It's Human Nature

Human minds serve “fitness” – not “truth”. Since every individual is programmed to pursue personal fitness and lie about intentions, no civilization has ever been able to convince its members to cooperate enough to survive the depletion of the energy resources which gave it birth. When confronted with ever-declining resources, the preservation of civilization requires more-and-more cooperation, but individuals are genetically programmed to reduce cooperation. This genetic program sets up a positive feedback loop: declining common resources cause individuals to reduce cooperation even more, which reduces common resources even faster.

IT’S HUMAN NATURE by Jay Hanson –10/08/05
(permission to reprint expressly granted)

Our behavior derives from genes and environment (lifetime environment, but mostly present environment). Our present genes are the product of earlier genes and earlier environments. We are born with different genetic programming for self, family, and social group (“tribe”). Although few of us are consciously aware of it, we swim in politics like a fish swims in water.

INDIVIDUAL COMPETITION
Men evolved to compete with other men for resources – especially breeding partners. The most-desirable women selected mates who were perceived (genetically and socially) to offer the best opportunities for their children’s survival (“sexual selection”). Those men who were able to accumulate the most social power tended to produce the most children.

Men evolved to form tribes and cooperate with other men (“reciprocal altruism”) in order to obtain more resources than they could as individuals or families. Tribal society provides the rules for competition, but an individual’s goal is always based on a genetic drive for “inclusive fitness”.

TRIBAL COMPETITION
Tribes serve each member’s fitness by competing with other tribes for resources. Tribes form political alliances and cooperate with other tribes in order to obtain more resources than they could as individual tribes. Tribes that fail to individual serve fitness become unstable and subject to fundamental change (e.g., revolution).

When tribal leaders “feel” that fitness is better served by violence, they will attack other tribes and take that tribe’s resources. The tribes with the most resources and largest populations usually win.

DO THE MATH
Why do so few people know or care about “peak oil”? It’s because evolution doesn't conserve “individuals”, it conserves “genes”. What type of behavior will evolve? Do the math!

Assume that two fundamental “genetic sets” (strains of people) exist in a tribe of primitive people. Each group is represented by ten pairs. Further assume that this tribe loses 30% of its population every twenty years due to war, disease, and famine.

Members of gene set #1 are intelligent, honest, and forward looking. The mating pairs in this set only have two children and limit personal consumption because they know the tribe is over carrying capacity (many die of starvation every twenty years). After 20 years, this set has 20 adults + 20 children = 40 members.

Members of gene set #2 are stupid, corrupt, chronic liars, and only care about the present. The mating pairs in this set consume ten times as many resources as the first group and have an average of ten children before the females die. After 20 years, this set has 10 adults (females dead) + 100 children = 110 members.

A famine kills 30% of the tribe. Now, set # 1 has only 28 members, while set # 2 has 77 members. The tribe now has total of 105 members. The fraction of gene set #1 will continue to shrink till it dies out.

What kind of people will be selected? Obviously, it’s people who are stupid, corrupt, chronic liars and only care about the present. The ancestors of everyone alive today was selected by a process something like the one described above.

DOPAMINEIACS
We are all addicted to “dopamine”. Dopamine is a drug produced by our body which makes us “feel good”. We buy things because the “buying” (more than the “owning”) gives us a dopamine rush. That's why we never get enough stuff. It's like an orgasm. No matter how many orgasms we have, we want to have at least one more.

MR. HYDE AND DR. JEKYLL
Deception is common in nature: animals evolved to look like plants, birds pretend injury to lure predators away from nests, and lizards inflate themselves pretending to be more dangerous than they really are, but humans are by far the most accomplished liars in the animal kingdom. Two separate personalities live inside each of us: a Mr. Hyde who makes all the decisions and a Dr. Jekyll who makes all the excuses. Mr. Hyde is only interested in sex, money and power, while Dr. Jekyll is only interested in how Hyde’s decisions look to the neighbors.

Mr. Hyde’s decisions are not based on calculation; they are based on subconscious image comparison, and he will select the choice that “feels best”. About ½ second after Mr. Hyde makes a decision, he invents a socially acceptable excuse for Dr. Jekyll, and then Jekyll tells the neighbors. Unfortunately, Dr. Jekyll has no way of knowing whether Hyde is telling the truth or lying. This makes it literally impossible for anyone to know for certain what Mr. Hyde is up to.

