But that's another story.
How does this goodness evolve? I do not understand. What is goodness? I believe goodness to be a form of caring for one another, a sort of compassion that evolves (?) and develops between two parties, a willingness to help and assist each other. This compassion, this feeling, can manifest itself from a sort of mutual relationship to cooperation to care and concern, and in the Homo Sapiens level of thinking, love.
The article has explained the presence of emotional power in biological occurences, and it has done so pretty well. However, one thing still perturbs me. How can we quantify goodness?
William D. Hamilton has formulated this formulative formula which basically allows for goodness to enter the equation (pardon the metaphor used) of evolution. Yet it is not possible to actually just assign numbers and letters to the 'costs of goodness' and 'the benefit that is obtained from the relationship'. Life would be too structured if such a thing could be done.
Then in that case, how does the human mind make decisions if it is impossible to quantify goodness? After all, doesnt the mind use logic to make its decision? The answer is, a lot more is involved in this decision making process. Emotions themselves are things that cannot be associated with survival instinct. That is why we see a mother willing to risk her life in order to save her baby, although this does conflict violently with the theory of evolution. Emotions are a sort of attachment that have been formed between people. Not only that, emotions are also linked to other things, such as material objects. As such, this 'goodness' cannot be just a result of evolution.
The genetic relatedness between individuals also does not seem to make sense to me, after all, a couple who has not met throughout their childhood can meet, develop feleings for each other, and get married. This relationship is what will determine the amount of goodness shown to each other. Even humans can come to care for cats and dogs. What has genetic relatedness have to do with all this? If survival of the fittest comes in, humans might as well kill all the non-beneficial animals and only rear chickens and cows as food.
I personally believe that humans develop this sort of feelng to good and help others because of the emotions that they have. These emotions develop into a sense of morality, which helps humans to make 'moral' and 'charitable' decisions. Soon, we tend to develop a form of care and concern for people who we feel more towards. Such a feeling can also come about towards people whom we pity, such as old women. However, this brings in another factor into the equation (pardon the metaphor again) which is pity and sympathy, which is another complex emotion of the human mind.
Anyway, to prevent any further cerebral complications taking place in your brain, I shall end my discussion here. Take note, this too is a sign of pity.
I feel, as a whole, that a lot more contributes to the amount of goodness, no, forget the word amount, just the goodness, that we feel should be exacted upon those around us. The most important factor would be the emotions inside us, that either conflict or accompany the logic that is used for decision making.
And by the way, I still disagree with the theory of evolution. The complexity of eye, the coordination of schools of fish, the flight mechanisms of birds, all these factors are strong doubting points of information against this theory. Now if you will excuse me to explain futher....
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