Reflections: The Origins of Virtue

It seems like a long time since I started reading this book. It’s been sitting around me for months together, getting shunned every now and then for another interesting and far more gripping book. And now that I have finally finished it, it feels like I have taken forever to write about it. It’s got to do with two reasons. Ever since I started my other blog on cooking, the novelty of it has been quite compelling. I am fueled to write posts there. Besides, writing out a recipe is far far simpler and easier than all the work required to think and assimilate my thoughts to churn out a post here. Secondly, I started reading this book fully aware that I may not learn anything significantly new. Yet, when it comes to morality, society, and the definitions of virtue, I am willing to read as many repetitive (and non-repetitive) books as possible, in the hopes that I may stumble upon some, novel, interesting trains of thought that would help me internalize and understand these concepts much better.

The basic questions addressed in the book are - When and why did virtues like cooperation and altruism emerge among us?, Are these virtues wired-instincts, or are they nurtured traits?, What is the fine-line between cooperation and competition, between altruism and self-interest? How do virtues serve the interests of the individual, as much as they help our species to survive? So, is man inherently good or bad?

The short answer for why morality, altruism, and cooperation are exalted as virtues is because we need to adopt and embrace these traits for ensuring our survival, and the survival of our genes, and our species. Mankind has achieved so much and has progressed to such heights because our species knows how to cooperate, reciprocate, trade, and divide labor among specialized people. The point is, each virtue serves a selfish purpose - to us and to our species. Reciprocation is our incentive. If there were no reciprocation, we limit the altruistic deeds we do for others. In our scriptures it is called Karma - you receive what you give. So be good, and reap the benefits. We form friendships, enter into marriage, are cordial and helpful to neighbors, family and other smaller circles of our community, in order to reap the benefits of reciprocation and division of labor. We have the ingrained need to be an accepted part of a community, because when hardships strike, we have people to fall back on and help us. But in order to expect such help, we need to offer help as well. And so on... the gregarious, well-connected, socially active person is the most effective survivor. And consider this paradox - when you gift someone, you subconsciously expect something in return at some point. Then, is the person who refuses to accept any gift from friends or family, the most selfish person? For he realizes the debt he incurs by accepting the gift, and hence refuses to accept such burden of reciprocation?

It leads to another paradox. Despite the accepted rationality of practicing virtuous behavior, human-beings are still territorial, and fiercely compete with one another. Why so? It is natural selection’s way of ensuring the fittest, and only the most competent survive. At a micro-level, our genes are selfish. They cause us to fight for them, stand up for them - to ensure their propagation over other kinds of genes. This is one explanation for racial and territorial conflicts. But one can’t afford to be too aggressive to too many people, and too very often. We have the seen the fall of capitalistic giants who have been so caught up with greed and aggression.

We flounder while trying to establish a balance between competition and cooperation. Is tit-for-tat always a good strategy? We need to know when to forgive and when not to. It’s imperative that we don’t get pushed and trampled upon in our effusive need to always do good to others and never expect anything in return. For when we resort to the latter “selfless” mode, we as individuals perish, although we may help to sustain the growth of our species. Basically, it is not “rational” when one chooses to neglect the self.

For most people, selfishness is a negative trait. With that conditioning, sometimes we make decisions that are detrimental to the self. When my good friend told me that I had to do things for “self-preservation”, the whole term was new to me. When we have been taught to ignore the self, to not expect anything in return for our moral duties, it is a radical perspective to pause and consider that everything that has been established, including religion and morality, are essentially to serve a “selfish” purpose - be it from the standpoint of the community or the individual. Survival, is basically selfish. There is no escaping from it. If you have just one serving of food, and you see a hungry, wailing child of a strangers’, and a hungry child of yours, you will invariably choose to give the food to your child. Nature has wired our instincts to first help our blood and genes. If resources are in surplus, then we have the luxury of sharing a small piece of ours with others’, even without expecting anything in return right-away. We have emotions such as guilt, to make us help other non-related members of our species every now and then, because without our community, we are nothing.

But my objective is this - at some point, if I have a child, I want to be able to teach him/her when to be selfish, and when not to be. I want to help him/her understand that self-preservation is as much important as compassion and empathy for others - that one needs to  know when to draw the line and say - “no, I won’t be nice to you”. And I want to make him/her realize when to forgive and when not to forgive.

