Summary Of The Robot's Rebellion

Keith Stanovich’s The Robot’s Rebellion delves deep into the world of evolutionary psychology, stating how modern society is stuck in a technologically run programme of sorts where we are all but robots stuck in a world revolved around our most primal cognitive abilities. In the introductory pages of this novel, Stanovich draws our attention to four notable theorists, among them, philosopher Daniel Dennett who refers to the implications that modern evolutionary theory will have on the twenty-first century. Specifically he states that these advances will destroy many traditional concepts that we have had wired in our minds for centuries (Stanovich 2004). Stanovich emphasizes that while we may appear controlled by these mechanisms, we have the ability to realize our mechanistic ways and to rebel against them, forcing us to think rationally about our own beliefs and desires. Stanovich describes that society is governed by Universal Darwinism, the concept that human …show more content…
Morality, as explained in lecture is a process which has existed in the primal section of the human brain. Much like the Trolley problem, we are presented with a set of “moral dilemmas” which challenge our preprogrammed way of thinking. Through the act of killing, cheating, dishonesty and otherwise similar processes, our minds are pre-programmed to understand the reason to warrant the fact that it is wrong, but the process is unconscious, as we are unaware of truly why we believe this to true. Rationality, as explained in The Robot’s Rebellion is argued to be the fuel behind the discoveries of human cognition, as Stanovich argues that society has the capacity to create mismatches between evolutionary influenced TASS processes and external responses to the environment by using this very skill (Stanovich