Human minds serve “fitness” – not “truth”. Since every individual is programmed to pursue personal fitness and lie about intentions, no civilization has ever been able to convince its members to cooperate enough to survive the depletion of the energy resources which gave it birth. When confronted with ever-declining resources, the preservation of civilization requires more-and-more cooperation, but individuals are genetically programmed to reduce cooperation. This genetic program sets up a positive feedback loop: declining common resources cause individuals to reduce cooperation even more, which reduces common resources even faster.

LIE, CHEAT, STEAL, RAPE, AND KILL
Tribal society only directs our behavior when we perceive that it is able to reward or punish us. A “collapsed” society has no influence over our behavior. That's why cultures disappear and people revert to more primitive ways of life. Our society has been in the process of collapsing for several years because of falling “net energy”.

Our tribe expands for mutual defense when our genetic drives are satisfied, but it will shrink when our genetic drives are frustrated. We invent excuses to kick minorities out of our tribe when resources are insufficient to support growth for all. Allies can become enemies almost overnight. The collapse of Yugoslavia was a good example of neighbor slaughtering neighbor.

When our subconscious feels our fitness is best served by lying, cheating, stealing, raping, or killing, then we will do so. It’s human nature.

Comments

[puma]

What do you mean by genetically programmed?

[cnulan]

Structural tendencies are a given, right? Two eyes, two legs, two hands, etc..., So what Hanson is referring to here is the functionally simple and obvious stuff, e.g., language acquisition faculty, generative grammar, visual preponderance in the human lexical field, stereotypical emotional states - common to mammalian vertebrates - not merely humans, etc.., a substantial amount of human-ness - including quite complex behaviours - is rooted in unlearned, instinctual, genetically programmed functional tendencies of the organism.

Lions don't graze for a living, beavers do build dams, and spiders do spin webs.., we humans perform quite a few genetically programmed functions, as well.

[puma]

I have a problem with your reasoning that behavior derives from genes and environment.

Genes represent the physiological make-up of living organisms. Behavior in this respect is limited to the physiological capabilities of the living organism. For instance cows can't fly because it isn't within their physiological capability.

We also have to look at normal and abnormal behavior. Normal is a cow grazing in the pasture; Abnormal is a cow jumping up and down trying to fly.

We also have to contend with free will. I might establish a pattern of behavior by drink martinis every night of the week. I might not want to drink martinis any more and start drinking Kool Aid and establish a new pattern of behavior. This is not genetic or environmental unless you want to identify establishing a pattern of behavior, behavior.

Experience is perhaps the most influencial determinate of behavior.

I wish I could continue but the subject is more complex than time allows.

[cnulan]

You haven't questioned my reasoning or my examples, in any way at all. Further, you've not demonstrated any reasoning of your own, instead you've simply asserted some beliefs.

Based on what you wrote above, the subject appears to be a bit more complex than your current level of familiarity with its particulars allows you to meaningfully engage.

It's a very interesting subject matter and I strongly recommend you study it more carefully so that you can continue when time permits.

[Temple3]

just might have to keep this post - forever.

[puma]

My current level of familiarity is admittedly weak. at the same time it's strong enough to detect poor scholarship when I see it.

To deny experience, conditioning and perhaps a host of other factors in the development of behavior is sloppy. To insist theat genes make a substantial contribution to behavior disregarding free will is arrogance.

[cnulan]

The notion of free will epitomizes arrogant superstition. Puma, my friend, you are simply a machine functioning under a host of self-calming delusions. I suspect that you've been taught that consciousness is unitary, it's not. matter of fact, what you call consciousness is really nothing more than feeble attention.

Up to this point in our *exchange* - I hadn't seen fit to deny anything at all. Since, however, you advance this marvelous superstition as central to your position, I will here and now flatly deny the existence of free will in you or anyone else that you know.

In order to have will, one must first be conscious, and that friend Puma is a terribly rare and intermittent faculty for which this culture lost its core developmental competency a long time ago.

[cnulan]

It's human nature to inflate our self-importance so as to encompass all sorts of wild imaginings about miraculous faculties which - truth be known - we don't even begin to comprehend.

There are fewer conscious people in America at this moment than there are people who can write out the General Theory of Relativity from memory...,

[Temple3]

How do you know consciousness isn't unitary? (by that I assume you to mean - "whole" or "undivided") unless there's another definition like that 'memetic' thang you dropped way back when.

