Donnie's Blog

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.

- Martin Niemöller, about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group

NOTE: This post is in response to Donniel’s post “Purpose of Life”, 22^nd Jan 2010. If you haven’t read that, go read it first or this post might not make much sense. Don, thanks for the privilege of inviting me to do this guest post.

Looks like you’ve fallen for the old “but it’s gotta be more than just that” trap. I’ll clarify in a moment. But to begin with, I don’t like the phrase “purpose of life”. It just sounds too lofty – as if life has chosen or been assigned a goal for itself. The truth is more like “it happens”. Maybe I’d call it “the impetus of life”. The point is – life is a consequence, not a motive force.

Now to address the other concerns you had. Your first contention is that the propagation of genes is not the only ‘purpose’ of life and you illustrate with the example of the baby kangaroo (kangaroo?! really!!). True, the roo baby runs away from the croc, but it’s an impulse that has evolved to let the roo baby survive into adulthood so it can have its own roo babies. Sure, that’s not what it’s thinking about while it is running away, but that’s only because evolution is very good at fooling ‘life’ to achieve its (evolution’s, not life’s) goals.

Let me illustrate: if a baby – roo or human or whatever – puts its grubby paw into a fire, it will certainly learn a lesson not to do that again. The instinct to withdraw from the source of the pain is exactly that – an instinct. The baby doesn’t think, “oops… what’s that smell. Hmm… doesn’t look too good. I’m going black. Nope… this won’t do. I gotta survive until I’m old enough to bag me some booty. Let’s take that hand outta the fire.” PAIN does all that for the baby without him even realizing it. Just another example of evolution ‘fooling’ us all into achieving its ends. In fact, all our instincts are just evolution’s tricks to make us survive and procreate – fear, pain, hunger, horniness, you name it.

The same applies to people who don’t want to have kids. You see, as far as evolution is concerned it’s not the kids that matter, but sex. Another ‘trick’ of evolution. The theory is that if you have enough sex you’re pretty much guaranteed to become a mommy or daddy soon enough as long as all the organs are working as they should. That’s before we invented condoms and birth control and stuff – but of course that doesn’t really count in evolutionary terms except perhaps to illustrate that evolution has created a sort of Frankenstein in us humans – its creation that is smart enough to thwart evolution’s own mechanisms… heh. But yeah, the point is that even people who don’t want kids like sex.

Sure there are people who feel no pain or hate sex or commit suicide. These anomalies are at the very root of evolution. You see, each ‘copy’ of the genes is slightly different from the previous one. So that causes subtle changes from generation to generation. Usually these changes are too small to make a difference to the offspring in any way, but sometimes they either help it (sharper eyes, bigger brain, pain, fear and so on) or harm it (asymmetrical legs, mental illness, out-of-control emotions, etc). These changes are what cause all evolution. The ones better adapted to survive get to pass on their genes and continue their dynasty while the ‘unfit’ ones do not. For instance, someone who hates sex will not get to pass on his/her genes and that anti-sex impulse will disappear from the gene pool. Or the genes of a baby roo that decides to make friends with the croc will disappear in a crunchy snack. Over millions of years, these little physiological and behavioral changes cause new species to appear and evolve themselves.

To be sure these ‘unfit’ individual exist even among us today – some survive into adulthood only because of modern medicine, and many will not get to pass on their ‘inferior’ genes. I put inferior and unfit in quotes because they’re not absolutes – evolution is dependent on the environment. I won’t go into a thesis here, but suffice it to say that if the environment changes, the ‘inferiority’ or ‘superiority’ of genes (and I mean this ONLY in terms of survivability) can change dramatically. For instance, children with juvenile diabetes would not have survived into adulthood a hundred years ago, but they lead almost normal lives today and even go on to have kids of their own. The environment changed (modern medicine came along) and that particular ‘inferiority’ of their genes suddenly didn’t matter anymore. The same can’t (yet) be said for juvenile Huntington’s patients or those susceptible to fatal early onset cancers. Those genes still have ‘inferior’ survivability and will likely get nipped in the bud.

Moving on to another point – ‘Sacrificing self for others’ might seem like a contradiction, but it’s really not – you wouldn’t normally do it for a stranger, but for the people you love – most likely your spouse and children. By doing that, you’re STILL protecting your own genes by ensuring that they get a chance to continue the dynasty.

And there are even theories of specie-wide bonds that help entire species survive. For instance, if you were wandering through the forest and came upon a leopard and a man facing off, you’re likely to rush to the aid of the human. It’s instinctive, and it’s a weaker bond compared to the one you share with your kids, but it’s there. However if you came upon your brother fighting another guy, you’re likely to help your brother. The theory is that the closer someone is to you in the gene kaleidoscope, the more likely you are to stick up for him or her. Think tribes, states, countries and even races/religions. Again, NOT a perfect or universal behavior by a long shot, but statistically quite accurate.

Then of course there’s also the social influence to consider. It can sometimes override the evolutionary impulse. Ironically, the social instinct has evolved because it helps (statistically) the survival of the species and each individual in it. However, sometimes an individual pays the ultimate price for it. In the end, the price to pay (‘sacrifice’ of an individual) is far outweighed by the reward of social instinct. It’s a numbers game for evolution, not an individuals game.

To address the case of the organism that can’t procreate but continues to fulfill its other needs… It’s like a computer with busted speakers – just because the speaker doesn’t work doesn’t mean the computer will seize up, right? All the other processes that evolution put in place to ensure the transfer of genes will continue to work until the individual dies. Don’t forget – the organism doesn’t know that it’s only a tool in evolution’s hands. It’s only logical – there’s no supreme authority that will automatically eliminate an individual just because its dick doesn’t work or whatever. That ‘negative’ trait of not being able to procreate will automatically disappear from the gene pool because, well, it can’t procreate.

‘Contentment’ or ‘Happiness’ as the purpose of life is a philosophical concept, not an evolutionary concept. An unhappy or discontent individual is just as likely to survive and have kids as a happy one, maybe even more so depending from individual to individual. Evolution doesn’t discriminate based on happiness, only survivability and procreatibility (yup, just invented that word!).

Happiness as the goal of life is great as a philosophical concept. In fact, I couldn’t agree with it more. The ultimate purpose I’ve chosen in life is to bring myself as much happiness as possible. But I don’t think this drive is universal and it is certainly not vital to survival. I don’t even think it’s instinctive, except perhaps at a very basic level where satisfaction of hunger/thirst/sex urge brings ‘happiness’.

Conclusion – The impetus of life is to survive as long as possible or in some species until procreation (as in the case of your spider and many thousands of other species that die as soon as they lay their eggs) and to pass on its genes from generation to generation. In fact that’s the very definition of life.

Think about it – the simplest systems are the ones that are most likely to work and endure for billions of years. It can’t get simpler than “pass those genes”. Everything else is incidental. You can’t have different rules for different species, and as you aptly pointed out, micro-organisms are surely not thinking about spiritual fulfillment. So that leave us with “PASS THOSE DAMN GENES!”