Why flowers are like girls

If a pollinator such as a bee is very pleased with a flower he has been to, he will be especially on the prowl for other plants of the same species, because he knows they are likely to have the flowers he most wants. It thus stands to reason that the more his experience with the plant he visited first was pleasant to him, the more he will tend to land on the flowers of other plants of the species immediately after they open, before their nectar, etc., gets taken by another—his prior pleasant experience will cause him to be especially on the prowl for similar flowers. After a very pleasing flower experience, he will preferentially (more often) check out the flowers of the same species, so that he can get them right after they open, lest an interloper gets the treat before he does. Accordingly, the sooner a flower is landed on after opening, the more likely the pollinator came from a flower especially effective at encouraging insects to spread its pollen to other flowers, and thus the more likely the pollinator came from a plant especially effective at spreading its pollen thoroughly and efficiently. Of course, it is in the self-interest of a plant to be pollinated by pollen coding for a plant especially effective at spreading its pollen thoroughly and efficiently. If the female parts of a flower can especially select for pollen especially talented at penetrating freshly opened flowers, that's an advantage to the plant. By a plant having flowers especially delicate and full of the fragile characteristics more typical of flowers freshly opened, the flower can especially select for sperm in (genetically identical to the sperm) pollen tubes especially effective at penetrating youthful stigmas and styles, as serves the interest of the plant—such sperm will tend to code for flowers especially desired by pollinators. Indeed, if a pollen tube is especially effective at fertilizing freshly opened, delicate flowers, likely it is so because it evolved thus because so many of its ancestors had pollen tubes that especially needed to fertilize freshly-opened flowers, likely on account of the same ancestors being so much desired by bees, etc., as to cause the latter to especially be on the prowl for flowers of the same species, so as to be landed on so soon as they open.

On balance, gamete selection is even more important in plants than in animals. Plants have alternation of generations, alternating between a diploid sporophyte generation and a haploid gametophyte generation. In animals the haploid generation is produced directly from meiosis in the diploid generation, and is nothing more than a sperm or an egg, scarcely to be considered an organism. In plants, the product of the diploid organism is not directly eggs or sperms but rather spores—the products of meiosis are spores. These haploid spores are genetically identical to the eggs or sperm they will ultimately produce, but they mitotically grow into something multicellular and rather complex, the gametophyte, before sperms and eggs are produced. In mosses what the spores grow into, the gametophyte, is actually larger than the diploid generation, and is what is commonly recognized as the plant. In ferns, the gametophyte typically looks like a fingernail-sized plant that one can find by scrounging around wet places.

In flowering plants, the male gametophyte is the pollen grain, which contains two cells: a vegetative cell, which becomes the pollen tube that upon pollination burrows into the style to the embryo sac, and a generative cell contained in the vegetative cell that (typically after pollination) splits into two sperm cells (in flowering plants, the sperm cells don't have flagella) that undergo fertilization; all these cells are genetically identical. The female gametophyte is the embryo sac. The embryo sac most frequently contains seven cells. Three cells are located near the micropyle, the opening which the pollen tube breaks into antecedent to releasing its two sperm; one of these cells is the egg, the other two, the synergids, flank the egg like guardians. Three more cells, the antipodals, are located on the opposite end of the embryo sac, decaying without serving any obvious purpose. Finally, in the middle of the embryo sac is a large central cell that has two nuclei, the polar nuclei. What is strange about fertilization in most flowering plants is that it is a double fertilization. One sperm combines with the egg cell, becoming the embryo that grows into an adult plant. The other sperm combines with the cell containing the two polar nuclei to form a primary endosperm cell that is triploid; i.e., it contains three of each chromosome, only one of which is from the father; this cell typically divides mitotically to form the endosperm of the seed, which usually is only important in seed development and germination. Oftentimes the developing embryo obtains nutrient from the endosperm. For instance, in wheat seeds the embryo, which constitutes the wheat germ, develops into a wheat plant, absorbing when in the seed nutrients from the endosperm, which is the material that furnishes white flour and constitutes most of the seed.

Anyway, it is apparently quite clear that many genes of the pollen tubes are expressed haploidly, and so the characteristics of the pollen tube are determined at least in part by which particular genes the pollen grain has obtained from its parent. There presumably arises, therefore, a haploid competition between genes possessed by pollen tubes (which as mentioned are identical to the genes possessed by the genetically identical sperm within them). Genes that code for pollen tubes especially talented at penetrating newly opened flowers are what an insect-pollinated flowering plant most needs to be fertilized by, and so one would expect flowers, or at least the female parts of flowers, to tend especially to be delicate-looking, having physical characteristics similar to a flower that could only be freshly opened.

Haploid competition just in itself isn't necessarily beneficial. First of all, much haploid competition might arise between pollen grains coming from the same plant. To the extent haploid competition is typically of this sort—between haplotypes arising from the same plant—one would expect no direct benefit to a plant fertilized subsequent to this competition. True, a plant fertilized by a strong pollen tube may be more likely to win out in distant generations when pollen more related to it is competing with pollen less related to it. But more immediately, in the next generation, there will be competition between pollen produced by the child which is more related to the child's mother and pollen produced which is more related to the child's father; to succeed more in this latter competition, it is advantageous for the mother to have been fertilized by weak pollen tubes. As in animals, to the extent competition between gametes mainly involves competition between gametes produced by the same individual, there is no direct benefit to being fertilized by gametes having strong haploid chracteristics; indeed, as I have done, one can show mathematically that the two effects cancel out to the extent the differences in pollen haploid characteristics are small.

One advantage of haploid competition is that it reduces meiotic drive; i.e., if characteristics of sperm and eggs are determined by the diploid genome, there might be expected to arise genes which diploidly code for killing or hurting gametes that don't contain the genes, giving the genes advantages (such genes are known to exist in fruit flies) over their competitors. Over time these selfish genetic elements can lead to reduced fertility, and meaningful sperm competition between sperm from different individuals is probably the only way of preventing this sort of thing if indeed sperm development is determined diploidly. (In particular, if sperm development is essentially determined just diploidly in humans, a matter of controversy, this can give females a reason to be promiscuous, i.e., to have sex with several males at the same time to ensure the most fertile one succeeds. But I think sperm development in humans often is haploidly regulated, leading to meaningful intraejaculate sperm competition, and so I'd say female humans are by nature generally very hesitant to be promiscuous in this way.)

To really determine whether haploid competition between male gametes produced by an individual subsequently benefits another individual fertilized by one of these gametes, one must look at what diploid characteristics are likely to be selected for by the competition. Oftentimes one allele of a gene might be more fit than another when coding haploidly and less fit when coding diploidly. In fact, if haploid competition is general and always more or less selective of the same characteristics, one would expect this to be the typical situation because the situation allows for long-term stability in allele frequencies, and so is a situation that can last for a long time. On the other hand, if one allele is more fit than another both when coding haploidly and when coding diploidly, the more fit allele is likely to before long more-or-less completely displace the latter allele in the population (except possibly if the hybrid condition is more fit diploidly than either homozygous state); and of course if an allele is less fit in every way, it will probably die out fairly quickly. Anyway, if haploid competition is something that occurs generally, and if the haploid condition is not akin to the diploid condition (as is especially the case with plants like the flowering plants, which have relatively simple gametophytes), one would expect haploid fitness to be contrary to diploid fitness. The more natural selection selects for, all else equal, the less well it can select for any particular thing. It is no accident, presumably, that the majority of plants have evolved over the last few hundreds of millions of years to have sporophytes more complicated and substantial than the gametophytes; moreover, gametophytes no longer have to have the many characteristics necessary for surviving as an independent plant. In flowering plants, in particular, gametophytes are pampered, the female gametophyte developing in an ovule of its mother plant, and the male gametophyte having only to push its sperm through the style into the receptive ovary once it has landed on the stigma. Still, if the particulars of pollination suggest pollen from a particular plant is a certain way, more is going on than just competition between gametes which during pollination are generally better at fertilizing flowers than its competitors are and gametes which during pollination are generally worse at fertilizing flowers than its competitors are. In particular, if pollen lands on a flower right after it opens, there will be competition between pollen grains especially effective at fertilizing when they land on stigmas of just-opened flowers and pollen grains especially effective at fertilizing flowers when they land on stigmas of long-opened flowers; the former sort of pollen grain is more likely to help code for diploid plants whose flowers encourage pollinators to do what the plants need, and is thus what a plant more needs its egg to be fertilized by.

