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Reproduction underpins everything, then?
I've been doing some thinking about this concept that our complex emotions can be deconstructed to reveal simple biological drives. I suppose you could split them roughly into survival functions and reproductive functions. Now, in the modern world, most of our survival is taken care of already. The mechanism that tells me I have food in storage must be a fairly basic one, since it appears in many species; I'm thinking here of squirrels storing food for hibernation.
Taking this into account, that my survival is, if not assured, it's looking likely, and I can know this on a subconscious level, a deep, natural, "old ruts" kind of a knowledge, then the over-whelming majority of my emotions and their responses must have their roots in the reproductive imperative. I've got a good grasp on evolutionary biology - Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" is probably the most accessible explanation of how reproductive imperatives drive living organisms - but it's never occurred to me before to take what I might think of as "The Carl Abbott Step" and really think about how this applies to humans and our emotional responses.
If my every emotional response is rooted in breeding, and I don't plan to breed today, I can be confident in the knowledge that not acting on my emotions will not bring me harm. In fact, I can only be benefitted.
Can it really be this simple to diffuse emotions and their associated thoughts? Well, I shall be finding out...
Taking this into account, that my survival is, if not assured, it's looking likely, and I can know this on a subconscious level, a deep, natural, "old ruts" kind of a knowledge, then the over-whelming majority of my emotions and their responses must have their roots in the reproductive imperative. I've got a good grasp on evolutionary biology - Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene" is probably the most accessible explanation of how reproductive imperatives drive living organisms - but it's never occurred to me before to take what I might think of as "The Carl Abbott Step" and really think about how this applies to humans and our emotional responses.
If my every emotional response is rooted in breeding, and I don't plan to breed today, I can be confident in the knowledge that not acting on my emotions will not bring me harm. In fact, I can only be benefitted.
Can it really be this simple to diffuse emotions and their associated thoughts? Well, I shall be finding out...
Comments
I doubt breeding plays as big a role as many assume. Reproduction is only possible if one survives to reproduce. Thus, I'd say survival was the king pin of emotion, with need and fear as the foundational emotions. Rather than "rooted in breeding" I'd say your "every emotional response" is rooted in survival (with breeding one of many emergent properties of that drive).
Emotion operates from a primordial pre-civilization, mostly pre-cultural level. It is blind, deaf and dumb, which means your 'knowing' that our "survival is taken care of already" does not mean your emotions 'know'. To the contrary; emotions can't know. Ironically, emotions give us the sense (feeling) of conviction that we do know. Emotions enable us to truly believe anything, regardless.
It is far more likely that your thinking causes your emotions to over react to perceived threats that are not threatening your survival right now. This distortion is the norm I'm afraid; it is one consequence of our ignorance of our own ignorance. Essentially, we are animals driven by biology (instinct) like all other animals, yet unlike other animals we think we know, i.e., "not to know, yet to think one knows will lead to difficulty". We think we are masters of ourselves. Ha!
The best I hope for now is not only knowing that nature is in charge, but just how and why. That, for me, has gone a long way to diffuse emotions driven by thought. And, to distrust thoughts driven by emotion. Now I take thought with a grain of salt.
Also, while I'm not suggesting that our emotions know our survival is taken care of, was my example of squirrels' winter storage not sufficient? It seemed to me quite a strong example of a creature without human-like higher brain functions having a hard-wired mechanism for "knowing" (on some level) that it has or doesn't have food stored. What I'm trying to get at is, knowing we've got food for the next week doesn't have to depend on intellectual thought or conscious knowledge in the sense that we use. I'll perhaps have to go have a look, see what the science has to say.
Hmm. Not a very good reply really, but I'm just back from work, so I shan't be trawling the internet right now to find support for my arguments. Having said that, taoism really hinges on stopping trawling the internet for information, and instead trawling oneself for truth, so maybe I'll just do that instead.
Many on the 'science' side of the fence are fairly anti-religious. I'm afraid that only shows their own bias and ignorance. If one is 'anti' anything, that says volumes about the narrow agenda of that person and nothing about the object of their scorn.
Perhaps the focus we have on reproduction originates with Darwin and amplified with Freud. Sexual matters play a central role in human culture. Our biology drives us on that path. Nature has no need of us to be aware of survival, in principle. Survival is the driving force that motivates all life to live, and do what ever is necessary to accomplish that. Sometimes that means reproduction, sometime cooperation, sometimes competition, and so on.