Our scriptures speak a slightly different language that seems to urge the individual to always help the betterment of the species, while completely ignoring the self. I need more time and wisdom to understand why that is so. Maybe the bigger perspective of propagating our species is much more important than preserving the needs of the individual. But if every individual loses their need or drive to do something for themselves, and have no pressing instinct to preserve the self, won’t the progress of the species grind to a halt as well? How, you ask? Here is Matt Ridley’s talk on his recent book, which touches upon my question.

Digested Thoughts: A thought-provoking book on the rationality and practicality of morality and virtues. There are many more interesting thoughts, such as on the benefits of privatization of property, and the necessity for governments to govern and control our societies. 

Reflections: Anthill

Dr. Edward Wilson is a professor of Entomology at Harvard University, and the co-author of the Pulitzer prize winning book, The Ants. Dr. Wilson is regarded as one of the foremost authorities on everything related to Ants. I have been wanting to read his award winning book for a long long time. My interest in the intelligent and altruistic little insects resurfaced while watching an episode of the award winning documentary, Life, that featured the intelligent ways in which ants built their colonies. That was when I also heard that Dr. Wilson had recently published a book of fiction that incorporates the details of ant colonies, and emphasizes the importance of conserving Nature and its varied little seemingly insignificant creatures to maintain the delicate ecosystem and biosphere. So there I was, checking out this book.

You may wonder why I chose to dedicate a whole paragraph for the prologue. Well, the prologue says it all. The book is by an accomplished academician and expert naturalist. In an interview with NPR, Dr. Wilson stated that he wanted to write a book of fiction in order to spread awareness on the importance and magnificence of every single minuscule creature on this planet, and the ways in which they affect us, if their habitats are senselessly destroyed. He hoped more people - adults and kids would pick a novel that has facts diluted in a story, than read his papers or other non-fiction books. A noble intention, for sure. But an academic can only “dilute” so much :). I really liked the book, and was fascinated by the facts, but I don’t think it would appeal to the “lay” reader who wants more story. It is only for (crazy) people like me, who are interested about Ants and the ecosystem. It is unfortunately not an easy read for young adults, as Dr. Wilson hoped.

This is the synopsis - Raff is a young boy who grows up being highly curious and fascinated by insects, animals, and Nature. Lucky for him, he lives in a small town in Alabama that adjoins dense forests that abound with several different species of reptiles, birds, and insects. He spends most of his time in the Nokobee tract, home to a unique species of Ants that builds remarkably huge and complex colonies. When it’s time to head to college, Raff realizes that the Nokobee tract is under a threat to be destroyed. He vows to save it, and dedicates his life’s mission to preserve it.

Dr. Wilson’s prose is sharp and intelligent. He takes his time to provide a background and story to all his characters. The book addresses the vociferous debate between the Naturalists and the religiously conservative groups, on whether the environment, the birds and the animals are meant to be conserved, or whether God intended us humans to use them to suit our needs till He arrived on Judgement Day.

Although the story is predictable, the whole section on Ants was the highlight for me. Dr. Wilson shows how similar Ant colonies are to human civilization - there are the same territorial wars, similar defenses, and the familiar pressure to survive and procreate. However, we differ on one crucial aspect - ants are far more altruistic than human societies have ever been and will probably ever be! He shows us the glorious strategies of Natural selection.

It was also interesting and informative to learn about the various laws and morally dubious loopholes that lawyers and agencies use to fight over a piece of land.

In all, it was an interesting read that has only increased my awe and interest in Ants. I hope to read his award winning book soon. 

Reflections: The Dragons of Eden

Any book on the human brain/mind is sure to light up my... well, figurative antennae. To top it, an award winning book on the evolution of human intelligence, written by a renowned scientist, was simply screeching to be read. Carl Sagan has carefully arranged his thoughts and his speculations on the evolution of the human brain, trying to pin-point the turn when intelligence made its entry and propelled Homosapiens to the the top of the food chain.

Not sure if I’m hovering on the brink of a “Writer’s-block”, or some form of lapse in the Broca’s region of my brain, but lately I have been struggling to pull out words from vague puffs of thoughts. I take longer than usual to speak, and wrestle with my mind to put down intelligent (or even sensible) sounding words on paper. So, my thoughts on this book are going to sound quite inadequate. And honestly, I’m quite surprised that I am not practically oozing with things to discuss and reflect on after reading such a book.