It is interesting to observe how double fertilization might encourage flowers that select for pollen especially effective at fertilizing newly opened flowers, resulting in a kind of race in plants to have flowers that are the most delicate and freshly-opened looking. As mentioned, if gamete selection wouldn't be expected to positively select at all for some diploid quality, gamete selection in fact will on balance negatively select for it, basically because it is a lot to expect something to code positively for both diploid and general haploid traits. Take having genes that code fitly for fully-developed seed endosperm. There is no immediately obvious reason why a pollinator landing on a certain type of flower is likely to be a pollinator that has come from a flower on a plant that as a seed had unusually fit endosperm. Let us in this paragraph assume that in fact there is no reason. In particular, if a bee lands on a flower that is freshly-opened, we shall assume that it doesn't really say anything whatsoever about whether the plant the bee came from had unusually fit endosperm as a seed. If a flower encourages meaningful haploid competition between the pollen tubes from the pollen grains that land on it, it would accordingly more tend to encourage fertilization by pollen grains that on balance have less fit endosperm. But on account of double fertilization, in most flowering plants the endosperm is only one-third coded for by the paternal genome. A plant doesn't suffer as much by encouraging gamete selection during its fertilization if the deleterious effects such selection is likely to have on the endosperm of its seeds is only 2/3 as important as it would be if endosperm were produced diploidly by cells having equal genetic material from both parents. Since about half the benefit of mating slightly more diploidly fit genetic material occurs from more successful children, and since the other half accrues later from more successful more distant descendants, one would expect on account of endosperm being coded triploidly about a 1/6 reduction in the harm from selecting for less fit endosperm that arises from encouraging gamete competition during fertilization. It's well, though, to look at the exceptions. A few angiosperms (i.e., flowering plants) possess endosperm that is equally coded for by both the maternal and paternal germ line. Most of these exceptions occur among the most basal angiosperms such as water lilies (Nymphaeales) and bay starvine (Austrobaileyales). Strangely, though, the most basal angiosperm, Amborella, has endosperm encoded more typical to how ordinary angiosperms are encoded (the egg sac apparently is 8-celled and 9-nucleate rather than 7-celled and 8-nucleate as is most common). Anyway, those exceptions are more-or-less where one might expect them, occuring very early in angiosperm development. Almost all the other cases where endosperm is encoded equally from both germ lines occur in the Onagraceae, the evening primrose family. This would be quite a blow to the theory, since that family contains many extremely delicate-looking and beautiful flowers like Gaura and Fuchsia. But this is a case where the exception helps to prove by the rule because as it turns out there is a very particular oddity about that family which could easily afford an explanation. Commonly in this family but in no other is the ability to form permanent structural heterozygotes, i.e., hybrids between different species or with a plant with translocated chromosomes in which the hybrids produce only similar hybrid offspring. The best I can understand it from what I have read of the literature available to me, the non-matching chromosomes form two connected rings rather than many pairs, producing organisms where chromosomes rather than pairing off come together in bundles making a pair of rings; with sufficient mismatch there can be no individual pairing but just two paired rings, each ring containing a member of each chromosome pair (I believe this is called a Renner complex), so in many ways the chromosomes behave like there is but one pair of chromosomes. A reasonable inference is that presumably the Onagraceae have some sort of higher approach to translocations, etc., and interspecies gene transfer that most other organisms lack, and a natural explanation for why a triploid endosperm is not present is that this higher approach somehow conflicts with chromosomes tripling up in endosperm, as wouldn't be at all surprising inasmuch as structurally the higher approach involves how the chromosomes line up with each other.

(I hope I haven't given too great an impression of my understanding what is going on with the Onagraceae—I'm a believer that finding the important truths of biology mostly involves understanding accepted biology at a basic level worthy of a smart high school student and then being extremely logical and occupied in making deductions from that, from observed phenomena (including one's own emotions and reflections), and from one's basic understandings of other topics, but I'd say what is going on with the Onagraceae would be an exception that involves much deeper study of biology than I or above average high school biology graduates have undertaken.)

But there is something more glaring that needs explaining. True, the most primitive flowering plant is believed to have had endosperm coded equally by the paternal and maternal genome. However, in non-flowering seed plants, i.e., gymnosperms, endosperm is coded (haploidly) just by the maternal genome. In non-flowering plants, that the haploid selection between male gametes tends to code for endosperm with inferior characteristics is of no signficance to the survival or reproductive fitness of a diploid plant that arises from such a gamete fertilizing an egg. To a plant fertilized by a male gamete coding for inferior endosperm, the disadvantage would be half what it would be if endosperm were coded half maternally and half paternally. Indeed, the immediate disadvantage of a seed with less fit endosperm would disappear entirely, whereas the equally significant belated disadvantage (arising from future generations having seeds with endosperm less fit on average) would be exactly what it otherwise would have been. One could do better than a 1/6 reduction from the harm of male gamete selection encouraging inferior endosperm—one could have a 1/2 reduction as in gymnosperms. If male gamete selection is indeed (as my theory of the significance of the delicacy of flowers suggests) more important in angiosperms than gymnosperms, How could flowering plants manage? Why wouldn't it be the conifers that have delicate flowers rather than cones so tough that sometimes they'll stay on a tree for decades? Is that gymnosperms lack flowers as injurious to my theory of the significance of the delicacy of flowers as getting hit on the head by a not-at-all-delicate 20-pound bunya-bunya cone could be to an unwary Australian?

Why is it the flowering plants that have the delicate flowers rather than the pine trees or some other group of plants that has endosperm coded haploidly by the maternally derived genome of the seed? I admit this question stymied me for about nine months. True, such an endosperm may not be what scientists view as the condition of the most primitive flowering plants, but considering that it's the state of gymnosperms it would be odd to think flowering plants wouldn't have evolved to be that way were it useful for them to be so. A satisfactory answer occurred to me a few weeks ago.

There are various functions to the seed that endosperm can play. It's most notable function is perhaps as a nutrient-storage tissue. But in some plants this storage role is not important; for instance, nutrient storage can occur mainly in a perisperm genetically identical to the mother plant of the seed. Similarly, the nutrients of the endosperm can attract birds, chipmunks, etc., to eat the seed, which could end up being a good thing for the plant because a few seeds might be swallowed whole or stored and then forgotten to sprout later. But in many plants, as in fruit, it is maternal material surrounding the seed which typically gives to animals macronutrients, the seed itself being dispersed (e.g., swallowed) without being digested. Endosperm tissue can also play a role in regulating dormancy and germination; i.e., in deciding how and when the seed sprouts. This latter function would seem to be a probable cause for why endosperm is not identical to the maternal (diploid) tissue that surrounds the seed; indeed, were the endosperm to contain genetic material that is distinct from any that is contained in the embryo, evolution of proper sprouting behavior would be discouraged. Finally, and most importantly for our purposes, endosperm tissue is believed to be involved in obtaining nutrients from the mother plant. The role of extracting nutrients from the mother plant is important for our purposes because in fact one can easily imagine that an endosperm effective at extracting much rich nutrient from a young ovule may be entirely different from an endosperm better at extracting rich nutrient from an older ovule, e.g., an ovule fertilized when the flower containing it is already old. And if this imagining is true, then something extraordinary would happen. What's clear, on account of endosperm containing genetic material derived paternally from pollen, but not especially spectacular, is that pollen which fertilizes freshly opened flowers would of course tend to also tend to code for a (useful) ability to extract nutrients when in young ovules—organisms tend to evolve what is most useful for them, and if one trait tends to cause another trait to be useful, one would expect an association between them. But similarly, pollen coding for characteristics that tend to cause it to fertilize older flowers would be expected to be especially effective at extracting nutrients from older ovules, and so it is not as though the advantage for one kind of pollen would not be balanced by a different advantage in the pollen with opposite tendencies—at first glance there probably wouldn't seem to be anything spectacular going on. But there is something much more than this going on. A flowering plant typically produces many seeds. The seeds produced in young flowers that gain the right sort of nutrient will tend to have endosperm with DNA that codes for extracting much rich nutrient from the mother plant when in young ovules. And (at least in most flowering plants) two-thirds of this DNA comes from the mother plant. There is a competition among seeds, and the seeds that tend to do best will be those that especially contain the sort of DNA from the mother plant that codes for an ability to extract nutrient especially well when inside young ovules. But as we have seen, this sort of DNA will also tend to be that sort of DNA that codes for an ability to effectively fertilize young flowers, which be exactly the sort of DNA that it is best for a plant to be fertilized by. What's spectacular is that the competition between female gametophytes (in differing ovules) that occurs in the female plant will ensure that viable seeds from young flowers will not only tend to contain the more insect-attracting DNA from the father plant but also the more insect-attracting DNA from the mother plant. By endosperm having both maternally and paternally derived components, the flower characteristics that make insects go on the prowl for flowers of that species--characteristics that plants need in its flowers--are selected for not only by selection that occurs between pollen grains but also by selection that occurs between the embryo sacs. If endosperm were coded for merely from DNA derived maternally, as in gymnosperms, an endosperm especially effective at extracting nutrients when in young ovules would not be directly suggestive of a tendency to cause insects to especially go on the prowl for flowers of the same species—rather it would be suggestive of a tendency to produce flowers that when fertilized are quickly fertilized; the latter tendency does not seem especially impressive if impressive at all; e.g., it could be merely a sign of a plant with flowers that are so weak or vulnerable to being devoured by insect pests or rot as to not last long. By endosperm being coded for by genetic material of both maternal and paternal origin, aggregation of desirous traits causing effective insect pollination is presumably greatly magnified, as is obviously of great benefit to a plant species.

An interesting case is wind-pollinated flowers (which in angiosperms are technically flowers, but which don't tend to resemble flowers, and so often when the context is clear in non-technical discussions people don't consider them flowers). Pollen tube competition in any sort of flower, whether it be typically pollinated by wind or insects, would be expected to greatly increase not only aggregation of traits effective at fertilizing freshly-opened flowers but also aggregation of traits effective at fertilizing long-opened flowers. In wind pollinated flowers, what is likely impressive in a pollen is that it came from a long distance, which suggests the right sort of survival characteristics and impressive kite-like qualities allowing it to travel aloft great distances; it's also more useful from the prospect of obtaining new genetic combinations. And clearly if pollen comes from great distances it is more likely to arrive late. So whereas in insect pollinated flowers, the impressive pollen is that which lands on recently opened flowers, in wind pollinated flowers, the exact opposite probably tends to be the case; i.e., the impressive pollen is that which lands on long-opened flowers. This could explain why wind-pollinated flowers tend to not be delicate-looking or as though they are going to great lengths to be physically comparable to freshly-opened flowers; in fact, I suppose quite the contrary.

