Ragged Trousered Philosopher

Possibly - but try this.

First off, if you're going to attempt to describe all behaviour, on a Universal basis, the first thing you have to do is to define Life (that which does the behaving) in a way that is true throughout the Universe. On the face of it, that is no easier than the original task, the theory of behaviour. However, not only does it turn out to be relatively simple, it turns out to contain the answer or core of the theory itself. Mind you, if you ask the question "What is Life?" in a Google search you turn up tens of thousands of different and conflicting answers.

Think about it. We can't define Life in merely Terran terms. The common denominator on this planet is the chemical combinations of Carbon, Hydrogen and Nitrogen. The enormous range of possible variants arises from the ability of a single Carbon atom to form links with up to four other atoms. This is not a unique property however, as Silicon can do the same trick under the right conditions. Indeed at least one science fiction writer has generated a fictional biosphere favourable to Silicon life-forms The usual model requires a high temperature planet with a high pressure atmosphere containing Fluorine instead of Oxygen, although Venus' molten lead atmospheric temperatures has also been mentioned as a possible habitat suited to Silicon life. Certainly Silicon life would last longer in the heat that Carbon.

In any case, we can't stop there. OK, we can only imagine life having the necessary chemical diversity using Carbon or Silicon. That just reveals the limit to our imagination. Lets see. What does Life require to qualify as alive?

Well, it needs to be able to replicate itself.

Really? Why could we not have an "ad hoc" life form? One that is created by whatever means, lives its life and dies. End of story. No descendants. Not even unusual. Many animals are born without the ability to reproduce, including some unfortunate humans. Some might argue that a species that cannot reproduce is an "unsuccessful" life form by virtue of that failure, but frankly that's a mere value judgement. We think it "good" to reproduce, so a species which can't is a failure. Shortsighted. Apart from anything, we didn't specify how long it lives. Suppose its lifespan is measured in billions or trillions of years. Makes it a damn sight more "successful" than we currently look likely to be, wouldn't you say?! And furthermore, although it is unlikely that we currently have such an ad hoc form, either long or short lived (although what about that tree they discovered in Australia - originally reckoned to be 43,000 years old(!) though that seems to have been pegged back to a "mere" 10,500), on this planet, it is almost inevitable that in the early primeval soup we had millions of them, trying to make the leap from long chain amino acids to self replicating DNA or something similar. Most, of course, failed. But during their brief span, they "lived".

Hang on a minute. What does that mean - "they lived". How does a non-replicating collection of organic molecules possibly qualify as alive? Come to that, what's so all fired important about replication anyway? Viruses replicate and are complex organic molecules which contain some very advanced versions of DNA, yet there is still no clear view as to whether they can be thought of as "alive". Their replication may be no more animate than the replication of non-organic crystals such as common salt or copper sulphate.

Alright then, what else do live things do which separate them from inanimate objects?

Hows about "they use energy"?

So do some chemical reactions.

Yes, but the difference with life is that it uses energy "deliberately", it seeks it out or has evolved to fill niches where energy is abundant so it can just sit there and lap it up.

Hmmm. Not bad... but consider the case for stars as a form of life (and if you examine the life-cycle of a star; the way it emerges from primeval gas clouds, condenses (germinates?) grows, respires {inspires one gas, converts it, expires another} gets old, dies, returning its "nutrients" to the cosmic pool - it aint that far fetched) - they are born with all their energy internal to them. Definitely energy givers rather than takers.

Yes and isn't that a bit like a seed, or an egg?

...and so on and so on.

We're not trying to make a serious case for considering stars as 'alive'. It is merely the case that the concept of 'life' is genuinely so vague that it is possible to imagine that they are. Wherever we look we can find analogies, features which appear to be common and almost unique to life but nothing - apparently - which defines it. Surely it must do something which marks it uniquely as being alive!

Thats it of course!

Er..what is?

You're not going to like this.

Try me.

The kneejerk response to this idea is that its plain daft. The answer doesn't solve the problem in a biological sense - only in a purely logical sense. It is literally the semantic definition of Life!

Will you cut the crap and tell us the answer!

It lives!

Wot?

Life ... Lives. That it must do or it doesn't fit our linguistic concept of being alive.