[cnulan]

first hand access and exposure to empirical evidence, coupled with introspective interrogation of shocking intensity and duration. you see T3, knowledge of the bicameral or multicameral nature of consciousness isn't particularly useful, until and unless you put it to Work.

[cnulan]

thought criminality coincides precisely with the moment you realize that usurpation of genomic governance is a distinct possibility...,

[puma]

You're right. I can't contend with these matters at your level. Your opinions, viewpoints and reasoning is much more developed than mine. As a result, it would take a considerable amount of my time to digest and respond to your comments.

Sorry to bother you.

[cnulan]

Sorry to bother you

No bother at all. My reaction to your assertion of free will was as fully loaded as your reaction to my assertion of a genetic component in behaviour.

We could reset, drop our respective philosophical and scientistic pretensions and approach the subject with an blank slate rather than our reactive predispositions. This way we could find out precisely how much we agree upon and how much we disagree upon and then proceed discursively from there. It's your call.

To that end, I'll go first by stating that I don't deny experience. I do, however, take for granted a genetic substrate active in determining the range and intensity of an organism's experiential response to stimuli. Take alcoholism for example, an alcoholic can very reasonably be described as someone with a genetically determined alcohol deficiency. He or she will have a quite different set of experiential tendencies relative to alcohol than will the non-alcoholic, agreed? The extent of the alcoholic's discretionary possibilities (choices) with regard to alcohol will have been determined to an extent which can't fairly be described as "free".

In any event, so that you understand completely where I'm coming from on this topic Puma, before I was 20, I came to the conclusion that consciousness is not exclusively an emergent property of neurons. That what we experience as consciousness has a great many precursor manifestations - not all of which - have slipped quietly into that dark night of mechanical silence.

When you stop and consider the relative immortality of the genome, how it pervades every cell of your body, the extent to which our behaviours are wrapped around ensuring its continuity, it calls into question who or what is calling the shots in our organism. For the past 24 years, having systematically studied this particular subject beginning with the Selfish Gene which compelled me to consider a genomic rather than organismic reference frame and wending my way down through Penrose and Hameroff which compelled me to look deeper than neurons for the substrate of consciousness I mean really, have you ever been fully satisfied with anyone's explanation of so-called instinctual behavior?

It just happens to be a subject that I take very seriously, more seriously than any other, and it colors my theological, ethical, and political world view.

[puma]

I do, however, take for granted a genetic substrate active in determining the range and intensity of an organism's experiential response to stimuli.

I think that this statement is leading to gene mutation.

If the intake of alcohol can cause gene mutation, and if that mutation can be passed on, then I have to agree that alcoholism is a valid example of behavior of the genetic sense.

At the same time, alcoholism introduces a chemical component into the behavior problem. Since the nucleotides are chemically based, and the body does not process alcohol as well as pother chemicals, it seems logical that alcohol could have a significant influence on genetic integrity.

But does this mutation predispose someone to alcoholism? Wouldn't it depend upon the amount, or nature, of the genetic mutation?

Finally, can "free will" properly be described as "free will" with only 2 degrees of freedom: Yes and No. At 50/50 "free will" is nothing more than a coin toss.

[cnulan]

I think that this statement is leading to gene mutation.

If the intake of alcohol can cause gene mutation, and if that mutation can be passed on, then I have to agree that alcoholism is a valid example of behavior of the genetic sense.

At the same time, alcoholism introduces a chemical component into the behavior problem. Since the nucleotides are chemically based, and the body does not process alcohol as well as pother chemicals, it seems logical that alcohol could have a significant influence on genetic integrity.

But does this mutation predispose someone to alcoholism? Wouldn't it depend upon the amount, or nature, of the genetic mutation?

The mechanism you describe above sounds slightly like Lamarckism unmellowed by many intervening generations across which a process of natural selection would stabilize and or amplify a trait.

Now, I suspect that something willful and intentional lurks below the surface of phenomenon of adaptation. i.e., I don't consider natural selection to be a purely mechanical process unaided by external information flows.

Such interventions of *conscious* influence are by no means free in my estimation, rather, they're lawful and work within a structurally and functionally constrained range of possibilities. I would very strongly encourage you to have a look at On Growth and Form