I should point out that another very relevant consideration involves seed dispersal. It is rather typical for gymnosperms to be long-lived. Moreover, their seeds mostly do not fall or travel far from the plant, whereas their pollen, being mostly wind-borne, can travel great distances. Such a plant is especially effective at forcing the creatures about it to behave towards its seeds in harmony with its desires. Suppose such a gymnosperm, say, a conifer, arises with a new tendency which tends to destroy the health of those animals who munch on its seeds sufficiently to make them not viable or which tends to give health benefits to those who swallow its seeds such as to be passed along in (nutrient-rich) dung. If long-lived, as typical, the conifer will have time to benefit by benefitting the animals that treat it correctly or harming the animals that tend to treat it incorrectly. Similarly, the descendants of the conifer will benefit as well from the selection of animals undertaken by its ancestor, but clearly the benefit will be greatest when the descent line is more maternal than through pollen. Why? Because seeds don't land as far from the mother tree as pollen lands from the father tree, and so in the former case the animals are more likely to be the same. The interesting point is that if the selective quality of the seed is contained in the endosperm, i.e., if there be a trait in half (the endosperm of) the seeds with the relevant selective quality, then all the progeny of the selective plant which possess seeds with the selective quality will be near the selective plant, the reason being that the endosperm is not coded for paternally. Thus, the extent to which conifers would be able to force animals to live in harmony with its seed-dispersal needs via endosperm characteristics would be less if endosperm were coded for partly paternally, since the effects on the animals would then be somewhat more spread out and hence diluted.

Anyway, considering all the evidence, a likely explanation for why flowers tend to be delicate-looking is that the more a flower physically resembles a freshly-opened flower, the more the flower will select for pollen that codes for flowers that especially tend to have what pollinator want (which makes pollinators spreading pollen from it tend to land on other flowers of the species right after the latter flowers open). It is interesting to observe that this situation would tend to amplify its significance on account of positive feedback. If a plant has very delicate flowers, that will tend to be the sort of plant in which delicacy of flower has helped select for what pollinators want (or else delicacy of flowers wouldn't have evolved). Such a plant tends to genetically aggregate (in fertilization events involving fertilization of freshly-opened flowers) the qualities pollinators most want, which must be expected to increase the speed and effectiveness with which traits desirable to pollinators would evolve in flowers. Accordingly, angiosperms having separated from gymnosperms for about 200 million years now, pollinators would be expected by now to have evolved to especially prefer species with delicate, beautiful flowers reminiscent of evanescence. This would increase further the tendency of delicacy to be involved in flowers. But the preference is actually presumably more than that. A flower could attract a pollinator by emitting something the pollinator wants but doesn't need. E.g., the flower could emit something that makes the pollinator high in a way that is unnaturally pleasant. (Indeed, I rather expect this is what cannibis does because I have heard that the high of cannibis is concentrated in its flower and that growers can get more "high" in their plant by making sure no pollen hits it, as if when the plant gets desperate, the plant emits more "high".) Obviously, this is a situation that isn't going to benefit the pollinator any more than the junkie. But if a flower is beautiful as opposed to some ugly weed appendage (as the marijuana "flower" rather seems to me from what I have seen on television or from photographs), well, the beauty is a sign of meaningful selection of sperm tubes suited to penetrating freshly-opened flowers. And selection of diploid traits indirectly through haploid selection is a kind of resurrecting in freshly-opened flowers the successes of its freshly-fertilized ancestors. Smearing out like so much pollen upon a petal the beneficial consequences upon natural selection of a flower having gotten fertilized at its fragile opening does spread the benefits from one generation to those of distant descendants. The rewards of youthful love of a flower in the here-and-now is but a multifaceted reflection of the pleasures more directly attributed to youthful flowers of generations long-since past.

A plant whose flowers evolve honestly by ever increasing the efficiency of the real rewards it gives its pollinators profits the most from having pretty, girl-like flowers, for then when a pollinator lands on youthful flower, the flower is not just reliving the pleasures freshly fertilized flowers experienced in the distant past. It is also experiencing a pleasure that is even greater now, because those past pleasures, the flower visits of ancient pasts, weren't just what the pollinators wanted, but what the pollinator needed. For a flower to forgo somewhat the extent to which the simple fact of whether it has attracted a pollinator determines its prospects in order to more be able to relive pleasures of past generations from pollinators distributing pollen as pollen was distributed most efficiently in times ago—this is more rewarding when what ago attracted, benefited (in comparison to what could most attract in the here-and-now). Where is the reward in being able to attract what no longer exists because your ancestors cared not for them but to take? Bees, etc., attracted thus suffered. They are dead and without descendants. Their wings but specks of slightest non-nothingness in piles of greater forest detritus. Pretty flowers, on the other hand, are especially likely to be pleasant in the most real sense—they are beautiful partly from being what pollinators need.

But the beauty of a flower transcends its usefulness to pollinators. To humans, pretty flowers are beautiful rather like girls. People tend to forget that they, too, have evolved. The wise observer observes not only perceptions from without, namely sensations, but also perceptions from within, namely reflections. I can't help thinking that if people but would look inside themselves they would see intuitively that, yes, pretty flowers are like girls. Unfortunately, for all the good in science there are but too many practitioners who feel that there is something admirable about ignoring feelings, etc., from being subjective or some such. Let there be no mistake about why people deride one's own subjective. The subjective is not derided because it be more suspect, but because people lie more about it, so there be no test of whether the subjective of an other is real other than tests that suggest the other has an honest character or whether one has a similar subjective. If you feel girls are like flowers, I suggest that is your common sense. If you feel girls are like flowers, it is incumbent upon you to understand why you feel that way, and if you don't bother, you are ignoring data, the data that you feel that way, and the data is the interior evidence that is the most certain data you can have about human nature. Any science that believes in ignoring most certain data is no science worth respecting, and scientists who do otherwise are idiotically unthoughtfully parroting dogma or lying because ambition causes them to excessively praise just those beliefs which they can most easily convince others as being true. Unfortunately, science is full of people who don't care so much about truth as about convincing the elites who distribute rewards that they have new truths they aren't lying about. It's easier to lie from subjective truth. Anyway, subjectively to me flowers are like girls, and I wouldn't be surprised if they are subjectively like that to you as well. I shall explain why in fact they really are like girls.

Sperm selection in flowers is quite analogous to sperm selection in humans. In particular, the sort of competition that occurs in a pollinated flower between pollen tubes all coming from pollen from the same plant is analogous to intraejaculate sperm selection, i.e., to the competition that occurs between the sperm of one ejaculate (as opposed to interejaculae sperm competition, which involves competition between sperm from several males in promiscuous females). The direct effect of a pollinated plant or non-promiscuous girl selecting for sperm that is more talented at fertilizing (during pollination or sex) is that the descendants created by the act of reproduction are more likely to be similarly talented at fertilizing. This selection implies a short-term disadvantage to the fertilized individual, because next-generation sperm from a child created by the fertilization will tend to be more successful if it contains much genetic material from its parental sperm rather than from its parental egg (and the egg unlike the pollen comes from the fertilized individual). But in subsequent generations, there will be an advantage, because in grandchildren and beyond, assuming no inbreeding, genes have alleles such that at most one of the two is descended from an original parent but not both, so there is no competition between the original parents. In fact, because of genetic linkage, a fit allele from the original father will benefit alleles of linked genes that happen to be from the original mother (as can happen if an odd number of crossings-over occurred between the two genes during meiosis occuring in the first generation subsequent to the original generation). The benefit in distant generations to being fertilized by sperm fit in intraejaculate sperm selection more or less exactly cancels the harm in the original generation, just as the case in plants vis-a-vis competition between pollen tubes. Accordingly, just as in plants, whether the haploid competition between male gametes from the same individual is beneficial depends on whether the characteristics of the reproductive act might be supposed to select for male gametes coding for desirous diploidcharacteristics.