Correlations helps simplify the view:
reproduction = grows (active, stirs, yang, transitional, illusionary)
survival = exists (passive, stills, yin, constancy, reality)
Aren't squirrels driven to store food when the seasons change regardless of supply on hand? The blue jays bury the peanuts I give them no matter how many I give them. The point is, that in the wild there are always limits to supply, so all life is biased to 'over do'. Nature in the wild maintains balance by not providing so much that animals actually end up over doing.
Humans has short circuited this nature's brakes. Through the use of tools, we are able to over do until the imbalance becomes so great that it threatens survival. Obesity, global warming, war, slash and burn farming, specie's extinctions.
The same 'over do' drives people in smaller ways as well. People buy more stuff no matter how much they have, and if they have wealth, they tend to upscale their stuff. The 'squirrel' in us knows no limits. We accumulate, houses are bigger and bigger as opportunity allow. Shelves are filled as our 'foraging' succeeds in greater and greater 'finds'. We drive faster and faster.
The internet can be very misleading, even when the information is accurate (which is always iffy). The best use of news, what ever the source, is how it can exemplify human folly, and the by-paths we prefer. In the end, we can't know more than we know. The information we gather simply gives us an illusion that we know. We hunger to know, yet knowing can only come from within. Our base knowing is the reference point from where we interpret that which we see 'out there' in the world. Nothing out there can deepen our 'in here'. That occurs as circumstances bringing us to maturity.
I agree completely about people who are "anti-" anything... I myself have harboured some fairly rigid views in the past, but I've found that as one experiences the world, one finds that the divides between right and wrong (for example) are fluid at best, if there at all. From this point, it's comforting to extend that belief by meditating on the notion that "these two are the same but diverge in name as they issue forth".
Incidentally, I spent a few days last week when I discovered this site trying to get my head round what you were getting at with your often-referenced correlations. At first, some of your writings gave me a similar feeling to when I first read the TTC: that is, I just wasn't seeing it. Finally, it hit me, and I figured out what you were driving at, so let me know if I'm right: without names to enforce their differences, life and death (for example) would not be seen as separate states at all, merely parts of the same process; since one cannot exist without the other, this in fact makes them all one "piece", rather than opposites. Obviously I can't articulate in words how this mini-epiphany manifested in my mind, which is obviously why I wasn't getting it when I read what you wrote about it. Anyway, that's off-topic, of course, but I wanted to mention it, since it blew my mind, like many of the things I've read on this site. Once again, you have my gratitude; the tools of thought that I've learned from this site so far have been invaluable to my daily perseverance through the human condition.
:-o Wow I am in awe that you find the correlations useful. So few have, at least as far as I've heard. If correlations were actually found to be useful, I'd expect they'd have to bring on at least a mini-epiphany, as you say. You are the first on the internet to tell me you've found the process useful. So, this is a rare moment. A few others have seen their utility, but only after some in person guidance from me.
People do have trouble understanding the Tao Te Ching. Correlations are like a pared down version of the Tao Te Ching, stripped away of its beautiful and persuasive words. A reader / participant must actively 'work them' to see them work.
Also if one does begin to understand what the correlation process 'says', they would find the message / process crushing every fondly held bias they have. Normally folks want their biases supported, not crushed!
The taoist point of view is the final resting place for those for whom all other paths (e.g., politics, religion, science, philosophy, etc.) have been found wanting. It appears you've found the way.
This is an auspicious beginning. The first time a read Tao Te Ching (50 years ago), only one or two chapters really struck me. There rest went over, under or around my head.
Now you've opened a can of worms :-D Expect your life going forward to be one of continuous mini-epiphanies. Anyway that has been my experience. Here is how it all goes down (perhaps):
We can only truly understand what we already know. That intuitive knowing matures within us gradually over time. Deepening knowing broadens understanding. Now this occurs in everyone up to this point at least (more or less). The difference with using the Tao Te Ching and (or even better?) the correlation's process as a framework, is that these constructs don't block vision / knowing (at least not as much). Yet they can give cognitive 'flesh and bones' (understanding) to what you increasingly see and know. In a way they may permit one's discernment to penetrates the four quarters and yet be capable of not knowing anything.
I've found all other constructs (e.g., politics, religion, science, philosophy, etc.) can get in the way. They are tools of thought that if, in the end, are held too tightly, obstruct the view. Of course, that is why these constructs are held as tightly as they are by many (or most?). Thought walls keep us safe within our paradigm so we aren't exposed to such utter emptiness. If, on the other hand, one seeks emptiness, these walls become a prison.
Even so, as each and everyone ages (and death draws near) the illusion fades. We all begin to see through these walls, whether we like it or not.
Well enough of my ramblings…