Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives

Today I heard a talk by David Sloan Wilson
about his view of evolution. You can read all about it in his book Evolution for Everyone: How Darwin's Theory Can Change the Way We Think About Our Lives which can be described as

"journey from the origin of life to human morality and religion,"

.
In short, Wilson claims that we can view all our levels of life from Bilogical to Social and Religious through the eyes of evolution, and it is a very powerful toll for us to understand what is being Human all about.

Multi Level Selection

One point Wilson mention in his talk is of Mutli Level Selection, that is the evolution on each level is based on a lower level evolution but it is independent from it. The higher level behaviur is not internal to the lower level but emergent from it. You cannot understand the high level in the terms of the lower level. This has huge implications, if to borrow from the Technology world, software cannot be found in the hardware level. Google is not inherent in the IP networking protocol. And human behavior is not the product of the molecules in out brain Although we would like to think that way (tip by robotstocknews). Furthermore, usually lower level fitness if working against higher level fitness.

This view of evolution in very similar to the view of Metaphysics of Quality where evolution is the dynamic quality and the different levels are the static quality levels of life.

So go and read Lila by R.M. Pirsig and Evolution for Everyone by D.S. Wilson and acquire a better way of understanding, analyzing and making the right decisions about life.

Values, Morals, Evolution, Science and Mapping

Lila (1991) is the second philosophical novel by Robert M. Pirsig, who is best known for his classic text, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. In this book, Pirsig presents his metaphysics of quality or MOQ for short.

The main claim of MOQ is that our view of the world should be a moral view or valued based view. Everything in the world is seen by its value. There is an hierarchy of value domains.

• The inorganic values - physics
• Organic values - biology
• Social values - law
• Intellectual values - science, spiritual thought
  

And most importantly there is static and dynamic quality. The value domains are static forms of quality the were found over history. Dynamic quality is the power that pushes reality forward.

Looking on reality and our life in that form is very helpful. When I feel down I should ask myself what is the problem? Why do I experience low or bad quality. What kinds of value domains are in conflict in my life.

When trying to answer this questions is important to remember that both static and dynamic qualities are important in order to progress and grow in life. Dynamic quality could take you to wrong allies, but as long you have your static quality in place, you can do the jump of leap knowing you have your safety net behind you.