Background to the Theory of Options

"Some problems continue to baffle the modern mind… People have thought about these problems for millennia but have made no progress solving them".

Thus, wrote Steven Pinker in the final chapter of his excellent book, How the Mind Works. If anything, lack of a theory of human uniqueness is a paradox of the human condition. There are many inspirational views of human nature, and theories of how humans are motivated. Plus there is a theory that humans evolved, like other organisms, by favored individuals passing on more DNA than less fit rivals. Even so, knowing how humans evolved only deepens the enigma, because human behavior often seems to lack a deep genetic motive. Or while some drives are genetic, much of human behavior can be explained by other principles, based on culture or psychology. For this reason a theory reconciling how humans evolved with how they behave has not been possible.

This book offers a new approach, called the Theory of Options, that might provide some unifying insights.

So, what is the Theory of Options?

Well, one difficulty of this topic is that there is no current theory of human behavior that will easily integrate with current models of human evolution. So the new concept begins from original theories of both human behavior and evolution, that will better work together.

The first theory concerns behavior. It is based on a principle that as individuals, humans feel motivated to maximize options in life. Broadly, when facing complex situations, humans try to evaluate their options, and enact actions that will maximize options for future behavior, from that point forward. Of course, part of the theory is that not all humans learn to maximize options. Personal failure or social frustration restricts options, so conflicts arise. The theory is then extended as a method for handling conflicts, by uncovering the sources of frustration. Once the problems are known, it is possible to find viable options that an individual, or a group, could enact from that point forward.

This way, the idea of maximizing options is not just a description of behavior, but is intended as a workable theory. This is one of the debates. Often people insist that a theory of behavior is correct because it is based on evolution. Except people mostly get evolutionary theory wrong, plus human behavior is so varied that it ends up being whatever people do. So any theory of behavior needs to be correct in its own terms. If humans truly feel motivated to maximize options, a priest should be able to counsel an individual on how to increase options in life, even if neither person believes in evolution.

Ultimately though, the argument comes back to evolution, and this leads to the second theory. It is true that populations modify by favored individuals passing on DNA, but this only explains the mechanisms of how populations modify, not why they do. Processes of selection and adaptation apply to all populations, but other factors will cause one population to evolve into butterflies, and another into polar bears. In the new theory we will call the factors constraining a population to evolve in a particular direction a fitness pathway. Humans say, evolved along a pathway maximizing adaptation to bipedal life on the plains of Africa. And although they do not call it that, researchers such as Steven Pinker effectively use a ‘plains of Africa’ or ‘hunter and forager’ pathway, as their model of human evolution.

The problem with this local pathway model is that though humans evolved for life in Africa, they were able with little modification to also live in mountains or the Arctic. Plus humans whose ancestors evolved for primitive life, within a short time developed art, poetry, and culture. The same minds that evolved to be good hunters and foragers, also mastered string theory. The same hands that evolved to pick berries were delicate enough to perform brain surgery. So, the pathway along which humans evolved seemed to adapt them for more than just the local conditions of struggle, and we need to discover what that pathway was.

After testing many pathways to account for human peculiarity, we arrive at an unusual principle. Humans appeared to evolve along a fitness pathway that maximized the options of behavior for the least cost to adapt. We think of evolution as species ‘striving’ towards a goal. Yet adaptation is always along an available pathway, and change incurs costs. For humans each attribute that changed, whether the body covering, hand, or posture, was fit if it gained the maximum flexibility of behavior, for the minimum cost to evolve. The human male say, grows a beard. It is not clear why growing a beard optimizes the options of behavior for a cost to evolve, so cases like this challenge the new theory to explain them. But there are other conundrums of human evolution, such as why the brain is so large, or the hand so delicate, or why it was fit to have morals. When we examine these conundrums the new model can provide fresh insights, often with amazing clarification.

