Instinct to change the world our way

Scientists claim that “humans have no instincts”, that humans “replaced animal instincts with consciousness / awareness / whatever”. But is this true? Do we really decide what to want or when to be happy or depressed?

Maybe not. Maybe, just like other animals, we have an instinct, but don’t see it because whatever it does to us - we feel it as something natural, beautiful - just as it should be. Imagine if lions could speak. Would they say that they hunt because of a predatory instinct, or would they say that they hunt because it’s natural / beautiful / required for survival? The same goes for beavers. Would they say that they build dams - even when they live with humans - because instinct tells them to, or would they say that they build them because someone has to? Maybe they would say something like “building is our higher, conscious activity”?

By “changing the world,” I don’t mean that only humans change their surroundings. Other animals do that too. I mean that the change itself can be what we want, rather than just a way to get food or shelter. We imagine how something could be different, prefer that version, and want to make it real. What we want to change differs from person to person. The common need is to make the world more like we want it to be.

We don’t always need to make the changes ourselves. Seeing the world change in a way we like can also satisfy this need. Changes we dislike do not satisfy it. Within this model, leaving this need unfulfilled for too long can lead to depression.

Ideas and biases

We all know that we were built by evolution. Evolution consists of spontaneous changes and survival (competition). It’s a long process, because first one has to get a useful gene, then spread it across the population. Is there a way to accelerate this process? What if some species could just copy a useful gene by “applying a patch” to their genes? Wouldn’t that probably accelerate progress? As we know, nature did not give us such a mechanism. But instead it gave us ideas and biases.

An idea can be good or bad. A useful idea can be copied.

For example, one monkey could start beating everyone with a stick, and other monkeys would either be beaten or have to copy this behaviour. As a result, monkeys get a tool - a stick. The idea is copied.

Another example would be a monkey thinking it would be fun to pull a random lion’s tail. This idea is not very good because the lion can eat the monkey. But even though that specific monkey dies, others see that one should not pull a lion’s tail. Monkeys gain knowledge.

A bias can be good or bad.

For example, Einstein could become happy when thinking about a falling man (and later call it his happiest thought), and that idea could give him motivation to search for the formulas of general relativity.

Another example would be a random person who becomes happy when thinking about evidence for a flat Earth, and that idea gives him motivation to search for additional evidence for a flat Earth and to convince everybody else.

I claim that the described mechanisms - random (or pseudorandom) ideas, random (or pseudorandom) biases, and the instinct “to change the world the way we like it” - are the reason apes turned into humans and the reason why humans built civilization.

Here, by eureka moments, I mean rare, emotionally intense insights that create a lasting attachment to an idea.

So I claim that there are 4 mechanisms involved:

random (or pseudorandom) idea generation (a result of spontaneous neural activity?)
random (or pseudorandom) bias assignment (eureka moments tell us what to like)
an internal need to change the world the way we like it (the instinct to change the world our way)
an inability to fulfil the instinctive need for change for too long triggers depression - our self-selection mechanism

Why would these be random (or pseudorandom)? Because our neurons are not clever and have no idea what they should build (just like DNA has no idea which mutation will be useful). So the only option here is to apply random (or pseudorandom) changes. This way, through evolutionary search, we are guaranteed to have good ideas / biases sometimes.

Of course, bad ideas are more likely, but bad ideas can be forgotten or saved as knowledge about what not to do. At the same time, good ideas can significantly increase the quality of life and be copied fast.

How this could shape humans

How could this mechanism turn an ape into a human?

Imagine that apes got this mechanism. Apes develop a need to change something. Changes can be stupid or useful. A stupid change can get you killed. So in a society of apes that are likely to do something stupid, apes with mutations that let them think rationally and predict the outcome of their actions gain a survival advantage. So this instinct causes a self-selection mechanism, where apes either become extinct or become cleverer and cleverer.

Now imagine you have a need to change the world somehow. How do you do that? With your hands. Apes’ hands evolve.

Now imagine that as a result of applying those ideas you acquire weapons that put you above other apes. It becomes more important to be able to use weapons, and strength becomes redundant. Apes become weaker over time.

To exchange ideas on how to change the world, you need language. Another evolutionary advantage.

To fulfil the instinctive need during long winters, you have to keep on changing something in your cave. You start drawing - you get art.

As you can see, one simple mechanism can appear to be responsible for everything that makes us humans special compared to other animals.

Why is it an instinct?

Instincts are something that is “preinstalled” without any education or training. Look at small kids and compare them with kittens. Kittens hunt, children “change” - break things. Why do they do that? Instinct makes them.
Instinctive needs have to be fulfilled periodically: cats do not hunt all the time, but periodically they become aggressive and need to “play”. The same goes for humans: we don’t need changes all the time. But sometimes something makes us “go”. We call it boredom.
If a hamster’s instinctive need “to run” is not fulfilled, the hamster will fall into depression and die. Humans are more likely to fall into depression if they have boring / repetitive work.
One of the worst possible punishments for a human is to put them into a room where there is nothing to change - an empty room. Humans literally go crazy. Why? Because there is no way to do what you should do - no way to change anything. Some other animals might be fine with that.

To sum up, we are guided by a biological instinct “to apply changes to the world”.

How the instinct works

We feel boredom, a need to change something. We get an idea, apply changes, and either like them or not. The change we like receives reinforcement - pleasure - and we continue doing that.

Which changes do we like? It’s personal, subjective. During our lives, we periodically experience eureka moments. Whatever we are thinking about at that exact moment becomes important to us, and whenever we try to apply changes related to that idea, we feel good. We are happy / passionate. No wonder we are likely to pursue our dream - continue moving in that direction in exchange for feeling good.

My hypothesis is that these moments of insight do more than make an idea attractive. They make us fall in love with it. We experience it as beautiful, important, and true, and then look for reasons to defend it.

In my own experience, a mistaken insight can feel just as profound and convincing as any other eureka moment. I once cried at the idea that a local politician was a modern Jesus. I later rejected that idea, but the happiness and conviction had felt indistinguishable from my other moments of insight. The feeling was genuine; it did not make the idea true.

Other researchers have studied something close to this idea.

Danek and Wiley (2017) found that incorrect answers can also produce an aha experience. Correct answers produced stronger experiences on average, but the feeling was not a guarantee of truth.

Laukkonen and colleagues (2022) went further: an aha moment from solving an anagram made an unrelated belief presented at the same time seem truer. The feeling could attach to something it provided no evidence for.

Please note that the studies above examine task-based insights, not the rare, emotionally intense experiences that create a lasting attachment to an idea, which are the focus of my hypothesis.

My own prediction regarding those rare eureka moments: Eureka moments and truth.

Result

As a result, different people feel good about different ideas and call those ideas beautiful. Someone appears to love math, someone prefers praying to God, someone loves wars, etc. Nature makes us evolve in all directions possible so someone does something useful. It’s not that nature is conscious and wants us to evolve. No. This mechanism just appeared to be useful and helped us “win”. Just like running helps mice spread fast, changing helped us build tools and civilization.

There are downsides to this instinct. It’s actually destructive. When 2 people or societies have conflicting views of what the world should look like, it can lead to conflicts or even wars. This is the price we are paying for “winning”.

There are 2 ways to apply the changes:

Force changes. Imagine that you create a competitive device. Others will have to either copy it or lose the competition.
Promote changes. Some changes appear to be beautiful to others, so as long as there is enough support, you can apply even useless changes. For example, art, fashion, conspiracy theories, etc.