YouSaid · the spoken record

Richard Dawkins

lines on the record: 71
first: 2020-04-09
most recent: 2020-04-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“I ponder it. It makes me sad that I shall have to leave and not see what's going to happen next. If there's something frightening about mortality, apart from sort of missing, as I've said, something more deeply, darkly frightening, it's the idea of eternity. But eternity is only frightening if you're there. Eternity before we were born, billions of years before we were born, and we were effectively dead before we were born. As I think it was Mark Twain said, I was dead for billions of years before I was born and never suffered the smallest inconvenience. That's how I was going to be afterward. So I think of it as really eternity is a frightening prospect. And so the best way to spend it is under a general anesthetic, which is what it'll be.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We have other girls which can be very moving, very important. They could even be called spiritual in some cases. We want to understand the riddle of the universe. We want to understand consciousness. We want to understand how the brain works. These are all noble goals. Some of them can be noble goals anyway. And they are a far cry from the fundamental biological goal, which is the propagation of DNA. But the machinery that enables us to set up these Higher level goals is originally programmed into us by natural selection of DNA.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From a scientific point of view, the meaning of life is the propagation of DNA, but that's not what I feel. That's not the meaning of my life. So, the meaning of my life is something which is probably different from yours and different from other people's. But we each make our own meaning. So we set up goals we want to achieve. We want to write a book. We want to Whatever it is we do write up. Quartet. We want to win a football match. And these are short-term goals, well, maybe even quite long-term goals, which are set up by our brains, which have goal-seeking machinery built into them. But what we feel, we don't feel motivated by the desire to pass on our DNA mostly.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Physical bodies, the war of the worlds of H.G. Wells will never happen, but we could be invaded by radio signals, code, coded information, which is sort of like DNA and we are, I call them, we are survival machines of our DNA. So it has great resonance for me because I think of us. I think of bodies, physical bodies, biological bodies as Manipulated by coded information DNA which has come down through generations.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, the idea is, again, we will not be visited from outer space by physical bodies. We will be visited possibly. We might be visited by radio. But the radio signals could manipulate us. Actually, have a concrete influence on the world if they make us or persuade us to build a computer which runs their software so that they can then transmit their software by radio and then the computer takes over the world. This is the same theme in both Hoyle's book and Sagan's book, I presume, I don't know whether Sagan knew about Hoyle's book, probably did. But it's a clever idea that we will never be invaded.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so it's a wonderful, I wouldn't call it setup because it's too good natured for that, and a wonderful parable about Christianity and the doctrine, the theological doctrine of the fall. So I find that kind of science fiction immensely stimulating. Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud. Oh, by the way, anything by Arthur C. Clarke I find very, very wonderful too. Fred Hoyle's The Black Cloud, his first science fiction novel where he, well, I learned a lot of science from that. It suffered from an obnoxious hero, unfortunately, but apart from that, you learn a lot of science from it. Another of his novels, Apha Andromeda, which by the way, the theme of that is taken up by Carl Sagan science fiction novel, another wonderful writer. Carl Sagan contact.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Has echoes of Christianity, but is based on light. And so there's been a fall from a paradise world that once existed where light reigned supreme. And because of the sin of mankind, light banished them. So they no longer are in light's presence, but light survives in the form of mythology and in the form of sayings like the great light almighty for light's sake don't do that. And I hear what you mean rather than I see what you mean.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. Yes, well, actually, I suppose I could say that I've learned some. Some science from science fiction. I mentioned Daniel Galloy, and that's one example, but another of his novels. called dark universe, which is not terribly well known, but is a very, very nice science fiction story. It's about a world of perpetual darkness. And we're not told at the beginning of the book why these people are in darkness. They stumble around in some kind of underground world of caverns and passages, using echolocation like bats and whales to get around, and they've adapted to the By Darwinian means to survive in perpetual total darkness, but what's interesting is that their mythology, their religion”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, yes, it would because in many ways it clears up what appeared in his time to be a riddle in the digital nature of genetics clears up what was a problem, what was a big problem. Gosh, there's so much that I could think of, I can't really”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Astonishingly prescient because considering he was writing the middle of the 19th century, Michael Gieselin said he's working 100 years ahead of his time. Everything except genetics is amazingly right, an amazingly far ahead of his time. And of course, you need to read the updatings. Have happened since his time as well, and he would be astonished by it. Let alone Watson and Crick, of course, but he'd be astonished by Mendelian genetics as well.