Thats it is it? Amazing! The Key to the Theory of Behaviour is it? I'm not impressed. Thats not a definition - its a tautology.

Ah, that's not a problem. ALL definitions are tautologies; Bear with us for a few moments at least.

Lets take another look at our simple arithmetic definitions: "2+2=4" is a tautology. All it establishes is that "2+2" means "4". So a definition being a tautology is nothing new. If you want to get deeply into that sort of discussion, (which is fundamental to the First Question rather than this, the Third) then go read Wittgenstein, Ayer, Russell and others who do it much better.

The point of using tautology in definition is that, hopefully, it illuminates. If you don't understand, for instance, the concept of number represented by the symbol "4", but you do understand the symbols "2", "+" and "=", then the tautology "2+2=4" helps you understand the meaning of "4". The question is, does the tautology "Life Lives" illuminate our understanding of "Life"? We will try to show that it does so - quite profoundly.

First off, it is quite permissible in tautologies to meddle with either side of the equation providing the tautology remains true. In our numeric example, it would, for instance, be equally permissible to use the expression "3+1" or "9-5" or "-3+7" (etc) to define "4". They are all equivalent. Leaving aside the psychological objection that someone who doesn't understand "4" is unlikely to understand "9" or "-3" and so on, the use of various different but equivalent tautologies actually serves to deepen understanding. If, for example, (assuming you're an English speaker) you don't speak French or German and we then helpfully define the German word "Kartoffel" as equivalent to the French "Pomme de Terre" its not much help to you. But if we then throw in the English equivalent "Potato" you not only understand the German word, but also the French.

What is the relevance of that little digression? It sets the scene for the ways in which we are now about to manipulate our simple - and at first glance useless - tautology about "Life".

To begin with the word "Life" is a noun. "Lives" is a verb. We wish to keep the noun but change the verb. "Life" is doing something. What? What else can stand in place of "Lives"? We offer "Survives". Not apparently a major step forward we agree. However, the only logical objection one can see to the substitution is the same objection we could raise to "Lives"; viz that "Life" doesn't always "survive". It doesn't always "Live" either. (It often dies.) So we have spotted a weakness in the definition. More accurately, we should say that to qualify as "Life" an object must "Live" or "Survive" for at least a finite time. But how can we differentiate between, say, a bacterium, which may flicker in and out of existence in a few seconds and a sub atomic particle generated in an accelerator with a half life of the same order?

The answer lies in what the two objects do during their fleeting existence. The particle will do nothing other than continue with the same momentum it was born with until it decays or collides with another particle. Conversely, the bacterium will do something whose sole intention is to maintain its living status.

Now then, we've already accepted that Living things often don't go on living. Indeed, in our experience, they always eventually stop (with the possible exception of amoeba or some other immortal microbe, or possibly, even, that 10,500 year old tree - but lets not complicate the issue for now). The point is that failure to continue to live does not disqualify an object from having once met the criteria for "Life". Or, if you like, when we die, it remains true that, albeit for an all too brief period, we had been part of "Life". That accords with common sense (as we've said before - always a good test in philosophy) to the extent of sounding like an SBO . More usefully, though, what qualifies something as "Life" is that it does/did something, the purpose of which is/was to keep it alive. It may have been feeding, reproducing, moving out of danger, moving towards food, respiring, converting food to energy... Whatever.

So our tautology can now be written as "Life is that which does/did something in order to Survive". (And "Survive" means, quite specifically in this context, "continue to live"). The something can be anything; and it may or may not succeed. Its the doing, the attempt at survival which defines Life. Think about that. We think you'll agree that, again, it accords with common sense. If you found something - anything - doing nothing to maintain its existence, then we put it to you that you have found an object which is either no longer alive or never has been.

Yes, but where does that get us. An intuitive leap. At least that's what happened to the author; though we hope we can trace the steps and justify it logically after the event. Essentially it suddenly became clear that not only must Life be constantly doing something intended to maintain survival, but that Everything Life Does Is Intended To Help It Survive. And That is the key to Behaviour. All Behaviour is simply part of Life's attempt to go on living!

