Serialised book (with a progressively updated >>dashboard/ToC<< page). Part III: Philosophy of the Life Instinct

Book: Philosophy of Life Instinct: Chapter 26: Imperfections of the Life Instinct

Our evolutionary shortcomings and interim responsibilities

Why are humans imperfect? Why do we make so many mistakes and wilfully do bad things? And why don’t we take care of our world? We possess intelligence, consciousness and good attributes such as bravery, sympathy, humour, kindness, charity, forgiveness and self-criticism. But we are also irrational, weak, inconsistent, selfish, violent, greedy and uncaring.

Let us look at the varieties of our flaws, the origins of a few major ones, whether we have been improving, and how we can discharge our responsibility to manage the worst in us.

Two types of human flaws

We need a variety of emotions and actions for survival, well-being and reproduction. The Life Instinct has evolved these functions in us, as we saw in Chapter 9 on the power of our intellect and Chapter 12 on emotions.

Humans and other life forms we know do not have superpowers. We aren’t impregnable, nor examples of designer created or evolved perfection. We are what we are, a type of matter, with only the chance and inexplicable Life Instinct to define us (Chapter 4.)

So we will not consider as shortcomings such natural weaknesses and problems as:

1. Catching bacterial or viral diseases even if we are clean and vaccinated
2. Getting injured at work or sport despite taking reasonable care. We have to be physically active for our well-being.
3. Being affected by extreme heat, cold, lack of oxygen, etc.
4. Falling sick due to bad food or water
5. Ageing and its associated physical and mental issues
6. Making mistakes or doing bad things under duress

We will take as faults are spontaneous physical and mental failures that seem to have no evolutionary purpose and, more importantly, deliberately harmful thinking and behaviour that are self-destructive. Let us consider examples of both varieties.

1. Unforced errors

We commit many small and large blunders in our life. The physical lapses are not very interesting, but we’ll see a few common examples. They increase with age but happen even when we are young and fit. As far as we know, they are not the body taking care of itself but just slips. Many of them originate in the lower parts of the brain and the peripheral nervous system, muscles, organs, and other body parts.

Physical lapses

• Stumbling
• Biting our lip, cheek or tongue accidentally
• Stubbing our toe
• Picking the wrong lid while shutting two open bottles
• Dropping things
• Hitting our finger instead of the nail
• Choking while swallowing
• Jerking our leg as we fall asleep
• Snoring (it is too common, non-terminal, and annoying to be useful)
• Getting cancer

Mental lapses

• Forgetting things
• Getting confused, e.g., mixing up names and faces
• Seeing things that are not there
• Not seeing things that are in plain sight
• Waking up with a start
• Spontaneously swearing and instantly regretting
• Making wrong assumptions

2. Deliberate harmful behaviour

This category is a serious problem for us, in its effect and management.

Here are a few examples of conscious or planned harm to ourselves and others.

• Letting anger turn into aggression and violence
• Moving from privacy to concealment and deception
• Proceeding from ambition to greed
• Heightening envy into jealousy
• Ratcheting up dislike into hatred
• Sharpening pride into arrogance
• Turning sexual attraction into an obsession, stalking or assault
• Falling from extra-marital friendship into infidelity
• Sinking from pleasure into addiction
• Falling from laziness into apathy
• Escalating a ribbing into insults
• Working up objection into oversensitivity
• Ramping up differences into discrimination
• Turning solitude into isolation

We can imagine that Homo maturis will still not control its mind perfectly in a million years from now and always be calm, sympathetic, forgiving, humble, etc. Intelligent life having consciousness and Free Will will always strive for more and take on new challenges. So the need for desire, fear, competition, anger, etc., will continue as long as we exist, as will the need to harness them sensibly.

Origins of our worst flaws

Where do our lapses and poor behaviour come from? The rational answer is — from our constitution.

The only design blueprint we have had is the Life Instinct. Its drives and laws make us survive, grow to sexual maturity, and reproduce. These prime directives are carried by the genetic material in every cell of our body, making them work individually and together to fulfil them. (Please see Chapter 4 on the Life Instinct.)

