Procreation? What for?

So, I was helping a friend out with some high school science homework at the bar last night when in the midst of the module about asexual and sexual reproduction I encountered a surprisingly deep question. It was:

What is the purpose of reproduction?

I’m sure whoever wrote the question intended it to be pretty straight forward, but having just looked through the module on anatomical evidence supporting the theory of evolution, I couldn’t see past the mistaken premise of the question.

You see, there is no purpose for reproduction.

To see why, take a moment to follow me down the garden path.... Suppose there is a table in front of you with a bunch of objects on it. These objects do lots of things for no particular reason. Think of them as little robots. Some make noise. Some have flashing lights. Some bounce up and down. Some construct sculptures. And some make more objects like themselves.

Next, suppose that the table, though rather large, has a finite area and a very definite edge. Occasionally some of the little objects, particularly the ones that move around a lot, fall off the edge, and from time to time objects get accidentally bumped off by other objects.

In this hypothetical scenario with dumb little robots, what happens over time? Well, if you wait long enough, there is a day in the future when none of the robots you started with will be on the table. In the long run, if there is a finite risk that any particular robot will fall over the edge, then eventually any robot will fall off the edge.

So does this mean that there won’t be any robots left on the table? Not necessarily. Remember that some of those first robots made more robots. Maybe some of those newer robots will still be on the table on the day that the last of the original robots falls off.

Of course, even the little robots that were made by other little robots are subject to the cold math of the Edge, but that doesn’t imply that the table will be empty if you wait even longer. Rather, if any one of these little robots makes more robots, as long as some of those make more robots, and as long as the robots make more robots faster than they fall off the table, you may never run out of robots.

In fact, the table is bound to fill up with robots and overflow onto the floor even faster. These robots still might do all sorts of things (blink, beep, jump, etc.), but one thing is for sure, they are all descendants of robot making robots, and many of them (perhaps most or all) will be robot making robots themselves. In fact, over time, the average ability of the robots to make more robots, and the sophistication of strategies of avoiding the edge will increase exponentially.

So, what does this have to do with the purpose of reproduction? Well, which of these robots had a purpose to its actions? None - these robots are machines. They just do what they do. Is a robot that blinks any better than a robot that bounces? Is one happier? No – they don’t even know what they’re doing.

The only thing that is special about reproduction is that systems of populations tend toward populations that reproduce. This is true regardless of whether the elements of the population are capable of even intending to reproduce. Plants, animals, viruses, genes, memes, business plans all create or inspire copies of themselves without really meaning to.

People understand this, I suppose, but they also make the mistake of assigning purpose to the activity. I do it too. (I used the word “strategies” with some timidity three paragraphs ago.) Along the way, people also think of reproduction as success, even though it isn’t. It isn't failure either. Reproduction just is. It is the activity that, by definition, still is later. If a robot, descendant from a long line of reproducing robots was made so it didn’t reproduce, but did handstands instead, would it have somehow failed? No, because it had no more or less intent to make more robots (or do handstands for that matter) than its parent had to make more robots. They all just do what they do.

You might say, “People are different. We are not robots. We intend to do things. We do things for purposes.” I won’t disagree that we are different, but you must agree that the system is the same. The reason most folks think it is important to have kids is because we are all the product of that impulse, and most folks were built with that impulse. But that doesn’t make it right. It doesn’t mean someone is any better or worse for doing something different (or doing the same, for that matter). They’re just doing what they do.

So, what’s the purpose of reproduction? Beats me. I don't know any better than a robot.