Now steady on old chap. Bit sweeping isn't it. And I can immediately think of several examples of behaviour which certainly don't promote survival! What about lemmings for starters?

But we've already seen that Life's attempts don't always succeed! That, in our experience they ultimately all fail, so merely finding an example of behaviour which fails prematurely doesn't contradict the conclusion. What you would have to argue is that the lemmings behaviour is intended to prevent its survival (rather than merely that it has that effect). That is not at all clear. Indeed, as this helpful Yahoo Answer reveals, there is, in fact, no scientific evidence to suggest that Lemmings do have suicidal tendencies in the first place. It is possible that some die accidentally by falling off cliffs in unfamiliar foraging areas following one of their periodic population explosions, or that some have drowned trying to follow an old migration route that now lies underwater.

Either of these explanations would be consistent with the theory of behaviour. What really takes some examination is its application to the human condition. It is that analysis which convinces us that we have discovered a theory which will explain behaviour throughout the Universe. Indeed, should we ever meet any, it will help enormously in understanding alien behaviour patterns if we start from the assumption that, like us, everything they do is part of their attempt to survive. Their successes and failures will inform us about their perceptions of the universe in quite profound ways.

So, does human behaviour fit the theory? Can we really say that everything human beings do is part of an attempt to survive?

We suspect that animal behaviourists will be least surprised by this notion. They are well used to explaining everything in animal behaviour in terms of evolved survival benefits. Such academics are also well used to the concept that humans are a full member of the animal kingdom. Yet for many others, for some reason, the concept that all human behaviour is governed by the same simple drives is difficult to swallow. Our view is that this is simply an ego problem. We like to believe that we are separate both in principle and degree from the animal kingdom. We are special. Our actions are far more complex than those of the amoeba or the gorilla. We have, for example, Free Will. Surely, that can't possibly be explained by the same simplistic theory which applies to the "lower" orders - that is assuming we accept that such an explanation can apply to them.

If you are one of those who instantly agree with the proposition, then bear with us while we labour the point for those who need persuading. It has two consequences which are worth sticking around for. First it gives a new basis for the science of Psychology. Second, it provides the basis for a "value free" code of behaviour - which is really the whole point of this exercise.

Where shall we begin? When we discuss this theory (with partly pissed people at parties - you know the scene) they usually dive in at Suicide. This is fair. It is the most obvious apparent contradiction. One should never evade the question, but, if you don't mind (well whether you mind or not really) we're going to build up to that one by laying down some easier to swallow examples. First, though, lets establish a few terms and conditions.

Some things we are NOT saying. Although we perceive all behaviour as simple pursuit of survival, in the normal course of events, thoughts of survival are rarely conscious. You do not think, whilst you are munching your way through a Steak/Burger/Chicken Dhansak, "if it wasn't for this food I wouldn't live much longer". Yet obviously it is true in some sense.

Instead, as many others have noted over the centuries, human thoughts centre on two more immediately apparent drives; the Pursuit of Pleasure and Escape from Pain.

You will see quite quickly that all human behaviour consists of one or other or a mixture of both. But before that we ought to agree whether or not these two drives constitute basic survival behaviour. Escape from Pain, surely is a pretty obvious one. Pain is a warning that your well-being is in danger so it obviously pays to avoid it.

Pleasure might not be so obvious. Sex is, of course. If we didn't enjoy sex, we wouldn't do it, so the race would die out. But why should, say, listening to music, enhance our survival? Our conjecture is relatively simple. With Brains as complex as ours - which increasingly spend large amounts of time underemployed (as it becomes easier - at least in the affluent West - to eke out a living) - if we didn't have a means of literally "entertaining" those Brains and creating pleasure, they are intelligent enough to conclude - fairly speedily - that there was little "point" in staying alive, particularly once you've performed your biological task of reproduction and passed on your genes and the kids are grown up. In other words, our ability to experience pleasure is nature's "bribe" to persuade us to continue to exist for as long as possible. One can see that as the natural balance to the Pain programming. Nothing mystical required here. The 'Selfish Gene' has a vested interest in a healthy, happy and reasonably long lived population to increase the chances of its own survival and propagation. Presumably a population that 'enjoys' living is even more likely to breed.