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“at regular intervals. What's going on is that the brain is constructing a cube, but the sense data are compatible with two alternative cubes, and so rather than stick with one of them, it alternates between them. I think that's just a model for what we do all the time when we see a table, when we see a person, when we see anything, we are using the sense data to construct or make use of a preps previously constructed model. I noticed this when I meet somebody who actually is, say, a friend of mine, but until I kind of realize that it is him, he looks different, and then I finally clock that it's him, his features switch like a necker cube. Into the familiar form, as it were, I've taken his face out of the filing cabinet inside and grafted it onto, or use the sense data to invoke it.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I do think that although it reflects the fundamental reality, I do believe there is a fundamental reality, I do think that our perception is constructive in the sense that we construct in our minds a model of what we're seeing. And so this is really the view of people who work on visual illusions like Richard Gregory, who point out that things like a necker cube which flip from a two-dimensional picture of a cube on a sheet of paper. But we see it as a three-dimensional cube, and it flips from one orientation to another.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, well, that's a good point. That's an arguable point. By the way, I have thought about using the Nick Bostrom idea to solve the riddle of how we were talking earlier about why the human brain can achieve so much. I thought of this when my then 100-year-old mother was marveling at what I could do with a smartphone. And I could, you know, look up anything in the Encyclopedia. I could play her music that she liked and so on. She said, all in that, in that tiny little phone. No, it's out there. It's in the cloud. And maybe most of what we do is in a cloud. So maybe if we're a simulation, then all the power that we think is in our skull, it actually may be like the power that we think is in the iPhone. But it's actually out there”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, no, I mean, the programmer, the upper ones have to have evolved gradually. However, the simulation they create could be instantaneous. I mean, they could be switched on. And we come into the world. With fabricated memories.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Nature of this universe. I mean, he thinks that we're in a simulation done by, so to speak, condescendants of the future, that products, but it's still a product of evolution. It still ultimately going to be a product of the evolution even though the superintelligent people of the future have created our world. And you and I are just a simulation in this table is a simulation and so on. I don't actually, in my heart of hearts, believe it, but I like his argument.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Certainly an interesting thought experiment. I first met it in a science fiction novel by Daniel Galloy called Counterfeit World in which All about. I mean, our heroes are running a gigantic computer which simulates the world and something goes wrong. And so one of them has to go down into this emulated world in order to fix it. And then the denouement of the thing, the climax to the novel is that they discover that they themselves are in another simulation at a higher level. So I was intrigued by this and I love... Others of Daniel Galloy's science fiction novels, then it was revived seriously by Nick Bostrom.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The meta meta programmer must have evolved by a gradual process. You can't escape that. Fundamentally, you've got to come back to. A gradual incremental process of explanation to start with.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Then you still need to explain the programmer. The programmer had to come into existence by some, even if we're in a simulation, the programmer must have evolved, or if he's in a sort of she or she's in a metasimulation.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Or, like engineering design. So suppose we did meet an alien from outer space who was marvelously magnificently more intelligent than us. And we would sort of worship it for that reason. Nevertheless, it would not be a god in the very important sense that it did not just happen by to be there like God is supposed to. It must have come about by a gradual step by step, incremental progressive process, presumably like Darwinian evolution. There's all the difference in the world between those two intelligence, design comes into the universe late as a product of a progressive evolutionary process or a progressive engineering design process.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, yes, I mean, I can see that. The future of intelligent machines, or indeed intelligent aliens from outer space, might yield beings that we would regard as gods in the sense that they are so superior to us that we might as well worship them. That's highly plausible, I think. I see a very fundamental distinction between a god who is simply defined as something very, very powerful and intelligent on the one hand, and a god who doesn't need explaining by a progressive step by step process like evolution.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It has a kind of poetic resonance to it, which I get. I wouldn't have bothered to make the point myself, put it that way.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I suppose there's a link between an ancient desire. Explain away mystery and science. But intelligence, artificial intelligence creating God's creating new gods. I forget, I read somewhere a somewhat facetious Paper which said that we have a new goddess called Google And we pray to it and we worship it and we ask its advice like an oracle and so on. That's fun.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There have been steps back, admittedly, and the Holocaust is obvious one. But if you take a broad view of history, it's in the same direction.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We could, I suspect we won't, but if you look at the history of moral values over the centuries, it is in a progressive. I use the word progressive not in a value judgment sense, in the sense of a transitive sense. Each step is in the same direction as the previous step. So things like we don't derive entertainment from torturing cats. We don't derive entertainment from like the Romans did in the Colosseum from stage.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They were not murdered. Yes, and I was careful to say by the standards of the 21st century. By our standards, if we with hindsight look back at history, what we see is a trend in the direction towards us, towards our present rates. Our present value”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Not sure it's any direction, and I'm not sure it's evolutionarily valuable. What it is is progressive in the sense that each step is a step in the same direction as the previous step. So it becomes more gentle, more decent by modern standards, more liberal, less violent.