One of the things I was disappointed with the book was that, Sagan dwells on the evolution of the human brain - the physical mass itself, while I pointedly wanted to read about the progression of intelligence. I guess it goes back to the philosophical implication - there is no mind without the brain. And yes, I understand that it’s not easy to define intelligence without discussing the numerous cognitive regions of the brain. But, since I was quite familiar with the regions of the brain, the localized and non-localized cognitive functions, the extremely cool experiments with people and monkeys concerning language, the mind-blowing experiments with “split-brained” people, the significance of the corpus-callosum and the interaction between the left and right hemispheres etc.... the book didn’t hold enough insights or surprises for me. I was looking for a few missing pieces in my puzzle, and it sadly didn’t hand me those. Nevertheless, it’s an intelligent and engaging read. And for an astrophysicist to gather so much research evidence and glean wonderful and precise insights into the complexities of the human brain is testament to Sagan’s mind-blowing intelligence.

However, I am not omniscient. I did learn quite a few things. It was quite fascinating to learn that our brain-mass as well as our body to brain mass ratio, have been rapidly increasing, relative to other animals on the planet. So bigger brains do, in a sense, mean more intelligence! In a nut-shell, intelligence or higher-order reasoning abilities are attributed to the development of the neocortex, the part of the brain specific to mammals. I was impressed with the archaeological and anthropological evidences of the progression of the brain and the development of the temporal and frontal lobes, all of which are also associated with intelligence. Haven’t we heard our grand-moms say, a  broader forehead marks intelligence? And ahem, that is Sagan’s hypothesis on why human childbirth is so painful - our pelvic bones haven’t evolved at the rate at which the human head has “grown” or changed in shape (wish I could paste pictures of the skulls of Neanderthals versus homo-sapiens). Besides, given the structure of our bodies, apparently the pelvic bones cannot become wider without damaging our gait and balance. So well, all the science-fiction movies about babies with gigantic heads with brain tentacles waving about as they traumatize their moms don’t seem too unrealistic in the future ;)

Sagan also has an interesting take on the abortion issue. He defines the beginning of human life to the start of neocortical development. For, according to him, that’s what sets us humans apart, and if we are to value human life, the neocortical development seems to be a reasonable cut-off point for him. I don’t really agree. What if one’s neocortex is poorly developed, or gets damaged? Does the person lose their human label, and all the dignities that go with it? Besides, as the book reiterates, intelligence arises from numerous complex cognitive activities, spanning several regions of the brain. The issue of the start of life is far too ambiguous and philosophical still. But I enjoyed reading such extrapolations on the topic, including the future that awaits us, Artificial Intelligence, and the intelligent aliens we might have to encounter at some point.

The title of the book might intrigue a few - why dragons, and why Eden? The R-complex of the brain, the deeply buried repressed Unconscious (as Freud might say) harbors our primordial fears, desires and instincts. It’s called the reptilian part of the brain - the one that still instills fear and loathing of reptiles, our early deadly predators. Our brain seems to have evolved to combat the predators - for example, the reason why we sleep at nights and dream of dinosaurs and dragons. So in a convoluted way, our brain’s growth is due to the fear of reptiles (or, by natural selection, the brains that could survive such predators have sustained). It has given rise to various cultural beliefs and myths surrounding reptiles and snakes (such as in India). Even in the genesis, it’s because of a reptile, mankind gets thrown into a world of sins. But we progressed because of our well developing neocortex and seamless interaction between the left and right hemispheres (one pattern matches to form rudimentary hypotheses about the world, and the other critically and rationally weeds out the illogical hypotheses). Sadly, even in this state of evolution, many left hemispheres don’t work as rationally, and myths still abound. Sagan goes on to talk about the importance of rationality in our civilization.

And there are many more interesting cultural beliefs that tie with all this. Ever wondered why every human civilization insists on training the right hand? I won’t spoil this for you, if you really are contemplating on reading this book. How wondrous - your brain will seek out to learn more about itself.

Reflections: Anatomy of a Rose

To someone who loves flowers and can’t seem to get enough of them - their colors, their scent, and their delicate cheer, this book has the effect of leaping off the stands and beckoning. Sharman Russell, a botanist (there goes another potential career of mine!), shares my passion, but hers is elevated supremely by tying in science to adoration. She loves flowers to the extent that she has dedicated her life’s goals towards studying them and exploring their role in our living world. In this book, she lyrically describes the delicate and intelligent system of flowers, whose every form has a function, even their spell-binding beauty. Her book is a beautiful ode on flowers.

