BIOL 350 Lecture Notes - Lecture 27: Veneration Of The Dead
16 Nov 2016
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Document Summary
Why evolve anxiety of death: hypotheses. Because it was favored by natural selection. Fear of failed legacy: want to leave something of us behind. Survival legacy leisure sexual/familial gene transmission: domains of leisure distract us from this anxiety. Legacy-based meaning: deeper meaning of life, inner self will not be diminished, to transcend ourselves, types of legacy. Parenthood: we seek pride in our offspring, legacy-drive whispering genes. Their legacy is my legacy: other animals just have offspring as an accidental outcome. Emotional pride: men want kids more when feeling sense of. Natural selection tracks fitness not truth morality: we are deluded into thinking we can leave a legacy behind. Only our genes do: meaning through productive illusions. Honoring the dead but more: sad because the same thing is going to happen to me. Ancestor worship is appealing to those about to be ancestors (us) Live on in history: memetic legacy of one"s ancestors.
