The Nature of Human Nature

The nature of human nature is a vast subject. The debate on what it is and how it has occurred will not be settled any time soon. Christians and Muslims believe in Divine creation. The Buddhists and the Humanists don’t seem to be too concerned as to how the human animal came to be the way it is. I am taking the evolutionist’s point of view. However, since human nature is such a vast field of discussion, I can only open the door a little way to give you a flavor of what is possible.

I start from the premise that humans are animals—very highly evolved animals, animals that are the result of eons of evolutionary work. At each step of the way, one variant of a particular genetic trait was either successful or it was not. Gradually this selection process resulted in what we know today as the human animal. Of interest to us this morning is that, from all indications, evolution of the human animal seems to have ceased about 40,000 to 60,000 years ago—a mere blink of the eye in evolutionary history.

The basic design of the human animal was optimized to function in small extended family units of about 40 individuals. So, when we look at its design, we must keep in mind the social unit and the environment in which it was designed to fit.

Along the millennia since the code was stabilized, there were genetic failures. Code sequences broke and genetic diseases were folded into the basic pattern. But these disease causing breaks in the code do not alter the basic design.

For the thousands of years since our evolution ceased, the human animal has multiplied and prospered. It has created vast enterprises that far exceed the context of that simple small extended family unit. It has created enormous works that demonstrate its creative powers.

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In his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond sets out to perform a very wide and encompassing analysis of the development of human culture, thought, and creativity. At the end, he has several conclusions. One important conclusion is that there is no fundamental difference between any one human animal and any other human animal. All of you animals sitting here in this sanctuary this morning are fundamentally the same as any of the members of the !Kung (the Kalahari Bushmen of East Africa).

Any physical or anatomical differences we notice are well within normal intra-species variations. All the products of the human mind and hand fundamentally differ from one another due to the requirements of the individual to survive and flourish in its particular environments. This is what evolution has designed this exotic animal for; it is optimized to fit into its environment.

Another fundamental finding of Jared Diamond’s research is that the development of agriculture—about 10,000 years ago—permitted a large increase in population. This led to the development of larger and more complex societies. Larger and more complex societies, in turn, led to divisions of labor and the development of arts, crafts, and specialized trades. Also, large societies can function only if they have an established hierarchy. Furthermore, an established hierarchy needs to justify itself—especially when it goes to war—so it creates a religion, if one doesn’t already exist. Thus the original simple small extended family unit became first clans, then tribes, kingdoms, and finally nations. So today we have an earth-smothering population of 5 Billion animals.

Given all of this, several questions arise in my mind. What is the basic design of this human animal? How did this design come about? How much of the behavior of this animal can be attributed to its basic genetic coding? How well does this design continue to function even though it is more than 40,000 years old? Has the design failed because this highly adaptive animal created an environment that is toxic to itself? In other words, has this highly evolved animal placed itself in a self-created environment that is so different from that in which it developed that is in danger of self-destruction? To arrive at a better understanding of the design of the human animal, we will follow an evolutionary route.
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My purpose in pursuing this study of the human animal is arises out of concerns I have over what I have read recently. The human animal is capable of strange illogical behaviors that don’t seem to fit into what we normally think of as human nature.

In an article by JOHN HORGAN in the December 31, 2002 issue of the New York Times, I learned that electrical stimulation of a patient’s brain may cause and arm to move or cause an emotion, such as humor, to suddenly be felt and displayed as laughter. This by itself is understandable for we know that these points in the brain exist and can be stimulated to produce responses. What is profoundly disturbing is that the patients make up stories to explain the activity that they just performed. They often insist they meant to move that arm. Or they will make up stories to explain why they are laughing. If the corpus calosum has been severed, and the left side of the brain is causing some activity to take place, the right side of the brain will make up a story to explain this.

What would lead this animal make up a story to explain what is obviously a mechanically caused event. I wonder if this human animal really knows what it is doing. Is this animal really in charge; or does it just think it is?

The real cruncher came when I read an article by Sandra Blakeslee that appeared in the New York Times of November 11, 2003. Here is quote from it.

“Most neuroscientists are convinced the mind is in no way separate from the brain. In the brain they have found a physical basis for all our thoughts, aspirations, language, sense of consciousness, moral beliefs and everything else that makes us human. All of this arises from interactions among billions of ordinary cells. Neuroscience finds no duality, no finger of God animating the human mind.”

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That is heavy enough, but she goes on to say this.

“Many scientists now believe that the brain basically works by simulating reality. The sights, sounds and touches that flow into the brain are put in the framework of what the brain expects on the basis of previous experience and memory.”

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I suppose that what this means is that the Buddhists are correct. The world outside of us is an illusion of our own creation. This also gives me a better appreciation of the saying “You can only experience what you are prepared to experience.” If the brain doesn’t already have the concept in its repertoire, then it will not perceive it.

