Personality's role in Evolution

[rocksteady]

I have been doing some reading in some rather profound topics recently, and have been using my "intuition" ability to extrapolate some theories based on the information I've absorbed.

idea 1: Technology as an extension of the evolutionary theory
as identified by Ray Kurzweil (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) in his theory of accelerating change

idea 2: INTJ as part of next step of human evolution, discarding emotion
this is just a crack-pot theory of my own, implying that as INTJ, we have been improved by the evolutionary process in riding ourselves of emotion, and concentrating on pure thought, much like machines. This positions us well for the coming Technological Singularity (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)

idea 3: relationship between INTJ thought process and technology
if technology is the result of evolution, it would not be a huge leap in logic to presume that in making our minds more "technological" by getting rid of emotion, we are bridging the gap between evolution and technology

obviously this is all speculation. I am just a first year college student that is reading some cool stuff and drawing my own conclusions, I have no idea if any of these ideas have been discussed anywhere before.

any thoughts?

[blueback]

Yeah, I like the direction you're thinking in but you need to keep going. I hope that doesn't come across as mean, I just mean that I've thought that exact same stuff before but I had to discard it.


idea 1: Technology as an extension of the evolutionary theory
as identified by Ray Kurzweil (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.) in his theory of accelerating change


Technology changes too fast to really affect evolution. As soon as a technology appears is is supplanted by a new one. Besides, we haven't had recorded history long enough to see any evolutionary change and it will be quite a while before we will have enough of a record to say definitively that anything changed. Evolution requires steady pressure over a long time and a lot of organisms, technology applies quick pressure over a short time to a few organisms.



idea 2: INTJ as part of next step of human evolution, discarding emotion
this is just a crack-pot theory of my own, implying that as INTJ, we have been improved by the evolutionary process in riding ourselves of emotion, and concentrating on pure thought, much like machines. This positions us well for the coming Technological Singularity (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)


INTJs don't discard emotion, they just control it. Emotion is a product of evolution. Things like anger, jealousy, fear, happiness, etc, are a form of genetic memory of past events that helps us act in such a way that we preserve our own life and ensure our reproductive efforts are successful. As an example, the warm fuzzy feeling we get when we hold our baby in our arms would, over millions of years, ensure our babies survive. As long as we're holding them they are at less risk of injury or death. Jealousy is another one, we feel jealous about our spouse cheating on us because, over millions of years, the people who didn't care that their mate was cheating on them didn't produce children.

If you look at the structure of the brain our evolution is pretty obvious. As you move out from the spine, like layers in an onion, each layer becomes more complex and controls higher levels of function. The part of the brain farthest away from the spine is responsible for the highest levels of thought. However, that also means that we can't get rid of any of the lower levels. They are like the foundation of a building. We might one day invent flying buildings but you can be sure that I'd never live in one.

Emotion is as deeply ingrained into us as goosebumps are. We don't have a thick enough coat for lofting it to keep us warm anymore, but that doesn't stop those little muscles from trying. The only reason the human race exists right now is because of the twin feelings that we have to survive and we have to have children. Get rid of those and we might be incredibly intelligent but we will have no reason to use it.


idea 3: relationship between INTJ thought process and technology
if technology is the result of evolution, it would not be a huge leap in logic to presume that in making our minds more "technological" by getting rid of emotion, we are bridging the gap between evolution and technology


It does no good to be able to do something if you don't have the motivation or the direction. Emotions provide those last two things. You're never going to come up with a purly logical reason to do anything. At the root of everything we do is an emotion, usually you can trace it back to the fear of death and the happiness of reproduction. Without those feelings why would we ever do anything? There would be no reason even to eat, because we would have no fear of death or pain.


obviously this is all speculation. I am just a first year college student that is reading some cool stuff and drawing my own conclusions, I have no idea if any of these ideas have been discussed anywhere before.


Don't worry about it. You are on the right track, maybe the things I pointed out will help you along your way. Maybe you'll come up with a reason why I'm wrong, that would be cool.

[Danellian]

Also, what you are saying represents an unindividuated humanity, while the goal of psychological growth (in the Jungian sense) is indivudation, which is accomplished by developing all of our function more fully, not discarding them. It would be couterproductive for an evolutionary process to work against psychological growth processes.

[rocksteady]

how about this, suppressed emotion and sound logic developed alongside technology (and when i say technology, it means man's ability to harness energy, starting with planting crops) into a new personality type - the ones with more emphasis on logic (just like machines)

that would explain INTJ's low numbers in our population, no?

