(short answer, no)
—does the introduction of civilization produce another algorithm, one in which the goal is to satisfy human desires and intentions more than a biological imperative?—
It sure looks as though at some point we stop reproducing more out of security and simply consume more out of luxury.
I think the domestication of man produces far more productive results, and that we have an endless appetite for consumption.
I don’t see anything other than that. If any human behavior can be expressed as an attempt at acquisition, consumption, and persistence, then that behavior provides us with decidable causality. And we need not try to invent falsehoods to comfort ourselves that anything else is going on here.
We enjoy each other because operation at low cost and entertainment at low cost are good algorithms. Enjoyment is the body’s reward for saving, obtaining, consuming, or inventorying calories.
Our emotions are all reducible to changes in property. All of them.
It’s …. kind of painful to understand it.
But we do get to enjoy the ride our genes take us on.
