A Scientific Model Of Human Nature: The Origin Of Civilization.

 Since the dawn of Civilization, our leaders have marveled at that miraculous moment in human evolution, where some spark ignited the human intellect in all its glory, waking it up from its long-kept dormant state, and leading it to the discovery and conquest of the world. For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors had been wandering around the face of the planet without much purpose or objective; but now that our mind's full potential had been finally unleashed, we were ready to start sowing crops, domesticate animals, build all sorts of crafts and, at last, the prodigious invention of writing and civilization. Philosophers of all times have then wondered how was that truly unique magic moment, what sparked the phenomenal ignition of the human brain 15,000 - 20,000 years ago, separating us from all other animals and leading us to create states and become civilized. 

However, if we carefully examine the human brain and compare it with any other primate's brain, there is really very little difference, other than the human brain's asymmetries. Moreover, the degree to which humans reason out of thin air is very limited. For example, it is not likely that human beings found out how to start a fire out of deep thought and reasoning. It is not credible that anybody ever sat down and began reasoning, what is that needed to be done in order to start a fire. It is far more likely that one day someone threw a rock and accidentally sparked a fire. From there it was much easier to figure out how to reproduce the magic event by first producing a spark and next causing a fire from such spark. It is then really fortunate that we eventually came to stand up on our rear limbs, so that our hands became free to take on actions such as throwing rocks. As the saying goes: idle hands are the Devil's playground.

   

 In fact, there is no evidence to suggest that there is anything specifically in the human brain that predestines the development of states and civilization. Rather, there is a good case to be made that some form of "civilization" will naturally and organically emerge from any population of individuals, who, on one hand, feel an intense drive (and find a strong pleasure when successful) to dominate and exploit anyone within his or her reach; but, on the other hand, have an existential dependency and need for love, to the extent that their sense of 'happiness' is mainly determined by the degree to which they feel loved. In fact, in Artificial Intelligence, it is well known how competition and cooperation are the two key ingredients for the success of any population of units. On one hand, cooperation makes the population stronger through unity. On the other hand, competition optimizes the performance of any system. Clearly, love is what brings us together and has us cooperate with each other. On the other hand, our drive to dominate everyone else - and the fierce competition for leadership that rises as a result - is what will keep the group on the cutting edge of Evolution: definitely, strive for excellence and succeed, or die.        

Yes, the rise of the state is the result of a slow organic process, whereby the different ingredients - which make up a state - emerge, develop and interact with each other. Scholars will generally recognize the existence of a state whenever a series of elements are found: namely, large, densely-populated urban centers, settlement hierarchies, economic specialization, monumental buildings, social hierarchies and - the jewel in the crown - writing. While some of these factors will often serve as precursors for others, in some other cases they may conflict against each other. For example, a large concentration of people in a given place will naturally lead to economic specialization and the association of smaller surrounding towns and villages to form a settlement hierarchy. Similarly, an hierarchical social structure is likely to produce monumental buildings. On the other hand, as counterintuitive as it may be, large concentrations of people do not blend well with social hierarchies. This conflict is an important caveat, since it is these two factors - large concentration of people and social hierarchy - which make up the essential driving forces leading to the rise of the state and civilization. 

