Fire is amazing. Fire gives us steaks and idli, candles and arsonists, firework shows, and this emoji - 🔥. It is also mesmerizing to look at and nice to sit next to on cold winter nights.
So how did this amazing technology appear in human civilization? Was it invented by a particularly intrepid, creative and curious caveman? Or did it genetically evolve like other complex animal behaviour?
Let’s first look at how complex animal behaviour comes about. Suppose there’s a group of birds somewhere. They’re pretty boring birds. They just hop about eating worms, flying, whatever it is that birds do all day (seriously what do birds do all day? But that’s a topic for another time). When the females lay eggs they’re frequently trampled by larger animals or eaten by predators or they just roll away. One day one such female gets an idea: what if I put a stick here and lay my eggs next to it? That will prevent the egg from rolling away and could provide some protection from predators and the feet of large animals. So she does just that. And her eggs survive and hatch and she has baby birds and she’s thrilled so she tells all her friends about this thing she invented and then…
Ok, that’s not really how it works. Birds don’t have ideas. They are feathery robots, executing genetically coded behaviour. So how then does nest building occur?
Well, let’s substitute ‘genes’ for ‘mind’ and ‘mutation’ for ‘idea’ and see where that takes us.
There are birds with genes that cause the behaviour of picking up bugs and fruits to eat. Suppose one of these genes mutates and instead of causing the bird to pick up fruits to eat, it causes the bird to pick up a stick and place it on the ground. It then lays an egg next to this stick. The egg survives, and the mutated gene is passed on to the next generation. Over time, the frequency of this mutated gene will increase in the population. Because this behaviour is tied so closely to which gene will be passed on - the eggs are literally laid right there - any small change in behaviour will have a massive effect on the phenomena of nest building. Suppose a gene mutates and tells a bird to ‘add sticks’. For a time this gene will increase in the population and nests will become bigger and bigger as the eggs become safer, till of course they become too big. Now they’re more noticeable to predators or too heavy or the bird spends too much time and energy building the nest and has none left to mate or lay eggs so that gene will stop increasing in frequency. Over time a balance will be reached and an acceptable trade-off will be achieved. But nothing will change until the knowledge ‘reduce sticks’ is introduced via mutation to the gene pool. If a bird accidentally puts 2 sticks instead of one stick, this will have no effect on future nest-building, even if this has the benefit of keeping the egg safer than 1 stick because there is no knowledge of ‘put two sticks’ being passed on.
There are of course some animal behaviours that don’t require the knowledge to come from genes. In these cases - chimps for example - there are genes that tell them to imitate other chimps. This is a rudimentary form of ‘culture’. But that is the full extent of the culture of chimps. If it were otherwise, chimps would be pulling a Planet of Apes on us by now.
Let’s talk about fire and first try to build a plausible case that fire building could have genetically evolved. Genetically evolved means: the knowledge of how to build a fire must come from genetically mandated behaviour. Cavemen telling each other how to build a fire doesn’t count because in that case knowledge is being passed from individual minds to other individual minds without any change in the genetic code.
Caveman 1 - let’s call him Ghan Bhuri Ghan, Wild Man of the Forest - has a genetic mutation in the gene that causes him to swing his arms. This mutation causes him to pick up a stone and throw it at other stones. Sometimes sparks appear. What then? What survival benefit does this behaviour have that will cause this mutation to carry on to the next generation? And how do sparks become a fire? This is different from nest building because, firstly there is no obvious selection pressure and second making more sparks is not going to help you build a fire. So even if there is some noticeable selection pressure - maybe a passing woman is attracted to sparks - and the genes pass on, nothing is ever going to change unless the sparks become a fire and the fire is maintained - a conceptual leap must occur here. The caveman needs some theory - an idea in his mind - that tells him, ‘Wow look at those sparks’ and causes him to conjecture that something can be done with those sparks. Or he may accidentally cause a fire and unlike in nest building, this accident can change the world because we - people - don’t need knowledge to be passed on via our genes. We have minds and culture and theories and most importantly explanations. We can explain things to other members of our species - something no other species can do.
It is easy to see how fires were created once we are free from having to force genetics into the picture. Ghan Bhuri Ghan is walking one day in the forest. He loves picking up stones and throwing them because he knows the sound scares away nearby predators. This particular time he gets lucky: the stone hits another stone and creates a tremendous spark. He has seen sparks before - he always thought they were amazing but this is the biggest spark he’s ever seen. He does it again and again, mesmerized by the lights, the sound and even the smell. Another piece of luck! Some bone-dry lichen catches one of these sparks. Lo and behold! Fire! He runs back to the tribe. ‘Look,’ he says.’ Look at this amazing thing!’
And thus, with curiosity, aesthetics, and some luck, fire is invented. Of course, once the fire is created it has to be maintained and used. Only human creativity and our ability to explain things can account for the purpose and design of fire and fire-related things, and, the passing on from generation to generation and from place to place of this wonderful energy that was once a secret, reserved only for the Gods.