Genetics, Evolution, Social Connection, Sex Education and The Significance of Desires

Note: All the ideas presented in this post are not ideas I strongly believe in or endorse, because I am currently not knowledgeable enough to say anything with confidence, nor have I consulted anyone who is an expert on these topics, so please do not adopt any of these ideas as your own, because they are almost certainly incorrect. Read them just as a starting point for further enquiry, perhaps as an introduction that could make you more curious or interested in it, and always keep in mind the principles of Rationality, Scientific Skepticism, Critical Thinking and Open-Mindedness. Or just read it for fun, because I'm just playing with ideas here, everyone is most welcome to correct me wherever they think I'm wrong, and I'd be more than happy to change my mind in light of convincing logical reasons or empirical evidence.

In this post I’m going to talk about something that is a taboo in the society I come from, though it’s gradually changing, but I felt like sharing my own ideas and how I have connected the idea of sex education with transhumanism and the philosophy of psychiatry or something because to be honest I have no idea which fields these topics are investigated by. Please enlighten me if you happen to know anything about the topics I’m going to discuss now.

To me the desires for social connection and sexual desires seem to be puzzling topics. Both when unmet seem to cause suffering, and both of them are two of the components, the external factors that influence life and our decisions, that currently seem out of control and that I seek to understand and manipulate, as they stem from emotions which is also a cognitive process we have a very poor understanding of.

Why do I need social connection? Do these emotions even serve a purpose? Maybe it’s telling you to get friends and then you’re happier and you could say oh it was pushing me towards having a happier life, but wouldn’t life be happy already if there wasn’t any such emotion pushing you to go out and make friends and find a sexual partner? This problem is even more prominent for those with social anxiety.

As Schopenhauer said, man can do what he wants but he can’t want what he wants. Why not? Can’t we try to control these intuitions, emotions and feelings? It’s so irrational, it should be a preference whether I want to have friends and have sex or not. It’s like being addicted to a drug without every trying it and not feeling satisfied till you try it or die suffering, and never really being able to come off clean because it's socially acceptable and the norm.

This is especially a problem for the people who wish to be single, or who don’t wish to have kids, but then you might point towards the pleasure component, and I’d reply by saying that this is so unnecessary, it’s not even a state of flow or eudaimonic pleasure, the type of higher satisfaction that you’d gain from working on something you like, you’d never be able to self-actualize and feel satisfied with a life in which you only had sex. Not so for a life of playing piano or doing science.

To further elaborate on eudaimonic vs hedonic pleasure, eudaimonia is derived from the kind of activities that don't give you diminished satisfaction with each time you do it, what is called diminishing marginal utility in Economics, so you might start hating your once favourite chocolate if you too much of it in a row, but not so for playing your favourite piece on the piano. This is also why I believe this state of flow, this sense of aesthetic, passion for an activity that predisposes you to feed eudaimonic pleasure for certain kind of activities, is what is an essential part of the 'self', and a part that is one of the strongest predictors of strong friendships, because they seem to be just as immutable and innate as values.

Moreover, it interferes with plans, it wastes time, if someone is motivated to do something productive, these desires might make them frustrated, even more so if they’re socially anxious or are in a society that isn’t open about sex education and issues related to puberty. This brings to my mind an interesting idea related to mental illnesses.

So we know that in psychiatry the definition of mental illness changes on a regular basis, so frequently that it might seem comical and unscientific, but we have to keep in mind it’s a very young field and still has to rely on subjective accounts and philosophical dilemmas, so no surprise it’s like that. It’ll take time. Connecting this with the main idea now.

What if in a culture or even a small social group, having sexual desires is a mental disorder? Sounds crazy, but hear me out. Focus on the logical structure of both- in both mental illnesses and unmet social desires, we want to do something but can not do it due to social constraints, generally speaking. But maybe sexual desires being unmet is seen as unhealthy, and having them seen as healthy and natural, because it’s so widespread and most of the modern society approves of it.

But we can still see in the societies that have not adopted the modern culture and popular way of doing things that it could very well carry the stigma and public may ostracize a person and give them the same treatment as a mentally ill patient even if they don’t explicitly call it a disorder or illness. I’m not sure how many of such societies exist and whether or not they even exist, but I’m just playing with ideas here so allow me to develop them further.

Now maybe mentally ill patients want something too, like maybe talking to their imaginary friends, being paranoid, double and triple checking stuff or whatever, but it’s a disorder just because it’s not the common way to do stuff in society, not the common way of thinking and acting, so the society wants you to conform to the so called “neurotypicals”.

Now I do realize there is a dimension of dysfunction and suffering, but it’s the same with the case of sexual desires too. If you’re not able to fulfil your sexual desires, you’ll suffer, and suffer greatly. And it’s only dysfunction if it’s not the normal way of functioning, because if everyone functions in the same way, thinks and acts according to a given norm, and faces the same amount of suffering, then it’s not really something that you would pay much attention to, or try to cure.