Sharman Russell primarily discusses the structure of flowers and their complex and significant role in the ecosystem, touching upon their deceivingly ornate, yet simple features that have meticulously evolved with natural selection’s uncanny and persistent design. But just as we begin to fear if the idealism behind flowers is going to be ripped apart only to leave exposed their selfish motive towards pollination, and well, reproduction, Russell’s mellifluous prose soothingly quells us, as she crafts a scientific poetry that awes us. Flowers change into a beautiful and intelligent kind - one that is resilient to the environment and knows how to adapt its form, color, texture, scent and even pollinators, to survive. Russell also weaves in the causal scheme of cooperation and competition by which plants operate; two mutually contradictory, yet essential components of survival. Without the mutual symbiosis between flowers and insects, both species suffer. Yet without competition between flowers and their neighbors, the fittest isn’t going to procreate. It was fascinating to read about flowers that time their blooming periods to ensure that they are not overshadowed by their flashy neighboring plants! And how aggressive the flowers are in their shapes, colors and scents to outshine their competitors.

One of the things I loved about this narration was its focus on the pollinators - the bees, the wasps, the humming birds, birds and many other little creatures, and their drama of seduction with the flowers. Contrary to human being’s presumption, the colors and scents are not really meant for our senses, but are geared for the little agents. It is to lure them into their core, and provide nectar in exchange for disseminating their precious pollen. This, we all learned in middle-school, yes. But did you know why the majority of flowers are in bright yellows, and oranges? That a bee’s spectrum of visibility is slightly different from ours? That their yellows, oranges, whites and violets are different from our perception of those colors? I can’t bear to stand the fact that there are creatures who can see colors that I cannot even visualize! And with this, we are just grazing the tip of the iceberg of the mysteries surrounding all of nature, and human limitations in trying to solve them. As one botanist ponders - How does the bee experience the flower? How does the flower experience the bee? So many fundamental questions bordering on the elusive philosophical realm.

Flowers that imitate other flowers and plants, flowers that bloom a certain time, flowers painted with colors to attract a certain pollinator, flowers with scents to beguile the unassuming pollinator, flowers that have deadly traps to punish selfish and greedy pollinators, flowers with defenses to protect their pollens and safeguard against self-pollination, flowers that help thrive our ecosystem.... and flowers that are now sitting in our homes, blooming and shedding their petals which were engineered to be of a certain color and to withstand temperatures asynchronous to the seasons. Humans enter the scene. I have never found a rose to carry a scintillating smell, and have often wondered why it was so celebrated for its scent. Well of course, artificially bred roses have discarded the need to produce scent... why work so hard to produce scent when there is no pressure to lure bees? Sigh... the very essence of nature now sits smiling at us with its hybridized unnatural-sized petals, and no scent. In the future, roses can be made to smell like lemons, they can be blue, and can be made to last for a long long time. Would it still be a rose to me? Would it still captivate me? And would the bees, the butterflies and our ecosystem be much the same?

Tough questions, uneasy answers. We don’t know how to define the line between natural and unnatural. On the one hand it is exciting and on the other hand it is ominous. It’s an addition to the growing food for thought on preserving nature.

Having rambled quite a bit, I must say that the one disappointing thing about the book was the lack of photographs or colored pictures of flowers to feast our eyes on, as we delve into their elegant design.

Reflections: A Mind Apart

Susanne Antonetta has been living with bipolar disorder and manic depression ever since she was a child. Despite the misconceptions and lack of adequate understanding and empathy for her condition, she has carved a life for herself as a writer and a university professor. In this book, she explores her thoughts on her life and of Life in general, offering an expansive view of her mind, of her world, of the countless voices that speak to her and try to take charge of her. As she tries to place herself in the evolutionary map of our species, she wonders if her genes, which are brushed off as abnormal, do play some role in Darwin’s theory -  that biodiversity is just part of natural selection’s way of propagating our species. Is neuro-diversity any different? When we struggle to define and comprehend consciousness, who is to say what the limits are for a human mind? Within its dense and intricate network of neurons and arbitrariness, is there even a beginning and an end to the spaces it can conquer, the thoughts it can splutter? Perhaps neuro-atypical people like her, only stretch the potentials of the human mind, and may, if given some consideration, offer new forms of creativity and intelligence to our species? Maybe genetic engineering needs to pause at this conjecture?

