Bio truths

Cbus_anonymous · 2015-06-20T14:55:49+00:00

Emotions are simply incentives to behave in ways that benefit our genes

This is a big assumption, and even at its core, doesn't make sense. In fact, arguing that people do anything to "benefit their genes" doesn't really make sense. There's incredible heterogeneity in human emotion expression, but you're treating it as if it's a totally predictable stimlus/response paradigm.

Also, your e.g. statement is being treated as a foregone conclusion when it isn't. I realize redpill uses that claim as part of its teaching, but it's not demonstrated.

You don't see how it's wrong because you don't understand logic. No offence meant.

TheChemist158 · 2015-06-20T17:58:07+00:00

Why not make this a CMV? Seems like the more appropriate flair. Much of early human life didn't center around strength, so there's no need to develop radically different mental states.

Pleb-Tier_Basic · 2015-06-20T15:51:56+00:00

Emotions are simply incentives to behave in ways that benefit our genes, and the genes of the human race.

Are they though? There are lots of emotions that don't benefit the propagation of the gene; depression, for example, makes somebody less likely to have sex, not more.

My big problem with evopsych is that it is way too convenient given how many assumptions it is based on. Saying that emotions are "simply incentives to behave in a way that benefits our genes" is a huge claim; that can describe pretty much any behaviour

Meninismx · 2015-06-21T02:06:46+00:00

[deleted]

theory_of_kink · 2015-06-20T14:59:38+00:00

A few problems with this.

How precise is your model? Are there numbers on these facts? Probably not, thats ok, but its hard to take precise action based on rough numbers.
Bio truths have exceptions. Maybe lots of exceptions. Like "All men are taller than women." On average yes, but it would be absurd to base society around that.
"Appeal to nature." A biological truth is not a moral truth. Humans are naturally violent. That does not mean violence is moral. Humans are social primates that does mean all activity needs to be social.
Effective does not mean moral. Red pill often talks about being an amoral set of tools. Morality still matters.

luxo42 · 2015-06-20T20:26:13+00:00

I actually agree with your conclusion, however I don't think it follows logically from your argument. The reason is because difference in one area does not guarantee differences in all areas. To break down your argument.

Men are physically stronger than women.

True. On average men are stronger than women. This is a fact.

Emotions are simply incentives to behave in ways that benefit our genes, and the genes of the human race.

This is oversimplifying things a bit, but I agree with the general idea.

Since physicality differs, men and women have different strategies for benefiting their genes, and hence different emotional drives.

This doesn't follow. One example does not prove a generality. Let me break down your logic so you can see what I mean.

Men have a Set of characteristics/behaviors M={a,b,c,d,e...} that evolved to increase the likelihood of their Set of genes Y={y1,y2,y3,h1,h2,h3...} propagating. (y"" corresponds to male specific genes, h"" corresponds to genes shared by all humans)
One of these characteristics is 'a=increased strength'.
Women have a Set of characteristics/behaviors W={b,c,x,y,z,...} that also evolved to increase the likelihood of their genes X={x1,x2,x3,h1,h2,h3....} propagating.
Set W does not contain 'a'.
Therefore sets M and W are not identical.
Set M contains 'n= subset of emotions {f,g,h..} that evolved to experience love'.
Set W contains 'm= subset of emotions {j,k,l..} that evolved to experience love'.
If subset n=m, then subset n is an element of W.
Since Sets M and W are not identical, W does not contain 'n'.
Conclusion: n does not equal m.

Can you see the error in logic? Saying that sets M and W are not identical does not mean that they do not share common elements.

But regardless, I agree with your conclusion (assuming that you only meant men and women do not love identically) because the science backs it up. source

Studies of romantic love and sexual arousal have also identified sex differences in brain activation, consistent with sex differences in these domains. Fischer et al. [25] showed subjects photographs of an individual they loved and a familiar but not loved person, and compared the fMRI responses in each case. When presented with a photograph of an individual they loved reward-related regions were activated in both males and females, but females showed more activity in the caudate, the septum, and the posterior parietal cortex, whereas males showed more activity in visual processing areas. A similar fMRI study of romantic love reported similar reward-related activity but no sex differences, however [26]. Studies of responses to visual sexually arousing stimuli have identified sex differences primarily in limbic regions, including the hypothalamus 27.• and 28.• and amygdala [28•].

There are some similarities, and some differences.

Edit: My model of Meninismx's argument originally did not have premises 7 and 8, and premise 9 was the original conclusion. This caused some confusion because he thought this implied that Set W does not contain any subset of emotions that experience love. (See comments below) I only meant to imply that W does not contain the same set of emotions that experience love as Set M, so I edited my model argument above to make this more clear.

crimeo · 2015-06-21T00:07:41+00:00

Two major problems here:

1) Different physicality does not logically necessitate different behaviors, outcomes, or ways of loving. For example, your incentive for going to the grocery store is to buy milk, mine is to buy bagels. We may still both end up driving the exact same roads though using cars, etc.

