Oncedeceived]

Interesting study from the University of Chicago in which the professors have commenting about how evolution has hard wired parts of the brain to react in certain situations that include moral judgements.

The ability to recognize and respond emotionally to the intentional infliction of harm is a critical source of morality that is universal across cultures, researchers believe. “It is part of humans’ evolutionary heritage,” Decety said. “The long history of mammalian evolution has shaped our brains to be sensitive to signs of suffering of others. And this constitutes a natural foundation for morality and sensitivity to justice.” -

Moral evaluations of harm are instant and emotional, brain study shows | UChicago News

I'd like you to explain how you see this in regards to self preservation?

 

[bhsmte]

I'd like you to explain how you see this in regards to self preservation?

This particular study addresses the instant moral reaction that would impact the preservation of others, when there are groups of people involved. Humans are social creatures and this study, in the opinion of the professors, shows the evolution of this reaction over time.

 

[Oncedeceived]

This particular study addresses the instant moral reaction that would impact the preservation of others, when there are groups of people involved. Humans are social creatures and this study, in the opinion of the professors, shows the evolution of this reaction over time.

Is this morality? Is it empathy? Is it a fight or flight response? How do these professors define what is happening in those moments of instant reaction? In another study that I've read, the moral reaction in the study subjects were different if there were explanations of the actions presented in a moral light or if the explanation was not given. IF the explanations were given a moral reason the reaction was different (considered moral) than those who were given no explanation for the immoral act and it was viewed immoral. So in this study it was determined that morality was altered if given a moral reason for the act that would normally viewed as immoral.

 

[nuttypiglet]

Is this morality? Is it empathy? Is it a fight or flight response? How do these professors define what is happening in those moments of instant reaction? In another study that I've read, the moral reaction in the study subjects were different if there were explanations of the actions presented in a moral light or if the explanation was not given. IF the explanations were given a moral reason the reaction was different (considered moral) than those who were given no explanation for the immoral act and it was viewed immoral. So in this study it was determined that morality was altered if given a moral reason for the act that would normally viewed as immoral.

exactly, I totally agree. I am also confused as to how we can determine if it's hard wired into us. To really prove this, you would have to witness moral judgement at a very young age indeed, basically just after birth. Otherwise, how could you possibly be sure if it is wired hard by evolution, or something which develops over time because it requires knowledge first. What moral decisions do we see being made by other mammals? How could we know if they are morally based?

 

[AV1611VET]

Morality is a universal constant.

 

[VirOptimus]

Morality is a universal constant.

History and cultural differences clearly disprove that.

 

[bhsmte]

Is this morality? Is it empathy? Is it a fight or flight response? How do these professors define what is happening in those moments of instant reaction? In another study that I've read, the moral reaction in the study subjects were different if there were explanations of the actions presented in a moral light or if the explanation was not given. IF the explanations were given a moral reason the reaction was different (considered moral) than those who were given no explanation for the immoral act and it was viewed immoral. So in this study it was determined that morality was altered if given a moral reason for the act that would normally viewed as immoral.

The whole purpose of the design of this study, was the immediate reaction to the stimuli and the reaction was indeed immediate, which led them to believe the judgement of an immoral act was hard wired into the brain through evolution. Makes perfect sense in the light of what the study showing, since groups of people can not evolve and survive as well without this reaction.

 

[bhsmte]

exactly, I totally agree. I am also confused as to how we can determine if it's hard wired into us. To really prove this, you would have to witness moral judgement at a very young age indeed, basically just after birth. Otherwise, how could you possibly be sure if it is wired hard by evolution, or something which develops over time because it requires knowledge first. What moral decisions do we see being made by other mammals? How could we know if they are morally based?

They address your questions in their observations, just read it.

 

[bhsmte]

Is this morality? Is it empathy? Is it a fight or flight response? How do these professors define what is happening in those moments of instant reaction? In another study that I've read, the moral reaction in the study subjects were different if there were explanations of the actions presented in a moral light or if the explanation was not given. IF the explanations were given a moral reason the reaction was different (considered moral) than those who were given no explanation for the immoral act and it was viewed immoral. So in this study it was determined that morality was altered if given a moral reason for the act that would normally viewed as immoral.

The scientists here are calling it morality, likely because the portion of the brain that controls morality lights up. Your other questions are pretty much addressed in the article.

If you want to reject what they say the findings mean, go ahead, it's no skin off my nose.

 

[AV1611VET]

History and cultural differences clearly disprove that.

Those are called sins.

 

[Ginger123]

Morality is a universal constant.

No it's not, now what?
Christians in Nigeria are still killing gays and burning witches, but then again that's Christian morality which is not the best morality in the world is it?