There are many species of life, and the DNA or RNA in each makes them different in form and capability. But we are functionally indistinguishable and have the same prime directives of life. No species has a discernible design to achieve something absolute or be perfect. And how can there be when we are all equally purposeless in a cosmic context, and it makes perfection redundant.

On the other hand, imperfections are not logically necessary either. So, why do we have them? There are three possible answers— they are naturally inevitable, an evolutionary design feature, or both.

The first is very likely as the universe we know tends towards chaos or an increase in entropy. We can see that our mistakes move us towards deterioration and breaking down back to inert matter, which itself has a long-term tendency to dissipate into fundamental particles and ultimately pure energy. It is consistent with the nature of the universe.

The second way of looking at our deviant traits is as necessary trials of evolution for sufficient variation in each new generation of life to produce healthier versions that survive better. Some of the deviations would be bad enough that they get weeded out, but it is a necessary part of the process.

The best answer could be both of the above, with evolution taking advantage of variations caused by cosmic laws of uncertainty and probability.

It is also satisfying as it meets the Razor of Efficiency, and the Life Instinct is not wasteful.

In this light, let us examine what happens in our mind when its sense-analyse-decide-act mechanism fails. We will look at situations where we can’t control it and where we can, through our awareness, intelligence and free will.

Unintended errors

In the last section, we listed some of the worst mistakes our bodies and brains make. Let us take the top three and examine their probable failure process.

1. Choking while swallowing — is a type of Dysphagia (problems in swallowing) wherein the epiglottis does not close quickly enough over the trachea while swallowing and food or liquids enters it instead of the oesophagus. It is caused by a misfiring of the gyrus and medulla in the brain stem, impairing the coordination of the tongue and epiglottis muscles.
2. Getting cancer — Cancer develops when the control mechanism of cells stops functioning. They do not die after ageing and instead grow out of control, forming new, abnormal cells. Shockingly, we can’t depend on our basic building blocks, our cells, not to run amuck. These abnormal cells may form a tumour mass or not (e.g., in blood cancer). Several causes of cancer are not self-inflicted — for example, genetic disorders, environmental effects (e.g., sun exposure), and viruses (e.g., Epstein-Barr and HIV induced cancer). Unfortunately, we add to it through lifestyle choices (e.g., smoking, drinking) that most humans now know cause cancers. Cancer is a major problem for humans, with almost twenty million people getting it every year, increasing steadily. About half the afflicted die due to it.
3. Forgetting things — There are good reasons our brain discards much of what it learns. It does not need to remember everything and cannot remember everything, so it optimises retention and recall to what it needs for decision making. But, of course, it is not perfect at it, and there are many times when we need to recall something from our memory but we can’t at the right time, and there are also things we need to store that we don’t. These are called problems of interference, decay and retrieval. We can improve our memory through various techniques, but we need to pick the right things to store and recall for our needs.

(Please see the bibliography for more material on these topics.)

Deliberate bad behaviour

It is the core issue. Why are we so often so vile or self-destructive? We do not perversely do bad things just because we can. There are deeper drivers. We saw a long list of egregious behaviour in the last section, but we need not analyse all of them. It will suffice to take the top five or six to find the underlying patterns and origins.

1. Lying

All of us lie, instinctively, habitually, creatively and cunningly. We tell small untruths and pull off lifelong and widespread deceptions. Such variety and ubiquity in any trait deserve philosophical respect. We cannot dismiss it on moral and ethical grounds nor condemn it wholly and quickly.

We can see that other animals also exhibit the equivalent of lying. For example, the camouflage of fish, insects, birds and animals is a type of deception. A dog hiding a bone is a type of lie. If we take these as acts of dissimulation, their variety appears related to the intelligence of a species. It adds weight to the idea that lying is of value to life.

Even within a species, proficiency in lying could correlate to higher intelligence. Is there evidence for this, for example, in humans? It would seem so from the long and rich history of its personal and public application by the powerful, rich and famous. We need only think of a few random episodes such as the Trojan horse, Napoleon’s battle reports, Ponzi schemes, Nazi propaganda, Watergate, Clinton, Berlusconi, the Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (that weren’t), Lance Armstrong, millions of #MeToo stories, early lies in the Chernobyl disaster, religious myths, etc., to see the bold march of falsehood through human history. (See the bibliography for more.)