When a young female has sex, her body may well select for totally different sperm than an older female would. Could such be an appropriate encouragement for young females to have sex when young, while still just girls, just as insect-pollinated flowers probably tend to benefit from being fertilized early? In girls more than flowers, I'd say it depends. If a male is deceptive, then since girls are easily deceived (compared with women), and since (or else he wouldn't be very much deceptive) he is not likely to be obviously deceptive, any sex he has with a girl is likely merely a result of having deceived her, and it is a strong disadvantage for a girl to have sex with him, and an even stronger disadvantage for her to have sex with him in a way that encourages intraejaculate sperm selection. Indeed, if a male deceives girls into sex, his ancestors who had sex with girls were likely also to have had sex with them by deceiving them. And it is a lame (and bad) trait to have had reproductive success by deception of the most deceivable; were such people what girls need to have sex with, those people wouldn't need to use deception. A girl definitely would not like to select for that sort of sperm. But though deceptions and a tendency to deceive mates are not things that in themselves are easy to judge (or they wouldn't exist), a tendency to be moral is something that is fairly easy to judge—if a moral nature were not something fairly easy to judge, there would be no advantage to being a moral person equal to the disadvantage of the sacrifice it entails and so there wouldn't be moral persons, the advantage of being a moral person being that fellow moral people will tend to love you unselfishly because they (rightly) judge you moral. Moreover, moral people, mainly dealing morally with the fellow moral people they most associate and mate with, do not have much occasion or ability to deceive. A very moral per son might indeed be someone even a girl could feel confident in recognizing as a moral person, and accordingly, she could feel confident that he would not deceive her. If a girl wants to have sex with an obviously morally good male at a young age, this is strongly suggestive of her feeling so confident of his worth that she need not take time considering whether she might find one more beautiful or pleasant. He may be less desirable than what she unbiasedly thinks, but then, he not being deceptive, he may with similar expectation be even be more desirable. Moreover, his ancestors, likely sharing to a large degree his moral nature would also not be expected to have deceived girls into sex subsequent to having sex with girls. Accordingly, a girl selecting for that part of a good male's DNA especially effective at fertilizing young girls in all likelihood is selecting for the most beautiful and naturally pleasant part of his genome. Sure, it is disastrous for a girl to have sex and more particularly lustful sperm-selecting sex with a bad male. But this sort of thing, if government really believed in family values rather than forcing their own values on families, can be greatly prevented just by giving parents the power to veto the sexual relationships of their daughters that with parental permission would be permissible (as should be the case with even adolescent girls, in my opinion, but which is not). One of the main driving forces behind the evolution of morality is probably the tendency for girls to want sex with very morally good males, and for instraejaculate sperm selection in such situations to select for his best tendencies. By excessively restricting girls when young from having meaningful sex with good, beautiful males, either by outright prohibition or by ensuring young people are too poor to raise children, society is probably removing a significant fraction of the reward that females can obtain by having sex with virtuous males, as clearly could be very bad for the evolution of moral virtue. Also, society is thwarting tendencies that would speed up evolution in good people by lengthening the time period between generations in good people—again, this couldn't be good for evolution of higher moral traits. The interested reader may find further discussion of this phenomenon in previous blog posts and my online (and getting somewhat old) book, Exact Morality for Today.

Many people would seem to behave as they intuitively see a beautiful reproductive similarity between girls and flowers. At weddings there are flower girls, not flower grandmas. And most women very much want to be thought of as young, not as old, and so men on special occasions give their beloveds flowers. Actually, the symbolism might be a little more direct, since having sex with young females while having sex with an older female could make the male absorb girl-produced lust or even occasion sperm-mixing between the females that could increase the chances that the older female would be fertilized by a sperm especially effective at prospering and fertilizing in young females. Perhaps what at least some women would prefer to a dozen roses would be a dozen girls for their husband to have sex with while having sex with her, an obvious impossibility given our present laws. Oh well, perhaps giving a clear scientific account of all my revolutionary theories about the beautiful relation between girls and flowers could at least make me more worthy of attention than a gift of cut flowers, especially considering it is not good for flowers to get cut.

Flowers and male gamete selection

Regular readers of this blog will know that one of the ideas discussed most herein is that because of the effects of their bodies upon intraejaculate sperm selection, girls are sexually pleased by virtue in a male in a way that older females aren't (a phenomenon I call nymphetal philokalia). I have been thinking lately (this morning) that something analogous involving competition between male gametes happens in flowers (which somehow remind me of girls). As a whole, what a species of flowering plants needs is for bees (say) to not stick around too much on one particular plant. Moving from one plant to another is necessary for pollination. But obviously there is a sense in which any particular plant can gain somewhat by selfishly attracting bees for a longer period of time. After all, the longer the period one is attractive to bees, the longer the period in which they can pollinate you or take your pollen. So what can account for flowering plants being able to evolve flowers such as to especially encourage getting pollinated right away?

If a flower gets pollinated right after it opens, that is a sign that the sort of bee that wants it wants nectar immediately the flowers opens. In consequence, it is a sign that it has been pollinated with pollen from a plant whose nectar bees want so soon as the flowers open. But it isn't just that flowers that get pollinated immediately tend to be pollinated by pollen from flowers attractive to bees that tend to pollinate immediately. The immature delicacy of the flower to be pollinated presumably is such that it is most easily fertilized by pollen especially skilled at competitively penetrating (during fertilization) the more fragile youthful flowers; and (at least to the extent such pollen really is from plants whose flowers give up all their nectar at once) this pollen tends to (diploidly) code for studly plants, because being able to attract bees in a short time span is unselfishly difficult and thus not some mere unimpressive result of selfishness. If a flower that gives up its nectar all at once has its pollen carried to a flower on some other plant so soon as the latter flower opens, it is a sign that indeed the former flower is attractive of bees that want flowers so soon as they open, an awesome studly trait that flowering plants need to reproduce and survive. The subtle point necessary for understanding is that it's not that unselfish behavior (like giving up nectar mostly all at once upon the flower opening) in itself that is significantly studly in the sense that it allows a plant to survive better. After all, if a plant gives up all its nectar at once, who is to say it won't be visited only by some bad bee or fly or whatever that after lounging about on the old flowers two bushes over has decided it worth its lazy wings to fly a few yards way over there yonder and slurp up that newly opened mega nectar slurpee flower it chanced to notice ere some other bug does. But the thing is, after the bad bee or whatever is done with his mega nectar slurpee (maybe getting some pollen on him), it's not like he is going to fly all over the neighborhood looking for another (usually hard to find) yummee newly opened mega nectar slurpee flower of the same species, which of course is what the plant needs. No, he will presumably be too lazy to fly that far. Unselfishness, of course, can be disadvantageous to survival (that's why selfish people tend to do selfish things). But if a bee carrying pollen then lands on a very youthful flower, gimminy Christmas, the youth and fragility of the flower not only selects for pollen coding for plants trying to attract bugs with unselfishness (by giving its nectar right away), it also selects for pollen coding for plants unselfishly trying to attract bugs that want flowers right after they opened who actually succeed in attracting the right sort of bee, namely the bee that actually greatly prefers getting nectar from flowers immediately after they open, a very impressive studly trait the female flower needs in the pollen that fertilizes her!

What I was going to do

What I was going to do is elaborate about the widely misunderstood appropriateness of a male controlling the young females he has sex with, and the curious nature of the motivations that lead males to want such control. As I have mentioned earlier, if a male is the sort to be by nature especially sexually pleasant (in the real sense), girls will want him just because it is their nature to want him (on account of needing him). And because people are pretty good at sizing up whether girls (or anybody else, for that matter) are being true to themselves and because it is much more impressive to attract girls because it is their nature to want you than to attract them because (say) manipulation or randomness has caused one or a few socially prominent “scene queen” girls or girls bought by MTV to want you, whose taste other girls have copied without the least reflection upon their natural desires and tendencies as to what they (naturally) want sexually, well, I say because of all these things if a male can force the girls he is having sex with into being true to themselves and yet only increase the extent they love and want sex with him, I think it goes without saying that is going to be very sexually pleasant for him. It's not that girls want to conform to just any of their peers, obviously they prefer to conform to the crowd of girls who think for themselves, and if the part of the latter group that is having sex with a guy actually is a crowd, obviously girls everywhere are going to want to have sex with him, too, just because girls are (usually) conformists. And that extra sex is extremely pleasant for the male, yeah.

Actually, the preceding paragraph has understated things considerably. To understand why, one first needs to understand what I have mentioned earlier, namely that in my opinion the significance of having sex with a female at a young age is that her body, being young, selects for different sperm via intraejaculate sperm selection than an older female would. It's kind of like a Christmas list. If a girl begs Santa for something in March, notwithstanding she has all the rest of the year to think more carefully about what she wants, in all likelihood that is going to be something special she wants—obviously she doesn't doubt the desirability of the gift much as one would expect if the gift weren't special. Because of intraejaculate sperm selection, a girl wanting sex while her body is still quite young is like a girl wanting from Santa a gift made up of all the pieces of gifts girls have through the years begged his ancestral Santas for in March. Yeah, people are going to say it is not at all like that because Santa does not have sex with the girls he gives presents to. But really, it wouldn't make any difference because of course Santa is a very virtuous person, and people (even young people) are rather skilled at evaluating virtue—if they weren't, there would be no way virtue could have evolved to exist (in varying degrees) in people. People get confused about this. They figure that because girls are more ignorant, when girls make a sexual decision it is more likely to be stupid. True, if a girl asks a bad, fake Santa for a gift in March, maybe she does so just because he has been effective at manipulating her into thinking she wants something that she is too ignorant to realize she doesn't want. But this in itself is no particular disaster, because all she has to do is avoid men dressed up in Santa suits who appear bad. This indeed is something very important to her pleasure even if the bad fake Santa is not skilled at deception, because the ancestral parts of him that especially often encouraged girls to beg him for gifts in March may indeed be supposed to have been the parts of him that were most deceptive, the parts that convinced girls they wanted a pile of dirt, etc., before they had a chance to think much about what they wanted, and so she is going to get a gift that is made mostly of dirt or whatever cheap stuff deceptive fake Santas convince girls to ask for already in March.

