For explaining why humans are odd
To Varki and Brower we applaud
A great mystery they solved
With denial we evolved
And created the Higgs, overshoot, and God¹
This is my short version of Ajit Varki and Danny Brower‘s Mind Over Reality Transition (MORT) theory. A longer more complete version by the authors is here, here, and here, and an excellent video version is here. I also wrote a broader narrative here.
The human brain is much more powerful than the brain of any other species.
Why?
Most people ask “what’s special about humans?”.
It’s the wrong question.
A powerful brain with an extended theory of mind is clearly a useful adaptation for an intelligent social species because it has permitted humans to take over the planet.
Evolution frequently re-discovers successful solutions. For example, the eye independently evolved in several different species.
The correct question is “what’s prevented other intelligent social species like chimpanzees, elephants, crows, and dolphins from evolving brains similar to humans?”.
The answer is that a more powerful brain with an extended theory of mind becomes aware of mortality by observing common dangerous activities like hunting and childbirth, and this awareness of death causes depression and reduced risk taking, thus preventing the trait from being passed on to the next generation.
This barrier has prevented the evolution of a more powerful brain in all but one species.
Crossing the barrier requires an improbable evolutionary event, analogous to the energy per gene barrier that blocked complex life for 2 billion years until a rare endosymbiosis (merging) of prokaryotes (simple cells) created the eukaryotic cell (complex cell common to all multicellular life).
About 100,000 years ago, one small group of hominids in Africa broke through the barrier by simultaneously evolving an extended theory of mind with denial of death.
While denial of death may appear to be a suspiciously complicated behavior to evolve quickly, it can, for example, be implemented by a modest tweak to the fear suppression module that mammals use when forced to fight. A side effect of this solution is that not only is death denied, but anything unpleasant is denied, thus the adaptation manifests as denial of reality (aka optimism bias).
On its own, denial of reality is maladaptive because it causes behaviors not optimal for survival. However the two maladaptive behaviors, an extended theory of mind and denial of reality, when combined, become highly adaptive by enabling the evolution of a more powerful brain, which is clearly useful for an intelligent social species.
The probability of an extended theory of mind plus denial of reality emerging at the same time is very low, and apparently has occurred only once on this planet, just as the eukaryotic cell emerged only once.
In a geologic blink, that small lucky group outcompeted all other hominids and every other species on the planet.
Denial is not a defect. Denial is what made us human.
Denial now prevents us from acknowledging and changing behavior that threatens our long-term survival and therefore denial may destroy us.
Hence this site’s tagline…
unmasking denial: creator and destroyer
¹This sentence attempts to communicate the three most amazing things about the human brain:
- Higgs: Extreme curiosity and intelligence that successfully explained the creation of the universe, life, and one very special brain.
- Overshoot: Aggressive denial of all evidence and appropriate responses to its own overshoot and imminent demise.
- God: Near universal belief in life after death despite zero supporting evidence and plentiful contradictory evidence.
un-Denial 
It’s a just-so-story based on zero evidence. “… a more powerful brain with an extended theory of mind becomes aware of mortality by observing common dangerous activities like hunting and childbirth, and this awareness of death causes depression and reduced risk taking…” Why would awareness of INEVITABLE, not conditional, death reduce risk taking. On the contrary, if you thought you would, barring accident, live forever THEN you would become hyper-careful and avoid all risk (like childbirth). That you’re going to die no matter what you do makes risk taking an easy decision. As I tell my friends, “The older you get, the less you have to lose.”
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I disagree. If you think you are invincible you take risks as demonstrated by teenage boys in cars. The first person in a tribe to evolve awareness of their own mortality would have had a very difficult time coping with no one else to talk to that understood their fears, and no religion to fall back on.
Plate tectonics was a just so story until the scientists who could not see the obvious were replaced by a new generation.
Varki is searching for a fact that slays his MORT theory. If you have such a fact I will pass it on to him.
