A Mother`s Love

I found this last chapter to be rather harsh. Its main focus was devoted to explain the genetics involved in motherly care towards their children. The book refers to this care as an “investment” on a child rather than true, genuine love or affection. Dawkins also convinces the reader that there is an optimum usage for this investment that should be taken into account whenever a female individual has children. If you were to ask a mother, which of her kids she loved the most, she would probably say that she loved them both equally. The Selfish Gene assures you that genetically speaking, this should happen. Sine a mother`s relatedness to her children is always equal, than her care should be invested equally amongst all of them. This is obviously a normal trait in a mother and I am not surprised to read it, it is when Dawkins begins to describe the case of runts which shocks me. For those who don’t know, a runt is an under-sized person or animal, who needs more attention, or parental investment than a normal child. This is Dawkins`s opinion on the topic, “Depending on the circumstances, it may pay a mother to refuse to feed a runt, and allocate all of his share of his parental investment to his brothers and sisters. Indeed, it may pay to feed him to his brothers and sisters, or to eat him herself, and use him to make milk.” (Dawkins Pg. 125). I am aware that the second sentence of this quotation is mainly directed towards animals, since a human mother who succumbs to cannibalism towards her own child in order to feed her other children is quite rare. The first sentence though, sounds like a possibility for humans. All of the cases that I have ever witnessed, involving a runt, handicapped, or disabled child, the mother usually shows more love and care towards them, in order to give the child the most normal life possible. But I am sure, that there are situations where not the same thing happens. There are people in this world, who don’t waste their time on a runt, and would rather focus that effort on normal children. However, I am sure that the gene which causes siblings to kill other siblings for more investment, or mothers to kill children to invest more in other children, is not nearly as common in humans as it is in animals.

Overpopulation

“For instance, the present population of Latin America is around 300 million … But if the population continued to increase at the present rate, it would take less than 500 years to reach the point where the people, packed in a standing position, formed a solid human carpet over the whole area of the continent.” (Dawkins Pg. 111).

This is Dawkins`s hypothetical situation about the earth`s future. Of course, he has taken into account the possibility that there will be famines, plagues, starvation, and other occurrences which will control the population of our planet.

This actually reminds of the famous English economist, Thomas Malthus, who stated that population grew much faster than food supply, implying that there wouldn’t be enough food to sustain everyone. His idea was discarded thanks to the green revolution, where new technology was created to produce a much larger supply of food compared to the amount of people. There are still Neo-Malthusians (contemporary geographers), which are taking Malthus`s theory back into account. Their arguments have to do exactly with what is quoted above.

Dawkins states that there is a solution to this problem, where we, as survival machines, are “guided by selfish genes, who most certainly cannot be expected to see into the future…” (Dawkins Pg. 111). Basically, he says that having too many children is a penalty. There are limited resources that a parent can provide for their child, meaning that only a certain amount of their children can become part of the healthy population. Ultimately, the genes for having many children never get passed on to the next generation in large numbers, since a very little amount of children containing these genes actually reach adulthood.

I can only assume that Dawkins is referring to third world countries with this theory, since it is in places like Latin America where people with very low resources are bearing more children than what they can afford. So what about the more developed countries where people do have enough income to bear many children? I have recently studied the situation of several generally rich countries such as Japan, the United Kingdom, and Italy, where there is actually a negative increase in society. How does Dawkins explain this with the selfish gene theory? I know that in the case of Japan, fewer and fewer babies are being born each year because more women are getting jobs with salaries equivalent to those of an average male. Since they spend so much time at work, they don`t think about having kids. This shows that women are taking a bigger interest in themselves than in the survival of their kin, through which the selfish gene should be passed on. Once again I ask, how does Dawkins explain this?

Relatives and Relatedness

Relative and Relatedness

Identical Twin
1=100%
Sibling, Parent, Child
1/2=50%
Uncles/Aunts, Nephews/Nieces, Grandparent/child, Half brothers/sisters
1/4=25%
First cousins
1/8=12.5%
Second cousins
1/32=3.125%
Third cousins
1/128=.78125%

The facts that Dawkins has stated here, helped me clarify how genetically similar I was to each one of my family members. Although I don’t have an identical twin, I do have every other type of relative mentioned on this table. I honestly thought that I would be more closely related to my half brothers, than my aunts, uncles, and grandparents, since I have so much more in common with them than I do with most other relative of mine. I also never would have expected to have such a small genetic relationship with my second and third cousins. The percentage shows, that your relatedness with them, is almost the same thing as your relatedness with a complete stranger. The statistic which made me doubt the most though, was that identical twins are 100% similar to each other. Genetically yes, they are the same, but in terms of traits and personality, twins are very different. I have personally met several identical twins in my life, and could easily declare that one might be willing to save the other, while the other wouldn`t. In this case, would the altruistic gene be passed on to the next generation? This can probably be explained with how the environment affects people rather than their genes. There might be a possibility that the “Green Beard Altruism Effect” (mentioned on Pg. 89), will not always come into play for identical twins, even though the statistic says it should. They each develop minds of their own which ultimately influence their decision to be altruistic or not.