Regardless of what is the correct criteria which should be used to confer the titles of state and civilization, the crucial consideration to take away is that those communities exhibiting a rich economic specialization will enjoy a competitive edge. The relevance of this observation resides in the fact that competition will serve as the fundamental catalyzer for the processes responsible for the rise of the state. Every community requires certain food and material resources for its survival. Since these needs are widely shared across communities, as soon as they come in contact one with another, unavoidably some competition for the available resources will start. Naturally, the more efficient a community is, the higher its odds to prevail. Now, while the emergence of a state is doubtful to produce an improvement in a regular person's life, fact of the matter is that the state will make the community more efficient and, therefore, competitive. Since the rise of the state, ruling elites have engrained in us the notion, whereby civilization is humankind's paramount and most marvelous achievement. In this telling, writing is definitely civilization's jewel in the crown and the supreme expression of human intelligence. Yet, it turns out that the first function of writing was for inventory purposes. In the civilized world, it now became important to keep a record of the quantities you own of items such as foreign females; that is, slaves. Yes, as sinister as it sounds, contrary to what we have always been told, civilization is and has always been about one thing and one thing alone: How a few may be able to dominate the rest of the population. Now, as unsettling and chilling as it is, fact of the matter is that a population with a head (i.e. a ruling elite) is far more competitive than a population without it. Consequently, those communities which grow more efficient as a result of the emergence of a ruling elite and the development of a state, will then begin to expand and slowly but surely phagocytize or altogether wipe off those who do not. The human brain was definitely not wired up to one day create a state. As any hollow coconut could tell you, not only were coconots not made to one day venture into the sea, but just a few ever got the urge to do so. In other words, the rise of the state and civilization was never a matter of volition, but that of sheer survival. Contrary to the old-as-time ruling elites' mantra, communities did not came up with all the different prodigious ideas responsible for civilization, because those individuals were smarter or more virtuous; but simply because it became necessary to overhaul and revamp the community's social structure, in order to survive. In fact, there is every reason to believe, that these innovations were not the product of any conscious decision; but the natural upshot of the interaction with competing communities. Indeed, all the evidence points to the conclusion, that the series of ingredients which any community will need to meet civilization, actually popped out or were invented in different places at different times, by different people. Necessity, information exchange and competition then served as fertilizers and catalyzers causing the eventual coalescence of all the ingredients in one specific place. Indeed, there is a reason why the first states and civilizations appear in regions of extraordinary fertility, surrounded by vast swaths of unbearingly inhospitable terrain. The competition to occupy the Garden of Eden is going to be fierce, and accelerate all developments. Undoubtedly, any community hoping to survive the competition for the Garden of Eden, should expect to be constantly challenged by invading hordes. Perhaps, however, fertility here only refers to the large populations agriculture is able to sustain, and Garden of Eden alludes to the abundance of women (undoubtedly the most precious and coveted asset of any human society, especially so for bands of fierce male warriors). Still, the community will be able to optimize its efficiency and strength, by developing a full-blown economic specialization, including, for instance: food production, religious, political and administrative functions, craft production and military duties. Now, while all specializations bear their merits in their own right, of crucial importance is the coexistence of a strong food-production force and a well-defined social hierarchy. Yes, in basic terms, a community will be more powerful, if it possesses a large population and a streamlined command structure. However, while most economic specializations will generally emerge naturally from any large concentration of people, the prospects of a community to optimize its efficiency are going to be continuously clogged by the repellency of any population to the rise of an elite ambitioning to dominate it. As counter'intuitive as it may seem, wile large, densely-populated nuclei will clearly benefit the most of a social hierarchy exercising administrative, political and control functions; it is rather unlikely that the population will want to come to terms with and seek this advancement. Needless to say, nobody likes to be bossed around or be told what to do. Hence, if you are doing fine and have some food on your table each and every day, why would you want to complicate your life the tiniest bit? In the early days of the first multi-cellular organisms, regular cells must have also felt mightly irritated by the electrical signals and various other pokes produced by the first nervous cells of the most primitive brains. Yet, no reasonable mind could honestly argue, that the development of a brain did not represent a mighty competitive advantage for those multi-celular organisms.

In contrast, it was far easier for a strong leadership to establish itself in small communities, where everybody new each other and there was little doubt who was the strongest, the most insightful and overall the best suited to lead the group. Should there ever had been any doubt, they sure as heck had found an opportunity to duke it out. Hopefully, the strongest would be smart enough and seek advise from the sharpest. They would then establish a marriage alliance to seal their deal. Once a chief of the village had been recognized, he became the group's new Alpha Male and everybody would unquestionably follow him wherever he went, whatever he said. However, these small communities were such, because the kind of bleak and forbidding landscapes where they would normally live and roam around did not allow for intensive food production sufficient to support larger populations. Luckily, necessity is the best fertilizer to sharpening up anybody's ingenuity, and these nomadic or semi-nomadic tribes are going to develop their own strategies, technologies and techniques to be able to overcome the stark limitations imposed by their environment and the meager wealth it allows to extract from their herds and trade based economy. Writing will be invented in the cities; but these nomads are going to figure out horseback riding, the wheel, the wagon and will excel at warfare. The Greeks of the Classic period also distained and looked down their noses at those uncivilized Barbarians, who were so stupid that they did not even know how to speak, but were only able to babble some meaningless sounds. That was until the so very intelligent and civilized Classic Greeks started to fight each other, continued killing each other, until their inferior Barbarian underlings came to take up the pieces and ended up dominating and enslaving them. A similar story is to be told about the Romans and pretty much every empire in History. Clearly, our masters are so stupid that they will never learn.

