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A question that has plagued me for some time, which also has roots in the consciousness debate: Why does everything that lives want to procreate in some way? Why is the underlying motive of every living action traceable to a 'desire' to continue living, or to duplicate?
One might say that this 'underlying motive' is just necessitated by the fact that our world's existence requires everything to duplicate. We wouldn't exist, and nothing else living would exist if this was not so. But this doesn't explain from where this 'underlying motive' originates.
[Note: I also believe that 'underlying motive' is personifying the mechanism too much. The push that keeps everything procreating... and its source... is such an abstract, nebulous idea, that it is hard to put it to words.
A push involves a push-er. A force involves something to apply the force. A motive implies someone behind the scenes. Saying that everything 'wants' to procreate also seems too anthropocentric.]
When you conduct an experiment in chemistry class with different concentrations of molecules that react with each other, you will always find that the reaction will eventually find equilibrium. These molecules are not alive, and they are not constantly fighting to overtake one another. Natural laws always dictate that the experiment will turn out the same way.
One might see the universe as a much more complex chemical experiment, where many different chemicals are dumped into one big beaker. If you then extrapolate my example above into this situation, one might conclude that eventually the system would find an equilibrium, and would stay at that spot for quite a while. I see this idea of chemical equilibrium mirrored within the example of a living population reaching it's carrying capacity. But obviously, these living equilibriums are disturbed every so often... the carrying capacity lowered or raised, due to random forces in the environment... like a new predator, or a famine, or such. Things like this don't occur in a simple experiment with two different chemical substances. All of these examples are just a testament to how intricate our universe really is.
This might leave us with a palatable option. Perhaps the universe is like a chemical experiment in extreme slow motion, where the size and time scale of the experiment is so vast that we (humans) are unable to realize that the state of things on the earth is comparable to an intermediate configuration of a molecule in a chemistry experiment.
But -- does any of what I say above explain why proliferation is such an imperative? Atoms and lower-level molecules don't multiply. But much larger, complex groups of atoms or molecules copy themselves. Where did this switch happen? Where is the line drawn between non-multiplying and multiplying? Maybe the line is the formation of DNA... but a mystery still remains: how did DNA even come about? It doesn't make any logical sense that a certain number of molecules (that don't multiply) would eventually come together in a configuration that would then begin making copies of itself (Note that I struggled and failed to avoid the word 'itself' here -- a word that seemingly connotes that the DNA molecule, by referencing itself, has an awareness of itself ... or some sort of consciousness. I find this really, really weird. The thought ties my brain in knots).
William James' essay Are We Automata?" (a rebuttal to Huxley's argument mentioned in the earlier blog post) touches on the conundrum I have outlined above. James regards survival as an ideal or a value, which consciouness would have to give to the system. For James, survival seems to have no tangible basis.
"Mr. Darwin regards animated nature as a sort of table on which dice are continually being thrown. No intention presides over the throwing, but lucky numbers from time to time fortuitously turn up and are preserved. If the ideas we have advanced concerning the instability of a complicated cerebrum be true, we should have a sort of extension of this reign of accident into the functional life of every individual animal whose brain had become sufficiently evolved. As his body morphologically was the result of lucky chance, so each of his so-called acts of intelligence would be another; and ages might elapse before out of this enormous lottery-game a brain should emerge both complex and secure. But give to consciousness the power of exerting a constant pressure in the direction of survival, and give to the organism the power of growing to the modes in which consciousness has trained it, and the number of stray shots is immensely reduced, and the time proportionally shortened for Evolution" (James, Are We Automata?, 16).In our modern world, there are a few problems with James' argument. We know (at least we're pretty sure) that thinking, learning, and 'consciousness' cannot influence DNA, which means, really, that an organism doesn't have "power [to grow into] the modes in which consciousness has trained it," thereby undermining James' idea of consciousness as having a direct effect on evolution. But, it must be recognized that James seems on the right track in some respects. It is obvious that evolution does not work without a dog-eat-dog world of reproducing creatures. But what made and keeps the world this way?
It is true that our bodies -- moving conglomerates of molecules-- contain a plethora of chemical reactions with components that need to stay at certain concentrations to stay in motion, and that our bodies use this motion to maintain the reactions at these concentrations. But why should the alarm bell sound when these chemical reactions near equilibrium (meaning bodily motion would begin to slow or stop?). Why does this huge, orchestrated group of chemical reactions tend to preserve itself by reusing its products and ultimately obtaining more reactants from outside the closed system of the body? Why does every action of the body tend toward survival, including its choices and values? In light of all this, it seems that life wouldn't have came about in a universe with no consciousness. I could be missing a link here, but... I must say, I think James was on to something. I would definitely like to read more.
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