This predisposition of the brain also helps to explain the findings we read about earlier. Look at it this way. The subject is sitting quietly in a chair and suddenly its arm moves or it laughs. The only recourse for the brain is to explain the movement of the arm so that the perceived reality, the movement of the arm or the sudden laughter, will continue to fit within the framework that the brain expects—“I, the brain control movement and emotions.”

But how can this possibly be. The human animal is designed through countless evolutionary steps to be the most fit animal in this world. How is it possible that evolution has designed it to process all the incoming information to arrive at only a simulation of reality.

Suppose that we try a different model for the nature of human nature. Still within a scientific model, suppose that we think of the entire body as an extraordinarily complex and sophisticated computer driven machine. Suppose that it is equipped with exotic sensors including very highly specialized ones for specific portions of the electromagnetic spectrum—sound, visible, and infrared. For this exercise it is not necessary to name all of the parts; you can just fill them in where you think it is necessary.

As we all should know by now, a computer consists of hardware and software. The hardware usually has some parts that perform generalized tasks. It also has sections that perform highly specialized tasks. Video processing is one of these highly specialized tasks as is the processing of all types of sensory inputs. It also has highly specialized hardware and software dedicated to production and understanding of language and speech. It is interesting that some of these circuits and their associated software are constrained to function in a specific period of development of the whole body. The circuit is active for a while and then tips over to some other behavior.

One evolutionary pattern that has a “tipping point” is language. Language is optimally learned from infancy to about 5 years of age. It can be acquired beyond this point but only with difficulty.

These changeable patterns—circuits if we follow the computer model—are unique to biological systems. Unlike hard-wired electronics, biological systems grow and change. What is an optimal survival strategy at one point in the life of the developing animal might not be at another point. Hence the “tipping point” in the design of these patterns.

While computers don’t have sexual intercourse—not yet at least—the computer model can still work for us if we set aside the physical aspects of reproduction and look at the “mate-searching” patterns that make for maximum survival. Those patterns which are optimal will tend to reproduce the most and gradually swamp out other less optimum patterns.

In his book, The Moral Animal, Mr. Wright spends a great deal of time on the topic of sex. His interest is in what causes to animals of the opposite sex to choose a mate and engage in reproduction.

He posits that males have a “Madonna—Whore” switch in their “mate-search” circuit. If a woman is perceived as being too free with her favors—using the Victorian allusion to sex—then this switch in the male computer tips over to “Whore.” Wright points out that the purpose of this switch is to ensure the propagation of the genes of the male animal. It searches for a female that will stick around and be a good mother to its offspring and maximize the possibility of their survival.

If on the other hand a woman is parsimonious about handing out her favors, then the switch in this circuit tips over to “Madonna.” The implication is that a “Madonna” is more likely to be a good mother and there is a higher likelihood of the production of large numbers of highly survivable offspring.

Remember, all of these patterns are designed for optimum survival which means optimum reproduction. Also, remember that these switches are not mechanical but driven by software running on the human computer. Therefore, they are only probabilistic switches subject to statistical variations.

Of course this is not a one sided picture. There is a similar switch in the circuit of the female “mate-search” circuit. This switch can tip to either “Dad” or “Cad” depending on whether this male has a reasonable level of what Wright calls MPI—Male Parental Investment. In other words, will this male stick around and work as a partner in the raising of these offspring—a good “Dad” —or will he—like a “Cad” —leave the scene when he sees something more attractive across the fence. Obviously, this is an important distinction for the survival of the genes of the female.

The combination of these two switches would seem to predict a predominance of “Dads” and “Madonnas.” Of course this is not true simply because of the statistical variations I mentioned earlier and the culture in which these animals function. For example, these switches were much more accurate in the era of Queen Victoria than they are today. Still, it is unlikely that this brief variance from the norm will cause evolutionary changes in these patterns.

What is really fascinating about Wright’s book is that it is possible to explain so much of our common behavior in terms of the patterns that our evolutionary history has embedded into our brains. There is a circuit that is wired for “Reciprocal-Altruism.” A favor received is a favor returned, and vice versa.

One researcher put together a computer program that modeled a multi-party interaction repeatedly applying an interaction model unique to each party in the group. He asked for interaction models to be sent to him. Many model strategies were presented. Most of them involved various schemes for weighting the behavior of the opponent prior to the next round of play. Only one used the simple Tit-for-Tat strategy.

The results were somewhat surprising. The clear winner was the simple and straight forward Tit-for-Tat. So long as there was a memory of what when on in the earlier round of interactions, Tit-for-Tat eventually won the evolutionary game. This is to say that the players carrying the gene Tit-for-Tat washed out all other players. It was the most fit strategy. However, as we all know this is not how it works in the real world.

