PUBLIC TALK: THE NATURE OF VALUE

What is “value”? What is “goodness” and “badness”? What does our only scientific theory of life have to say?

The mathematical logic of game theory shows that cooperation can evolve, as does the adaptationist logic of biology. Both kinds of logic rely on the assumption of optimality. In mathematical games, “agents” maximize “utility” through the optimal (rational) analysis of costs and benefits; in the adaptation game, organisms maximize fitness through the optimal allocation of limited resources to the most pressing adaptive problems. “To allocate” means “set apart for a purpose.” The consensus in affective neuroscience is that emotions are about nature’s purpose; they make animals “want” to do what they need to do to enhance fitness. The biological capability to have a “purpose” implies the existence of value in nature. To illustrate, I’ll focus on the idea that art is “the synthesis of feelings and ideas” (as someone once said).

E/Prof Jim Chisholm received his BA with Honors in Anthropology from Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT. and his MPhil and PhD in Anthropology from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ. He taught anthropology at the University of New Mexico, human development at the University of California, Davis and human biology at the University Western Australia. He uses the principles of evolutionary ecology, life history theory, sexual selection theory, and parental investment theory to investigate the role of early psychosocial stress and attachment history in the evolution and development of theory of mind and the capacity for culture and the development of alternative reproductive strategies and their implications for health and health inequalities. He is currently writing a book about the role of emotion in the evolution of culture.