somebody smugly asked me the other day "Just out of curiosity: how do you decide what to do in a given situation? " to which i replied
everything that occurs in my body is a chemical reaction. all the
chemical reactions are mediated/controlled via enzymes which are
produced in quantities resulting in positive and negative feedback
chemical reactions which ultimately react with dna as the homeostatic
instruction manual.
my brain has developed partly through instinctual developments from my
dna ie arachnophobia, and partly as a response to my environment, always ultimately controlled by dna which grows our brain into a tool
to cope with a complex environment, always looking out for its
survival, and eventual reproduction, not because the genes goal is
reproduction, but because our genes are replications of genes(our parents genes) that had
a proclivity to reproduce. do you know why jealosy is one of the
strongest and most violence producing emotions? its because our dna has
strongly embedded in our brains development a defense against somebody
else impregnating your reproductive partner with other than your genes,
resulting in a huge waste of your energy and time, and your genetic death if you do not reproduce because of this
foreign adultery. Ie raising a child that does not contain your genes is your genetic death.
my choices are the end result of a causal continuum of millions of
neural interactions, ultimately leading me to make the best decision in
the interest of my genes. why does a male preying mantis let itself get
eaten by the female after mating? because the added nutrition to the
female will result in a more favorable genetic outcome (more eggs with
its genes inside) than running away.
we are exercising our brains on a website because of complex
psychological reasons that ultimately benefit many aspects that
could be considered in the genes interest.
why am i wasting my time writing this post instead of looking fore mates to impregnate? because my self sustaining chemical
reaction has effectively directed me to do it for reasons you can ask
an evolutionary minded psychologist, but i suspect its because proving people wrong in an argument has a definite effect on your ego/confidence, which may ultimately result in you becoming more psycologically attractive to possible mates, leading to more reproduction of your genes.
the chemical reactions that occur in my body and brrain are
fundamentally indistinguishable from a burning flame or pouring acid
into a buffer solution.
so to think that there is somebody behind the wheel in my brain calling
the shots is an infantile notion. i have no more choice than any other
chemical reaction that we would regard as nonliving.
let me ask you a question. Do you think you are alive?
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