Another thing we haven't said is that each individual will strive for his or her survival exclusively. Ants quite readily die for the group and it is not at all difficult to accept that millions of human beings have been prepared to do the same. Dying for the benefit of the race is one of the higher forms of survival behaviour (we speak here in an arithmetic rather than "moral" sense) in that it is intended to promote a greater degree of survival than mere individual self interest. Note, it does not matter whether attempts to die for the race/group actually have the desired effect. All we are concerned about is pure psychology - what makes people tick. For that you only need to understand what they "believed" they were trying to achieve rather than what actually happened.

Following that, the point which needs to be emphasised is that as well as frequently miscalculating the outcome, the actual analysis is often incredibly suspect. The difference we are trying to point out here might be seen on the one hand with the soldier who gives his life for his country only to be let down because they lose the war. That is miscalculating the outcome. On the other hand, consider the Jehova's Witness who won't let his dying wife have a blood transfusion because its against their religious rules. Now his argument, of course, would be that his action does enhance her survival by ensuring her an eternal place in the hereafter. We see that as a very suspect analysis!

So, in other words, we are not saying that conscious or unconscious survival decisions are either correct or sensible - merely that they are an attempt at surviving and, like all our attempts (to date at any rate) they will fail, eventually. Now lets look at some cases. Lets go back to the Chicken Dhansak. What are we doing in that situation? Well, if we're hungry, then we are escaping from pain. In which case, why go to all the extra trouble of preparing a complex feast? (its the fresh coriander, you know; you just can't get it half the time) Why don't we just grab a bowl of gruel? Because we are also pursuing pleasure and, in this part of the world, its a luxury we can afford.

What about the smoker? Well again, s/he's often doing both. Escaping from the pain of stress, perhaps, or maybe just nicotine withdrawal symptoms. And pursuing the all too fleeting pleasure of the morning "rush" as the nicotine first hits the blood stream. Yes, but these people are killing themselves AND they often KNOW it. How can that be survival behaviour? What they are doing is making a conscious choice in favour of reasonably certain short term advantages (those we've outlined) against the risk of a not quite so certain long term disadvantage. That only looks irrational if you assess the risk as significantly high. At worst, however, they are merely an example of suspect analysis, not a contradiction.

That argument obviously covers the harm caused by overindulgence in harmful drugs or other addictive behaviour. Indeed, as soon as any mood changing influence is involved, it becomes perfectly sensible to expect bad analysis.

All right, what about Hitler and the extermination of 6 million Jews. Obviously one of history's worst analyses. Nevertheless, there is little doubt that the dictator and his followers believed that what he was doing was for the benefit not just of his German tribe but of the Human race. You don't need to agree with or condone such a warped view in order to understand it. Nor indeed do we need to fall back on our observation in chapter 5 that the effect of Nazism has probably been the exact opposite of what was intended, viz the improved security and long term enhanced survival of the Jews. That certainly was not the intention. The murderous intent was straightforward genocide. The 'justification' was the perceived benefit to the rest of our species. That perception was wrong, or even insane. Nevertheless, the behaviour - which is what we're trying to understand here - was consistent with that perception.

And that worst case speaks for all wars. The idiots who send men into battle sincerely believe that they are promoting our survival. (and you can't just blame them - we often elect them in the first place) And don't assume this is a pacifist position. Whilst we have no qualms about defining Hitler's world view as insane - and thus an inadequate cause for his people to follow - we don't argue against the notion that it was necessary for others to go to war against him to prevent the insanity spreading across the planet.

Well lets get back to Suicide then. Lets ignore the obvious "altruist" suicide - be it Jesus the Nazarene or the Soldier flinging himself over the grenade to shield his mates. Everyone can see the survival reasoning in such behaviour - though it has to be said that, sadly, it would seem Jesus fell into the category of miscalculated outcome if ever anyone did. We certainly haven't achieved what he was after - and, lets face it - 2000 years is a pretty fair trial!

It seems fairly straightforward, also, to explain the suicide of the terminally ill. Knowing that the end is certain, they are, quite rationally in our view, opting to avoid prolonged additional pain - either the physical pain of the disease/treatment, or the psychological pain of knowing that the end is near and inevitable. The author watched Anne die a painful and lingering death over two years, in the last 6 months she was too weak to attempt suicide and was begging him- and others - to do the job for her and, looking back on all that totally unnecessary suffering, he bitterly regrets not having the guts to have helped her. Her premature death would have been entirely rational and certainly would have provided an escape from pain.