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Humans do still have fight (fight or flight) these days its called anxiety or panic attack. And I dont think anyone is denying death… Even if you believe in god ot to like you all of a sudden lost your survival instint. Good theroery but unless Im totally misunderstanding it has some serious flaws.
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Happy to engage with you but I’m not following your argument. Please elaborate on the flaws you see in Varki’s theory.
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Below are some surface points I question about MORT theory, though I’ve yet to know it in detail. I certainly find it interesting, as someone who sees most people as lacking profundity. They behave like partying apes with technology that only a handful could have invented.
A) Other smart species like elephants and dolphins lack the physical form to do much with their intelligence, e.g. opposable thumbs. Denial or not, you can only do so much with only a trunk or mouth to grasp objects. Neither of those species can build anything significant so their intelligence could be considered overkill. Dolphins are also stuck in the water.
B) Other apes that got fairly smart might have just lost the final brain lottery, so to speak. Some branch had to make it further and Earth could have ended up like Planet of the Apes (far-fetched plot notwithstanding).
C) How do we know that other species aren’t also in denial? Every time a deer eats it has to take a leap of faith that attackers won’t show up. That’s actually braver than many people if they knew a serial killer was lurking in the woods. Completely “dumb” species like slugs seem to have no awareness that they could be stepped on, so denial effectively exists at much lower levels. It could just be a case of “I have to eat so I have to take chances.” Does the male praying mantis or black widow have genetic awareness of its final romp?
D) If denial exists in all species, we just happen to be the smartest one with it. The 100,000-year-ago shift could have been a spike of luck, not exactly happening overnight. Evolution has been shown to happen in bursts. I’m inclined to think that any species remotely aware of its mortality is in denial of death, but life is also worth living in the meantime, so what else can they do? Investigation of suicides (among seemingly OK people) may shed light on why some quit and others press on.
Those are just tentative arguments and I plan to read the book someday, especially if Trump gets reelected.
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All good questions that I’m a little too busy to answer in detail now but I’ll be back with a reply later.
If you are skeptical and seek alternate explanations for our destructive behaviors Nate Hagens has probably done the most thinking on this. He has compiled a long list of evolved human behaviors that contribute to overshoot. Nate is publishing a book soon, and until then you can find his best work on this blog.
https://un-denial.com/?s=Nate+Hagens
Also, you don’t need to read Varki’s book to get his central arguments. He does a good job explaining in this video. I suggest you pause the video from time to time to read his slides because there’s a lot of information he does not have time to speak to.
https://un-denial.com/denial-2/theory-video/
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I’d already watched much of the Varki video and know of Hagens, but will check them out more. If most of it hinges on a big change around 100,000 years ago, I assume they’ve applied Occam’s Razor to other causes.
A modified MORT theory could be that any animal aware of its morality and overgrazing the land (so to speak) is in denial but humans can cause the most permanent damage. Denial as unique to people doesn’t quite have the ring of truth.
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How could other animals be “in denial”, other than figuratively speaking? They don’t have the mental capacity to conceptually think about the world like humans do, that’s the point of MORT. Those higher mental faculties unique to humans could only develop together with psychological defense mechanisms like denial, otherwise they would have been a disadvantage, evolutionarily speaking. (You may claim that now denial is coming back to bite us, but our overshoot is actually a proof of the success of homo sapiens, it’s a unique and never-again-to-occur situation, and as long as humanity isn’t completely wiped off the planet, the coming die-off doesnt’t disproof it, again from the standpoint of natural selection – by measure of common sense or rationality we’re indeed insane).
The “dumb” animals are just not aware of their mortality. They might have an emotional / hard-wired fear response when in danger, but they have no concept of what it means to cease to exist.
I agree that non-ape species couldn’t make much use of human-level intelligence.
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Thanks kindly Chris for answering Respect’s question.
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human-level intelligence?
“You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”
― Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
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That’s because it is too dumb to imagine anything like monkey heaven. If it were smart enough it too would probably be in denial of death. It’s a matter of fear not of intelligence. Humans are only selectively rational.
