"Coming from you, that phrase strikes me as rather funny. Sorry to bother me."
October 07
2009
'Mal's Morals' - a free essay taken from The Psychology of Joss Whedon.
Smart Pop Books are posting free essays from their books and this particular one is about Captain Malcolm Reynolds and moral pornography.
Simon
| Firefly&Serenity
| 13:22 CET
|
10 comments total
| tags: smart pop books, firefly, malcolm reynolds
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BrownCoat_Tabz | October 07, 13:48 CET
FloralBonnet | October 07, 13:51 CET
Mercenary | October 07, 13:52 CET
Dana5140 | October 07, 16:28 CET
Plus I wasn't impressed by the following non-logic in the introduction:
In some ways, you might think audiences would react negatively to such extravagance. We have only scorn for the penniless man who, finding a couple of bucks, buys a sixer of Stroh’s. Isn’t Mal foolish for such indulgences?
I was just like, what? That's not a valid comparison, what the hell are you trying to do? But yknow, it was about Mal so I kept reading, and then uh oh...
The answer to this mystery comes from a relatively new approach to understanding human nature, evolutionary psychology
Jeez louise I had hoped evolutionary 'psychology' was dying a painful death. "Alas, poor Darwin".
digupherbones | October 08, 00:55 CET
Ildeth | October 08, 08:34 CET
The 'why' of this essay may be in contention, but the 'is' should not be; we do precisely like our stories in the manner described.
PaulfromSunnydale | October 08, 11:54 CET
I can understand issues with the methodology and the unfalsifiability of (some of) evolutionary psychology and certainly with evolutionary psychology "run amok" (the straw-man extremist position - which almost no-one actually holds but which this essay skirts dangerously close to a few times - that all thoughts, actions and desires must originally have had some evolutionary advantage/purpose) but I don't really get not seeing it as "a reasonable thing" in principle - our brains evolved, our minds come from our brains therefore how we think is shaped by evolution. To me if you believe in evolution then it's a pretty inescapable conclusion.
That said, I think the essay is off in a few ways, not least in quotes like:
Saje | October 08, 14:02 CET
I could go on and on about this, but the idea of 'cumulative cultural evolution', which is pretty commonly held amongst evolutionary psychologists, is hugely problematic and highly simplistic. It views human society as fundamentally adaptive and 'advancement' (a very loaded term) as primarily a result of our reaction to the natural environment. The environment naturally plays a part in our lives and always has done, but it's only one element amongst many other factors (social organisation, belief, ritual, technology, etc) which are all inter-dependent. The truth is that evolution and the environment are the easy elements to identify and decipher, but it's only the tiniest portion of human possibility and complexity.
I do agree that our brains evolved (one of my favourite papers as an undergrad was "Are we smart because we're sexy, or sexy because we're smart?") but I also think that our brains and our minds aren't necessarily the same thing. Brain size in species doesn't correlate to intelligence or empathy, and our minds are made up of much more than just our biological brains.
Ildeth | October 09, 14:29 CET
...but it's only one element amongst many other factors (social organisation, belief, ritual, technology, etc) which are all inter-dependent. The truth is that evolution and the environment are the easy elements to identify and decipher, but it's only the tiniest portion of human possibility and complexity.
Well, those other factors are part of our environment as (most) evolutionary psychologists see it. Large chunks of EP are devoted to discussing how various strategies for dealing with other people (one of the most important parts of any human's environment) arose as well as where beliefs and rituals come from and what purpose they might serve. It's all very well pointing out that these things affected our development (they most certainly did/do) but simply stating their existence isn't providing an explanation of where they came from in the first place - that's what evolutionary psychology tries to do.
But then if you don't believe our brains solely determine our minds (i.e. if you believe our minds may have a non-materialistic component, a supernatural element) then I guess you may see things like belief as coming from some other plane of existence, of not necessarily evolving naturally ?
To me biological brains are where minds "live", minds don't (and can't) exist without a brain (of some description, not necessarily organic - though all brains we've seen up to now are) and nothing that happens in our minds didn't originate in some physical process in our brains (immensely complex and intertwined though those processes may be).
Saje | October 09, 16:19 CET