And that goes for all other suicides or potential suicides. Again, the analysis may or may not be suspect, but all they are doing at the end of the day is taking the extreme form of escape from pain.

What about the suicide hijackers who flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre on September 11 2001? Come to that, what about the hundreds of smaller scale suicide bombers we've witnessed and suffered since then? What pain are they escaping from?

With rare exceptions, it seems, the answer is usually none. They are not selected from the poor and downtrodden (except in the widest political sense). Most of the hijackers were from wealthy Saudi families and had no economic, health or welfare problems that we know about, at all. Hmmm. Could we argue that they're escaping from the "social pain" that they consider the Arab Nation to be suffering collectively? They would be deeply insulted at the suggestion. So what is going on?

The suicide bomber is obviously an example of extreme anti-social behaviour. It may also be a manifestation of an extreme psychological phenomenon which is, surprisingly, not limited exclusively to suicide bombers. We have decided that all survival behaviour falls into two categories. If that is to stand up to examination, it must pass this test above all. If the suicide bomber isn't, generally, escaping from pain - s/he MUST BE pursuing pleasure; which may look obscene, but only because it is so apparently counter-intuitive.

It forces us to reconsider the concept of altruism. Most people are going to be horrified at the notion of considering the 19 hijackers as altruistic. But thats only because most people likely to read this are on the "other side" in what we should now recognise as the Third World War.

What is your view on the use of the first Atomic weapons against the Towns of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Many people on the winning side still feel shame at the horrendous casualties those weapons caused. They seem unaware that the Japanese themselves admit that little else would have forced them to give up fighting and that it is likely that they would have lost a further 10-30 million casualties had the war continued conventionally. The Allies would almost certainly lost more than another million troops in the prolonged combat. On this basis, those two bombs probably saved up to 30 million lives at the cost of 200,000.

There is also a very strong case to argue that it was only those explicit demonstrations of the awesome power of nuclear (thats "new clear" George, not "new quler" ) energy which prevented the Nuclear version of World War III. Had those weapons never been used in anger, it is likely that some gung ho politician on one side of the fence or the other would eventually have persuaded themselves that a Nuclear war was survivable and the chances are that you wouldn't be reading this - wouldn't be able to read this - or anything else on the planet had that misjudgement ever been made. So we probably have a great deal to thank the dead of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for. Perhaps a billion lives or more were saved by their sacrifice.

Of course, their deaths weren't altruistic. They didn't choose to die for our benefit. It just helps us to bear the pain knowing that our survival was the outcome of their involuntary slaughter. But imagine that "Little Boy" could only have been detonated manually. That the Bombardier of Enola Gay had to go down with the bomb - (think Slim Pickins final scene in "Dr Strangelove"). That he did it hoping that his sacrifice, and the sacrifice of 95,000 Japanese citizens were about to make would ensure that the world never went sufficiently insane to indulge in a full blooded nuclear exchange.

Now that would be altruism. Intention - not outcome - is what matters.

And its certainly not going to be that far away from how the suicide bomber sees themselves when s/he's blowing us up along with themselves. And like it or not, a few million others are seeing them in that light. So we learn that Altruism is in the eye of the beholder. No great surprise there. And no conflict with what we've already concluded. We're not interested in outcomes. When we're studying human behaviour, we want to know what makes them tick. We need to see the world from behind their eyes. Only then can we hope to find a way out of this maze.

But after all that, we still have to conclude that their primary survival drive was Pursuit of Pleasure rather than Escape from Pain. And, in the case of the 9-11 hijackers, it isn't inconsistent with the public version of events - which is that they were persuaded, amongst other things, to commit this act by being promised instant transition to Jannat (Islamic version of Paradise) and 70 willing virgins. If that isn't pursuit of pleasure...

The question, of course, is to what extent that apparently unsophisticated brain-washing technique really had an influence. Are we really saying that without the belief that Paradise was their inevitable destination, they would not have been capable of carrying out the lethal and suicidal attack?