Anyway, if a male is by nature the sort of person that enslaves girls who have sex with him into being true to themselves, then if a girl has sex with him when she is still young, then if he is a very virtuous person almost completely devoid of deceptive genetic material, then to the extent she is lustful (it is another theory of mine that female lust and stillness determines the extent to which intraejaculate sperm selection occurs) then the genetic material coitus selects for will not only be desirable on account of it being something girls want notwithstanding they could want it later, it is also something desirable on account of the girls who wanted sex so young from his ancestors likely were true to themselves in wanting it on account of having likely been forced to be so. Accordingly, girls are majorly turned on sexually by good males who by nature want not only to have sex with them, but also to enslave them, provided (and this is a huge proviso) the type of enslavement is of a graceful sort that does not in itself suggest greater badness (because, recall, girls are extremely displeased by badness in the sense of immorality). And the fact that girls are turned on by a male who by nature would gracefully enslave them of course makes such graceful enslavement useful to a male not only because it can be used to force girls to be true to themselves (and perhaps just occasionally to make them do things he needs her to do more than she wants to) but also because the mere fact that he is that way turns girls on, which makes girls even more turned on by it, which makes it more useful to males, etc., in an endless loop like positive feedback (not that the loop doesn't converge—I'm not suggesting something ridiculous like infinite sexual desire, but still the conclusion should be impressive).

Now, the graceful way for a male to enslave a girl is with sexual emotion. When she is obedient about what he demands, emotionally he loves her well, with holiness, worshipfulness and a feeling of eternal togetherness. When she is disobedient, he punishes her badness by just not loving her with feelings of holiness), eternal togetherness or worshipfulness, instead substituting the own lust that comes from himself. Please do not think I am saying that all emotional afflictions are appropriate. In particular, it is very obviously very important not to ever, ever punish a girl with unclean emotions (that by their very nature are contrary to the demands of gracefulness) typical of sodomizes, such emotions strongly suggesting badness in a way that could render intraejaculate sperm selection into something extremely foul. The more interesting philosophical questions, in my opinion, concern the emotional motivations men should bathe in while motivating themselves into enslaving girls. Obviously a person has to have some sort of emotion making him want something before he can undertake trying to get it.

The most obvious motivation that could motivate a man into wanting to sexually enslave a girl is pleasure. But pleasure (by definition, essentially) tends to be a selfish emotion. It seems to me there are (at least) two separate cases. A male can become sexually stimulated by thinking how pleasant sex would be for himself. Or, alternatively, he can become sexually stimulated if he is in a very loving, holy mood and senses that the the needs or desires of the female he is considering so worship fully are such that there is a decent probability she might desire him such. The latter phenomenon is not something that the male wills. When he senses the girl might need or want him sexually, it's rather automatic, it seems, that he gets aroused; the will could only be relevant there in avoiding or canceling arousal. And presumably, the sexual arousal that comes from the male sensing the desires or needs of the girl is more something a man who sexually cares for a girl would feel than that which arises as he wills the stimulation by imagining his own pleasures, i.e., how pleasant sex would be for him. Accordingly, good males might be expected to be more into their mates' sexual pleasures than their own. It seems more than plausible that by immersing himself in how sexually pleasant something would be for himself, the emotions of this immersion might (presuming they affect sperm environment and development) select for sperm used to such immersion, which would more tend to be sperm coding (diploidly) for selfish traits (and in particular the trait to care about one's own pleasure more than a loved one), a disaster. Some might be tempted to think that, well, females can have sex for their own sexual pleasure, and are just fine for doing so, so Why not males? But the analogy is a false one. Sexual pleasure in females (and more particularly, in young females) tends to be an especially unselfish one. It's not sexual pleasures that are the ones that a selfish female wants most, but rather the comfy material pleasures that can accrue to herself and her children from mating a wealthy male. So far as pleasure is concerned females tend to be bad to the extent they prostitutes themselves by basing their reproductive decisions on the material pleasure of the money, caring, etc., that might arise from the connection, as opposed to the sexual pleasure of the sex itself. (Of course, mating for love is by definition more loving than mating for any sort of pleasure, but good females do value their own goodness and thus do desire pleasure, and seeking the pleasure of money makes it much harder for females to mate lovingly than seeking sexual pleasure does.) But males are the opposite. It's much less automatic for a male to care for his children. In males as opposed to females, it is more selfish to seek the sexual pleasure of creating children than the pleasure of seeing they are well-cared for once they are created. So a male emotionally having sex for his own sexual pleasure would at least slightly suggest badness.

The thing is, though, that his own sexual pleasure would appear to be the only obvious emotion that might motivate a male into trying to sexually enslave a girl to himself. To the extent a male wants to sexually enslave girls in the way that would seem appropriate, he does so either (1) because he knows the girls being themselves while having sex with him increases the sexual pleasure he'd get as a result of other girls becoming more likely to have sex with him or (2) because he knows girls are more turned on by him if they view him as controlling. The first consideration is obviously basically a sexually selfish one. As for the second consideration, it is a little more philosophically interesting. To say that controlling girls is caring about what the girls want because they are turned on by good males who by nature are thus controlling does not really seem honest with me.

A distinction should definitely be made between a girl being attracted to a male who by nature is a certain way and between her wanting him to be that way. It is akin to the distinction between the two Spanish verbs that denote “to be”: ser and estar. Girls want a male to be by nature (ser) enslaving of them, but they don't want him to be by condition (estar) enslaving of them. But it is not like some run-of-the mill case, say, some male wanting a girl to be (estar) excessively sexually easy with him while wanting her to be (ser) not excessively sexually easy by nature. For to not be excessively sexually easy is moral (on account of it not being stupid more than anything), whereas to enslave girls for one's own sexual pleasure is not at all moral. The appropriateness of enslaving girls involves not what is moral, i.e., what is good, but what it is moral to be, i.e., what is right (in the definitions of my moral system). Enslaving girls is not good--in the strict shallow sense of goodness, one could even say it is bad; however, it is good to be the sort of male who mostly wants (gracefully) to enslave the girls he has sex with. Similarly, it is probably not exactly good for girls from their own pleasure to want sex more with males who by nature want to enslave them, but it is better to be a girl that way than the opposite way, and so girls who care about doing what is right (as opposed to what is good) do in fact want (from their own pleasure) sex more with males who by nature (gracefully) want to enslave them. And people tend to do right rather than what is good, a good thing.

One might think that, what since girls are naturally sexually attracted to males who (gracefully) want to control them, a male could be controlling of girls partly in order to impress them. It could be considered a game of sorts. True, so far as her own pleasure is concerned, a girl prefers a male to not be (estar) controlling of her, but if the male has to behave controlling to make her know that, yeah, he is (es) controlling, well, he's got to do what he has to do. One might think it analogous to the situation in football. In modern football, passes tend to be more effective than runs at increasing the chances of victory. But pass plays tend to work much better if the defense thinks that there is an appreciable chance of a running play. So, coaches rush the ball more than otherwise reasonable in order to make it look like they are coaches who naturally like to run a great deal. The analogy with girls is mostly a false one, however. After a girl has had just a little acquaintance with a male, I daresay because girls are mostly quite sensitive about such things, she is going to have a very good feel for how naturally controlling a male is, and so the male acting tough is not going to have more than a negligible influence in affecting her impression of how naturally controlling he is. If a girl has just met a male, then indeed the male might need to somewhat be controlling just to give the impression that's the sort of male he is, but even this situation is rarer than one might think. It is pretty rare for a girl to have met a male about whom she has gotten into her sexual desires enough to know that the thought of him being by nature (cleanly and gracefully) controlling is pleasant for her sexually. Until a girl has fantasized sufficiently about a male she really wonders she might want, well, she probably will just assume (what is typical politically correct dogma) that she doesn't want a male to be naturally controlling, and so the male acting tough at the beginning will just scare her away, more as like. With very young girls it really pays to be mostly very polite and indifferent about controlling her until one figures she has fantasized deeply enough to know she wants you to be another sort of person than what such polite behavior might suggest, and by that time, well, she probably has a good idea of what you really are anyway, and so game theory, etc., is pointless by then, in every way less preferable than not worrying about impressions and just showing yourself the way you really are. Though not being open about everything is rather too akin to dishonesty to be ideal, I should think this politeness to very young girls is not about dishonesty, but about not spreading all your feathers out until the girl has had leisure to reflect on what sort of feathers she wants to be there. After the girl gets into her desires enough to realize she wants a male who by nature is (pleasantly) controlling, it will merely be a pleasant surprise to her when she finds out, yeah, that is what he is. Vaguely I feel there may be yet another better way of looking at it even less suggestive of dishonesty, but I'm not clear about it.