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Using your 21st century morality to decide which verses to pick, which verses to reject. And so why not cut out the middleman of the Bible and go straight to the twenty first century morality which is true? That comes from is a much more complicated question why is it that morality moral values change as the centuries go by, they undoubtedly do, and it's a very interesting question to ask why it's another example of cultural evolution just as technology progresses, so moral values progress for probably very different reasons.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Text to the new religion. Yeah, so basing your morals on religious text, which are written millennia ago, It is not a great way to proceed. I think that's pretty clear. So not only should we not get our morals from such texts, but we don't. We quite clearly don't. If we did, then we'd be discriminating against women and we'd be racist, we'd be killing homosexuals and so on. So we don't and we shouldn't. Now, of course, it's possible to use your 21st century standards of morality and you can look at the Bible and you can cherry pick particular verses which conform to our modern morality and you'll find that Jesus says some pretty nice things, which is great”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that is the most powerful. Influence I can see on our moral values and that doesn't have anything to do with religion. I mean the religion of the morals of the Old Testament are Bronze Age models. They're deplorable and they are to be understood in terms of the people in the desert who made them up at the time. And so human sacrifice an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, petty, revenge, killing people for breaking the Sabbath, all that kind of thing. Inconceivable now.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Very complicated and interesting question. It's clear to me that the moral standards, the moral values of our civilization changes. Decades go by, certainly as the centuries go by, even as the decades go by. We in the 21st century are quite clearly labelled twenty first century people in terms of our moral values. There's a spread. I mean, some of us are a little bit more ruthless, some of us more conservative, some of us, more liberal and so on. But we all subscribe to pretty much the same views when you compare us with, say, 18th century, 17th century people, even 19th century, 20th century people. We're much less racist, we're much less sexist, and so on than we used to be. Some people are still racist and some are still sexist, but the spread has shifted. The Gaussian distribution has moved and moves steadily as the centuries go by.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Presumably dreamed up by somebody who then tells somebody else, who then wants to believe it. And I don't know why people are so eager to fall in line with some person that they happen to read or meet who spins some yarn. I can kind of understand why they believe what their parents and teachers told them when they were very tiny, and not capable of critical thinking for themselves. So I sort of get why Great religions of the world like Catholicism and Islam go on persisting. It's because of childhood indoctrination. But that's not true of flat earthism. And sure enough, flat earthism is a very minority cult.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Okay, it's extremely unlikely Religion is a bit different because it's passed down from generation to generation. So many of the people who are religious Got it from their parents who got it from their parents, who got it from their parents. And childhood indoctrination is a very powerful force. But these things like the 9-11 conspiracy theory, the Kennedy assassination conspiracy theory, the man on the moon conspiracy theory, these are not childhood indoctrination. These are”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's an obviously difficult thing. I don't understand why people believe things that are clearly nonsense like, well, flat earth and also the conspiracy about not landing on the moon or that the United States engineered 9-11, that kind of thing.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, that's right. And of course, historically, lone geniuses have come out right sometimes. But often people who think they're a lone genius much more often turn out not to. So you have to judge each case on its merits. The mere fact that you're a maverick, the mere fact that you're going against the current tide doesn't make you right. You've got to show your right by looking at the evidence.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, which is improbable, the sheer number who would have to be in on this conspiracy and the sheer detail, the attention to detail they'd have had to have had and so on. I also worry about the motive. I mean, why would anyone want to suggest that it didn't happen? What's the, why is it so hard to believe? I mean, the physics of it, the mathematics of it, the idea of computing orbits and trajectories and things, it all works mathematically Why wouldn't you believe it?”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes. I mean, I think it's probably too easy to say that by labeling something a conspiracy, you therefore dismiss it. I mean, occasionally conspiracies are right And so we shouldn't dismiss conspiracy theories out of hand. We should examine them on their own merits. Flat earthism is obvious nonsense. We don't have to examine that much further. But there may be other conspiracy theories which are actually right.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How do you think of certainly not dishonest? And I mean, obviously many of them are perfectly nice people, so I don't sort of despise them in that sense. I think it's often a misunderstanding that people will jump from the admission that we don't understand something. They will jump straight to what they think of as an alternative explanation, which is the supernatural one, which is not an alternative. It's a non-explanation. Instead of jumping to the conclusion that science needs more work, that we need to actually do some better science. Personal antipathy towards such people. I just think they're misguided.