Re: Fwd: Lanier essay of 2001.12.04

From: J. R. Molloy (jr@shasta.com)
Date: Sun Dec 09 2001 - 04:16:14 MST


From: "Spike Jones" <spike66@attglobal.net>
> I dont see how we could ever dismiss a concept that has been
> hammered into us practically from birth, not only by socialization
> but by evolution.

It's not the "concept" so much as the feeling that has co-evolved with
sexuality... which means that sex is a bit more than a concept. The
evolutionary psychology of sexual jealousy is yet another topic for discussion
in the Complex Adaptive Systems Workshop.
http://www.math.iastate.edu/danwell/cas_s99/cas.html
"As predicted by models derived from evolutionary psychology, men within the
United States have been shown to exhibit greater psychological and
physiological distress to sexual than to emotional infidelity of their
partner, and women have been shown to exhibit more distress to emotional than
to sexual infidelity. Because cross-cultural tests are critical for
evolutionary hypotheses, we examined these sex differences in three parallel
studies conducted in the Netherlands (N=207), Germany(N=200), and the United
States(N=224). Two key findings emerged. First, the sex differences in sexual
jealousy are robust across these cultures, providing support for the
evolutionary psychology model. Second, the magnitude of the sex difference
varies somewhat across cultures - large for the United States, medium for
Germany and the Netherlands. Discussion focuses on the evolutionary psychology
of jealousy and the sensitivity of sex differences in the sexual sphere to
cultural input."

> I did mean the previous riffs mostly in jest. I have a hard time
> imagining a stable society in which most of the copulation took
> place in anything other than practical monogamy.

Well, when the SI uploads us into extropic virtuality, perhaps it can
substitute the Playboy version of sexuality for practical monogamy. After all,
progress is the most important product of self-organization.

©¿©¬

--- --- --- --- ---

Useless hypotheses, etc.:
 consciousness, phlogiston, philosophy, vitalism, mind, free will, qualia,
analog computing, cultural relativism, GAC, Cyc, Eliza, cryonics, individual
uniqueness, ego, human values, scientific relinquishment, malevolent AI,
non-sensory experience, SETI

We move into a better future in proportion as science displaces superstition.



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