Evolution?

[Thanatos]

Must everything in life be seen in the context of evolution? Marxism itself explains everything, including capitalism, in terms of competition etc.

But I am including everything else - behavior, arts and culture, and pretty much everything.

Just an example. Love. Instead of having a sentimental or romantic notion, we see it as a result of chemicals or as a result of centuries of evolution where we try to find mates to reproduce/spread our genes. This we may call love, tentatively, but it is just a survival mechanism.

So my question really is, yes, Marxism is strictly materialistic in that even so-called spiritual or otherworldly stuff is seen in material/historical context. But I am going further to wonder whether it is specifically in the context of evolution alone (rather than vague materialism, which could mean just about anything).

[tallguy]

Must everything in life be seen in the context of evolution? Marxism itself explains everything, including capitalism, in terms of competition etc.

But I am including everything else - behavior, arts and culture, and pretty much everything.

Just an example. Love. Instead of having a sentimental or romantic notion, we see it as a result of chemicals or as a result of centuries of evolution where we try to find mates to reproduce/spread our genes. This we may call love, tentatively, but it is just a survival mechanism.

So my question really is, yes, Marxism is strictly materialistic in that even so-called spiritual or otherworldly stuff is seen in material/historical context. But I am going further to wonder whether it is specifically in the context of evolution alone (rather than vague materialism, which could mean just about anything).
What we (and all of the rest of life) are is a product of Darwinian evolution; including the human mind. However, evolution is blind and cannot "predict" the outcome of it's machinations. The cultural structures of the human mind have evolved [culturally] to a point where they now exceed the sum of their underlying Darwinian parts. This cultural information evolutionary process operates on the same Darwinian principles as the biological evolution underpinning it. But on a much faster time-scale. (Look up "memetics" for further details).

In other words, the software is now as influential as the hardware for our species. Nevertheless, the hardware still places limits on us.

[Zanters]

Our bodies do not exist because of our mind, our mind exist because of our bodies. We have no control over evolution so our mind changes with it. Like the previous poster said, the hardware is going to change, the software will change with it, not vice versa.