At the end of the chapter, Dawkins does assure this idea. He too, knows that the only person you are 100% related to is yourself. Therefore, he declares the following, "I contain 100 per cent of my genes...I am the only individual that any of my selfish genes can be sure of." (Dawkins Pg. 106).

The Smartest Fighter

Early in the chapter, Dawkins brings up a very interesting strategy, or mentality which comes up whenever two animals of the same species fight each other.

Suppose that B and C were also rivals. I would have been doing C a favor by killing his rival, in spite of the fact that we are rivals as well. The one who would win the most from this situation would be C, who gets one of his rivals killed without having to participate in the event at all. He was indirectly benefitted. Dawkins then explains the subconscious reasoning that all animals have before they get into a fight: “… the decision whether or not to fight should ideally be preceded by a complex, in unconscious, cost benefit calculation. … during a fight, each tactical decision over whether to escalate the fight or cool has costs and benefits which could, in principal, be analyzed.” (Dawkins Pg. 69). I find this to be very true. Before somebody risks their lives by engaging in a fight, they automatically work out all the possibilities in order to end up being the beneficial of the situation. Everyone always seeks to be the letter C in the previously mentioned situation. This pre-programmed strategy, introduced by Maynard Smith, is called evolutionary stable strategy.

More Memories

“A notable advance was the evolutionary ´invention´ of memory. By this device, the timing of muscle contractions could be influenced not only by events in the immediate past, but by events in the distant past as well. The memory, or store, is an essential part of s digital computer too. Computer memories are more reliable than human ones, but they are less capacious, and enormously less sophisticated in their techniques of information retrieval.” (Dawkins Pg. 50).

This passage from “The Selfish Gene” had an amazing resemblance with the radio lab that we heard in class a couple of weeks ago about memories. Although Dawkins`s idea is much less developed, both agree on several aspects. The first point that I would like to mention is the connection that they both make with computers. In the book, memories are said to be like computers in the sense that they both store memories. There are major differences however, such as the fact that although computer memories are more reliable, they are less capacious and sophisticated. The radio lab also stated a connection between human memories and computers, but also listed several more reasons why they differ. To begin with, memories are real, physical things, made up of proteins and neurons. Every time you bring back a memory, you are not remembering it, you are recreating it, and very time this happens, the memory changes a little bit. The more you use a memory the more it will change. In a computer, memories never change. With this text alone, I cannot be sure that Dawkins was aware of this fact. But he does explain how “the timing of muscle contractions could be influenced not only by events in the immediate past, but by events in the distant past as well”, showing more evidence that memories are existent things and how exactly they work in the brain.

The Power of Science

The beginning of Immortal Coils was quite challenging to understand. I had to reread several paragraphs over and over again in order to grasp a vague idea of what the author was trying to say. One of the ideas that confused me the most was the metaphor of the architect`s plans. Dawkins states: “I shall make use of the metaphor of the architect`s plans, freely mixing the language of the metaphor with the language of the real thing.” (Dawkins Pg. 22). He then defines what each term in the metaphor would mean in real life. It gets complicated though, when he begins to mention the several volumes of the different plans. This is one thing that he himself absolutely clear of: there are several files in this plan, each one representing different parts of a chromosome.

One thing I noticed, is that the book became more of what you would expect to hear in an average science class, than a reflection of the author`s thoughts. I actually did learn these topics in my science class this year. It was quite relieving to reach a point in the chapter where I clearly understood Dawkins`s flow of thoughts. This included all the talk about the alleles, and the dominant and recessive genes. I then began to consider the complexity of what it takes to make a baby, and how amazing nature is in doing so. As mentioned before, there is a huge amount of possibilities, or files which contain the baby`s potential genetic information. The chances that it will have blue eyes or brown eyes, red hair or black hair, light skin or dark skin, etc., are all genetically defined. And the most unbelievable part is thinking how we all started as one single cell, which eventually turned into millions of millions, of millions.