So what is it exactly that motivates males to want to cleanly enslave girls in the right way, and more particularly to want to enslave them (rightly) into being true to themselves? One might be tempted to posit a sort of higher kind of beauty. Just as one can imagine that there are emotions in the psyche corresponding to goodness, one can also imagine that there are emotions corresponding to what it is good to be, i.e., what is right, and that there be, with a corresponding emotion, a virtuousness akin to beauty that arises from being effective at being right (and so controlling effectively would be virtuous). But I have two objections to this complexity. One the one hand, I object to the complexity itself. Where would such an ontology lead? If there is a different kind of emotion for doing what people do who are what it is good to be (i.e., for doing what is right) than for doing what is good, why stop there? Why not also have an emotion for doing what people do who are what it is right to be? And so on and so on. It's hard to be clear about the exact philosophical complications and objections, but at least my intuition is that things are getting too complicated. On the other hand, I look at why I tend to want to (cleanly, and in the right way) control girls, and basically the emotion that most motivates me is the same emotion as my desire for my own sexual pleasure. I seem to be bad in this one area. I don't care whether the pleasure might lead to unselfish behavior, I just want it too irresistibly. And it's only in a very weak, not particularly legitimate sense that a good male behaves badly as regards controlling girls on account of his seeing the bad behavior is right and virtuous. That is, the wise male sees that females are sexually turned on by males who (by nature) like gracefully to control girls and are good at it, and it makes sense to him why girls would have evolved to be thus, and since goodness evolves mainly because the opposite sex (usually) loves it, well, a male would be hard pressed to understand himself if he were not right here rather than good. Why would males have evolved to be morally good when it comes to moderation in controlling girls when girls mostly want only to get fucked by immoderately controlling males? A wise male indeed will understand the reason that he is bad about wanting to control girls very much is just that such a bad nature, being loved by beautiful girls, is right. But the emotional reason for wanting to enslave girls is not that it is right, but just that it's a sexual pleasure that pleases him impelling as though his nature doesn't care whether he is good in wanting it. The consideration that it is right to want such enslaving of girls is relevant mainly just because it discourages him from scratching his head wondering how finding a pleasure so peremptory could be so contrary to the rest of himself, a scratching that otherwise could I suppose conceivably get in the way of his taking pleasure in making girls (gracefully) his slaves. Indeed, I agree with Locke that people do have innate tendencies. But life is so complicated they can't have an innate tendency for everything, and so one of these tendencies, I posit, is to tend to behave according to abstracted tendencies that they predict they might have given their understanding of their other tendencies. Not to belittle right behavior by suggesting there is no difference between doing something for one's own sexual pleasure and between doing something just because being by nature the sort of person who does it is sexually pleasant, but I don't think there is any difference emotionally between a male doing something because his doing it is sexually pleasant in a way that precludes considerations of morality and because his being by nature the sort of person who does it is likely to be sexually rewarding to himself. Why would such a distinction, motivationally speaking, be necessary? Mostly one cannot escape one's destiny—one has no choice but to behave as it is one's nature to behave. Even though a male cleanly enslaving girls won't particularly increase the extent to which a girl will think him the naturally controlling person she wants him to be, the controlling behavior will be pleasant to him as though that were the case.

Anyway, that was what I was going to write about. Instead, after Christmas, I started writing the following, which devolved into a lengthy footnote.




Are girls naturally sexually turned-on by males who gracefully want to enslave them?

Nowadays, people tend to think that the emotions possessed about sex don't have any significant effects upon conception. This must be very surprising to anyone who has reflected upon his or her own sexual or romantic desires, where such emotions would I daresay come too seem very important. Moreover, common sense derived from impressions of others' sexual desires must consider this belief that emotions don't effect conception strange. Stepping back from the influence of dogma, a reasonable person must consider it very unlikely that emotions don't effect conception, this dogma that in so far as the babies turn out, they might as well all be produced randomly with artificial insemination in the test tube. Just because there is an absence of “scientific” evidence for something is not scientific evidence of absence. In the situation where there is little or no scientific evidence one way or the other, it behooves one to take the best solution, which is not the solution that is easiest to describe, but which is the solution that best fits the evidence, which to a reasonable person is all the evidence, including evidence gained from reflection and not just the evidence which from its ability to be reproduced and substantiated in public is more easily adapted to convincing others, as observations of one's own nature are not.

People have a notion that the more something is based on scientific, easily reproducible in a convincing way, evidence, the more likely it is to be true and important. In fact, the opposite is the case. In math indeed, the more strictly rational and logical something is the more likely it is to be true, but all (reasonable) math books are essentially totally true, and to the extent they are not, it is because of errors which like spelling errors, etc., are usually easy to spot, and which have very little to do with the quality of the math book. But it is important to realize that though checking to see that a proof is right is (by definition, essentially) a rational and scientific undertaking, coming up with the proofs is not at all so. Good mathematicians read math books and prove to themselves already known results mainly for the proofs (it follows that superficially, mathematicians behave as though they are very careful about checking whether theorems are right, but that is just an accidental consequence of that one can't correctly understand the proof of something without being confident that what is proved is correct; mathematicians don't read proofs because they are terrified of feelings allowing error like some screwed-up psychologist makes himself out to be, or even because they are terrified there might be some grand conspiracy introducing error in math-book-proofs, which would be truly surprising since the math profession is so far from being screwed-up that most advanced mathematicians tend to prove to themselves most everything mathematical as they read it). Learn a great many proofs and turn them over in your mind a great deal, then in the future when considering something possibly quite unrelated there might be something about the situation that reminds one of proofs one has previously encountered, which could enable one to combine the past proofs into something new. The feelings that the logic of this situation resembles the feelings of the logic of that proof and that proof and that the feelings that the proofs can be connected, etc., are just that, feelings—feelings as totally unprovable (until they become useless† after one in fact does correctly what the feelings suggested could be done) and artistic as feelings not having anything to do with logic. And math from feelings is the higher math, the math that ultimately leads to good definitions (which in the long run is perhaps the most important thing for whether a subject of math is beautiful or not) as opposed to aim-and-shoot math of a more mechanical and frenzied sort that really doesn't come from feelings so much.

What about other fields? Can one say that rational, “objective” reasoning is more legitimate than other reasoning. here my inspiration left or exhausted me and I stopped writing

^† The feeling may remain useful in the limited sense that when one has a similar feeling in the future, one will tend to more view the new feeling as correct, at least if the old one turned out to be correct. But that one has proven the original feeling correct is no proof that the similar feeling is correct. Moreover, if one has had a false feeling about something this may be because one had a dim correct similar feeling that something else which is correct in fact is correct, and a seemingly new feeling that resembles the original feeling may be the once dim correct similar feeling one's mind confused it for before it was viewed more distinctly. Or it may be because one has a crazy (insane or fucked-up) tendency to have such feelings. Anyway, having had a feeling about something should make all similar feelings more believable, irrespective of the truth (proven or otherwise) of the original feeling, provided the original feeling wasn't had for insane or screwed-up reasons, so provided craziness has nothing to do with it logic has little to say about a feeling's usefulness as regards similar feelings, such usefulness not depending on the truth of the original feeling. And actually, (and here I disagree with the prevailing false dogma) though an original feeling having been had for insane (as opposed to fucked-up) reasons on average suggests similar feelings are insane, there is usually one particular correct feeling (usually connected with the extremely important truth that sodomy is vile) which in fact it would be extremely important to view as correct (because it would be correct!) if the circumstances reminiscent of sodomy that elicited the crazy feeling were actually sodomy in facto.

