4. BELIEF SYSTEMS

Before starting cultural belief systems, I will give a summary of genetic belief systems. These are groups of genetic ideas that tend to stay together. For example, a tree is a collection of cells where the genes of these cells are differentially expressed to form its various parts, such as its roots and leaves. A leaf is a genetic belief system of how to collect light for photosynthesis and a root is a genetic belief system of how to extract water from the soil. All the different parts of the tree need to cooperate to make life possible. The cells of the tree are automatically mutualistic in their relationships as they are all genetically identical. Mutualistic interaction does not imply success in reproduction. A tree with poor genes for photosynthesis will not survive regardless of how well its cells cooperate.

Similarly, with humans, the genetic ideas for making a kidney are a belief system on how to filter the blood and the ideas for a lung are a belief system on how to extract oxygen from the air. Both kidney and lung will vary in efficiency depending on a person’s particular genetic inheritance. The cells of the human body are in a mutualistic relationship. Organisms are therefore a collection of different genetic beliefs systems on how to act in particular environments with the ultimate goal being reproduction.

Also included in genetic belief systems are sets of ideas that cause the production of genetic artifacts. Examples could be bird nests, spider webs, rabbit burrows, and fingernails (made of a single chemical, keratin, not living cells). A fly caught in a spider’s web experiences the genetic ideas of the spider indirectly. A web that cannot hold the insects it ensnares will lead to the spider’s death. Genetic belief systems, whether part of an organism itself, or projected in the form of an artifact, survive differentially and so evolve into new and improved sets of ideas.

Belief systems include the behaviour of organisms. There are nearly always genetic rules to cover mating and, if the animals join in social groups, rules for socialisation. For example, a bird might need to do perfectly some elaborate dance to have any chance of mating. The genetic ideas for dancing are resident in its brain. A male lion will kill the cubs of an earlier male if it has just paired with their mother. With fighting dogs, the one that rolls on its back to expose its vulnerable stomach submits to the other and therefore ends the fight. It is a genetic belief that the winner must not take advantage of its position. Within species, genetic beliefs abound, and those members that do not obey them will reduce their chance of survival and therefore mating.

Animals can project their genetic beliefs onto other animals. A pet dog might be very friendly to children and anything can be done with it. But if given a bone it may run to a shady spot and start gnawing away. Should a child try to remove the bone the dog will now grip the bone tightly and growl. It assumes the child is another type of dog and emphasises to it the genetic rule that the first in the possession of food has the right to keep it. The child understands the language of the growls and stays away. If you like, the dog could be said to be ‘dogomorphising’ (humans are often accused of anthropomorphising when attempting to understand the emotions of animals) its genetic beliefs onto the human. The same genetic belief is known to children who, when given something such as a toy, take it straight away as their own property and may react strongly to any attempt to remove it, even by the person who has just given it to them.

Like genetic belief systems, cultural belief systems come in a number of forms. Languages and customs generally exist in the mind only and are passed from person to person through conversation and demonstration. Other cultural belief systems, while they originate in the mind, express themselves as cultural artifacts such as clothes or houses. Still other belief systems, like laws and morals, are predominately in the mind, but can also be recorded in books.

Cultural artifacts address genetic beliefs. Clothes address the genetic idea of coldness, or in some cases where clothes are worn for their beauty, ideas for attracting a mate. In house design, the door height addresses the physical size of people, windows address the genetic desire to see, roofs address the desire of deflecting rain, and fireplaces address the desire for warmth. All these cultural ideas for house design align with genetic need. Such cultural belief systems are successful in colonising new minds and the end result is that more houses are built and more clothes made.

A car addresses the genetic idea of legs. It allows us to travel further, quicker, and carry more. The car cultural belief system, in turn, consists of many smaller belief systems. For example, a part of a car, a carburettor, is centred on the idea of how to deliver fuel to the engine. Its designer believes it will work and has tested its functioning. Yet some of the original ideas on which the carburettor is built were formed in the minds of people long dead. The current designer just added some improvements. A carburettor that functions poorly will lead to ‘death’ of the old design and its replacement by a new design. A person, ignorant of a car’s mechanism, may have no idea of how this device works yet still experiences carburettor ideas indirectly as the car is driven, just as a fly caught in a spider’s web experiences the genetic ideas of the spider indirectly as it struggles to release itself. The car ideas are mutualistic with each other but this does not necessarily imply that the car works well or will not break down.

