The Secret of Life or Why are we the way we are?

Have you ever thought about why we are the way we are? Why do we think the way we think? Why are we built the way we're built? Why do all living (and extinct) creatures behave the way they do (or did) and why are they constructed in the way they are (or were).

These are very big questions, which at first glance appear to be too large to answer in a succinct manner. I've searched for answers to these questions and found them, but never in a form that would have been acceptable to William of Ockham, one of the great sages of the 14th century. In an age of intense darkness, his genius shined brightly. William hailed from the picturesque village of Ockham, southwest of London, England, which is mentioned in the doomsday book of 1086. William discovered a key principle of science, the law of parsimony, today known as Ockham's razor. Ockham's razor has taken many forms, but my favorite is "all other things being equal, the simplest explanation is usually the best."

So here goes, my attempt to answer the big question of "why", bearing in mind William's advice. I've boiled the answer down to two rules. Rule 1) applies to all life. Rule 2)applies only to humans, since we know of no other life form that has our complicated and abstract thought and linguistic capabilities.

Rule 1) All life evolved in such a way as to maximize its genetic destiny.
Rule 2) The relatively enormous human brain, has enabled a culture and a history, that sometimes acts to mitigate rule 1).

My definition of genetic destiny is simply the sum of the relatedness of all close relatives, as well as ourselves. We are 100% related to ourselves, hence our need for self preservation. First degree relatives such as children (50%)and siblings (roughly 50%) related are all very important to us. Second degree relatives such as nieces, nephews and grandchildren (25% related) are important, but not as instinctively life-critical as closer relations, and so on. This is commonly known as "kin selection".

Anyway, how do we know who is closely related to us? As young children, we see whom we interact with and instictively classify them as close relatives, just as we did in pre-technological times. The more time together, the closer the assumed relationship. This is the reason that Kibbutzniks in Israel seldom marry each other. They intermix at a young age with the youngsters of other families as if they were their own family. Therefore, internally, they recognize their peers as siblings, rather than as potential mates.

Please note that I'm not professing to bring forth any new information; I'm merely summarizing an important area of science, in a succinct way. In addition to Charles Darwin, who discovered Darwinian evolution, we can thank giants such as the Harvard Professor E.O. Wilson, Robert Trivers and others for the fields of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology, from which these rules are derived. I do find it incredible that only two rules are required. I also feel that it is important for this area of science to have a simple set of universal rules, analogous to those of mechanics, e.g. Newton's Laws of Motion, or the laws of thermodynamics.

Upon scrutinizing rule 1) we might ask ourselves why would bees willingly kill themselves in order to defend their colony? Why would a male black widow spider practically offer itself up as a meal, to the much larger female, simply to reproduce?

The answer lies inside the genes that build both our bodies and our brains. The genes that survive the evolutionary process, are the ones that construct us in such a way as to preserve themselves, not us. The bee sacrifices herself in order to preserve the queen bee (or more precisely the common genes)who is 2/3 related and therefore carries 2/3 of the genes over and above the rest of that species of bee; 2/3 is a much higher relatedness than human siblings who on average are only 1/2 related to each other. The spider sacrifices itself since its genes have pre-programmed its small brain to believe that it's more important to produce a large number of offspring, than to avoid being a meal for its mate. The male spider's offspring will carry far more genetic matches of the spider, than the spider itself.

Thus we've given a few cursory examples as well as an analytical explanation for rule 1). Nature offers countless other examples. It's enlightening and reassuring to know that there has never been brought forth, a behavior pattern (other than human) or body construction, that has violated rule 1).

So why do we humans have friends who are not related to us, and why do we fight so much with our close relatives? These phenomena seem to violate rule 1).

We need close friends as allies in order to successfully maneuver through life and therefore to fulfill our genetic destiny. We are there for them, and vice versa. This is a well known phenomenon called "reciprocol altruism". We fight with our families since we are rivals for the same scarce resources. If one looks at the bloody history of European monarchs, one will see a pattern of limited elimination of related rivals to the throne, but generally not wholesale slaughter of close relatives to the point where it would do more genetic harm than good.

So what's the explanation for suicide bombers or Japanese Kamikaze who are clearly not acting to maximize their genetic destiny. In 1976, Richard Dawkins' seminal work, "The Selfish Gene", introduced the concept of the meme. Memes are ideas that are transferred from human brain to human brain via language. Only human beings have the mental horsepower to exchange complex, abstract ideas in this way. Memes act like genes except they transfer and mutate at a much faster rate. They are so powerful that they can even overcome billions of years of evolutionary programming and cause us to do things that are not in our best genetic interest. Hence the need for rule 2).

By the way, I'm not suggesting that following rules 1) & 2) is the appropriate way to act. In fact, to be human is to endeavor to rise above our base instincts (which itself is a meme).

Anyway, that's my explanation for how life works. Hopefully, William, would have been proud.