We can see that not all instances of lying end up badly for the people involved or others. They led to personal or communal successes that are only bad in the hindsight of history.

So what is the evolutionary value of lying? The honest answer from the viewpoint of Life Instinct is that it gives an advantage for survival, well-being or reproduction. Lying increases our ability to acquire more life supplies, advantages over others, and more sexual mates.

In its best form, lying helps our good actions. It lubricates family life, friendships, social relationships, working with colleagues, international relations, and many other types of interaction. In this aspect, it is a necessary trait rather than an imperfection.

But on the flip side, it drives such instinctive immature behaviour as cheating, infidelity, violence, war, addiction, bigotry, and sexual crimes. In its enablement of these foul behaviours, lying is also a significant defect in us.

There could be many who reject all lying as immoral and reprehensible. But it is implausible that they have never lied, and it would be foolish to assume that any individual can eradicate lying. Untruthfulness comes too naturally.

So how can we handle lying to use its value and avoid its wrong side? How much lying is healthy? What sort is acceptable? Let us classify lying into its significant types and look at their applicability and avoidance.

• Prosocial dissembling is social lies for bonding, cooperation and comfortable co-existence that are acceptable to ordinary people. For example, we may not want to visit someone inviting us over and tell them we are busy. Or we may find someone’s opinion objectionable but hold our tongue as it is not a severe problem. We call this form etiquette, gentlemanly or ladylike behaviour or just being nice.
• White lies are a part of emotional intelligence or wisdom that protect others from feeling bad about something unfortunate. For example, we do not have to tell our eighty-five-year-old mother that she has dementia. We serve no purpose by being truthful here. Her life wouldn’t be better, nor ours. And the species would not benefit in any way. So, in such cases, we need to allow and apply white lies.
• Grey lies, to coin a term, avoid hurting someone where the reality is mildly unethical or immoral behaviour rather than something sure to have a bad outcome, is corrupt or a crime. For example, do we need to tell a colleague an idea he has is old and obvious? Or does a loving wife need to tell her husband that she finds a colleague attractive and has lightly flirted with him occasionally, with no intention of anything more? Grey lies are the problematic category, as they can remain white or turn black. We need to apply our intelligence and emotional wisdom to decide if a grey lie or the truth is better.
• Black lies — Finally, we have black lies, to coin another term, that are simply harmful to oneself, others or society. There are many examples and types of black lies, from a lie about one’s qualifications for a job, concealing an affair, covering up corruption, and hiding mass murder. These untruths reflect various degrees of criminality and have the appropriate personal, social or legal punishment when exposed.

2. Violence and war

If one were to observe us from ten thousand feet above, we would still look like swarms of bugs regularly attacking and killing each other over property, territory, religion, race, politics and more.

The use of force at a personal and group level has played a significant part in the survival of the fittest genes. The Life Instinct drives us to survive and compete and gives us the ability to use force to defend ourselves and attack other humans and animals. We have done this as individuals, villages, tribes and nations throughout history. War as organised armed conflict between states, governments and social groups has contributed significantly to grievous injury and death. Violence also exists in most animals. Even plants that grow like weeds are violent in a way, as they choke and kill off other plants.

What seems complicated to understand is why the species gave rise to agents of extreme violence such as Atilla, Genghiz Khan, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and modern-day despots who waged war against other nations, their own people, and caused the maiming and death of tens of millions of humans. How does this agree with the Life Instinct? One thought is that they purge the weakest among us and leave the species overall in a more robust state. But it is patently untenable if we compare those who die with those who survive and consider the massive loss of material and human resources in wars. Another idea is that wars may have been cathartic ways of establishing once and for all which social, economic and governmental systems were the best for humanity. It could have some merit, although it seems a high price to pay for such learning.

At a personal level, imagine the tens of thousands of assaults, muggings, knifings and shootings in progress worldwide at this very moment. Then there are the systematically violent who are feared and respected by individuals and groups. It happens because normal and weaker individuals and groups gain safety and material benefits in affiliating with the strongest in an ecosystem. One cannot be the pack’s alpha male unless one is willing to use violence or threat. It may explain why so many fall under the spell and control of fearsome despots and tyrants.

