FREE WILL

There is no denying that we as humans are far different from our closest animal relatives. Bearing testimony to this is the fact that I am sitting upright and using my dexterity to type out sentences which will reach (potentially) thousands of my kind across the globe within seconds. We think and hence we are. But is that all? Can all the ways in which we differ from the rest of the animal kingdom be attributed to our higher cognitive powers? I believe we are different less because we think, and more because we choose to bend some laws of evolution. By exercising free will to guide our lives to a goal not shared by our selfish genes, we seem to have broken out of a cycle of existence which governs all other living things.

The proponent of the selfish gene theory, Dr Richard Dawkins, now made famous by his foray into the world of religion (unfortunately) is an extraordinary scientist. In an age when the boom in scientific output was fast making it impossible to come up with novel theories of the same scale as Darwinian philosophy, Dawkins postulated a simple theory based on intuitive deduction instead of experimentation. He succeeded in making scientists look up from their reductionist persuasions and take notice of evidence from millions of years, left un-interpreted. The beauty of the selfish gene theory lies in its elegance. All of us at some level can comprehend that animals are nothing but vehicles for something more lasting, more resilient. Religion often turns to the concept of a soul, to try to explain the seemingly futile nature of our brief existence. Dawkins chose to attribute it to the more tangible units of heredity, genes. Our bodies are nothing but brief rearrangements of entropy instructed into existence by our genes. Thus, our genes achieve immortality while we as merely their vehicles allow them to stay ‘alive’. And as all things that form and hence must perish, we spend our entire lives making sure that the genes we bear are passed on.

This theory becomes easier to accept when you summon examples from the wild. A salmon swimming upstream against all odds to find a mate and die immediately after mating is an extreme example. Here, the direct correlation between reproduction and mortality makes it an atypical example. We as humans can not accept it as something that is applicable to all living things. An example closer to home is that of ageing. All living things age. We do so because we spend our resources into maintaining ‘youth’ in our reproductively active years. Once we are no longer capable of multiplying, our bodies start to accumulate damage. Our job’s been done and we must make way for better mating machines. Disturbing as that sounds, we do not have much trouble accepting it as truth. To sum up, the selfish gene theory dictates that consciously or otherwise, all living things live to mate. In short, life is procreation.

But do humans follow all the precepts of this brilliant theory? What was the last time you measured the success of a friend in the number of children he/she had? In our formative years, we put ourselves through struggles to make something of ourselves. Do you know anyone who, after their first child was born, threw in the towel and decided, if they died the next day, they would die happy? One can imagine our previous generations resting on their laurels after starting a family. But it is fast becoming insufficient for humans to subject to the will of their genes. We choose to carve our lives independent of the bounds of heredity. We choose and hence we are.