If God Created the Selfish Gene
In his brilliant book, The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins cleverly switches our focus from individual creatures to the genes that control them. We tend to think of life on earth as entities that have genes. Dawkins challenges us to think of life from the perspective of genes that have survival machines. Genes that determine a creatures traits and behavior are like pilots of a complex machine. The machine's survival is only important because it ensures the selfish gene's survival. Thus, we witness the often times harsh reality that living creatures endure in their desperate or novel attempts to procreate and protect the lives of their young.
Of course genes are not actually free agents purposefully controlling their living machines. By the same token, however, we can also declare that individuals are not free agents purposefully controlling their genes-their own traits and behavior. The selfish gene perspective opens our eyes to the elaborate complexity of evolution and helps us begin to grasp the marvelous interconnectedness of life on earth. For anyone who genuinely desires to understand, The Selfish Gene is a must read.
Its been a few years since I read the book myself. I struggled a bit just now to remember and write the brief synopsis above. But I do remember that the book was very thought provoking. I recall thinking that there does seem to be a strong will or urgency to life, even if our best understanding of it shows that there is no real actual agent from which the will emerges. For fun, despite the obvious facts and evidence that support the contrary view, I wondered to myself what would be the purpose of life if the whole machinery and the mechanism of evolution was created by a god-like agent.
First, I wondered what stage of our lives might be the purposeful stage. When do we, as living things, reach our zenith, our full development? And what would be the product that we either represented or created that fulfilled the goal of our creator? If someone or something created us, did it see our childhood as our flowering stage, where our greatness or what-have-you was at its highest height? It would make more sense that our childhood was what it is-a developmental phase before becoming stronger, more intelligent, more capable beings. But when would we be be our strongest, most intelligent, most capable, or other wise most _____ (fill in the blank)? It seems self evident that our senior years are not our best. We are weaker, not as sharp, and perhaps less passionate.
My question is really not all that different from the usual "What is the purpose of life?" The question implicitly demands the existence of a some kind of willful agent because purpose is something determined, or deemed. Most popular answers that are given involve the presumption that a caring god exists and has set out a purpose for us. I propose the existence of an agent other than ourselves only as a hypothetical exercise-there is no real evidence that a god exists. My thought process does not include the assumption that the creative agent has a plan for us as individuals. Rather, I imagine that IF a god existed, it would be just as likely that we are something more akin to an art project for him/her/it. Thus, the questions above.
At what point in the life cycle (or entire existence) of a living thing would our hypothetical god say, "It is good"? What would give him/her/it the most pleasure upon looking down on his/her/its creation? Would it be the child playing at the park? The act of reading a book? An orgasm? Feeling and expressing love? Building a pyramid? Writing a symphony? Simply being our most beautiful...like flowers in bloom?
What creatures would represent this hypothetical god's grandest creation, its ultimate goal? We cannot be so vain as to consider ourselves the Earth's most marvelous creatures. Have you watched BBC's Planet Earth series?? And life is continuing to evolve on this planet. Perhaps the best has passed. Or perhaps the grandest has yet to come?
Of course genes are not actually free agents purposefully controlling their living machines. By the same token, however, we can also declare that individuals are not free agents purposefully controlling their genes-their own traits and behavior. The selfish gene perspective opens our eyes to the elaborate complexity of evolution and helps us begin to grasp the marvelous interconnectedness of life on earth. For anyone who genuinely desires to understand, The Selfish Gene is a must read.
Its been a few years since I read the book myself. I struggled a bit just now to remember and write the brief synopsis above. But I do remember that the book was very thought provoking. I recall thinking that there does seem to be a strong will or urgency to life, even if our best understanding of it shows that there is no real actual agent from which the will emerges. For fun, despite the obvious facts and evidence that support the contrary view, I wondered to myself what would be the purpose of life if the whole machinery and the mechanism of evolution was created by a god-like agent.
First, I wondered what stage of our lives might be the purposeful stage. When do we, as living things, reach our zenith, our full development? And what would be the product that we either represented or created that fulfilled the goal of our creator? If someone or something created us, did it see our childhood as our flowering stage, where our greatness or what-have-you was at its highest height? It would make more sense that our childhood was what it is-a developmental phase before becoming stronger, more intelligent, more capable beings. But when would we be be our strongest, most intelligent, most capable, or other wise most _____ (fill in the blank)? It seems self evident that our senior years are not our best. We are weaker, not as sharp, and perhaps less passionate.
My question is really not all that different from the usual "What is the purpose of life?" The question implicitly demands the existence of a some kind of willful agent because purpose is something determined, or deemed. Most popular answers that are given involve the presumption that a caring god exists and has set out a purpose for us. I propose the existence of an agent other than ourselves only as a hypothetical exercise-there is no real evidence that a god exists. My thought process does not include the assumption that the creative agent has a plan for us as individuals. Rather, I imagine that IF a god existed, it would be just as likely that we are something more akin to an art project for him/her/it. Thus, the questions above.
At what point in the life cycle (or entire existence) of a living thing would our hypothetical god say, "It is good"? What would give him/her/it the most pleasure upon looking down on his/her/its creation? Would it be the child playing at the park? The act of reading a book? An orgasm? Feeling and expressing love? Building a pyramid? Writing a symphony? Simply being our most beautiful...like flowers in bloom?
What creatures would represent this hypothetical god's grandest creation, its ultimate goal? We cannot be so vain as to consider ourselves the Earth's most marvelous creatures. Have you watched BBC's Planet Earth series?? And life is continuing to evolve on this planet. Perhaps the best has passed. Or perhaps the grandest has yet to come?
posted by Josh at
9:16 PM
2 Comments:
Very interesting post. For me, the "purpose" of life has always been the journey, not anything specific. Being alive and experiencing life, I think, is the point of it all.
...I've even wondered, as human beings become more overpopulating over the world and resources become more scarce, if it wouldn't behoove us, as a species, to not procreate as much and, if therefore, our genes were modified to have less of an instinct to reproduce, specifically in order to save our species from extinguishing ourselves.
It would be amazing if the entire aim of living things-reproduction-was somehow, in some measure, genetically suppressed to ensure a healthy, smaller population that wouldn't self implode. The general rule in biology is "more is better". More seeds, more eggs, more larvae, whathaveyou. But yeah, reproduction is limited in a variety of ways. Humans tend to have one baby at a time. For some species, procreation isn't possible at certain times of the month or season. Personally, I favor the genetic strategy of humans, whales, and other creatures that have one or a few babies at a time, because greater care can be given to the offspring. Other creatures that have dozens or hundreds or thousands of offspring tend to see their little ones turned into food more often.
Ok, crazy digression. Sorry.
Thanks for the comment, honeypoodumplinghead. I agree that life is about the living of it...the experiencing reality...all that we can wrap our senses and minds around. I look forward to the amazing journey ahead with you as my copilot. (don't worry, no one reads my blog anyway, so its ok to be really corny)
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