Ep 30: Robert Wright & the Purpose of Evolution

Can evolution have a purpose? Are we living in an alien zoo? Does the cosmos evolve? Why did Christianity emerge when it did? What is the direction of human society—and are we at a crisis point in history? Best-selling author Robert Wright explores all these questions and more.

Robert Wright is a journalist, scholar, and prize-winning author of best-selling books about science, evolutionary psychology, history, religion, and game theory.

• Zero Sum and Non-Zero-Sum Games
  • Example: the economy is a non-zero-sum game
  • Both conflict and cooperation can lead to non-zero-sum games
  • External zero-sum games can drive internal non-zero-sum
• Is there such a thing as progress? Evolutionary, Technological, Cultural?
  • The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress, by Peter Singer
  • When faced with external threats, the Greek city states went from seeing each other as non-human, to seeing each other as human, and only outsiders as non-human.
  • A similar process has proceeded at larger and larger scales throughout history.
• Are we at a crisis point in history?
  • The Fermi Paradox & the Danger of Tribalism
• Christianity’s unique relationship with cosmopolitanism
  • The Bible claims that Christianity emerged “at just the right time”
  • When Christianity emerged, it was in an age of multi-ethnic cosmopolitanism across the Roman Empire. And it emerged as a faith that was explicit about its multi-ethnic nature.
  • If Christianity hadn’t happened, would another similar religion have necessarily emerged? How similar might it have been?
• Can evolution have a higher purpose?—Robert Wright’s controversial article for the NY Times
  • Three myths about evolution and higher purpose:
    1. To say that there’s in some sense a “higher purpose” means there are “spooky forces” at work.
    2. To say that evolution has a purpose is to say that it is driven by something other than natural selection.
    3. Evolution couldn’t have a purpose, because it doesn’t have a direction.
    4. If evolution has a purpose, the purpose must have been imbued by an intelligent being.
  • Are we living in an alien evolution zoo?
  • What does purpose mean?
  • The one thing Richard Dawkins and William Paley agreed on
• Cosmological Natural Selection
  • Lee Smolin's original black-hole centric formulation
  • Black holes as reproductive organs of the universe
  • Does life play a role? Louis Crane’s expansion, centering the role of intelligent beings
  • The Anthropic Principle & Fine-tuning
  • “A shared path to the future” — Micah’s argument for the role of intelligence in the universe, based on Richard Dawkins’ distinction between Symbiosis and Parasitism 
  • The Simulation Argument, as presented by Elon Musk, and in theological and religious forms
• Non-supernatural miracles
• The fear of purpose
  • Are popular scientists committing a slippery slope fallacy?
  • Why did early biologists, including Darwin's friends, talk about purpose in evolution?
  • Is ruling out purpose driving people away from thoughtful naturalism and into reactionary supernaturalism? Will it hurt science education?
• Robert Wright’s books:
  • NonZero: the logic of human destiny
  • The Moral Animal
  • The Evolution of God
• Robert Wright on the Fermi Paradox
• Robert Wright on The Colbert Report
• Robert Wright on Twitter
• Robert Wright’s video network: MeaningOfLife.tv