[rocksteady]

This graph shows the growth of technology since the dawn of man
Technological growth in history (To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.)
Fifteen views of evolution. Major paradigm shifts in the history of the world, as seen by fifteen different lists of key events. There is a clear trend of smooth acceleration through biological evolution and then technological evolution.

Created by Ray Kurzweil, this graph is based on data compiled by Theodore Modis, who "attempted to develop a precise mathematical law that governs the evolution of change and complexity in the Universe". To reduce bias, he compiled thirteen multiple independent lists of major events in the history of biology and technology

rocksteady added 5 Minutes and 53 Seconds later...Added Post:

Also, what you are saying represents an unindividuated humanity, while the goal of psychological growth (in the Jungian sense) is indivudation, which is accomplished by developing all of our function more fully, not discarding them. It would be couterproductive for an evolutionary process to work against psychological growth processes.
I thought evolution discarded things which it no longer needed? Not quite counter-productive. I am not familiar with Jung's work yet, but plan to read up on him soon.

maybe our growth is actually more of a focus on logic, and less on feeling, when one function grows, it is entirely possible for the less used one to shrink.

[Aoiluna]

I think that this is a very interesting theory. Evolution does involve natural selection, which of course deals with the carrying on of genes and such. Now, us being Introverted and all may interfere...ok...does interfere with or ability to find a mate and pass on our genes. I do to an extent agree with you on the possibility of the NTJ being an asset to the human race evolutionary. I never really thought about this before, but I will now.

Aoiluna added 1 Minutes and 0 Seconds later...

P.S. of course this is also assuming that personality is also genetic (which I am hoping to study and research)

[rocksteady]

P.S. of course this is also assuming that personality is also genetic (which I am hoping to study and research)

Can you point me to any information on this? I've been dying to know if any work has been done exploring that question.

[blueback]

That's a cool graph!

Just because a random permutation of evolution is uniquely suited to take advantage of changes in the environment doesn't mean it evolved to do so. It simply existed before hand and expanded to fill a niche of increasing size.

However, as that graph shows, technological change is accelerating much faster than evolutionary change can keep up with. Technology won't encourage INTJs to proliferate because it will change too fast. Reproduction is no longer based on one's ability to hunt and gather, it is based on one's ability to produce a minimum amount of work or collect welfare. Anyone who lives 30 years will most likely find someone to make children with and everyone who doesn't die within the first few hours of life will most likely live 30 years. Our mate-selection mechanisms are outdated, they never got a chance to evolve to cope with contraceptives, abortions, the middle class, electric lights, or any of the other side effects of progress.

We still mate because we HAVE to. Because it is in our genetic code to find SOMEONE to mate with. People no longer have a tiny pool of applicants from neighboring tribes or the social pressure of living with an entire extended family to help them make the decision.

The only way for INTJs to proliferate would be for them to deliberately produce as many children as possible and then monitor the results to ensure they were maximizing the number that were, in fact, INTJs. However, the more intelligent and successful the person the fewer children them have (unfortunately).

[rocksteady]

That's a cool graph!

Just because a random permutation of evolution is uniquely suited to take advantage of changes in the environment doesn't mean it evolved to do so. It simply existed before hand and expanded to fill a niche of increasing size.



What you just stated is essentially the definition of evolution, natural selection of desirable traits. While personality types like our own are rare, i think the reason is because we haven't been around as long as the other types. I believe we will catch up to them, seemings how many INTJ types are successful in economic situations.

And yes, biological evolution is too slow, but at least it is working in our favor, no? Our personality types seem more able to handle an increasingly technological world. Fairly soon, people will be able to edit their DNA and such, rendering traditional evolution obsolete. I think the near future (10-20 years) should give some major hints about the major technological revolution our world is about to experience.

rocksteady added 701 Minutes and 18 Seconds later...
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I was thinking of an analogy to describe the relationship between the evolutionary and technological processes, and this is what i came up with

Evolution adapts to an environment, technology creates an environment. You can see that these 2 processes are very similar, and one can be a natural extension of the other.

It could be that logic and intuition are traits that either started growing in the population when the advantages of technology started being realized.

Dunno, this is some pretty heady stuff, I think i want to write a paper on it, too bad I don't have a class I can use it for yet.

[Aoiluna]

rocksteady: No, I do not have any resources to refer to, but I am sure it has been discussed. Ill let you know if I find anything, it will give me something else to do other than the studying that I should be doing.

[vkut79]

What you just stated is essentially the definition of evolution, natural selection of desirable traits. While personality types like our own are rare, i think the reason is because we haven't been around as long as the other types. I believe we will catch up to them, seemings how many INTJ types are successful in economic situations.