Survival of the Stable

How much of the things around us are stable enough to deserve a name? Are humans one of these things? Dawkins gives us certain classes of entities “such as rain drops, which come into existence at a sufficiently high rate to deserve a collective name, even if any one of them is short-lived.” (Dawkins, Pg. 12). Rain is just one of several examples, including rocks, galaxies, and even soap bubbles, which demonstrate stable patterns of atoms. None of them have changed for billions of years, and will probably stay the same for billions of more years. Their atoms have not found the need to change therefore, are completely stable. Of course, I am not sure how old these things are. For all we know, it might have taken the rock`s atoms much more time to find a stable pattern, than the time that is it has existed as what we call a rock. This theory of stableness, also explains why things tend to be the way they are. Dawkins states that: “Salt crystals tend to be cubes because this is a stable way of packing sodium and chloride ions together.” (Dawkins Pg. 12). What I want to know is whether or not these things have stopped evolving. I am certainly aware that in the state that things are right now, there is no need to change, but if conditions on earth were to alter, will these so called stable atoms eventually evolve? For example, “In the sun, the simplest atoms of all, hydrogen atoms, are fusing to form helium atoms, because in the conditions that prevail there the helium configuration is more stable.” (Dawkins Pg, 12). But what if the way that the sun gets to these atoms were to change? Then the “helium configuration” would not be stable anymore. In this case, there will probably be a need for change, or evolution, in order to restore the stable pattern.

Nature vs. Nurture

While reading the first chapter of “The Selfish Gene”, I couldn’t help pondering on the whole nature vs. nurture debate. Dawkins specifically states, however, that his intention in this novel was not to take sides in this “controversy”, although he does have an opinion on it. My guess until now is that Dawkins is more of a nature type person. My reasoning can begin with only the book`s title alone. Whenever a book is named after a topic in genetics, then it probably has to do with the idea that people are essentially defined by their nature instead of the environment they grow up in. Dawkins states that “the argument of this is that we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes.” (pg. 3). How can the author mention something like this, and immediately on the next page say that he won`t defend the nature side of the debate? Later on in the chapter there are several more examples which give away his opinion.

Only a couple of weeks ago, I was reading the work of another great thinker, Jean Paul Sartre. This man was a philosopher while Dawkins is a scientist. “The Selfish Gene” actually reminded me of Sartre`s opinion on the nature vs. nurture topic. He says the man`s existence precedes his essence. In other words, every human defines who he or she is through actions. This obviously is an argument favoring the nurture side of the debate. Sartre shows no interest on the roll that genetics plays on a person, but focuses on the mind and power of choice. Of course, these are two very different people from very different times. I personally cannot take a definite side on the debate such as these men have, for I believe that there is no one factor which defines a human being.

Epictetus 3

“At each thing that happens to you remember to turn to yourself and ask what capacity you have for dealing with it.”

This piece, I believe, is an idea which has occurred to allot of people in several situations, but has never been expressed in the way Epictetus describes it. Being able to put such a common but unsaid idea into words, such as these, is what makes a true genius. Most of Epictetus’s teachings were thoughts which pondered in the back of people`s heads, but were never really let out. This man actually had the intelligence and knowledge to notice these things and state them in words.

Turning back to the phrase, I agree with it completely. Whenever you face a challenge, you must first determine whether or not you have the capability of facing it, and if so, what this capability is. One must start to develop the patience necessary to stop and think about a problem, clarifying what you’re up against and the power you have to resolve it. Once this is done, then you can take action and control the situation. Remember, always think before you act.

Epictetus 2

“What upset people is not things themselves but their judgment about things.”

This phrase captures the essence of Epictetus’s teachings. It is a very wise thing to say, and applies to many people. Usually, when something bad happens, people believe they get sad because of that event, but never consider that it is their judgment which is negative. If people could only change their view of the tragic moments in life, then they wouldn`t have to suffer. Epictetus used the example of death in his writing, which is generally a painful topic to people. He says that “death is nothing dreadful”, we make it dreadful.

In the book Slaughterhouse Five, the Tralfamadorians also have a painless view of dreadful moments. This is because they can see in the fourth dimension, where every moment of the past present and future is visible. They say, for example, that whenever they see a dead body, they think: “…that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is fine in plenty of other moments.” (pg.27). In a way, the Tralfamadorians follow Epictetus`s teachings by having a different judgment on certain things than what an average human would.

Epictetus 1

“So detach your aversion from everything not up to us, and transfer it to what is against nature among the things that are up to us.”

This piece is advising us to simply put matters, which might bring us misfortunes, into out own hands. Although a very obvious idea, many people refuse to follow it. Specially those who believe in luck, or are very dependent on God, tend to end up attaching their aversions to everything not up to them. For example, when a big gambler is feeling lucky, he may put all his money in risk. It is not up to him to win or loose, and the outcome just might ruin his life.