Still, there is no doubt that humanity has treated violence as a severe fault and tried to reduce it. Peacefulness, co-operation and non-violence have gained ground rapidly as we have become one connected world. Personal violence and war have declined over the centuries. The number of violent deaths as a percentage of the population has come down drastically, from an almost unimaginable range of 40–60 per cent in prehistoric times to less than one per cent in the present, 2021. (Please see this and other references in the bibliography.)

The reduction of violence has been due to humanity’s increasing use of social cooperation to improve its power and survivability. Undoubtedly, this has translated to changes in our individual genetic and physical characteristics, which have accelerated the process and reduced the need for individual and group violence to meet the goals of the Life Instinct.

But, to an extent, personal and social violence exists today and manifests wherever there are such contributing factors as poverty, racism, religious extremism, etc. It may live as an imperfection long as the species exists, even if wars end. We must continue to work on reducing it between individuals, within families and social groups.

3. Sexual Assault

One of the least controllable primordial instincts in men is to impregnate as many women as possible by any means, including force. It has almost certainly been always abhorrent to females of our species and hominids that preceded us. The tolerance of it by most males and society has undoubtedly been higher in the past and reduced tremendously in the last few centuries, as we have evolved individually and socially.

But rape and other forms of sexual assault and harassment are still rampant. It includes rape, gang rape, marital rape, familial rape, attempted rape, groping, stalking, voyeurism, exposure, and many other forms. They can be opportunistic but are often perpetrated by someone known to the victim who exploits a position of power in an organisation, society or family.

Some of the most successful men have sexually harassed women in ways that all humanity now considers highly unethical and immoral. There have been so many instances of this it is difficult not to wonder if any well-known person in politics, business, art, movies, or any other field has not sexually harassed women. It seems to go hand in hand with higher intelligence, influence, power and wealth, and there may well be a commonality in the psychological factors that lead to both.

Sexual assault arises in the primordial and powerful drive in the Life Instinct to reproduce and propagate our genes. Coercive sex is also observed in many insects, birds, dolphins, ducks, chimpanzees, etc. Whereas we need not apply anthropomorphic values and judgements to their behaviour, we must do so for ourselves because of two realities: all women and the vast majority of men feel abhorrence for sexual assault, and we possess the powers of thought and choice. Men have to prevent it individually and together. Women have to be aware and intelligent to avoid situations of vulnerability to this genetic defect in men while still being free and equal to them.

The victims of sexual assault are left mentally and often physically broken for life. The effects of our other flaws such as lying, asexual violence, infidelity and discrimination pale compared to the terrible impact of rape.

While we can understand why the Life Instinct would strengthen the instinct to spread one’s genes through sexual intercourse in any way possible, why has it also made it abhorrent to both women and most men? The reasons could be:

• Human children need family care for a relatively long time before they become mature. The two individuals most invested in the child are the father and mother, and the man needs to know that the child is his own and not the result of rape by other males. Although it makes rape a minority activity among men, it may not prevent sexual harassment as a residual impulse.
• Genetic changes are making us more social and less dependent on individual strength and success. The need for personal physical strength, competition and violence are reducing. It also reduces the tendency for forced sex, sexual assault and sexual harassment.

Despite the social and genetic progress, the incidence of sexual assault remains far too high for humanity to not apply itself vigorously to its drastic reduction. Oh, to imagine the state of the victim of rape, her shock, disbelief, terror, anger, helplessness, shame, fear of the future, feeling of dirtiness, desperation, guilt, and more. And consider the mind of the rapist in the act, an amalgamation of aggression, violence, arrogance, lack of feeling, dominance, absence of care, the focus and monstrous determination to subjugate and penetrate. How could the Life Instinct have led to this horror just for the blind and meaningless survival of an individual’s genes? If there is a supreme flaw in the Life Instinct, it is sexual assault. It’s far worse than taking life.

4. Infidelity

If strict monogamy were vital to the Life Instinct in humans, it would have been the predominant way of living for the species. The fact that male members of the species still retain a significant impulse to mate with multiple partners, not only serially but simultaneously, is a fact. It is also exhibited by the females of the species, although to a much smaller extent.