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Apneaman wrote: “…The “dumb” animals are just not aware of their mortality. They might have an emotional / hard-wired fear response when in danger, but they have no concept of what it means to cease to exist….”
But how can you know that without being inside their minds? Other species are known to grieve for dead kin and it’s arrogant to assume they have no inner-lives (a common excuse to kill them for utility & sport). Some animal families like corvidae, exhibit unusual intelligence from mere bird-brains, and no human has been inside those minds. See: https://www.google.com/search?q=are+animals+aware+of+their+mortality
Again, if MORT rests on some big change around 100,000 years ago, all co-factors must be eliminated to isolate denial. The theory has elements of a belief in search of evidence or a memorial to Brower himself. I’ve had trouble finding videos of him speaking (for personality clues) but it’s worth reading a popular professor-review site.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mind-reviews-denial/ “…As they observe, there is no specific neural circuitry to explain how we evolved a theory of mind or a propensity for self-deception. It seems equally probable that these qualities co-evolved or that they are unrelated to each other…”
Like that reviewer, I have trouble seeing denial as a driver instead of a passenger. Other decently-smart species also need a means to overcome fear and we can’t know their full motives. Even though denial is pervasive, it has chicken & egg qualities, like whether fear came before pain or water before rain.
My take on humans is that greed + arrogance + stupidity + denial = destruction, and “you can’t fix stupid.”
http://bit.do/false_progress
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I recently finished the book “Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel” by Carl Safina that was recommended to me because it provides many examples of impressive animal intelligence, and shows that some animals have a range of emotions as rich as humans. All true it seems and consistent with what I already believed.
My main motivation for reading the book was to find any evidence that another species denies death with gods. I found none, as Varki’s MORT predicts. Nor did I find evidence that another species has invented a symbolic language, discovered General Relativity, or mastered fire.
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Well, I didn’t know death had to be specifically denied via gods and nobody’s proved that denial must only occur with the highest achievements. Watch out for cherry-picking, pilgrim!
They never called the theory falsifiable so it could remain in speculative purgatory. Brower’s own wife mentions some doubts in a comment here: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16131197-denial
I’m not here to deny the denial predicament, though daily impacts of greed (primary survival instinct) concern me more. That’s what’s driving the direct damage to nature.
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No gods required. That’s my embellishment and is not approved by Varki. Its destiny is much worse than speculative purgatory. Everyone is and will continue to ignore it, because as the theory predicts, denial is denied.
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I disagree that greed, as the word is commonly understood, is a survival “instinct”. It is a function of envy and ambition, which are ultimately rooted in the fear of death (and the need to put something in front of it to not have look into the abyss). The word also carries an emotional baggage.
Indeed, humans are selfish and not seldom quite disgustingly so, both as individuals and as collectives, but the same could be said about all the other species. The most selfish and ruthless organisms tend to thrive best under the conditions prevailing on earth, where the weak get eaten by the strong and “might makes right”.
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Greed, arrogance and stupidity are not the core reasons for the destruction of the environment. Even greedy and arrogant people would stop, IF they could, before going on a suicide mission, and humans are certainly not too stupid too see what’s going on, if they cared to be informed (again it is denial which makes people look “dumber” than they are, because it makes them “overlook” certain realities that would be too hard to bear emotionally.)
I don’t know about the inner lives of other species and I’m sure there must be something going on in the brains of mammals, birds, but I believe even the other apes don’t have a full Theory of Mind, nor the ability to think conceptually about death, to imagine things they’ve never seen before etc. Humans needed to evolve denial because our ability to imagine things that are not directly in front of us, to think about possibilites, can produce fear that can be hindering in the challenges of survival and competition.
I’m also not sure I agree with all specific details of MORT, I think rather not, but I believe that denial was the solution evolution “came up with” to deal with the “downsides” of human consciousness.
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Nice explanation Chris. I mostly agree.