If you work for your money instead, then the matter is all in your hands. The more you decide to work, the more money you will get, and vice versa. You have the power to control the situation without depending on some irrational force to help you.

There is passage in Slaughterhouse five which relates to this concept. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference.” (pg. 60). Although Epictetus is telling us to transfer the aversions that you are unable to change into things that are up to us, Kurt Vonnegut (or whoever wrote the passage), says that people should accept the things that they are unable to change instead of actually doing something about it. I would personally choose Epictetus’s proactive concept.

Slaughterhouse Five Quotation Analyzation

“People aren’t supposed to look back. I’m certainly not going to do it anymore.”

At this point of the book, the narrator is proposing something that he plans to carry out through the entire novel. After spending an entire chapter trying to “look back” into his old war memories, hoping to write a story about them, Vonnegut (narrator) decides to make a different approach towards the situation. Obviously, he wasn’t going to continue using himself as the center of attention, therefore created Billy Pilgrim, a character who didn’t need to “look back” into his memories. Pilgrim, was a very unique individual who could actually go back (and forth) in time instead of having to look, or remember. 

“He has seen his birth and death many times, he says, and pays random visits to the events in between.”

This quotation, is referring to Billy Pilgrim, who we know has the ability to travel in time and re-live several moments of his life. Although everyone has obviously experienced birth, nobody has seen their death. Its probably true, that by knowing how you’re going to die, the moment is made less painful. In a matter of fact, any depressing moment which we can foresee, is allot more bearable. Without pain though, there would be no feelings at all, including happiness, pleasure, or love. Billy Pilgrim did end up living a emotionless life, feeling either pain or warmth in the moments throughout his life. 

“It begins like this: Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time. It ends like this: Po-tee-weet?”

Here, the narrator is stating the first and last sentences of the book he is planning to write. He mentions the words “unstuck in time”, which means to have the ability to travel through the past present and future, instead of always being stuck in the present (like we all are). Maybe the author’s intention with this piece, was to make the reader unstuck in time by giving a peek into the beginning and the end, without even starting the story. In is the moments in between which we know must find out, and discover why the last sentence was “Po-tee-weet?”

Stuck in Time

“People aren`t supposed to look back. I`m certainly not going to do it anymore. ” (pg.22). Although we have reached the end of the book, it is necessary to go back to the first chapter to clear up doubts and questions. Both these parts of the story are told by the same mysterious person, who in class we assumed was Vonnegut himself. Only after reading the entire novel though, was I was able to have an anagnorisis connecting this person to Billy Pilgrim. The previously mentioned quote specifically states that the narrator of the story will not look back in time, and immediately after, introduces us to Billy. The entire first chapter of the book is about this speaker trying to recall all his old Dresden memories, but fails in doing so. In class, we listened to a radio lab which proved that the more you try to recreate a memory, the more it will change. Maybe this is why Billy Pilgrim was created. Instead of having to remember, or recreate each of his memories, he would actually re-live them by going back in time, eliminating the need to “look back”.

The narrator in the first chapter confuses the reader with incoherent memories. This man is a representation of all of us who are “stuck” in time, unlike Billy who is “unstuck”. I hadn’t understood the significance of this idea until now. We, who require the need to recreate our memories, are stuck in one moment and cannot get out of it. Billy and the Tralfamadorians on the other hand, live in every moment from the past present and future.

The book even allows the reader to become unstuck in time during the final five lines of chapter one, where the story`s very first sentence is told, as well as its last.

“It begins like this:
Listen: Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time.
It ends like this:
Po-tee-weet?” (pg.22)

Destiny?

At the end of chapter nine, we come across a passage which we had already seen in chapter three:

God Grant me
The serenity to accept
The things I cannot change
Courage
To change the things I can
And wisdom always
To tell the difference.

It was first mentioned when Billy travels back in time to his optometry office. The passage was framed on his wall to give his patients hope. In chapter nine though, it was engraved in Montana Wildhack`s locket. I don’t believe that it was simply coincidence that these two characters happened to end up as captives in Tralfamadore. This passage had to have meant something for Billy, Montana, and most importantly, the Tralfamadorians. Although I am not sure yet, I think it has something to do with the following phrase from chapter three: “Among the things that Billy Pilgrim could not change were the past, the present, and the future.” It all relates to time and free will. Maybe this explains the serene attitude that Billy adopts throughout the entire novel, even when he is capture and brought to another planet. He always keeps calm and accepts things the way they are, because he knows that time is something that cannot be changed. But how would this relate to Montana? On earth, she was no more than a superficial teenage movie star, who would occasionally make adult films. She`s not different from other humans in the way Billy is, therefore makes no sense why she was chosen over anybody else.