Different physicality ALLOWS for different behaviors, but does not GUARANTEE them. In philosophical terms, you have described a necessary condition, but not a sufficient one.

2) Even if we disregard #1 above, and I agree that men and women love differently, merely saying "love differently" is not the same as "now I get to substitute in whatever random differences I feel like describing and you've already agreed to it."

"Love differently" does not commit to any specifics at all about how or what kind of differences, nor does your argument above establish any such specific details.

Usually, what you've described thus far isn't the issue. The slapdash way people handwave their way to the details is where the problem lies in getting to whatever the final conclusion is in some thread.

And 3) A minor issue, but your definition of emotions is by no means firmly established in psychological literature. That is one hypothesis sure, that's about it. And actually probably more of a fringe one. I don't think it was actually relevant either way for your argument anyway though.

BoomFapXCX · 2015-06-21T04:04:16+00:00

Am I to take from this that EP has made a comeback? When I went to university (some 20+ years ago) it had been quite discredited and was well back of SSM or cultural modeling.

How has it been able to overcome the twin fallacies (known as the naturalistic fallacy (that what is found in nature is good) and the moralistic fallacy (that which is good is found in nature)) which plagued its rationale?

The reason I ask is that those same fallacies seem to be fuelling OP's analysis. Well, that and it totally discounts environmental determinatives for personality, emotion and morals.

Is this why TRP says it is amoral because they are operating on an animalistic scale, driven by natural selection, divorced from culture?

Please ELI5 the term "bio truth" and what is meant by it in this context. There are facts (or truths?) in biology yes but mainly theories in psychology and brain/behavior analysis. I am approaching this from a neuro/pharma perspective and it is both intriguing and confusing to me.

taiboworks · 2015-06-20T14:17:14+00:00

men and women love differently.

i don't think this follows from your initial argument, so elaborate. further, men and women can be different in some ways and the same in others. for instance, men and women have the same optical system, the same cardivascular system, the same kidney and liver systems, the same area of the brain devoted to language, etc.. the fact is a compatible female (that you would get along with) will probably be more like you than the average male because individual differences (between all men and women) are far greater than average gender differences. do you understand that?

C0UNTdrama · 2015-06-20T20:11:31+00:00

Emotions are simply incentives to behave in ways that benefit our genes, and the genes of the human race.

Well, that's completely bogus. Maybe you should look up what mental disorders are (which are genetic for the most part btw).

E.g men and women love differently.

I've yet to see any evidence for this.

Very, very simply evolutionary psychology here,

Well, Evo Psych is pseudoscience so there's another problem with your "theory".

This is very logical and makes a load of sense, I don't see how I can be wrong.

This line of reasoning is the same one employed by religious zealots: god is real, it just makes logical sense, I don't see how I can be wrong. Except your "deity" is a poor understanding of evolution.

wazzup987 · 2015-06-20T15:31:20+00:00

Men are physically stronger than women. (Different still works)

yes but this only really matter if there is a large size difference. if it minimal a woman can wreck you

Emotions are simply incentives to behave in ways that benefit our genes, and the genes of the human race

emotions are cuased by stimuli

Very, very simply evolutionary psychology here

Nueroplasticy,

economics drives gender differences.

ECoast_Man · 2015-06-20T22:34:37+00:00

What is a 'bio truth' and why is it used as an argument by BP?

gianttribble · 2015-06-22T17:04:03+00:00

I view it as: there's a venn diagram with a huge overlap in the middle. Maybe the extremes on the far ends are gender exclusive but the space in the middle is almost circular.

animalmind · 2015-06-23T01:02:48+00:00

We do have emotional reactions that are not beneficial to our biological imperatives. Laughter for example doesn't contribute to our survival. A theory of laughter is it's a relief to a perceived threat that turns out harmless. For example, if you see tall grass moving and think it's a tiger, but turns out to be a rabbit. It's a byproduct of other emotional states.

Meshakhad · 2015-06-25T02:32:50+00:00

I don't deny that there are biotruths. I just find anecdotal evidence unconvincing, especially about the way people think. Show me a large-scale peer-reviewed study published in a respected journal of psychology or sociology, and we'll talk. I also find that, in general, the average differences between men and women are smaller than the average difference between two random people. So while on average, men and women may react differently to X, that does not mean that all men react one way, while all women react another way. It's more like "60% of men reacted A to X, while 60% of women reacted B to X". That means that 40% of men reacted B and 40% of women reacted A.

despisedlove2 · 2015-06-21T14:30:23+00:00

Never understood the terminology.

A bio truth is a biological truth, isn't it?

Biology is a science. That would make a bio truth doubly a truth.

Title	Bio truths
Author	Meninismx
Upvotes	7
Comments	258
Date	June 20, 2015 2:02 PM UTC (11 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/3aie2g/bio_truths/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/bio-truths.281507 https://theredarchive.com/post/281507

Comments