0.1 Introduction to the Theory of Options

0.1.1 How the Debate Started

This book examines an important modern debate, concerning how evolution accounts for human behavior. It approaches the issue, which causes bitter disputes, with a theory that at first appears simple. This is the Theory of Options. It proposes that of all things that humans do, they most try to maximize their options.

So, what is the theory about?

Well, although about evolution, the argument arose from an ancient concern. Since antiquity there has raged a bitter dispute about whether human behavior is fashioned by nurture (upbringing) or nature (biology). Arguments vary, but some thirty years ago the 'nature' side gained fresh impetus from discoveries in genetic theory. This led, among claims, to famed biologist Richard Dawkins stating that organisms were survival machines of their genes, which were the true motivators of behavior. Implications were that humans too must be survival machines, so human behavior was motivated by the gene's desire to propagate.

Still, calling humans survival machines oversimplified the issue, and Dawkins and others faced such strong criticism that they modified their stance. Yet, behavior does arise from biology, and biology is a product of genes. So, if humans are not survival machines, what are they? While some scientists claimed that human behavior was determined by genes, others said that biology sets humans free. Popular views were those of Jacob Bronowski and Carl Sagan (see quotes). Sagan stated explicitly that humans were not trapped into the behavior patterns of genes. To fly humans did not need to evolve wings, but could go from earthbound to landing on the moon within a century by cultural evolution.

A better analogy than Sagan's (Sagan and Bronowski are both dead) concerns body covering. Humans evolved in a period when temperatures were falling, and one way to protect against cold is by growing body fur. Yet during this period humans shed body fur, so why was this? Well, while temperatures fell, they also fluctuated. If humans had other means to keep warm shedding fur offers the most options. If the environment stayed cold humans could wear coverings of fur skinned from animals, but if it warmed again they could abandon the furs and go naked. The detailed reason that humans shed body fur could have been for running in hot climates, yet enhancing options for whatever reason is consistent in human evolution. Other organisms might be survival machines, but evolution seemed to select humans to be an "option-creating" machine, adapted to survive in all environments.

Even so, for a "survival machine", survivors get to reproduce, which is how species modify. So, while a species that hedged options would do well, the modification process must still be explained. Fitness confers not to species, but individuals. This requires explaining how individuals with versatile adaptations were selected ahead of individuals with specialized adaptations. Some mechanisms in human evolution allow for this. One is sexual selection, emphasized by Darwin. Another possible mechanism is a tendency of large groups to split. These then compete group against group. The following chapters discuss how a combination of several mechanisms could result in the options effect.

Even so, explaining how a species can maximize options does not explain other drives, such as for morality. This is controversial because evolutionary theory explains natural behavior that appears moral as just another survival mechanism of individual fitness. However, as opposed to animals, morality often seems against the individual and for the good of the group. The reason again is that maximizing options requires that behavior can be easily changed. Perennial constraints of survival or food cannot be changed easily, but morality, as mental impression or cultural code it is easy to modify. It is like the human skin devoid of fur being the maximum option of available skin coverings, because this includes the option of going naked. Having morality as the primary constraint yields maximum options, because morality is an easy attribute to change, or even abandon. This does not totally explain the advantage of morality, which is further discussed in the book.

Moreover, maximization of any attribute drives to an end condition. The end condition of shedding body fur for a supplemental covering is a skin devoid of natural fur. If biological adaptation is slow, and cultural adaptation is fast, then maximum rate of adaptation is where biological modification becomes unnecessary, and adaptation is cultural. If morality is the easiest constraint to change, the end condition of increasing options is to make the primary constraints moral. It is similar to when mammals entered the sea to become whales and dolphins. They could not reach a stable condition of being 'half-adapted' for sea life. All the mammal species that tried this move either maximally adapted for life in the ocean or perished as unsuccessful intermediate varieties.

If we had visited middle Africa 2.5 myrs ago we would see several hominid sub-species adapting to life on the plains. Yet there cannot exist stable evolution of many partially adapted plain dwellers all competing for shrinking resources. Once one variety obtains a slight advantage it will maximally adapt, and others will be eliminated. Species modify as individuals, but large changes occur when small groups split from parent species. In human evolution many groups split, until one dominant variety (humans) was left. Even then, millions of years previously, other species had maximally adapted to life on the plains, just as over millions of years various species occupied the seas, forests, and mountains, until every niche was filled. Successful hominid species were not maximizing adaptation to the plains, but to change in all environments.

0.1.3 Human Motivation 

Still, the effect of options is not just for evolution, but also human motivation and behavior. Biological theory explains evolution, but this leads to theories that human behavior is a survival mechanism of genes. Yet while some behaviors are genetic, the prime human motive is psychological. Using mechanical forces to explain the human body, but a higher motive to explain behavior began centuries ago. Descartes (1596 -1650) began a philosophy known as dualism. It meant not only studying mind separate from the body, but that the human mind cannot be part of the thing it studies. This "stubborn duality" to human behavior affects all our science, philosophy, and culture, to an extent that some philosophers despair that we might never solve it.

Yet, dualism maximizes the options of acquiring knowledge. Only instead of splitting the mind from the body, nature split the learning of the higher cortex from a more primitive neurology of reflex. One of the few commanding truths known is that to maximize knowledge requires a mind imaginatively free to consider all hypotheses, but at the same time facts must be verified against evidence of the senses. Nature evolved the human functions to maximize learning in the same manner.

Moreover, the debate over human nature has always been that people do not know to which extent behavior is determined by either nature or nurture anyway. What we really need to know though, is which qualities maximize human options, regardless of how the qualities arise. If human motivation comes from the survival needs of genes, not much can follow about how to use this in everyday situations. However, human motivation evolved in response to change, and the deepest human satisfaction comes from a feeling that one can control events. So the human motive that arises from evolution is not merely to survive and procreate. It is to do it in a changing environment, and to do it with more flexibility and options than any species had achieved before.

In Summary… 

Arguments here then, offer an unusual approach to complex issues. For studying the mind, morality, or human nature, science is making progress in detail, but traditional problems of dualism, human purpose, or mind studying mind remain. The suggestion here is to examine the issues not with answers, but a way to ask questions. If we study an attribute of human physiology or behavior and ask 'why did it evolve this way?' we might ask that forever. But if we ask, 'how would evolving this way maximize options?' we see old problems from a fresh perspective.

Finally, the real purpose to knowledge is to increase options. Today humanity, which has overcome many trials, now faces perilous options of its success. Self-knowledge of what we are and how we came to be the species that we are, provides our surest path forward. Here the approach offers its final flexibility. The theory can provide fresh insights into how human behavior evolved, but can also be used to analyze behavior in everyday situations. In business, society, personal relations, and morality, people constantly face change and challenge. We confront our options. This is how our species raised itself.

Confronting the options in life that humans create is the challenge that everyone must face.