Some variants, however, not only could replicate, but also had some small
advantage in doing so. They did it faster, more often, or did so with less
energy. Whatever the case, they replicated better than their originators and
over time the improved model outnumbered the originals.
Eventually, replicators developed into genes. To this day, genes do
everything they do because it helps them make copies of themselves. Genes
are the blueprint for your entire body, including your brain. This means they
create both your body and your mind. Since they only do what helps them
make more of themselves, this means even your mind is designed to make
copies of your genes.
The “Mating Mind”
Or to put it another way, your brain is designed to make sure you have as
much sex as possible. Of course it helps you gather food, build shelter, avoid
danger, etc., but everything it does to keep you alive is to allow you to live
longer in order to have more chances to pass on your genes. There are two
key implications to this idea:
- Our minds, which we like to think of as mostly rational, only succeeded
because they made us better at reproducing. We can‘t possibly have
full conscious control over them because the self-replicating drive that
created us still has many powerful forces on how and what we think. - There are millions of years of evolution driving us to reproduce by
having sex. Since attraction is what leads us to have sex, attraction is
firmly tied to the biology resulting from that evolutionary history.
Now that we can see how evolution could create attraction based on
something more than rational thought, we can start to analyze some of the
reasons that have developed for attraction. Discovering those reasons starts in
understanding the different contributions men and women make in
reproduction, and the conflicting strategies that have evolved as a result of
those differing contributions.
By the way, Geoffrey Miller wrote a book called ―The Mating Mind‖. If you
like this stuff, read that book. It‘s mind-blowing.