Other important inherited genetic beliefs are curiosity and the desire for hunting. Curiosity in primitive times would have caused the exploration of our environment in order to find new escape routes from predators, new ways to catch food and sheltered places for sleep. Curiosity is necessary for hunting. A spear is a product of curiosity and trial and error. It improved hunting and was useful in attacking other villages as well as defence from attack by others. A fighter jet is a more elaborate spear for more elaborate conflicts.

Some genetic ideas are difficult to address in our modern world except through cultural redirection. A genetic desire to hunt is redirected (as few animals are available for hunting today) to things like sports fishing, where the fish is released after capture for someone else to catch. A football game is redirected hunting where a ball is sought on a field, rather than an animal being sought in a forest. In both cases no food is gained by the effort. As the genetic desire for hunting is more prevalent amongst males, they dominate the physical sports.

Genetic curiosity and genetic hunting can also be redirected in games such as chess. Here the new layout of each position is a new landscape in which to hunt a solution. We are curious about each position from where an attack must be launched or escape routes found. In chess, hunting and curiosity are redirected for the sake of a hormonal wash alone, not usually for any material gain. The chase for a new idea gives sufficient pleasure with happiness resulting from a brilliant move. The game, a cultural belief system, addresses genetic need.

Science is the systematic exercise of curiosity and has led to the production of a host of artifacts that have improved living conditions and so has generally increased happiness. This advance was only possible in the first place due to the development of the brain and the voice box which allowed detailed communication. A further advantage was having flexible hands through which books could be made and through which ideas could be transferred indirectly to other people, including from anonymous persons and those long dead (something that animals possibly of similar intelligence, such as whales, could never do in their watery environment). This passing of cultural belief systems has become critical to modern societies and children are made to spend, sometimes against their will, long periods at schools to absorb them.

One can see from the examples above that genetic and cultural ideas are intricately linked. One important example is the idea of genetic opportunism, where, when expressed unrestrained has been labelled the ‘law of the jungle’. The rest of the chapter will be spent on this idea which will be central to the development of a morality for evolution later.

If we see a lion charge a cheetah and take the prey that it has just caught, we don’t think that the lion has acted badly. The cheetah, in turn, is upset at having its food stolen, but it too would probably think the lion has acted according to its habit. Indeed, it even expects to be chased from its food if discovered by a lion. Wild animals expect each other to behave opportunistically; that is, apply the genetic rule that strength and cunning should prevail. The lion’s actions are directed by its genes, particularly those for hunger and aggression. From a genetic eye-view it did well to obtain food without effort and so maximise its hormonal wash.

The same was true of early humans. The law-of-the-jungle genetic ideas prevailed and the strong, the cunning and the lucky had the greatest success. In primitive times, opportunism was the order of the day when dealing with unknown people. Genetic knowledge for lying, stealing, murder and rape could express itself where retaliation was unlikely. In humans, the law-of-the-jungle ideas did not apply to genetic mutualisms. A mother did not steal from her children rather, if possible, she would steal for her children. The first groups of humans were probably small with most related, and so the rules of interaction were covered by genetic mutualisms. Such is the case for the modern family where the genetic bonds between members can be very strong.

The next stage in the modification of law-of-the-jungle ideas was in the formation of cultural mutualisms. Unrelated people in the village could help each other on the understanding that this help may be returned at some other time. Such mutualisms encouraged reciprocal obligation (Axelrod, 1984). Within the village there would be an occasional conflict but this could be controlled by a headman or a group of elders. Should the village itself come under attack, the whole would act as one to repel the attackers. The village would survive or fail depending on its actions. Early village life was often tenuous and being conquered meant death or slavery (DuChallieu 1861, Ward 1910, Weeks 1913). Cooperation in the form of cultural mutualisms increased a village’s chance of survival.

One village raiding another was opportunism at the level of the village. Ancient armies, such as those of Alexander the Great, took it for granted that as conquerors they had the right to put anyone to the sword, take women for their own use, plunder a town and burn the remainder. With cultural ideas still in their infancy, genetic ideas dominated the struggles for prominence in people’s minds.