The human mind is one of the most complicated and elusive mysteries. It fascinates me to no end because of its compelling mysteries. It’s whimsical to me that we use our own minds to understand them. The beauty of this exercise lies in the incremental exploration of our own limits - the more deeper and farther we stretch the limits, the more entangled we become with basic existential questions. Susanne, is no different. She tries to figure out who she is, and what controls her. She swims around in her chaotic and energetic hub of thoughts and consciousness, to relate to us how her mind and thoughts are different from the average human. It’s challenging to engage in such a dissection of one’s mind, especially when you are clinically diagnosed of depression, so I commend her on her quest towards self-realization.

It’s also equally challenging for the reader, a supposed “neuro-typical” person, to keep track of her thoughts, which resonate with her mood swings, and swing from one thought to another, one context to another, in such rapid succession like a skilled trapeze artist. It’s beautiful at times, and too abstract and wrapped in her own bubble of clarity at times. I found her mind to be bubbling with so many deep questions about our consciousness and “normalcy” of our minds, and her writing felt like I was being slowly immersed in that bubbling cauldron, to see and feel the colors, the nuances, texture, and spirit of all those questions floating inside her. I really could connect with the thoughts and questions, but I emerged, mostly confused, and with little clarity. The questions are all obviously too elusive for concrete answers, but I didn’t get a sense of her views - she was never bold or firm in her opinions - everything seemed slippery to grasp. Perhaps that wasn’t her aim - all she wanted was to share her thoughts, her questions and provoke new streams of thoughts.

I loved her discussions on what consciousness is. Is it the voice that speaks to you from deep within? When did it start existing in humans? What role does language play in cognition and consciousness? If you didn’t have language and its varied representational units, how would you make sense of the world inside you? How would your consciousness help you with getting that awareness - of yourself, the world around you and the interaction between the two? Her discussions were well researched (I happily recognized all the famous scientists in the field) and were lyrically expressed, taking the weight of academia from them. I strongly believe that language plays a fundamental role in cognition. It gives the ability to express and explore thoughts, ideas, views, hypotheses and mold them into something concrete and cogent - more tangible than a mere ephemeral feeling, to give structure and details. It is that which helps us store learning blocks within our memory. By language, I mean the symbolic, logical representations we all use within our heads, and which, in their own ways “speak” to us and emerge as language. And finally, this is the reason why we benefit from conversing with our thoughts, and the reason why I ramble so much.

The one aspect that I struggled to agree with her, was her plea to not alter the minds of neuro-atypical people to the state of normalcy, through drugs. While I understand, that to her, her mind is her definition of her self, and its uniqueness (however “abnormal” to us) is private to her, I focus on what this “uniqueness” of hers is doing to her and to her loved ones. To me, its an illness no different than physical illness. She has managed to come so far in her life, only through medication, but to argue that too much medication to alter her mind completely, is unacceptable, poses these questions - what is too much medication, when it goes towards helping the person live her life? What does it mean to not alter the mind “completely”, when the mind doesn’t give her peace? She clearly sounds traumatized by her bizarre experiences, but she holds onto them in defense of her sense of self that is projected from them, and tries to assert that she is not an aberration or abnormality, and it’s society which has stringent rules to define normality.

I do agree in part that our rules and expectations on normality may be too myopic and cloistered at times, but my argument is about what such different views of normality does to them, in being happy with themselves, regardless of what society impinges on them. Why compromise on one’s happiness and hurt oneself? Why remain rooted to a mind that “seems to be on fire”, that drives one to end their life and suffer knowingly from paranoia? I understand that these are just the workings of different parts of the mind, which are not objectively “wrong regions” and that their side-effects are out-of-the-box creativity and lateral thinking, but what are the costs to retaining these side-effects? And if scientists need to retain creativity and remove the harmful and dangerous roots, doesn’t it again result in a confused alteration of their mind?

This is where I am not as convinced that genetic engineering should step back and have faith that natural selection will take care of things it has designed, with the hope of reaping beneficial fruits from such people. As Susanne mentions cynically, our world is dominated by “unnatural selection” now, thanks to medical intervention and empathy. The proliferation of such conditions is very much the act of “unnatural” selection. How then, does the knowledge that in a decade, 1 of out every 10 Americans is likely to be autistic, offer any form of complacence?

