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Evolution has not prepared us for this

Humans are animals with self-consciousness. This self-consciousness may show it self to some small degree in other animals but this capacity for self-consciousness makes our species different in kind from other animals and this difference makes all the difference in the world.

Natural evolution produced the human species but there is more than a degree of difference between humans and other animals; there is a difference in kind between us and our animal cousins.

All other animals are creatures of naïve action determined strictly by emotions, i.e. instinct that is obeyed by non reflective programmed action. Humans however are aided or hindered, depending upon the situation, by self knowledge.

Otto Rank informs us that for man “knowledge about himself interferes with naïve action, restrains him and torments without affording him the satisfaction and liberation which the deed grants. He cannot accomplish through action any more because he thinks, because he knows too much. Now man longs for naïve unconsciousness as a source of happiness.”

Evolution by natural selection depends upon naïve preprogrammed action; without this form of unmitigated action natural selection can no longer be a significant factor in human development. Through “too much self-knowledge” we are restricted in our actions. However, through this capacity for abstract thinking, we have a creative side.

Knowing can be a substitute for living; itself a form of experiencing. Human will, resulting from self-knowledge, is the cause of an equal and negative deficit. The active hero resulting from self-knowledge can come to grief because s/he lacks the knowledge of the results of action. The passive individual cannot act because of self-knowledge restricting the will thus developing a feeling of guilt.

“The artist solves it for himself and others since he transposes the will affirmation creatively into knowledge, that is, expresses his will spiritually and changes the unavoidable guilt into ethical ideal formation, which spurs him on and qualifies him for ever higher performance in terms of self-development.”

Quotes from Truth and Reality by Otto Rank

Evolution is a blind process; it doesn't prepare us for anything. Evolution selects for those those traits best for the environment at hand, as well as allows for random change (drift), nothing more.


Once again, no. The above is an attitude more appropriate for the 1950's than today. Its well established that most mammals have some degree of self-awareness. When talking about so-called "higher mammals" - the other apes, dolphins and elephants - there is no evidence to suggest they are any less self-aware than we humans are.


Once again, totally wrong. All vertebrate animals - even gold fish - have some ability to learn. Invention, tool use, problem solving, even math, are intellectual capabilities common among "higher" mammals. Heck, apes can even learn human sign language to the vocabulary of a 7-year old child (about 1000 words) - and can use that to communicate complex ideas. They even invent new words, combining signs to make new ones to express their own ideas.

We humans are better at these tasks than other animals, but it is the most extreme of hubris to claim we're the only ones with these capabilities.

And working in a hospital, I can say that every day I see people being ruled by their emotions, not their mind...


Whose work has been completely rejected by the scientific community - that's what happens when your a devotee of Freud.


Nope, Evolution relies on mutation, drift and selection. Selection will select for any trait which increases fitness - even if that trait is "non-programidness". In fact, there is a strong evolutionary selection away from "preprogramming" - programs are consistent. Consistent things are predictable. Predictable things are easy to prey on, as they always act the same.

I'd also point out a logical inconsistency in your argument - if evolution can only select for pre-programmed behavior, then how ever could human non-programmed behavior ever be evolved. You cannot have your cake and eat it too...


LOL, anyone with a basic understanding of evolution is laughing at you right now. Evolution, in a nut shell, is simply the change in the inherited traits of a species over generations. The source of new variation is mutation. Selection weeds out unfavorable mutations. The fastest a species can evolve is determined by its mutation rate alone - selection slows the accumulation of mutations, and thus slows evolution.

In the west we've largely removed selection in the human population - that means we're evolving faster, not slower, than before. Outside of the west - especially in places like sub-Saharan Africa - selection remains and evolution is going on these much as it has for the past few million years.

And since we're on the topic of human evolution, you'd be surprised how much of it is going on right now. We've seen de novo formation of HIV resistance genotypes in places like Nairobi, the hapmap project has identified literally tens of thousands of novel mutations that had to have arrived in the past century. Heck, we have even measured the human mutation rate - each of us carries 100-200 mutations not found in either parent (average is ~130).


My dog knows how to "sit", "stay" and "in your box". Does that mean she is a substitute for living?

Oh Freud, deluding people into thinking they are not animals for over a century...

Bryan