Safina’s book gave examples of animals planning, so some apparently can imagine and look ahead. The unique human behavior seems to center around the extended theory of mind. Several animals are close and mourn their dead but none show any evidence of a belief in life after death.
As a test of the strength and ubiquity of our tendency to deny unpleasant realities, walk up to a neighbor and explain peak oil. You will see a curtain come down over their eyes. Or they will get aggitated and argue irrationaly against the facts. It’s fascinating when you are tuned to watch for it.
I have an open channel to Varki if you have found any flaws or improvements to the theory you want him to consider.
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This is where it gets really difficult, when trying to evaluate the minds of other “smart” animals, as you can only observe their behavior, not their “cognitions”. Can they really creativly imagine things they’ve never seen before? When they mourn their dead, are they concerned about what happened to the “deceased” or just sad they lost a “friend/relative”? Why don’t they show evidence of a belief in life after death (like ritually burying their dead, lol, try to imagine that), beacause they are not in denial, or because it’s too difficult a concept for them to imagine?
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Thanks.
Nah, I’m too afraid of PO myself to talk about it, lol, I don’t want them to know…
But you can also go to your typical bible-thumping believer and mention a few inconsistencies in their faith, or evidence of evolution; or, more generally, you could point out some “lies” to someone on which his self-esteem depends, etc. if you like to see the curtain going down.
All not very nice, but sometimes being attuned to reality can be more important than good feelings.
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You might also want to take a look at Reg Morrison’s book, Spirit in the Gene: Humanity’s Proud Illusion and the Laws of Nature — https://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Gene-Humanitys-Illusion-Comstock/dp/0801436516 ; https://regmorrison.edublogs.org/1999/07/20/plague-species-the-spirit-in-the-gene/
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Thank you, I’ve read most of that book.
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The ability to imagine a future is the ability to deny a future.
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Perhaps replace “is” with “requires”?
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This theory is new to me so I can’t say I’ve thought much about my objection, but one thing that came to my mind while reading this is that people don’t usually deny the possibility of death or suffering in everyday life. I’d rather say that we think too much about it. We sometimes worry so much about every possible outcome of our choices and actions that we remain stuck, frozen. We lock ourselves inside our mind, not sharing our real thoughts or feelings, because we’re so afraid of being repelled from our group even though every time we actually talk to each other about our inner selves, we realize we’re not alone. We don’t believe in our ability to change things around us, we fear even taking the first step and talk to each other about it. Fear is the main obstacle to a more sustainable living in most people I talk to and meet, not denial. Perhaps the rich and powerful of the world are a different species where this theory makes more sense. Those that creates the unsustainable systems that the rest of us just blindly follow, out of fear and comfort.
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Hi Rob
I have enjoyed reading your site and its great articles. I’m in 100% agreement about overshoot, poeple’s denial about energy, limitations of technology etc. (all the ‘obvious’ stuff).
There’s no doubt people (in general) are in denial about the role energy (specifically FF) has played in creating their current, comfortable lifestyles (at least in the West), and about how this is in no way sustainable.
However, it’s a bit of a leap to go from there to saying ‘people deny reality because evolution selected for brains that deny reality’.
There are several reasons to object to MORT:
Taking ‘reality’ to mean our direct experience of the physical world – if someone believes they can fly, jumps off a cliff and lands on rocks, then their denial of reality (that they can’t fly) has removed them from the gene pool. This contradicts MORT’s assertion that reality denial confers some evolutionary advantage.
MORT’s premise (that development of large brains causes depression and risk aversion, leading to an evolutionary dead end) is wrong headed. If increasing cognition (of the physical world) gave an evolutionary edge, there’s no reason it would stop just because of death awareness. The limit on brain size in humans is due to the limit on head size that can pass through the birth canal.
The widespread denial that inspired this site is a cultural phenomenon. Beliefs (including religious ones) spread or die out for non-scientific reasons, not evolutionary ones. Denial of the reality of overshoot, environmental destruction etc. is just another belief. There’s no need to try and force it into some elaborate theory – that’s just overcomplicating matters.