To summarize, while I definitely agreed and appreciated that we need to respect and reach out towards understanding and empathizing with neuro-atypical people with a creative and different stream of consciousness, I gear towards being practical in how I weigh the costs and risks of these conditions against some benefits, most of which are currently speculative. I agree that the human race is dooming itself by homogenizing and artificially engineering our current views of perfection on our genome, but there has to be a balance. It’s necessary to recognize what forms of diversity, and what range of diversity is essential to the race, as well as to the individual.

Reflections: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

Who are we? Where did we come from? If each of us were to draw our genealogy map, most cannot list anyone beyond the last three generations. There are many of us who have hardly heard, leave alone seen, our great grandparents. With the floodgates of genetic research flung wide open, how priceless would it be to unearth the histories of our ancestors to better understand ourselves and those around us. We might finally understand why we are the way we are, and hopefully find some wisdom to project a better path for the future - for the benefit of us, humanity and the whole planet.

After many discussions on several topics that are weaved into this book, I received the book as a New Year's gift from my dear friend. It's wonderful that my New Year started with such an excellent gift. It has helped me answer questions that I have battled with for a while and has opened my mind to interesting vistas sure to help me sort out many of my future doubts. Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan have put together the story of humanity - right from the formation of the planet from mere star dusts, to the evolution of the most complex species, some blessed with enough intelligence to trace their histories. It's a story about how there came to be a structure in the midst of random chaos, how an impeccable ecosystem was established to sustain a cycle of energy, and how mere cell reproduction was perfected with Nature's laws of survival to bring about selective multiplication of the fittest of species. Well, we all are aware of evolution. Is that all this book talks about? Yes and No. It's about evolution, but from a perspective we have probably never considered before. It not just asserts that we come from animals, but tries to bridge the gap between the two of us, explaining how the very "animal" instincts that we now denigrate actually helped the survival of our ancestors, and our nature and personalities are shaped by them. The objectivity of the discussion helps us view animals and us in a much clear light to contrast the differences and the similarities, while trying to answer the question - what makes us humans? How are we different?

There are just far too many things that are interesting in the book, that left with enough time and a patient audience I would likely ardently discuss every page and paragraph. But to save our sanity, I have picked some excellent themes that were explored-

Altruism or Selfish Genes
Those who have been victims of my past discussions on this topic will thank their stars with this revelation of mine - my confusions have been finally resolved. Every act of ours has a layer of selfishness behind it. But being selfish isn't bad. It is one of the reasons why we exist today. But like many out there, I could never reconcile with the argument that even a man who sacrifices his life to save the lives of those who aren't even his kins, can have any trace of selfishness tainting his motive. After all isn't survival the key instinct? How can there be any selfishness in choosing to not survive, just to help the survival of others? Ah, the answer lies embedded in that exclaim - it is indeed to help the survival of others, the species. If some thousands of our ancestors hadn't chosen to sacrifice themselves to save their species, there would have been no human race. As much as it is embedded in our genes to survive and procreate to keep our race thriving, by the same logic our instincts are wired to sacrifice ourselves to save our species (escalating from our family, our community, our nation, our planet, our species), if their survival were threatened. The utilitarian logic of saving millions at the cost of one/some, stems from our selfish genes. Not convincing enough? Well, there are evidences of monkeys, bees and even ants, assumed to be automatons that lack emotion, logic or intelligence, demonstrating such brave altruistic acts. Is this unvalidated research? Nope, scientists still assert this, as is evident from this new article. And adding the cherry atop the icing, here is another reason to bolster this. Most animals, especially those living in colonies and communities, such as ants, bees, monkeys and even us (after all, haven't read time and again that "Main is a social animal"?), can only exist in a society that maintains a symbiotic relationship - it reduces to basic economics. We cannot survive without our group. That's man's greatest threat to survival. Therefore, it is indeed in his long term best interests that he cares for and tries to protect his social circle. Those who are short sighted and who have started disconnecting themselves from this instinct, restrict their filed of concern to themselves, sometimes their own family, while some still see far enough to want to protect whales and tigers.

