Seeking the opinions of others

1

If you believe in evolution, you must also believe that significant genetic variety within the human species. (Evolution proceeds by individual mutation followed by breeding competition: every species subject to evolution is full of competing mutations).

2

And if you accept that changes in brain structure lead to changes in intellectual capacity (e.g. dogs and humans differ in intellectual capacity because their brains differ); and that the human brain has evolved and is subject to further evolution; then it follows that there must exist a plurality of different human brain mutations with different intellectual capacities: in short, different kinds of minds. (And since most of these mutations will have been around for a while and have had time to breed, we should expect that some individual mutations exist within very large numbers of brains; ergo, while the eye sees such doubtful categories as Poles and Portuguese, blacks and whites, men and women, we could perhaps with some justice speak of different brain populations; which probably do not overlap with any of the former categories).

3

This has two important and seemingly contradictory consequences regarding how we should treat the opinions of others.

4

In cases of objective knowledge – is buying GM stock a good move? -- we are well advised to consult the opinion of others because their brains may see something – some important clues or some subtle causal relations between clues and facts – which ours do not. In such cases, it is most useful to consult those with brains as different from ours as possible because we are hoping to look at a particular problem from a different vantage point in the hope of discovering something previously invisible. We are trying to borrow their cognitive system to look at the outside world.

5

In cases of subjective knowledge consulting with others is not entirely useless, because we do not have perfect introspective vision (i.e. we do not always know how we feel or why); in such instances learning about the feelings of others who find themselves in our circumstances can shed important light on our own problems. (This includes matters of taste: observing how others furnish their living rooms, for example, can be a rich source of good ideas).

But in such instances, we need to consult with those whose brains are as similar to ours as we can find because the question how a totally different brain might work in our particular circumstances, while amusing, is, practically speaking, useless.

So far, OK?