So, what is the evolutionary advantage of sexual infidelity? It could be that it creates more combinations of genes and increases the probability of high-quality combinations in offspring. Or it could be a numbers game to produce higher quantities of offspring and increase the chances of some surviving.

The male is continuously able to provide genetic material for reproduction. In contrast, the female has periods in which she cannot offer hers due to monthly infertile periods and childbearing and childbirth. It may make it natural for males to instinctively try to mate at any time possible, with any available fertile female. Of course, it will not happen with all men or in all circumstances, for various reasons, but the innate tendency may be present in most.

Our brain provides among the most powerful neurotransmitter rewards for the feelings accompanying an affair — value, attention, excitement, sexual pleasure, and accomplishment (the latter is more so for males). It can be a siren call as we drift becalmed or toss choppily in the sea of marriage. It causes the equally powerful and opposite negative feelings in the cheated spouse on its discovery.

Infidelity affects between ten to thirty per cent of couples, varying by country. It has been increasing steadily, with a higher increase in women, due to changes in our way of life. (We looked at these factors and why men are more prone to straying than women in Chapter 15 on marriage. We will not elaborate them here.)

Cheating causes great psychological trauma to the spouse or partner and seriously affects life, children and family. It is a serious problem for humanity.

5. Discrimination

Can an individual be free of prejudice? Can a group? The answer is—no. It may be the dream of the innocent, but it’s impossible.

Bigotry arises at the junction of the instinct to live and the instinct to propagate our genes. Both are innate to life as we know it, not choices. Nature does not assure the survival of the individual’s genes. The individual competes in the immediate neighbourhood with others of the same gender while at the same time scrambling for resources to stay alive long enough to get more chances at mating and reproduction. These are deep-seated instincts that no amount of societal prosperity can erase. Very few are conscious of it.

Individual competition is just that, individual. However, we evolved to form tribes and larger groups to increase our chances of sharing resources from the limited natural supply. Indeed, this was almost a necessity, given humans were not individually strong compared to many of their predators. Belonging to a group increases the chances of passing on the individual’s genetic material.

But the very definition of a group is that it differs from others. It must maintain its distinct characteristics or merge into a more extensive formation, and the individual will be back to square one, having to survive alone. (Groups settle into some optimal size, which is an exciting topic into which we will not stray here.)

So we fight for our genes as individuals and as groups. However, most conflicts have a loser and a winner, a superior and an inferior. It is nonsensical to say — “I am worse than you, meaning my genetic material is inferior, yet you should let me win and leave you behind in evolution”. It’s more rational to say, “I am better than you; my group is better than yours, so we have a greater right to live”. So, winning is about implicit and proven superiority. “Survival of the fittest” is innately a form of discrimination. Evolution through natural “selection” is discrimination. The preferential survival of better genes is discrimination.

As long as there is life in the universe, there will be evolution, and as long as there is evolution, there will be discrimination. No amount of development can “weed it out” because it depends on it.

Then why do we rebel against this grain of nature? From where does our discomfort about discrimination come, even privately and free of political correctness? It comes from knowing we could be at the receiving end of it. It also comes from the realisation that even if we dislike others, we need them. If one group eliminates all others, its gene pool will be too uniform to survive the challenges of nature, and it will probably die out eventually. Or new groups will inevitably emerge again out of unavoidable differences.

When it applies thought, most of humanity accepts that discrimination is wrong. However, this shrinking and doubt do not kill the bigotry within us. We struggle between contradictory feelings — of the superiority of ourselves and our group, and shame in feeling and expressing it.

We sense the need for balance. Each of us buries the basic instinct to bigotry at different mental depths. What we achieve depends on our emotional growth. It also varies with our circumstances, and tough times bring more of our prejudice to the surface. It is a matter of survival, after all.

Among our defects, discrimination is the most dangerous in scope after environmental destruction. Its destructive reach extends from the individual to groups, entire nations and species. We must consciously, watchfully, diligently and consistently stop ourselves from being comfortable with our bigotry. There is no magic cure for it. It will be an eternal and powerful foe. Discrimination requires continuous control from each of us.