And yes, biological evolution is too slow, but at least it is working in our favor, no? Our personality types seem more able to handle an increasingly technological world. Fairly soon, people will be able to edit their DNA and such, rendering traditional evolution obsolete. I think the near future (10-20 years) should give some major hints about the major technological revolution our world is about to experience.

rocksteady added 701 Minutes and 18 Seconds later...
---------------------------------------------------------------------

I was thinking of an analogy to describe the relationship between the evolutionary and technological processes, and this is what i came up with

Evolution adapts to an environment, technology creates an environment. You can see that these 2 processes are very similar, and one can be a natural extension of the other.

It could be that logic and intuition are traits that either started growing in the population when the advantages of technology started being realized.

Dunno, this is some pretty heady stuff, I think i want to write a paper on it, too bad I don't have a class I can use it for yet.


In order to verify that natural selection has indeed taken place as the result of the growth of technology in our environment in order to increase INTJ personality proportion (assuming it is genetically inherited), you would have to have reasonable evidence to show that their survival and reproduction rate has been favored over other personality types in the given environment.

Now I am very skeptical that such evolution has happened because a.) in an evolutionary sense, technology is very newly introduced to our environment - it has only grown to influence life on a large level very recently, perhaps in the last 250 years, and at that in only technologically advanced societies, and b.) I don't think INTJs have gained much of a reproductive advantage as a result. I can see that they have gained a social, financial advantage, but I don't think that the amount of children that they have had is greater than that of other personality types. Overall, I don't think personality type has a strong influence on reproductive success in our society - introversion has a slightly negative effect, but on the whole introverted individuals still have families with several children, just like extroverts do.

For INTJ proportion to increase, they would need to have more children than other personality types. However, INTJ's are often very academic/intellectual, and have busy careers, and so I would not expect them to be having a lot of children. For this reason, I don't see their proportion increasing in the forseeable future even with the growth of technology, as that seems to have little effect on individuals' reproductive/survival rates (with social welfare programs, etc.)

[rocksteady]

Now I am very skeptical that such evolution has happened because a.) in an evolutionary sense, technology is very newly introduced to our environment - it has only grown to influence life on a large level very recently, perhaps in the last 250 years, and at that in only technologically advanced societies, and b.) I don't think INTJs have gained much of a reproductive advantage as a result. I can see that they have gained a social, financial advantage, but I don't think that the amount of children that they have had is greater than that of other personality types. Overall, I don't think personality type has a strong influence on reproductive success in our society - introversion has a slightly negative effect, but on the whole introverted individuals still have families with several children, just like extroverts do.

For INTJ proportion to increase, they would need to have more children than other personality types. However, INTJ's are often very academic/intellectual, and have busy careers, and so I would not expect them to be having a lot of children. For this reason, I don't see their proportion increasing in the forseeable future even with the growth of technology, as that seems to have little effect on individuals' reproductive/survival rates (with social welfare programs, etc.)

OK, you must have skipped the graph. If you define Technology as man's ability to harness energy, technology starts between 40,000 -30,000 years ago. That is plenty of time for a selection process to begin.

As for being more numerous, i think, on a long enough time scale I think we would have, but we are a more recently evolved sub-set of personalty traits (thinking, intuition) so our numbers have not had ample time to increase, or maybe our evolutionary goal is not necessarily to increase numbers, but to adapt our thinking patterns to better fit our environment (the technological world)

[vkut79]

OK, you must have skipped the graph. If you define Technology as man's ability to harness energy, technology starts between 40,000 -30,000 years ago. That is plenty of time for a selection process to begin.

As for being more numerous, i think, on a long enough time scale I think we would have, but we are a more recently evolved sub-set of personalty traits (thinking, intuition) so our numbers have not had ample time to increase, or maybe our evolutionary goal is not necessarily to increase numbers, but to adapt our thinking patterns to better fit our environment (the technological world)

Oh, I see how you are defining technology differently. That makes more sense then. I didn't see the graph, actually, because apparently my post count is too low or something so the forum will not let me see images.

So you are considering the evolution of INTJs as a subset of the population (I think?) Like there would have to be competition exclusively between INTJs in the technological realm rather than with other personality types? That's interesting. That would indeed make the INTJ evolve further from other personality types while keeping their numbers fairly constant (assuming this model is simple like that). In that model, the INTJ competition would have to be isolated from other forms of competition as much as possible for that subset specific evolution to take place - this would be analogous to the evolution of athletes (another subset of the population), and I think this is plausible.