Here's the latest post from his wonderful Journal.
1.25.06: Selfless
What if there is no self? No such thing as being the unique personalities we think we are? What if, and this is very convoluted, there are even parts of our brains that have evolved to convince us that each of us is unique ? as a cover up or mask for the awful truth? The truth that parts of our brains deceive other parts of our brains. And that this trickery evolved because it?s useful.
It?s not as farfetched as it sounds. If you accept the idea that the propensity for religion might have evolved in our brains and you also accept that it is possible that the self-deception of religion and believing in unlikelihoods might give some kind of evolutionary advantage, then you can transfer this over to our concept of our personalities and ourselves. (This assumes that you view literal interpretations of religious orthodoxy as a form of self-delusion and fantasy.)
So, given that I believe that the brain might have evolved propensities to create believable faith-based fantasies, I am ready to apply it to my view of myself. It?s only fair. If I?m going to claim that religion is a deception, then maybe I myself am a deception as well.
The evolutionary advantage of self-deceptions of various kinds is that in order to go ahead with many activities you need to convince yourself that the activities will be worthwhile, that there will be a payoff down the line. You have to keep the faith. Delayed gratification. And what promises the biggest payoff of all? Religion.
The biggest self-deceptions are that life has a ?meaning? and that each of us is unique. One can see that evolving an inbuilt obscuring mechanism for those depressing insights might be practical. O.K., we are unique, in a sense ? the huge numbers of available combinations of available traits, propensities, body types and experiences that make up each of us is unimaginable ? the number of every possible outcome is immense. Immense, but still restricted within certain boundaries or we wouldn?t be able to recognize these types at all. It?s somehow ?infinite? but always similarly shaped.
But maybe what we think of as self, as us, exists in dogs and even insects. One of them might be just like me. I?m not unique after all. The range is limited, and universal up and down the food chain. So when we stray into the forbidden zone of these kinds of ideas the policeman inside says, ?don?t even think that.? And he says it for our own good.
Anyway, back to the self. Or what used to be the self. Recent Studies (should be a brand name, that) hint that we, and a surprising range of our fellow creatures, have genetic propensities towards a limited range of personalities. What is surprising is that it is not only humans that are shy, aggressive, risk-taking or timid ? but that fruit flies and octopi are too, in almost the same percentages. The point spread is consistent. What we think of as our own special personalities ? well, spiders and flies have them, too.
Not that environment and upbringing have no say in the matter. Being social animals, our brains are partly structured and given a framework by genetics and then experience helps make more connections and fill in the blanks. But the neurons that are being connected are already in place; experience and the environment can only skew things so far.
I wonder then if other qualities besides selfhood that we think of as being unique to ourselves and to human being in general are also present in the animal kingdom? If animals and even insects have ?personalities? then do they also have morality? A sense of right and wrong? It?s not so crazy. Right and wrong could be notions that lend an evolutionary advantage and foster social well-being, and therefore survival of the group. So why shouldn?t animals have these principles too?
What if we go further? Do animals have a sense of humor? Do insects? Ever see one chuckling behind those dead eyes? Do animals have philosophies? In the sense that moral and ethical codes are philosophies applied. Do they have religions? O.K., hyenas don?t built temples and shrines, but do they share with humans that nagging sense that there is something more, something greater? An afterlife maybe? Insect Heaven.
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Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake.
-Erik Davis
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