6. Ecological Destruction

Humankind has become disconnected from nature in large parts. Billions of people are passing through life with no bonds to the planet's natural ecosystem due to industrialisation, urbanisation, and digitalisation. We are born in hospitals, live in standardised boxes, work in steel and glass enclosures, spend our time in cyberspace and die in anodyne hospitals. We are blithely unaware of where our vegetables, meat and beverages come from and our impact on nature. This disregard for the effects of our individual lifestyle choices and collective way of life is one of humanity’s greatest flaws. It may prove to be the worst if we and most other life forms on Earth suffer en masse and die out due to global climate change, habitat loss, and pollution.

Are we evolving and improving?

Have we become as good as we can get? Will there be no more improvement for us? But it would be illogical to think evolution stopped for us today, as today is nothing special. The sensible question is whether it stopped for us a few hundred or thousand years ago. But why would it have? What combination of external conditions and human capabilities would create the situation that terminated evolution?

Evolution is the outcome of the survival of the fittest. It has two aspects, one between species and the other within a species. In terms of the first, we have certainly been the most powerful species on the planet for many millennia. We have eradicated or reduced our large predators to safe numbers. Viruses, bacteria and parasites used to decimate us by the millions. Malaria has killed about 50 billion humans in history (there is still no vaccine for it), tuberculosis a billion, smallpox half a billion, and half a billion between plague, influenza, cholera and AIDS. There are still many deadly viruses, bacteria and parasites active worldwide, especially in poorer countries.

Let us check out where we are. Have we all become so safe and well off that we don’t need to struggle against nature or others? We know this is far from true. Malnutrition, war, epidemics, genetic disorders and lifestyle diseases are still rampant across the globe. To add to the challenge, we have affected the planet's biosphere and are facing several problems such as drought, flood, wildfires, inundation, storms, civil wars, displacement, and so on. We are also rife with many issues of the mind, such as violence, racism, etc.

So, even if we no longer need to adapt against large predators, we still have several external, personal and social challenges. Besides this, we need to survive on a warming planet and the resulting disasters. It is also a fact that we still have enough genetic variation between races and sub-groupings, and interbreeding and spontaneous gene mutations continue to create genetic variations in our progeny. Finally, we also need to survive our intelligence, which has been like Frankenstein’s monster. With all these needs, if we are not evolving, we are doomed.

There is also significant physical evidence confirming our continued evolution over the past fifty thousand years. Let’s consider some of it here. (Please see the bibliography for further reading.)

• Reduced incidence of Alzheimer’s disease
• Lower susceptibility to diabetes
• Higher genetic longevity
• Changes in times of puberty, menarche and menopause
• The ability to digest milk after weaning
• Some populations, such as Sherpas, genetically adapting to living at high altitudes.
• Resistance to some diseases such as malaria
• Ability to free dive for long periods
• Light skin and blue eyes
• Lighter bones
• Cooler body
• Reduced brain size

We are becoming more social and friendly

The last one in the evolutionary changes above may puzzle us at first, as we relate brain size in humans to intelligence. If we are getting more intelligent, why would our brain size reduce? But there is significant evidence for this change, particularly revealing one direction of our evolution.

Over the past ten thousand years, the reduction in our brain size could be due to the same factors involved in the “domestication syndrome” wherein we breed more social, tame and good-natured pets for utility and companionship. We may have self-domesticated in the same way, with natural selection preferentially retaining those who are less individualistic and aggressive, more even-tempered, and cooperative.

So the Life Instinct in humans has made us more social and increased the size of our communities throughout history, and corresponding evolutionary genetic changes have accompanied it. These changes have gone hand in hand, behaviour driving genetic direction which has driven behaviour, and so on. Historical changes in our body shapes and sizes reflect this, including in our brain. The loss of individual intelligence has been more than made up for by the growth and use of social or collective intelligence, which has many times more power and breadth.

(In the next chapter, we will consider the possibilities in our future evolution.)

What is our responsibility?

So we are terrible in many ways. Should we accept this is how we’ll always be? No, because we also have three powerful counteracting attributes.

1. The first is an emotion that follows close behind our mistakes — regret. Most of us feel the wrong we do. Even most criminals rue their actions, even if only for their stupidity rather than empathy for the victim. The existence of shame, remorse, and repentance is proof that the Life Instinct is not blind but has empowered us to know the bad from the good.
2. The second is that we make amends. We do not correct our wrongs and may take too long when we do, but we see it often enough in ourselves and others to know this is a significant trait.
3. The third is that we change and improve. It is perhaps the most difficult for us, but it is there in good enough measure to relieve some of the burdens of our immaturity.