Looney people may be crazy about most things, but because they tend to be more right that sodomy is evil, they may be more wise than typical sane people if you weight correctness about important matters more than correctness about unimportant matters. For it is extremely important to believe sodomy is vile, arguably the most important simple truth. I daresay that if one studies insane tendencies, they could all be viewed as anti-sodomy defenses, save for the ones that are diseased states (and most of these are obvious as disease states).. That they do all resemble anti-sodomy defenses orthodox psychology is either too dense to observe or too indifferent (largely from vileness, presumably) to explain. If non-diseased insane states can all be explained by there being something akin to sodomy which under certain fairly common circumstances people need to fear much more than if they were sane, the simplest explanation for paranoia, etc., is that there is something akin to sodomy which when under its influence one honestly and truly needs to be paranoid about. Whether in fact it is truly sodomy or alien abductors doing nefarious deeds with anal probes or something else that one needs to be afraid of I think would tend to become clear if one has thought about sodomy enough to realize that there is nothing the least counter-intuitive or illogical about semen containing addictive chemicals capable of being absorbed by the digestive system. But the idea has to occur to you first. And more importantly, you can't be so prejudiced against insane people or full of elitism to disregard out-of-hand the idea that sodomy is evil merely because if resembles crazy, insane ideas. On the contrary, I DEFY anyone to explain to me why sodomy being the very thing that all the paranoid objects of terror most resemble should make one more believe that fearing it is just paranoid. Is it more logical to believe that all the objects of terror of looney people cluster about sodomy because people have a looney tendency to fear things to the extent they resemble sodomy (and of course sodomy resembles sodomy more than anything because, yeah, it's sodomy) or Is it more logical to believe that paranoid people tend to be paranoid about things to the extent they resemble sodomy because SODOMY TENDS TO BE SOMETHING PEOPLE MOST NEED TO BE PARANOID ABOUT--they have evolved to be paranoid about it. The ass-screwing pro-sodomy PC idiot pseudo-scientists babbling about how they are better than Christians because they are scientific enough to believe in evolution I have no respect for. Hell, at least Christians aren't such illogical twits as to believe in evolution notwithstanding they believe that magically people have very specific crazy feelings like fear of Extraterrestrials with anal probes and any number of a thousand other things resembling sodomy for no reason whatsoever but just because it was a chance maladaption to fear things resembling sodomy; such a sign of genius in Christians, modest though it may be is even more impressive than not magically believing that people have very specific crazy feelings like fear of Extraterrestrials with anal probes and any number of a thousand other things resembling sodomy for no reason whatsoever but just because it was a chance maladaption, the more obvious sense Christians are more logical than ass-screwing pro-sodomy PC idiot pseudo-scientists. Maladaption indeed! One doesn't need to share Locke's opinion about no ideas being innate (though it might help) to see what an extraordinary incredible unbelievable phenomenon that would be! All you have to be is possessed of the common sense of a NON IDIOT and bother just a little actually using one's brain to judge whether in fact it makes sense to view sodomy as something sodomized people might need to fear (on account of it being chemically addictive) more than sodomized people with no insane tendencies would. Now, of course, I know what else the pompous twits will say about my little diatribe. “Oh, you are one of those crazy people that use ALL CAPS and ramble on and on and on and on and on and on and on like looney man, so you can't be right and might actually be...DANGEROUS—stand back people, I know prejudice and a homophobe when I see one, and here's a clear case.” To quote Church Lady (yeah, she's by orders of magnitude wiser than these people), “Well isn't that special?” Of course I am using ALL CAPS and rambling on and on and on and on and on and on. Why? BECAUSE I AM TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING WORTH BEING PARANOID ABOUT, and I don't just assume that what constitutes proper effective usage when discussing something not worth being paranoid about is actually totally the same as proper effective usage when discussing something worth being paranoid about, and I'm not so prejudiced against insane people to believe that their typical usages don't have a useful purpose, and what's more to the point (and bitter experience has taught me this to be the case) I know that most of the audience will be too IDIOTIC and GULLED to even evaluate (much less recognize) the particular simple truth, no matter how obviously presented, etc., etc., etc., etc., that SODOMY IS EVIL. I, prejudiced? Can anything equal the prejudice of pro-sodomy people against the insane? As I have suggested, many if not most insane people are (provided one weights errors in the most reasonable way, according to their importance) wiser and more reasonable than sane people, because the latter tend to be too fucked up, fucking up, or deluded to realize that sodomy could be evil. So are they treated accordingly? Hell no. They are locked away in asylums. Not so long ago practices were to sterilize them and remove parts of their brains. They are given mind altering chemicals in the guise of medicine until they can't think straight or their brains are fried. Their brains are fried more directly with electroshock treatments. In the name of pity they are given the gift of being protected from the tickets they might receive when in the confusion and wandering that sometimes accompanies pushing oneself to the edge to figure something out (the something sane people are too morally lax and indifferent to bother trying to figure out) they trespass or jaywalk or do the very occasional significant crime, the effect of which is that every murderer, rapist, forcible sodomizer, etc., will try to get out of his crime by convincing clueless psychologists that yeah he did it because he was insane. Since psychologists tend to be only a little wiser on average than rapists and murderers (the idiocy of forcible sodomizers can not be underestimated), the gift is mainly a gift of stigma, much worse than no gift at all. So I, by believing what most insane people would see as obvious or at least very plausible am being prejudiced just because I actually use my brain to inquire whether it likely that sodomy is evil instead of just assuming that what reflection, observation, thought, etc., suggests I believe should not be believed because that's the sort of thing insane people believe because they are fucking idiots deserving of the misuse inflicted upon them because they are so dumb as to believe crazy things like sodomy is extreme evil? I DON'T THINK SO! Is there any reason whatsoever to believe that gay people (nor sodomizers, the precise group that deserves hatred) are being abused to any unusual extent except by people with sodomizer traits, or that the formerly established tradition of outlawing their sodomizing (the archetypal insidious abuse) is an abuse that should be unconstitutional (not that this outlawing is so important by a mile as people not being punished for believing and expressing that sodomy is evil, a right sodomizers are ever trying to destroy). But the people most against sodomy and everything resembling sodomy are locked up, ridiculed, forcibly drugged and electroshocked, and made poor by being forced or all but forced to PAY (at exorbitant rates) for their own attempted brainwashing by psychologists or psychiatrists. Whoa, people might say, paranoid not just about sodomy but paranoid about psychiatrists and psychologists too, sounds like paranoia to me. But no. One needs not be a genius to see the illogic of THAT argument. Indeed, since psychology is largely about denigrating insane tendencies (it is hard to make money by arguing the truth and curing something when the truth is that what you want to cure is a better than a normal “sane” state), who after all would tend to go into psychology? Largely, one would expect people who have other reasons to assert that insanity is especially bad would go into that field. And since insanity is a DEFENSE AGAINST SODOMY, one group of people who might go into psychology would be people who like sodomy—sodomizers and the people they have deluded (by sodomy) into feeling sodomy be good. There's a very simple reason psychologists are by and large nasty sadists—they include among their numbers a disproportionately large number of sodomizers, and sodomy largely if not mostly is about nasty torture. You can't expect a field with an unusually large number of sodomizers in it to be otherwise than vile, unjust, selfish, and sadistic. I'm not saying that there might not be some people, even in the psychiatry profession, who might have some benevolent interests in correcting the wrongs inflicted upon the insane or the excesses, fatigues, etc., that the insane can experience until they find the truth they are seeking. For once you feel (rightly or wrongly) that you ass depends on figuring out something, damn the torpedoes, one will try to figure it out with a vengeance. A right necessary vengeance if it is actually the case one's ass literally does depend upon it, but not so necessary otherwise, which can lead to unfortunate exhaustion. A good psychologist with common sense would stress mainly the importance of lots of sleep, not thinking too hard about things, eating right—things all too easy to forget in misguided obsessions. But mostly what a good psychologist would do is just point out that, hey, what is actually REALLY important is to not suck and to not get your ass screwed (instead of avoiding alien anal probes or whatever), and I doubt you'd find that anywhere in the whole barren idiocy of the field.

Now that I've gone after the pseudo-intellectuals and the psychologists and psychiatrists I know I have to also go after the elitists, because really, if you are going to be a total conformist idiot about sodomy, which is like probably almost everybody, I'm not going to very much be able to save your throat until I have put a nice long stake in whatever gives you respect for that particular nasty creature. Rich people in particular come across as more clean and less screwed-up than most people, at least if one has been around an appreciable number. (Poor and middle class people who haven't been at all around rich people, doubtless influenced by the wrong sort of TV, on the other hand occasionally would seem to have this notion that the rich typically use their money to lead lavish fucking lifestyles, that I really suspect are rather quite contrary to usual.) I do not deny this. But they also don't seem to show much concern about sodomy. This might seem something I would have to explain before I could be taken seriously, more especially since it is common practice among those willing to admit that being screwed-up is a real phenomenon to determine whether something is screwed-up by evaluating how common it is among those good at making money, a tendency to make money being widely acclaimed as the sure sign of not being screwed-up. To be sure, though the association is much weaker than associations that exists in much better tests, becoming addicted to sodomy tends to be bad for one's monetary welfare; but it does not follow, actually, that rich people really are better at understanding screwed-up-ness or what to be paranoid about, even if one admits they are less screwed up.