It’s like the selfish genes doing their own thing, maximizing for their own survival over generations with no regard for the conscious thoughts and preferences of the human they have invaded like a parasite, even though they are what make up the human, the human doesn’t get to choose what they are like and what their traits and abilities and desires are like, and we take it all for granted without even trying to understand and control it, and that needs to change.

I also wonder why, if genes give an organism the traits to survive and pass on it's genes, some people have no sexual desires or choose to not have kids. Shouldn't the genes only make organisms that have the innate desire and thoughts that compel them to pass on their genes? As far as I know, humans aren't asexual, and I also can't see any altruistic motive behind these people deciding to not have kids or not having any desire to do so, because if that were the case then I could have said that it might be something that ensures the survival of the species as a whole, but now I can't see any way this might be true.

I've also been reading about psychopaths lately, and I realized that psychopaths are people who like to assert dominance and attain positions in power and impregnate many women even if they have to deceive them, but then I'm also curious why they have this peculiar and distinct lack of care towards kinship and indifference towards the ones who think they are their loved ones, and in some cases even their own children.

How can we reconcile such behaviour and observations with the theory of evolution and natural selection? And more importantly, what does this tell us about the morality of cultivating a sense of connection with your loved ones and bonding with companions as well as maintaining relationships and our need for social connection?

What is the extent to which I should accept to be controlled by my selfish genes, and if not selfish genes then more importantly random chance and determinism? Should a person with no desire to propagate their genes renounce all social connections and relationships to their family, if they're able to bear the emotional burden or tweak their emotions to not feel any?

That might sound horrible, but by know at least I have learned to stay aware of such value judgments that involve ethics and morality, and try to take a completely unbiased, objective, rational and scientific view on it. I also know that not everything is good or bad, whatever my intuitions might be telling me, and I can already see how adopting a belief such as what I just mentioned in the previous paragraph could be beneficial to the society and human civilization as a whole.

If we refuse to give unfair preference to some people just because we happened to be born to them and carry their genes, or a society because we happened to be born in that society at that time, or a country by refusing to let patriotism and blind nationalism blind our eyes, then we might be able to get get closer to adopting a more global mindset and remove imaginary barrier and boundaries, both mental and physics, and realize how every human despite their individual differences and diversity is same at the core and has very similar needs and desires, and create a more peaceful, understanding and safer society.

We might also adopt a mindset more empathetic towards people who have been a victim of traits and desires that were a product of chance and more importantly that they didn't choose to have, just like what Schopenhauer said above. Important reminder: Just playing around with ideas, I don't profess to believe or not believe in any of them. And I'm not saying all of this is necessarily logical or true, because as much as I might try to be logical, at the end I'm a human, and I make mistakes, or at least that's what I would like you to think.

We can never know for certain if things would be better if a society adopts such a mindset or manipulates their intuitions and emotions in such a manner, and currently it's hard to have a fruitful and productive debate on such issues because the underlying values are so poorly understood, so maybe in the near future when I am able to rigorously define such values using formal logic, mathematics and other technological tools, something I shall describe in another post.

So going of topic for a while, I had this interesting idea for an experiment that occurred to me while reading a book about Genetics and Cognitive Psychology. Genes depend on the environment, and maximize for the traits required by the organism to survive and pass on their genes to their offspring who can then continue the same process, all in the same environment. So the traits that the genes try to maximize for are the traits that would also make it likely for the organism survive.

So what if we are able to grow organisms in a controlled environment, basically just like the artificial selection experiments we've been doing with non-human animals and plans, but the environment requires the organism to have, say, high intelligence, emotional resilience, photographic memory, superior spatial skills, resistance to pain, or creativity, to give a few examples?

If the necessity of these traits is slowly increase such that some organisms are able to survive and reproduce, then would their offspring have a greater likelihood to develop these traits? If so, could we then try to understand how such traits arise in life and how we can use them to treat mental disorders and maybe even manipulate or enhance traits that we desire?

Maybe this is unrelated, but could the Flynn effect be related to such a phenomena, kind of like a natural experiment that happened to some generations? It could be due to increasing literacy rates, but then the increasing literacy rates could in turn be required for better functioning in a society where intellect is more valuable than the traits that were required in the previous generations?

I apologize in advance if any of the people reading this works in the mental health profession and they think I’m talking nonsense based on a half-baked knowledge of mental health and emotions, or that I have misunderstood some important aspect and distorted it completely while presenting my ideas.

I admit that currently I haven’t read too deeply about it, but these are just ideas, I’m not endorsing them as the truth or anything, and I’d greatly appreciate it if you have anything to say about my ideas and how they are wrong and if they are wrong and how we could solve the problems mentioned in the post. Feel free to connect and share any comments.