________________
102
Neuroscience & Karma
where all the members of each colony are descended from one qucenard, therefore, closely related. They help each other and may even die in defence of the colony. Cultural practices involve the relations of human beings to each other and are symbolized in many ways including kinship. Kinship is certainly the dominant structure in the culture of many people, but it often has little or nothing to do with blood relationships.
Economic, religious and other relationships may be much more powerful than kinship. We can neither discard nor prove the possibility that some customs have survived because they promoted the spread of genes for altruism. It is doubtful how far human loving and aring (as we ordinarily understand them) are the products of specific hereditary influences providing the capacity to learn from experience. The question is whether the human behavior is mainly the result of social and cultural influences and whether these can be changed.
Altruistic behavior from parents increases chance of survival of the child. But the parent-offspring conflict (weaning conflict) would be inevitable because of the parent's ability to produce other offspring. Help of elder children in rearing of sibs will also be determined by their own genes, but the situation will vary according to the attitude of the culture to marriage. Thus the interconnections of cultural and genetic influences are indeed complicated.
It is clear that the advantages of altruism over selfishness depend upon many circumstances. Genetics and its determinant karman plural especially gotra karman, thus provide some suggestions about possible basis for social hebavior. Many species of animals and plants achieve success by cooperation. Rational human beings can save themselves by promoting the lives of not only fellow-humans but also animals and plants, by the doctrine of reverence for life and proclaiming that all men are 'brothers'. Geneticists may laugh at this but neuroscientists, who study actual human interactions, will know that we do bave programs to ensure our own security by recruiting the assistance of others (see chapter 12, "Loving and Attachment") that is our natural selfishness is best served by altruism. There is no justification for the attitude that
