How did we evolve to have values? Are they the derivative of emotions such as love, disgust, anger, sympathy, etc.? If so, why did we evolve to have those emotions? If we did, would other animals also? At the end of the day, where do “moral” come from? If it is genetic, would other animals also evolve to develop the same? Have they?
Almost as a sequel to The Selfish Gene, this book explained that human evolution has not been the subject of natural forces: such as climate changes, food sources, predators, etc. Instead, we evolved by our social behavior among ourselves.
We first evolved by mating choices. In addition to the obvious physical attributes, male needed to make sure the kids were indeed his genetic offspring. This evolved to all those behavior against cuckoldry. Female needs the protection and provision during the kid rearing years. That evolved to select male who loved kids and have strong “family values.” We evolved to love our mates, since those who don’t got bred out eons ago.
Since then, we developed altruism since the sacrifice of an individual help the survival of the community that share some genes. Jared Diamond’s book also explained a similar evolutional force to respect and protect the elder, who are no longer propagating genes. Faced with the disasters that happened at the frequency longer than a life-span, only the old remember how to survive and can save the whole tribe.
For agricultural cultures, such like Chinese, the filial obedience is the key for survival, since land other and critical resources are passed down only to those who do and others got bred out, at least became minority.
At the end, we are simply the vehicle to propagate our genes. But genes are organic and will perish with us. So all we are carrying forward is the encoding information within the genes. Isn’t this deep? We exist to preserve data, really only about 3GByte’s worth.
Imagine that, millions of years of evolution, all for the preservation of information that can easily carried in a small thumb drive.
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