If we are saying that, we're severely wide of the mark and dangerously naive. This is the only point upon which I disagreed with Jonathan Miller in his excellent BBC4 series on Atheism He argued that behaviour like 9-11 was only possible because of religion. Clearly not true. You need look no further than the terrorists who introduced us to this singularly effective form of warfare in the modern era - they weren't Islamic Fundamentalists. They were secular Hindu - (fundamentalist Hinduism couldn't have held such a vision in any case. Karma would reward or punish in a very different way.) Religion was certainly not what inspired the Tamil Tigers. Theirs was a much more clinical calculation that a human bomb could get into places no static bomb could manage and, lacking sophisticated missiles, human guidance and delivery systems were pretty effective. If they could kill at least 10 enemies each time they launched a human bomb, it would hurt the enemy much more than themselves. They could bear the pain, knowing it was necessary in the struggle for their independence.

So the Tigers didn't (still don't) kid themselves. They knew what death does to a person. Each and every one of them knew they were facing the end of their personal existence. Where is the pleasure in this scenario?

It can only be in the form of nearly blind optimism about the future. It cannot be based on evidence - there is none which provides "certainty" that the strategy will be effective. Hence they must have a quasi religious faith that the future is going to change as a result of their actions, that they would approve of the changes and that those they leave behind will benefit from the changes. They are hoping that those of their compatriots who survive will live in a better world. It does not matter if you agree with them what constitutes that better world. It doesn't matter if they are wrong. That is their motivation.

And it is as altruistic as you can get.

That doesn't have any bearing on the fact that it is also - particularly when dealing with non combatant targets - cold blooded, vicious, unjustifiable, psychotically inspired murder. Yes it is militarily and politically effective. America is certainly awake since 9-11. Bin Laden probably doesn't regret that. It's all part of his plan. The rest of us, on the other hand, are getting to be much more worried about America than we are about its enemy. And the most disturbing fact about that is that if we were to contrive a means of ensuring that every American read this paragraph, at least 25% would be foaming at the mouth by the time they reached this sentence. 25% would be laughing at the first 25% and the other 50% wouldn't understand it.

Look who's taken over the asylum!

But even the terrorists pale into the background on the scale of weird suicidal psychology compared to the German man who volunteered to let another one kill and eat him. And even joined him, before letting himself be killed, in eating his own penis. There is even a video proving that he really did want to go through with this. He is seen demanding that his killer should slice off his penis.

How and why was the cannibal convicted of murder? It was no more murder than euthanasia. Of course some fundamentalists argue that euthanasia is indeed homicide. But we're talking to reasonable people now, aren't we.

And just when we thought it was safe to go back into webworld, we get the fascinating story of Boys A and B. Boy B was 14 when he began a web of deception aimed - successfully - at persuading Boy A to kill him. The attempt didn't succeed but not for want of effort. Just one of those "unlucky" failures. Boy B was in intensive care for a few weeks but pulled through. But he really, really wanted not just to die, but to be killed. The Cannibal victim didn't just want to die. He wanted to be eaten.

It is obviously pursuit of pleasure. They just happen to have extremely weird tastes in pleasure. Some may even argue that both parties in such cases must - almost by definition - be regarded as insane. But hey, remember the Bay City Rollers? A whole generation thought that was pleasurable. Some of them are still alive.

The rest of human behaviour, we leave as an exercise for the class. The spectrum fits in amongst these extreme examples. We are sure that after analysing a few of your own, you will accept that there are no exceptions. All behaviour fits the pattern. If you think we're wrong, please let us know.

So where does that get us? Well Psychologists, for a start, can go back to square one. All this mysticism about dreams and sexual identity may have some validity but only as a secondary feature - i.e. in helping to understand why people pursue pleasure or escape from pain in the particular ways they choose. The primal drive is not Oedipal, its Survival.

More important than undermining a century of psychoanalysis, however, is how we can make positive use of this insight. In short, having recognised that Survival is the unconscious basis of all behaviour, as intelligent beings we can go one step further and collectively decide to make it the conscious basis for our behaviour. And thats what we're going to talk about next

(Last Updated 30 May 2004)