Cultural Diversity and Natural Selection
I have been harping on world peace, the unity of humanity, with the dream of the whole world living as one big happy family. And this is the first time, I have relinquished such a dream - not out of resignation or pessimism, but I finally comprehend the design behind diversity and isolation of pockets of communities. This is because, the more diverse the cultures, the more diverse the gene pools, which means the more chance of survival. If a certain genetic trait is lost due to our unanimity, how would we survive a certain deadly virus that is immune and can be cured only with the lost gene sequence? Humanity would be at the brink of extinction. Kind of why inbreeding is dangerous and therefore repulsive. Our world will essentially be one happy family with minimal variations in gene sequences. Precisely why our ancestors lived in communities, and why there continues to be hostility on some level when it comes to complete genetic intermingling. It finally makes some iota of sense as to why inter-racial marriages are still regarded with such intense revulsion. But of course, there HAS to be some amount of genetic mixing between clans/races, otherwise it leads us back to a similar problem - homogeneity of genes within communities. No surprise that even female monkeys invariably get attracted to males from another clan, while facing stiff resistance from many monkeys from either clans. It is amazing that this balance that impels some genetic mixing and some genetic preservation has lasted so many billions of years. I finally face reality - and this what the book gives us in liberal doses. I concede that the world cannot and should never be just one big happy family. Diversity is valuable to us, not homogeneity.

Definition of Humanity
So what makes us humans? What makes us so special, gives us the right to control, dominate, pollute, and head on a path to bring eventual destruction to ourselves? Is it our ability to think, to reason, to speak, to feel, to create and appreciate art and music, to exhibit a culture, to be in a monogamous relationship, to create and use sophisticated tools, to put together codes of religion and morality and to philosophize about our souls? Sadly, no. Discussions about chimpanzees, baboons, bonobos, bees, ants, sparrows and a host of such varied animals provide evidence that many animals display such characteristics, although the scale of their abilities is still not comparable to us. I like how the book emphasizes that these animals differ from us not in kind, but only in the ways. Baboons and most birds mate for life. Baboons and birds are capable of expressing talent and appreciation for music. Most animals are capable of showing affection, emotion, caring for their group, they are capable enough to establish their own chain of social hierarchy, their own methods of hunting, and even mold their own tools. It has been proved that even an accomplished scientist, after spending several hours with a friendly chimpanzee, can still not learn the seemingly "simple" skill of the chimpanzees to shape a twig, insert it into a termites' hole, manage to get some termites on the twig, extricate it carefully from the narrow hole and eat the little treats sitting on it. Well, can chimpanzees catch a fish like us? No... but just not yet. Macaque monkeys have exhibited high standards of morality, by choosing to rather starve than try to reach for their food that was hooked to an electric switch administering a shock to another macaque monkey, every time the food was touched. Seeing the other monkey flinch, the other stopped trying to reach for the food. And macaque monkeys show this trait despite not being taught the virtues of altruism, or about God or morality.

But would every human be as considerate as "low-level" creatures such as the monkeys and ants, to sacrifice ourselves for our group? No. Do animals engage in violence for the sake of greed? No. Do they try to kill or attack unless there is a need. No. Do animals execute calculated murder? No. And what about us humans? Having all 6 senses we don't bother about the planet, we don't hesitate to eradicate communities for industrialization and choose to rationalize all our acts and stay blind to morality. As I have ranted previously, we humans have lost in touch with Nature's ways, that many instincts that are wired in all other animals have faded in us.

How free is our will?
Centering around this, the authors tie in a brilliant discussion on free will. If we are to disrupt the social structure of animals, and for experimental purposes, we artificially create a society with 10 extremely aggressive males and 2 females, will such a society survive? No. As was the pitiable catastrophe that ensued when scientists unwittingly put in a mismatched group of baboons in the same cage. There was anarchy and violence, for Nature never creates or encourages a group in which there can be so many "leaders" or alpha males. And leaving just 2 females for so many alphas, just did not agree with the animals' natures. Can we blame the animals or their nature for the violence, killing and bloodshed? Does it make sense to talk about the baboons' free will? The experiment is an example of how each species has it's own set of core natures which cannot be shaken off. If social engineering is poorly and artificially designed, it will result in mayhem, and there is very little relevance to free will. Humans need to be wary of their limitations as well. Our reason hasn't evolved enough for us to cast away all concerns of upsetting our social and ecological balance. Our survival hangs on the balance that we take for granted. It's not about our free will to do what we want and argue that reason and intelligence will help us sustain. We are not omnipotent.

That was my major take-away from the book. Understanding our ancestors is the first step towards truly understanding us - acknowledging our limitations and staying within their boundaries, realizing which vestigial instincts we need to shed off, for although they might have been beneficial to our ancestors, they no longer apply to our phase of existence, and how to truly extend our potentials and "special" adaptive features of intelligence and reason to grow, and evolve our future generations into much sophisticated creatures. Sadly, the current trend seems to be a horrific regression.