The difference between the computer simulation and the real world is that in this circuit in the human animal there is a bias applied to the outcome. This bias is the result of the interaction between the “Tit-for-Tat” circuit and the “Status-Seeking” circuit. Of course this bias is in favor of the actor, not the recipient of the action.

This bias can lead to an insidious ascending spiral of self-aggrandizement. For any one human animal, the more status it gets the more it wants. The more it has, the more biased will be its actions towards others.

Another fascinating aspect of this “Status Seeking” circuit is that it has a flip side. The other side of it is the “Deference-to-the-Powerful” circuit. This is another statistical switch that can tip very swiftly. If the animal that was the powerful one suddenly is overturned then the deference switch reverts to status seeking. Here again, this switch exists in both sexes.

Of course, while this is a pattern which serves the animal to survive and reproduce, it can create problems. When these animals congregate in groups larger than their original extended family unit for which it was optimized, it leads to the hierarchical mess that we witness today.

Evolutionary Psychology can help us understand not only the present hierarchical system of organization but also the penchant for human animals to war against each other. Many books have been written on many wars, but, to my knowledge, there is only one that identifies it as a drug.

Chris Hodges has been a war correspondent in many wars around the world. And, in spite of being shot at, threatened, captured and seriously injured, he keeps going back. Because of his experiences and the powerful need he felt to return to war, he wrote a book: War is the Force that Gives us Meaning. This book documents his realization that, for men at least, war is the venue in which male bonding is the strongest. Hence, war is sought because this level of male bonding cannot be replaced by any other relationship—even that between a man and a woman.

Can we understand this through our evolutionary approach to the human animal? Maybe. The clues arise from the study of Chimpanzees in Africa. Researchers found the same patterns in several different areas. The male chimps patrolled the perimeter of the tribe’s range. They had very strong male bonding and they seemed to relish fighting other males.

NICHOLAS WADE says this in an article in the November 25, 2003 New York Times

“Assuming the common ancestor of people and chimps had social behavior that was essentially chimplike, how much of that behavior has been inherited by people? The unusual behavioral suite of male kin bonding and lethal territorial aggression [in chimpanzees] may look as if it has been inherited with little change. Among the Yanomamo, a South American tribe, the number of males who die from aggression is about 30 percent, the identical rate found among Gombe chimps [emphasis added].”

This same research of Chimps in Africa also found that the males stayed in their natal group whereas the female Chimps left it. This same pattern was also found among the Yanomamo. The position of human females in small extended family groups—must have paralleled that of our distant cousins. Dr. Robin Dunbar, a human behavioral ecologist, says, [females] “… would evolve different ways of dealing with people: [females] have to have had a flexibility and adaptability,”

In other words, the female human animal would be the more social of the two sexes, and would be more capable of sizing up the social and environmental conditions. This speaks directly to our present understanding that females are more capable of seeing the “big picture.” This can be explained at least partly by noting that females have a corpus calosum that is about 30% larger than males. The Corpus Calosum is the huge bundle of nerves that connect the two halves of the brain—the ideational and the routinized.

But chimpanzees do not have the kind of family bonds we notice today. Also, today, females don’t seem to leave home anymore than males do. How did the transition take place? There is agreement that the mating system changed about 1.9 million years ago at the time of Homo Erectus. But, there is a debate among scientists as to exactly what elevated the status of the females.
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Time runs out and I must close the door on these pursuits, and return to us as humans here this morning. A question I raise is this. With all of these patterns embedded in our brains, is there any hope for us? When all we have in our ordinary consciousness is what our brain has already expected—preordained external world—what can we do?

First let me point out that not all subjects made up stories to explain the unexpected movement of their arm or their unexplainable laughter. Some subjects just noticed and wondered. They were awake to the possibility that something beyond their ordinary understanding was happening.

In his book War is the Force that Gives us Meaning, Chris Hodges despairs that those who dare to puncture the myths of war will ever win over those committed to making war, so he urges vigilance. In then end he quotes a famous philosopher.

“Reinhold Niebuhr aptly reminded us that we must all act and then ask for forgiveness. This book is not a call for inaction. It is a call for repentance.”

I leave you with these prescriptions:

Stay awake, and be vigilant. Be ever wondering and questioning. Be watchful of your automatic responses. All of the evolutionary wiring is not iron clad and neither is its software. Become your own software geek—be your own code breaker—and interrupt your automatic responses. Recall those words carved in stone. “The price of Freedom is Eternal Vigilance.”

Seek knowledge. The more we know about how evolution has wired us up, the more able we will be to counter these tendencies. Without this knowledge, we are helpless tools in the hands of our evolutionary programming. Knowledge is Power.

Speaking philosophically, Evil is the absence of Good and cannot exist as an independent entity. So the human family will prosper and bloom and realize its potential only if we can follow the Good and thus avoid Evil. To do this we must be vigilant, knowledgeable, and willing to interrupt our automatic responses.