There is another way to think about this situation though, and it is by eliminating the theory that there was a reason behind it all. On the night that Billy was kidnapped, he asked the Tralfamadorians why they had picked him. Their answer was: “Because the moment simply is…Well here we are, Mr. Pilgrim, trapped in the amber of this moment. There is no why.” Maybe there is no explanation behind this, other than the fact that the moment was simply meant to happen.

I personally doubt the Tralfamadorian reasoning, for I am sure that there is more mystery to life and to this book than what may be told. Unfortunately, I was unable to find an explanation, in order to make all the pieces of the puzzle.

Survival in the Slaughterhouse

In chapter eight, a very paradoxical situation comes up. We had already found the meaning of the book’s title “slaughterhouse Five”, when the American prisoners were brought to Dresden, and kept in the fifth building of a slaughterhouse. By the name alone, you can assume that these slaughterhouses were violent places. They were, in fact, used to butcher animals. The truth though, is that this place kept the soldiers safe during the night that Dresden was bombed. Throughout the entire book, I had assumed that the slaughterhouse represented torture or suppression, rather than safety. It kept Billy and the author of the book alive, and able to tell the story, while millions of Germans died in the bombing. “He was down in the meat locker on the night that Dresden was destroyed. There were sounds like giant footsteps above. Those were sticks of high-explosive bombs. The giants walked and walked. The meat locker was a very safe shelter.” (pg. 177).

Real Soldiers

On the seventh chapter of Slaughterhouse Five, Edgar, Billy, and Gluck (the German boy guarding them) come across a war widow in the slaughterhouse kitchen. She said the Gluck was too young to be in the army, and Edgar was too old, she then turned to Billy and didn`t really know what to make of him. ““All the real soldiers are dead”, she said. It was true. So it goes.” (pg. 159). Having lost her husband to the war, this widow must have felt disappointed to see that the army had run out of brave war heroes, and were now abundant in these strange looking soldiers. In probably all wars, the bravest die first while the least devoted live on. Derby, who should have been viewed as an honorable participant of WWII, was instead judged inappropriate, but anyone at that age who chooses to fight for his country, should be considered a “real soldier”. The American army in this novel however, was described by several people from foreign countries (including Englishmen, and German war widow), as a miserable and disgraceful sight. Even I would consider most of the characters introduced to us as inadequate to represent the United States in war.

Revenge

“”Anybody ever asks you what the sweetest thing in life is”-said Lazzaro, “it`s revenge.”” (pg. 139) These were the words of Paul Lazzaro, a very despiteful character in the novel. As a friend of the young Roland Weary (another disliked character), he`s overall view of life is morally incorrect. He swears revenge on two people throughout the chapter. One of them is Billy, for supposedly being responsible for Weary`s death. The other, is the Englishman who played the part of the fairy godmother in the play, for breaking Lazzaro`s arm when he found the man trying to steal a box of cigarettes from under his pillow. None of these reasons justify the need for revenge. People like Lazzaro though, who cannot, under any circumstance bare humiliation, should be pittied. These are the insecure, self rejected and pathetic beings of a society. I would never trust a man like this a war with my life. The opposite personality of Paul Lazzaro, would probably be Edgar Derby, the honorable soldier who accompanied Billy through his entire stay at the hospital, and is named leader of the Americans by the end of the chapter.

Knowing the Future

Chapter five begins to get into deeper descriptions of Billy`s life in Tralfamador. At one point, he asks a Tralfamadorian guide to reveal their secrets of how to be a peaceful planet, since he believes that Earth`s violence could lead to the end of the universe. Humored with the idea, he responds the following: “”We know how the universe ends-” said the guide. “We blow it up experimenting with new fuels for our flying saucers.”” (pg. 117) The interesting part is that the guide says this without the slightest sign of worry or fear. The first reaction that humans would get, if ever the apocalypse were revealed to us, would be global chaos and turmoil. We would make useless attempts to prevent a disaster that is bound to happen, not being able to see that the future is the future no matter what decisions are made. This topic though, has a significant relation to the free will issue. Being able to see the future, takes away all sense of life that our race is defined by. Curiosity, mystery, aspiration, and most importantly, free will, would be out of our minds. Of course, death and other depressing matters would cause no pain, but the things that give us happiness and pleasure, would just as well mean absolutely nothing. I personally, cannot live knowing when my life or the entire universe will come to an end. What is the point? Is an entire life worth living if you know exactly who you`re going to be, and how you`re going to become it?