Plus, from a principle that humans evolved to maximize the options of behavior, it is easier to derive a theory of modern behavior. A thesis about how in business or politics one can maximize the spread of one’s DNA does not make sense. Yet, people strive to maximize their options. Leaders in a crisis state that they will keep their options open. People trapped in awkward situations will examine "other options". One great challenge to any theory is explaining suicide, but people commit suicide when all the normal options in life are closed off. In prehistory the DNA of individuals born with flexible attributes of behavior spread. So, it is the consequence of events in prehistory, not direct events themselves, that we confront in modern human behavior.

From carefully working through these theories, testing each idea, the Theory of Options can finally explain not just how human behavior evolved, but why deep needs such as morals or religious feelings arise. (Of course, everybody claims to explain this, but nobody has successfully explained why moral or religious feelings have arisen in 2,000 years of secular debate!) Still, none of this is easy to explain in any theory. So critics are certainly challenged to produce alternative explanations that are evolutionary in context, but account for human behavior in everyday terms. Hopefully though, as the debate progresses, people who failed to agree about human behavior before might find that the new ideas are not so unfamiliar. They allow that genes and evolution do shape behavior, in testable ways. But they allow that humans have viable options too, which can be achieved through self-directed effort.

Even so, there is one further challenge to formulating any model of how human behavior evolved, concerning evolutionary theory itself. The standard theory is that genes are selfish and manipulative, which is how they spread. Nobody suggests that genes are this way with intent, but humans need a measure of how organisms adapt, and the spread of DNA provides this. If we sight a male bird feeding ten hatchlings, he looks like a fit parent. Yet, if we measure the DNA and discover that the hatchlings are not his, another male is fitter biologically, and DNA of the rival will spread. The fact that species such as birds modify behavior by such mechanisms causes a dilemma explaining human behavior. One can certainly explain human behavior by psychological or ethical principles, but how does one explain it in terms of the real mechanisms by which individuals are fit, and DNA spreads?

Well, in the following chapters, evolution of each human attribute, including the large brain, emotions, or morals, is explained as individual fitness, or by acceptable mechanisms. If anything, the Theory of Options works so well explaining human evolution we are challenged to question why. One startling suggestion of this book, and critics are encouraged to dispute it, is that orthodox theory is itself not quite correct! It is all very well saying that DNA is selfish, but this theory is not consistent. There are anomalies in it, such as why sex evolved (only 50% of an individual’s DNA is passed on), why renegade DNA cannot spread as fast as the calculations show, or why steady change in DNA produces a punctuated pattern of how life evolves. These difficulties require patches to orthodox theory, such that genes can also be cooperative or even 'parliamentary', or other ad hoc explanations.

This book then, uses a more consistent model of DNA selfishness, that correlates with the idea of a fitness pathway. If DNA truly did try to replicate its copies selfishly, then it would attempt not only to copy in great numbers, but keep the copies exact over time. Again, genes do not try with intent, but some genes are forced to alter less over time to adapt to a variety of organisms. If anything, as life evolves core genes become perfected at expressing new organisms for little change to themselves. Evolution from first the cell into more advanced cell types required most genes in primitive genomes to change, which took billions of years. Yet, humans evolved in five million years, because a mere 1-2% of genes in hominids had to change. This tendency of genes to allow rapid evolution in certain directions results in genetic fitness pathways, in addition to environmental ones. Only again, while it is easy to say this in words, to write it as an equation will require unfamiliar concepts. The issues are discussed, briefly, in the section on evolution. A slightly different model of evolution over large scales is also proposed, with some equations, but the argument is very contentious.

These then, are some of the many controversies that the new theory faces. On one hand, it is a theory that uses an unfamiliar model of DNA selfishness. On the other, it is a theory about how ordinary humans think, feel, and behave every day, by common observation. It is a theory that explains how the mind works and the brain evolved, in ways that can be tested. It offers a plausible theory of morality, explaining the problem clearly, perhaps the first time ever in secular terms. Plus the theory can also be used as a hypothesis of how humans evolved, and not just how behavior evolved, but how the hand, face, or posture evolved. Yet despite its evolutionary underpinnings, the new concepts will work as general psychology, without any reference to evolution.

Finally, the new theory teaches that knowledge increases options. The more that we know about a thing, including our own human nature, the more clearly each of us can delineate the real choices in life, that humans have the options to make.

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