These genetic rules for opportunism are as strong today as they were in our past. Children are born with law-of-the-jungle genetic ideas and the strength of these ideas will vary from child to child, just as they vary in all their other talents. Today’s cultural laws attempt to control people who have been unable to rein in their excess opportunism through fines and imprisonment. A child must learn the cultural laws of the day in order to get the support and protection of the society in which it lives. It is obliged to accept not just these morals and laws but also the society’s language, customs and religion. It often has little choice in this, as this cultural knowledge is the only knowledge to which it is exposed. As the child grows, new ideas will be taken into its mind. The child learns that skipping school or cheating in exams brings a rebuke. The growing child is censured by the society for errant behaviour; behaviour different from that set out by the society’s rules, although often behaviour normal in earlier primitive times. People who inherit strong opportunism but absorb few cultural ideas to control this opportunism may make their way into the jail system.

For the male soldier, raiding, killing and raping are, from his genetic eye-view, good things to do. He might have a wife at home to whom he will return, but even so, it is in his genetic interest to produce extra children on the side. His genes would increase their chance of replication by such an action. Therefore we could expect genes for rape and pillage to have evolved and no doubt they still exist in modern humans. There were countless examples of rape in the Second World War, more recently in the ethnic wars of the former Yugoslavia, and still ongoing is the ethnic cleansing of Sudan. Where a woman has no defence and where a soldier knows that there is no retaliation in the chaos of war, rape is commonplace. Pillage, or looting, was at times, the sole object of wandering armies who relied on what they stole for survival. I am sure that in some periods of human history, those who behaved opportunistically gained more resources and left more offspring behind.

In contrast, a person can be rewarded for a courageous deed in wartime or a life of charity work by fame, money or medals. All these sorts of selfless acts are highly regarded by societies. By punishment and reward, the laws of a society are maintained and opportunistic genetic ideas reined in. The earlier law-of-the-jungle genetic ideas have been overridden by cultural belief systems and so a person’s behaviour is now modified.

Laws are belief systems that promote cultural mutualisms between a person and the resident society and they are needed for these societies to function. If laws are made through a common consensus, they should be beneficial to most individuals. If a law such as ‘do not steal’ is accepted by the majority, people can follow the genetic idea of accumulating materials (a idea against hard times) with a reduced risk of their materials being stolen. If a law of ‘do not rape’ is accepted, women will feel greater freedom in their contact with men. Laws are also needed for driving a car, for controlling dishonesty in the real estate industry, misrepresentation in most forms of advertising, and so on. Laws allow people to get a measure of the society in which they live, and adjust their behaviour accordingly.

In a democracy a law is made by common consensus and is an agreement between people on how to act. By obeying laws happiness should be maximised. But this is too idealistic as it is rare that laws are made by common consensus. In general, a panel of lawmakers will enact laws, the ideas for which are the outcome of the struggle of cultural and genetic ideas within their own minds, not the minds of all the people who must obey the law. In many cases these interests will coincide, but not always. Ideas compete in a number of minds through the medium of conversation, that is, through discussion. The people making the laws are likely to be those with the greatest ability for thrusting themselves forward in society and the laws they enact will generally align with their own interests. Their interest is, of course, to maximise their own happiness, rather than the happiness of the average person. Corruption occurs when the decisions that are made are not in the best interest of the body of people that the panel, committee, or political body, represents.

Yet the laws made cannot be too inequitable or else the average person may revolt by withdrawing labour through a strike, or there may be general unrest, rebellions or even revolutions. People can also protest the laws by migrating; for example, many of the Protestant Huguenots migrated to escape Catholic persecution. Laws made by political parties can have the objective of solidifying their grip over a country. This may involve laws for the repression of minority groups, laws that prevent an opposition political party from becoming established, or laws that ban marches and suppress free speech. If a country is run by a small number of elite families who own nearly all the property, and the military enforces the decisions of these families, the laws made will be such as to continue the existing inequality of wealth and power. Ideas need only reach prominence in the minds of the elite families. A dictator, such as Stalin, whose genetic opportunism extended to cruelty and revenge, could make laws that need only reach prominence in his own mind and so maximise his own personal hormonal wash. Anyone objecting to his rule could not escape as the borders were sealed.

Generally, despite any bias in laws, on average, the increase in cultural belief systems (the laws made, the artifacts constructed, the medical research carried out, and so on) has helped people to live longer and more comfortably, thereby increasing their chance of survival and so reproduction. Evidence for this is the large increase of population in the last few hundred years.