We cannot leave our happiness and fate in the hands of evolution. In several chapters of Part II, we looked at ways to become better in various aspects of life. We covered morality, ethics, marriage, family, love, friendship, education, government, etc. Let us take the sum totality of our evolutionary immaturity and see what we should do with it in four ways.

1. Accept and understand human shortcomings

There can be no self-control and progress without openness to our faults and understanding their roots. Let us accept that lies can harm, fear and anger can become violence and hatred, sexual attraction can become mental or physical assault, technological advances can become destructive. In short, every aspect of us, bar none, has a dark side in its misuse and excess.

2. Accept external control

We cannot be completely free in our social and environmental behaviour. We should accept as sensible and necessary certain limitations on our freedom of action. (Please see Chapter 24 on ethics for more on this.)

3. Exercise internal control

There is no returning for us to a lower state of wildness, being beastly. There is neither material success nor happiness in it. Let us accept that we are endowed with certain powers but that they come with responsibilities. Let’s embrace our strengths but exercise the responsibility of using them well from within. (Please see Chapter 23 on morals and Chapter 13 on Emotional Wisdom.)

4. Aid evolution

Intelligent people live better, but intelligent people who are good live best. Evidence supports this, but let us believe it is a given and strive simultaneously to be intelligent and good. It is within our control as we have self-awareness, thought, and free will. Because friendly and intelligent people live best, more of their genes than others’ will be carried forward in each generation. If each generation adopts the motto “Intelligence with Goodness”, it will surely improve Homo sapiens and all life on Earth.

Let’s put aside the idea that any individual life form, whether good or bad, has the right to freedom, life and reproduction. Instead, let’s take it that any life form that’s not deliberately harmful to others should have the right to liberty, life and breeding. Conversely, anyone deliberately seriously harmful to others can be constrained and prevented from reproducing, even if permitted to stay alive.

But what if the nature of a life form is such that it can eliminate another species or significant parts of it without any thought, intent or planning? For example, malarial mosquitos, the malaria parasite, smallpox viruses, the plague bacterium, locust swarms, invasive cane toads, etc.? Do they not have a right to life? Yes, but every other life form also has the right to defend itself individually and collectively from destruction. So we will make our guiding principles the following:

1. Every species has the right to defend itself against others that cause it widespread and deadly harm. The existence of a life form per se is not open to judgement. (Including, for example, the right of the malarial parasite and dodo to exterminate humans that eradicated them. So this guideline is not human-centric.)
2. Every species that coexists with others in an interdependent manner without causing deliberate or widespread deadly harm has the right to life and reproduction. Tigers that are normal and eat deers, deers that are normal and eat grass, grass that is normal and self-limiting, etc., are examples of such life chains that are fine and should be supported.
3. Individuals of any species that are deliberately harmful to others can be constrained, killed or prevented from reproducing by members of the same or other species at risk.
4. Individuals of any species that are inadvertently harmful to others can be controlled, tolerated and helped to become normal if possible.
5. Individuals of any species combining higher intelligence with an overall beneficial effect on other life forms on the planet are the most worthy of life and reproduction and should be supported. (Please see the section above on the evolutionary evidence that shows this is probably happening.)

Conclusions

Humanity is somewhere on the plotline of evolution. We don’t know where it will take us in a few million years, assuming we survive till then. We have become adept at exploiting our home planet on a large scale, but our shortcomings continue to cause us grief and danger. So we may still be at the dawn of our day as a species.

Fortunately, our abilities now include the awareness of how we cause our issues and a measure of control over them. The more we understand why, the better we can make ourselves and give evolution time to do its part. A glimmer of maturity is within our grasp, and we must shine it in the dark corners of our nature.

© 2020 Shashidhar Sastry. All rights reserved.

(As each chapter of the book is published, its link is updated in the ToC below.)

Table of Contents

Part I Metaphysics of The Life Instinct

Part II Philosophy of The Life Instinct

Part III The Life Instinct and The Future

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