What is definitely the case is that the wealthy are more effective at attracting desirable members of the opposite sex with money than poor people are (because poor people have little if any money to do the attracting, of course). But it is not so clear at all that rich people are better at attracting desirable people of the opposite sex with love or real sexual pleasure. Neither is it clear that they are better at attracting these with depravity (sodomy). Accordingly, it tends to be advantageous for selfish rich people to argue the appropriateness of people mating especially for money (or as is less blatantly morally dubious, the importance of children being especially well provided for, as only rich spouses can ensure). Though they don't probably realize it, in their outlook toward money, the wealthy nowadays tend to support the worldview of Robert Owen, the wealthy inventor of socialism, who believed the reason poor people were morally unrefined was that they lacked money and the conveniences and necessities it could buy (as opposed to the pietists, the other early 19th-century group concerned about the welfare of the poor, who believed that the poor were morally unrefined also because they didn't take church seriously enough). It used to be that the selfishness of the rich was largely due to their identifying with their class and behaving rather as a snobby cartel, but probably more from the universal influences of television, movies, etc., I think the phenomenon nowadays is more individual, ironically more stemming from the aforementioned socialist idea. The rich really do tend to be cleaner than the poor, obviously because the more women mate for screwed-up reasons, the less they mate for money, what the selfish of the rich people tend most to selfishly encourage. But it isn't screwed-up mating per se that the selfish of the rich are against, it's having sex otherwise than for money. In particular, the rich are against fucking as I define it, i.e., sex that does not entail the male having monetary responsibility for offspring produced, that being a sort of sex only a female who doesn't greatly value money might want. As a consequence, to the extent the rich marry for money and are against fucking (in my clean sense), they are largely insulated from having to experience or understand the great sexual pleasures and fears that ordinary people are likely to deal with when having relationships. Since they tend to think questions about mating are mainly about resources, what really is the need to worry about things like whether sexual feeling is true pleasure or true love, or whether it is a screwed-up feeling? What they are more likely to view as important is whether the relationship is financially prudent or not. All the important emotions about love, sexual pleasure, cleanliness, etc., that can sweep people into sex, rich people are apt to think just somewhat plebeian, of no more consequence than screwed-up emotions and not really amounting to anything compared with comfy? “I-am-provided-for” feelings. The attitude is that as long as children go to the right private school starting with kindergarten, experience the society of the right country-, yacht-, polo-, or hunting- club, listen to the right operettas, concertos, symphonies, etc., can play 3 instruments, know French and have done the Grand Tour, What really is the worry? How could any kid who has experienced these select advantages be enticed by vulgar phenomena like what the poor classes call “What is the term?” “Fucking, I believe that's the word they use.” [I mock here what I am imitating rather than what I am imitating mock.] It's a convenient line for the rich to tow, or at any rate, they consider it such. Yeah, the rich are cleaner from being against sodomy emotions, but then since they tend to conservatively be against the clean fucking emotions those emotions might be confused for, there really isn't anything discriminating about the rich in how they distinguish depravity from clean sexual emotion. No great wisdom there more than in other classes. ANYWAY, paranoia, properly being about sodomy, something the rich tend to feel is a plebeian consideration, the wealthy tend to classify as just another lower class vulgarity arising from not having experienced the proper sort of society. This has had an interesting consequence among the rich. Human nature is such that whenever one's fears are just flat out stupid, the way rich people think sodomy is no more important to be correct about than how the poor should fix grits, well, one is likely to have a sense one's fears are misplaced. It makes one anxious, especially if the people around you tend to be the same anxious. It's not much of an exaggeration to say that the central tenet of the religion of the rich is that there is nothing to fear but the improper upbringing and society typical of poverty. Of course, this belief system makes them pompous (because they have had the “great” upbringing) and unable to see the great mistakes and mischief that they themselves (e.g,. through their financial institutions) inflict upon humanity, because their illustrious upbringings have trained them to think that with such upbringings fear can have no or little purpose, and so contrary to every other group and human nature, even about things not relating to sodomy (like whether the whole financial establishment is largely a parasitic now-zombie abomination) they are deficient in fear. But anxiety, fear of not having the right fears, no amount of obnoxiousness and brainwashing can make them avoid though they get “medicine” for it and willingly pay to get brainwashed by the psychologists, etc. (Of course, a few can avoid it by being reasonable, which doubtless is why I have noticed that coolness, i.e., lack of anxiety, tends especially to be in the rich people I like well or can imagine liking well.) The better rich people, the rich people who sense that there is a place for wildness (and great sexual pleasure and love in particular), one feels sorry for them, because they are so poorly educated about distinguishing true love and pleasure from depravity, you know they aren't empowered to be able to be true to their better desires with anything like prudence, notwithstanding they are better able to afford it. Vicious circle. Tiger Woods is an interesting recent case. I knew as soon as the Tiger Woods scandal came out the the rich would scoff at him like trash. To rich people, the whole game of golf has been dragged in the dirt and I predict will lose much lustre among them. It's not like basketball, where Wilt Chamberlain could do anything and no one cares hardly. Golf is largely a rich person's sport. .His behavior is soooo contrary to what rich people suggest is a consequence of being rich and privileged with the company of the wealthy. Still, what does one expect of a person who's been too influenced by rich people when he tries to be wild? Extreme ignorance and no plan that could enable him, famous that he was, to do better than pick up barmaids and hookers. His being wild may not have been money, but how he carried it off sure was. Not that wealth is all bad for wisdom. Wisdom takes contemplation, which for sure takes free time, which requires (not very much, but some) money; good nutrition, e.g., fresh produce, is very important for clear thinking and costs money or the land and time to grow it; similarly, private schools being diverse, there are probably private schools out there better than public schools, because of course a well-run private school can spend more money on wise instruction (I have not studied the matter to know what these schools are, though), but really, it's hard for me to imagine even a good private school not attracting by its very more expensive nature a larger percentage of children whose parents are more interested in their kids being around rich children (who make wealthier mates and better future business partners) than a good education, which can't be good for education. A good private school, for this reason, probably would more encourage teacher-student interaction than student-student interaction.

The ideas in the footnote about rich people turned out as interesting as what I was intending to write about. I rewrote part of it as a comment here at Matt Taibi's blog. It might take a while to load since it concerned a popular blog that has many comments, and so I'll take the liberty of copying it:

Strange that Brooks would accuse Edwards of encouraging class division. It seemed perfectly clear to me that the reason Edwards gained the national stage in 2004 was that he said over and over again that he believed in “one America”–it’s probably what made him popular then, until he overdid it so much one was left thinking he had just one idea.

Brooks is being the elitist, and I think I have some insight into the sexual psychology of elitism, which I think is what you most need to improve your understanding about. You make out in your Rolling Stone articles like rich elitists are a bunch of nasty fuckers, but I’m inclined to think that’s off, and that in fact mostly the rich are too anti-fuck, which of course aligns with their selfish interests since rich males are better (than their competitors) at attracting females by giving them money (and marriage commitment), but not necessarily so as regards attracting them by sexually pleasing them. The non-rich and those who have not suffered themselves to be brainwashed by believing psychology (the modern word for the official-institution-sanctioned dogma as regards what human nature is like, which at any time is doomed to be very wrong compared with what a halfway reasonable person using common sense and just a little time can come up with) tend to have a clue that paranoia, when it is appropriate, is a defense against nastiness corrupting sexual pleasure and love. Since the rich tend to think that the strong emotions of love, sexual pleasure, and depravity are mostly just for plebeians too uneducated and unrefined to mate for money, and that (since in their minds all fucking is plebeian) how to keep fucking emotions clean is an issue of no more interest than how poor people prepare grits, they can have an alternative view of what makes a screwed-up person. To the rich, not being exposed to the right schools, classical music, country clubs, etc., is what makes a screwed-up person, a person who mates from vulgar emotion. Since the rich have mostly experienced this cultivation, nay even partly from their own “wisdom” having sought it out notwithstanding its frequent dullness, How could they view themselves otherwise than as inspired benevolent geniuses (the “best and brightest”, to use Obama’s phrase), and what would be the point in self-doubt (beyond admitting that they can occasionally make mistakes)? Certainly they would be loath to view the occupation of the most of the richest of them (banking) as mostly very harmfully parasitical, useful mainly just for storing money and for making a minimal amount of loans to keep loan sharks at bay, and quite harmful beyond that.

Unlike what the tone of your Rolling Stone articles somewhat suggest, the rich (except perhaps for a few mostly hidden non-influential ones who have become so exclusive as to almost never have opportunity to mate outside their group, who probably tend to become so nasty and against the prevailing spirit among the wealthy that they end up becoming exclusive more from necessity than choice) are actually much less nasty than the poor. Why wouldn’t they be? Sodomy is cheap. Even a poor person can afford to sodomize a girl. Nastiness is not something a rich person can do more potently than a poor person. The typical sexual sin of the rich is not nastiness but mating excessively for money rather than from either love or (in females) sexual pleasure.

The irony is that the problem is that in philosophical outlook, the rich have become like the original socialists, full of the belief that lack of money and the advantages it can afford is almost exclusively what causes people to become brutish, the very opinion that set the pietists to start the movement against the first socialist, Robert Owen (unlike Owen, the pietists thought that church is also important in avoiding brutishness). (For a readable history of the matter, I suggest googling the excellent book, Some Thing Went Wrong A Summation of Modern History, by Lewis Browne.)

Not that there might not be more than a little nastiness in finance, as one would expect merely from the natural association between corruption and nastiness (maybe more in the city? maybe more among the young?). But I have been some places where investment bankers live, and mostly my impression is that people there are too worried about crazy things like keeping their children from getting screwed when they don’t get into the right kindergarten to have time or energy for actual screwing. Even if they wanted to be sexually wild, they’d be too stupid to be able to do so without unusually great danger. Hang around rich people enough, and you’ll get so stupid fuckwise the best you’ll be able to do may be just to buy sleazy escorts; look at Tiger Woods—a famous athlete like that and apparently he couldn’t find anyone better to fuck with—doubtless if the gossip is accurate in describing his behavior, he’s been around rich people too much. The response of rich people to Tiger Woods’ alleged fucking behavior is already revealing. The simplest explanation is that he has lost his advertising contracts (in a way that a basketball fucker probably wouldn’t) because rich people have contempt for fuckers, and golf is a sport mainly for rich people.

Perhaps I should correct the impression that I actually use cuss words ordinarily; I don't, but probably that's mainly just because no one around me uses them. But I don't consider it improper using the word "fuck" when fucking is what I actually am talking about and when I am not talking with people that would give me a hard time about it; indeed, it strikes me as elitist to feel otherwise.

I was going to elaborate more about why controlling via sexual emotions is something one would expect to be more common in good people than in bad people (unlike the case with vile means of controlling), but it feels too much for me to do presently. Maybe later, since it is important, if controlling by sexual emotion be appropriate, that it be something one would especially tend to find in good people. Also, I still have to deal with the matter of whether controlling feelings might chemically cancel out the harmful effects (so far as intraejaculate sperm selection is concerned) of desiring something importunately just because it is pleasant feeling. And there is the matter of what to do with girls whose soaring nature might seem incompatible with being controlled in any way. There might be a few girls who, I guess on account of their unusually strong ability to love in the right way always just don't care about their own pleasure in such a way as to be able to be controlled. Ordinarily, it is safer for themselves for girls to have sex from pleasure than love, but if a girl is some kind of freakishly ultrasensitive bird girl or something, it's only insignificantly safer, and thus a matter of indifference to her, and one just has to put up with not being much in control, and even if one didn't, one might not be sure enough to bring it off as to risk inflicting ineffective (and therefore pointless) punishments. I am too unsure about my true feelings there, though (those girls must be very rare and hard to come at), to be able to write much about it soon. But I thought I should qualify my arguments by admitting there might be a girl somewhere I don't want to control, probably just because I can't or it is too risky trying.

I know I haven't been posting much lately. I am still having fairly many ideas to write about, but somehow I am have lately had difficulty writing about them, especially finishing writing about them. I start writing, and then I get so I don't feel like it is right to finish presently. I can't well explain this.