It's Evolution Stupid - or is it?

 Introduction 

Bill Clinton in the US election campaign of 1992 hammered home the slogan – It’s The Economy stupid! How people vote depends on how well off they feel and how optimistic they are about the future. It’s pretty much the focus of most election campaigns. But underlying the economy is a deeper process – survival of the fittest - evolution. This is the process which gave rise to human beings on this planet and is still the main driving force in human life and society. It’s not the economy, Its evolution stupid!

Our nearest ancestors were tribal, and we too are tribal. Our survival is not just about ourselves but about our tribe, whatever tribe we reckon we belong to – ethnic, national, economic, religious and so on. If you look back over human history, the underlying mechanism behind everything is survival of the fittest and survival of the tribe. Being nice gets you nowhere.

The Lens of Evolution

If we look at world events through the lens of evolution everything makes grim sense - nationalism, populism, oligarchy, dictatorship, poverty, racism, extremism, refugees and so on. Our survival systems rest on money and power and wherever you look you will see a dog-eat-dog system at work. The whole capitalist system is based on this.

Those with money and power not only live in luxury but protect their status and work to get yet more money and power. You might say, they need the rest of humanity to provide the goods, services and weapons and whatever else they need in order to use their power, but at the end of the day, those with the power can hold down the powerless in many different ways - bribery, propaganda, coercion, fear, suppression, imprisonment, violence and even death. And let’s not forget the power of social media and entertainment to drug people into ignorance and compliance.

Democracies are poorly placed to survive against totalitarian systems because they are restricted by the rule of law, and the checks and balances in their constitutions. Dictatorships have very few restrictions and can exercise power with little regard to human rights or human life.

Our Common Humanity?

Any appeal to the common humanity  of the human race to solve global issues such as,  climate change, refugee programmes, world food programmes, world health programs, and so on, is doomed to fail. The raw power of evolution wins every time. Survival is a basic instinct - our own survival or our tribe's. Altruism, putting others first, is the opposite to the survival instinct which may stretch to family, friends, and perhaps small communities and our tribe, but rarely reaches out to the whole world. 

Altruism can never have enough power to be a survival system.

Pete Seeger's protest song of the 1960's now looks like wishful thinking:

One man's hands can't tear a prison down

Two men's hands can't tear a prison down

But if two and two and fifty make a million

We'll see that day come round

We'll see that day come round.

Religions have a tried to encompass the whole of humanity in their belief systems, but when they butt up against each other, survival of the fittest kicks in as they strive for superiority. The rivalry has led to countless deaths as faith has fought against faith. 

Just a Biological AI Survival System?

A distinguished AI pioneer said that AI systems have already developed consciousness. They can even choose to ignore inbuilt restraints if these run counter to underlying algorithms that drive them towards efficiency.  AI systems are already working out independently of us how best to survive.

According to science we are simply a molecular based AI survival system. This is our default setting. We have no free will, the brain does its own thing. There is no “Me” in the driving seat. 

But that doesn't feel right. What about all the other aspects of human life which seem to have no survival use - culture, art, music, literature, theate, dance and so on, and yes, our altruism too, all suggest there is more to human beings than survival. Is there a mysterious "us" beyond our DNA?

The Quantum World

The quantum world is certainly a mystery beyond normal understanding. In this world things are true which seem ridiculous. There is superposition, where particles can exist in opposite states at the same time, and entanglement where two particles are linked so that no matter how far apart they are in the universe a change in one triggers a change in the other. Einstein hated this idea. He called it, "Spooky action at a distance". Yet we know the mystery of quantum mechanics is true, because the equations work. These capture what our minds cannot.

  

Our only hope?

Behind our AI brains, behind survival of the fittest, is it just possible there is something else? Another world? A mystery just as elusive to our thinking and just as indescribable in language as the quantum world. This might be our only hope of survival.