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think that's right. I mean, there are arrogant people in any walk of life, and scientists are no exception to that. And so there are arrogant scientists. Think we've sold everything, of course, we haven't. So humility is a proper stance for a scientist. I mean, it's a proper working stance because it encourages further work. But in a way, to resort to a supernatural explanation is a kind of arrogance because it's saying, well, we don't understand it scientifically. Therefore, the non-scientific religious supernatural explanation must be the right one. That's arrogant. What is humble is to say we don't know. And we need to work further on it”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But to invoke a non-scientific, non-physical explanation is simply to lie down in a cowardly way and say, we can't solve it, so we're going to invoke magic. Don't let's do that. Let's say we need better science. We need more science. It may be that the science will never do it. It may be that we will never actually understand everything. And that's okay, but let's keep working on it.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's right to be humble. I think it's right to admit that there's a lot we don't know, a lot that we don't understand, a lot that we still need to work on. And we are working on it. What I don't think is that it helps to invoke supernatural explanations. If our current scientific explanations aren't adequate to do the job, then we need better ones. We need to work more. And of course, the history of science shows just that, that as science goes on, problems get solved one after another and the science advances as science gets better.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I read books on it, and they're persuasive. I don't think they're that persuasive, though. I mean, some people suggested that society. Needs a sort of figurehead which can be a non existent figurehead in order to function properly. I think there's something rather patronizing about the idea that, well, you and I are intelligent enough not to believe in God, but the plebs need it sort of thing. I mean, I think that's patronizing. And I'd like to think that that was not the right way to proceed.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, clearly all individuals are not hopelessly tied to it because many individuals don't believe you could mean something like society needs religion in order to function properly, something like that. And some people have suggested that.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, yes. I mean truth about the real world, which is ascertainable by not just by the more rigorous methods of science, but by just ordinary sensory observation.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They've both been made sophisticated in a mathematical sense, more so than Wen Darwin and Wallace first started talking about it.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Starting with Wallace, the co discoverer of natural selection, didn't like that idea, and they wanted sexually selected characteristics like peacock's tails to be in some sense useful. It's a bit of a stretch to think of a peacock's tail as being useful, but in the sense of survival, but others have run with that idea and have brought it up to date. And so there's a kind of, there are two schools of thought on sexual selection which are still active and about equally supported now. Those who follow Darwin in thinking that it's just enough to say it's attractive and those who follow Wallace and say that it has to be in some sense useful.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That ring a bell for you? Is that sound ridiculous? I think it's a rather distorted bell Darwin, when he coined the phrase sexual selection. Didn't feel the need to. Suggest that what was attractive to females usually as males attractive females that what females found attractive had to be useful he said it didn't have to be useful it was enough that females found it attractive and so it couldn't be completely useless probably was completely useless in the conventional sense but was not at all useless in the sense of passing on Darwin didn't call them genes but in the sense of reproducing. Others were”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, all that matters needed is that it should spread. And it doesn't have to be true to spread. In truth is one criterion which might help an idea to spread. But there are other criteria which might help it to spread. As you say, attraction in animals is not necessarily valuable for survival. famous peacock's tale. Doesn't help the peacock to survive. It helps it to pass on its genes. Similarly, an idea which is actually rubbish, but which people don't know is rubbish and think is very attractive will spread in the same way as a peacock's gene spre”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, a Darwinian selection idea would involve investigating which ideas spread and which don't. So some ideas don't have the ability to spread. In the flat earthism is, there are a few people believe in it, but it's not going to spread because it's obvious nonsense. But other ideas, even if they are wrong, can spread because they are attractive in some sense.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I wouldn't use the word like evolutionary purpose in that case, but villages or religious will be something that just emerge. That's the way people happen to live.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Occasionally, and maybe even to a neighboring continent eventually. And that was a slow process. Nowadays villages are international. I mean, you have people, it's been called echo chambers where people are in a sort of internet village where the other members of the village may be geographically distributed all over the world, where they just happen to be interested in the same things, use the same terminology, the same jargon, have the same enthusiasm. So people like the Flat Earth Society, they don't all live in one place. They find each other and they talk the same language to each other. They talk the same nonsense to each other. So this is a kind of distributed version of the primitive idea of people living in villages and propagating their ideas in a local way.”
2020-04-09 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #87 – Richard Dawkins: Evolution, Intelligence, Simulation, and Memes · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source