As a person born with a severe disability I can very much relate how the brain does not house any kind of well of absolute intelligence, which can be interchangeably apply to any endeavor. Rather, you just become good at those task you devote yourself to and keep persevering on. Then, if your subsistence depends on your ability to overcome a given difficulty or hardship, you will be sure to figure it out, whatever it takes. If the Barbarians needed to fight in order to survive; they would eventually do so and become really good at it. As any hollow coconut could tell you, not every coconut tried to venture into the sea; but, luckily for him, his grandfather did. If the rich farming settlement down in the fertile river valley was still small enough; the Barbarian village's chief could eventually consider leading his tribesmen to take it over for themselves. Alternatively, some ambitious - perhaps somewhat psychopathic - young man may get it into his head to cajole his buddies, have them all get on their horses and seek fortune and glory, pillaging and plundering wealthy farming villages, burning houses, killing men and raping women along their way. Perhaps, if he comes out successful, he may soon become the chief of his own tribe and think on taking on larger farming towns. Who knows?, the nomadic warriors may eventually want to put down some roots. Perhaps, he or one of his descendents - perhaps, the son of one of the women he raped - will eventually rule the town. The town dwellers did not want to be bossed around; but now they have no choice anymore and will have to suck it all up from here on. Moreover, agonisingly enough, they may now have to adopt their new rulers' language.

Regardless of whether the farming town acquired its leadership and military prowess when it was still small and docile, or only after it had already grown up and had seen the Barbarian warriors moved in, dominance over the entire population will still need to be institutionalized somehow, so that it can be replicated over successive generations. For this purpose religions will often play a helpful role. The old leader and town's Alpha Male may have been strong, terrifying or just charismatic, and, on the whole, we all ended up loving him; but why the heck are we going to simply accept that his son is quite the same? Actually, the old Alpha-Male father will be deify after his death, and the new son of God will assert, that we all ought to obey him or else... In any event, much to the regret of our cute, little, peceful farming community next to the river, it is very unlikely that any strong, charismatic Alpha Male leader will ever rise under any kind of heavenly beautiful conditions. Much to the regret of our peaceful community, sooner or later, it will have to endure some shock-and-awe traumatizing experience to be beaten into submission.

Furthermore, this was only the first of many invasions. Our beautiful town by the river is so sexy, that it is bound to change hands many times from here on, and each of them it is certainly going to be absolutely horrible. The fierce warriors have naturally got entangled with the trappings of power, fallen accustomed to the fine and comfortable city life, and - in summation - rested on their laurels. If necessity is the best fertilizer for anybody's ingenuity; it is also part of our nature that abundance is the most potent sedative. This is the reason why we can only stay happy for a short while after our last accomplishment, and we soon need to engage in the pursuit of a new endeavor, if we want to avoid slowly slipping into depression. Indeed, Nature figured out very early in Evolution, that there is nothing more unproductive than a happy person. Adding to our sins, the ruling families were soon on each other's throats and consumed themselves - and the entire town along the process - in their infighting over power. All the while, invaders have kept come calling to our beautiful town by the river. Therefore, all what is left to see is which will be the last straw to break the camel's back. Obviously, the stronger the force, the higher the odds that it will succeed at bringing the town's defenses down. Yet, as terrible as it is certainly going to be, when the dust settles, the town will wake up stronger from the nightmare and will be a step further towards civilization. The town dwellers will learn from the new invaders, as the new invaders will learn from the town dwellers, and the end result of this information exchange will be a socially, technologically and economically more advanced community. Competition is indeed the most effective catalyzer for advancement.