My thoughts would be incomplete without the authors' articulate and wise words:
"We achieve some measure of adulthood when we recognize our parents as they really were, without sentimentalizing or mythologizing, but also without blaming them unfairly of our imperfections. Maturity entails a readiness, painful and wrenching though it may be, to look squarely into the long dark spaces, into the fearsome shadows. In this act of ancestral remembrance and acceptance may be found a light by which to see our children safely home."

U? Genes? Yikes!

Eugenics -- the concept I've been pretty intrigued with lately. Eugenics is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention. [Wikipedia]

Since I was old enough to remember, I've heard my mom say, "Our ancestors weren't fools. There is a meaning behind everything." But it's only now that the ingeniousness of such ancestors is slowly dawning on me. When parents talk of the ideal "match" for their children and go about digging into details such as caste/sub caste/the complexion of the bride/the education/the "family status"/the height/the "health" of the family/"bad" habits/not wearing "specs"/long hair/... (and substitute a million other such details), it is for a REASON. And the underlying reason being, "Can my daughter and your son successfully mate with each other to produce the best possible offspring/s to carry on the proud torch of our family tree and hereditary and thus improve the overall quality of human kind?"

Crassly put, but that's the philosophy that our ancestors started with and after a while people "forgot" why, but as is our custom, continued to blindly follow them. The basic core instinct of animals is to procreate and survive - Male instinct being to procreate and the females' to nurture and help survival. It is extremely interesting to take on a more "objective and intelligent" approach to making sure evolution works right and the quality of the human race is improved through Eugenics.

Therefore, a handsome man marrying a not-so-goodlooking girl causes a serious threat to the next generation being either not good looking at all, or mediocre - this is a setback to the race that begins with this new human being. A more serious concern for us is intelligence. A smart person marrying a dumb person causes a mediocre output. Whereas if the smart married the smart the output would be super smart!! And if such a super smart guy married another such super smart girl then the output would be Super dooper smart!! And so on...



Of course I have my opinions on this match making logic again... and it's a debate many intellectuals and scientists have been having. If only the smart should marry the smart, what about us dim wits? Are they doomed cruelly because of "survival of the fittest" rule? I would think it makes more sense for smarts and dim wits to be paired so the outcome would be relatively smart, than getting a pool of super smarts and an equal pool of dim wits struggling to survive and not contributing much to the progress the "super smarts" want to make. Such a huge disparity would be much worse to progress (my belief, with not much proof for now).

That said, it's not much of a surprise when our parents try to quantify "intelligence" with academic degrees and want to match a person with equal or higher number of degrees as compared to their girl. Why is it mandatory for the groom to have an equal or better degree? This could be seen as perpetuation of patriarchal ways of society, but looking closely a better "degree" translates to a "good job", and a good job translates to ability to "bring in more food" and provide a nurturing environment (the job the male hunter). Family status is again a measure of the family's ability to provide the right nourishment, opportunities and education for the child to cultivate the traits we look for.



I wonder if we humans still act on such core instincts. In reality human relationships/marriages are intended to last much longer than just bringing in the new generation, and it wields a complicated web of emotions and needs. Making a relationship work demands a whole new set of criteria, than relying on those deemed fit for the offspring/s that are born. I choose to believe that we have evolved to a state (after all these centuries) where our concern for procreation is probably being replaced by the need for companionship.



Yet, I'm not sure if at some level, our attractions to certain types of people whom we consider as good partners are related to the essential traits we want to pass onto our kids (the core female instinct of caring for the unborn offspring). Each of us have some basic requirements for choosing our life partner. Although it's not as explicit as us thinking of a child and then validating our partner's traits, subconsciously it may have seeped in. Do those core instincts still determine such decisions... as subtle as their influence is?



For example, I suck in Maths. I am so bad at it, that all through my life it has been my greatest sorrow and disadvantage. I have always thought that being good at maths/science was a great boon, you could excel professionally and comfortably take on a well paid job, as opposed to those of us who need to struggle and get used to their technical positions. And during these challenging times, I've wished that if at all I had a kid, s/he should be smart in Mathematics.



I'm not sure if that's why I undoubtedly get impressed with people who are good at Maths/programming/Science. I don't know if it's because I'm impressed with people who can do something that I struggle to, or if it's some other common quality that is the primary reason. But it's interesting nonetheless to ponder if subconsciously we take into account both the aspect of "companionship for a life time" as well as "how effective can the next generation get."