Martian Terrain

My gut has always told me that my gut drives my behaviour more than my self-important cerebral cortex would like to admit.

It’s a brain-gut argument that bubbles in me from time to time. Usually it happens when I have tied myself into a knot of reason about some or other dilemma, only to end up doing what my instinct had been trying to tell me (through the jackhammer rattle of reason spewing from my brain) to do all the time. For some reason, reason needs to rationalise the things it’s going to end up doing anyway.

My mind and my gut may as well be husband and wife.

Speaking of which, sexual relations are among the human behaviours whose genetic, evolutionary roots are the topic of a fascinating article in the Christmas edition of the Economist.

One of the most intriguing parts of the article concerns the phenomenon of self-sacrifice. Humans sacrifice their own lives not only to save members of their own family, but also to protect their friends, a behaviour which should have no evolutionary benefits. The saviour’s subconscious assumption must be that the saved will protect his off-spring in return. But how can the saviour be sure of it? He can’t, and this is the evolutionary reason why human societies value trust so much.

Without the ability to trust our friends, we would not be able to rely on them to look after our brood if were to die fighting off the grizzly bear. Or, to extend the Economist’s argument liberally, fighting off the invading barbarians, or the Romans, or the terrorists, or (for the benefit of even-handedness, or gratuitous controversy, take your pick) the American army. Without the ability to trust beyond our family, there would be no self-sacrifice, and perhaps then there would be no armies. Without armies, wars might begin with two competing alpha males, and end with one.

Luckily, it’s more complicated than that. Or at least I hope it is. Because my gut is telling me that trust is good and can’t possibly be a necessary condition for war. My brain, on the other hand, suspects that my gut is programmed to send me to the nearest conscription tent, and cannot, therefore, be trusted.

# posted by Adrian @ 3:04 PM