In order for reality to be denied, there must first be some agreed definition of what it is. MORT falls into the same trap that athiests do. The only logically sound position to take on either ‘reality’ or ‘God’, is the one people seem to fear most, namely: ‘I don’t know’.
To say otherwise is to assume knowledge you can’t possibly have.
How do you know the true nature of reality? How do you know you’re not a brain in a jar in an alien lab in Alpha Centauri, with wires feeding in electrical impulses that gives you the illusion of living a life on Earth?
At the deepest level, there is no way to prove what reality is – therefore, there’s no way to either affirm or deny it.
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Thanks for stopping by. You make many points but I’ll start this conversation by addressing two of them.
If you believe it is not possible to know reality, then I agree that thinking about MORT is a waste of time. I personally do believe that the world we live in is real and is governed by the laws of physics, but I accept that you may have a different belief.
It is easy to understand the reasons why every tribe of behaviorally modern humans, in all geographies, through all of time, have had some form of religion. These religions unite and govern their tribes with infinitely variable stories. It is not easy to explain why every single one of those religions has a belief in some form of life after death unless denial of death has a genetic basis. You would expect a random sample of religions to believe in life after death, but not every single one. How do you explain this without MORT?
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Rob, leaving aside the unknowable nature of reality for now, there’s a simple reason why all religions believe in an afterlife. Believers are comforted by the thought that it’s not ‘over’ when they die, that they’ll see their loved ones again, that good/evil will be rewarded/punished etc… it’s easy to dismiss such ideas, scientifically, but most people aren’t scientifically minded. You’re looking at the question from a position of logic (which does not apply to a large amount of human behaviour).
Why would you expect any religion to not believe in life after death? The whole point of them (apart from the control aspect) is to offer the faithful something to hold on to – something bigger than themselves and the physical world. That’s why they remain so popular, and their popularity might only increase amid a globally collapsing civilization.
Any religion that didn’t offer life after death would be a huge failure, with all the drawbacks (services/rituals, deferal to priests/elders, monetary contributions etc) and none of the ‘benefit’.
(NB I am not religious. All religions claim knowledge without evidence.)
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Religions offer many benefits other than life after death including social safety nets, music, festivals, companionship, law and order, etc., etc.. There are many good reasons for religions to exist without life after death.
You say life after death is essential for any successful religion. This is true only if mortality awareness without life after death is a big problem for our species. Which of course it is, as explained by Dr. Varki’s MORT. You use different words than Varki but are essentially saying the same thing. Belief in life after death prevents depression (and less fitness) caused by mortality awareness.
When you see a behavior in a species that is consistent through all time and space, it is a safe bet that the behavior has a genetic origin. So belief in life after death probably has a genetic origin and now we need to explain how and why this evolved, and why it happened in only one species on this planet, and why that species has an intelligence quantitatively and qualitatively different than every other species, and why belief in life after death emerged simultaneaous with that intellience, and why that species also denies everything else that is unpleasant. Varki’s MORT provides answers to all these questions.
Dr. Varki would like to find evidence that he is wrong. If you know of a fact that kills his theory, let me know and I will pass it on to him for review.
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It may be impossible to disprove Varki’s idea, but then one of the prerequisites for any scientific theory is that it’s falsifiable – which MORT seems not to be.
If mortality awareness impedes fitness, does that mean athiests are less likely to reproduce? Do they mope around all day, mumbling about the pointlessness of it all? I see no evidence of this.
There are some religions which might be said to not include an afterlife: Judaism, Buddhism (maybe) and Paganism.
Even if these examples aren’t acceptable (so that all religions do indeed include life after death), doesn’t Occam’s razor apply here?
Which is more likely,
a) People believe all kinds of crazy things. Some people believe in life after death because it makes the hardships of this life more bearable
or
b) Over aeons, evolution led to the development of beings with brains large enough to appreciate their own mortality. Only then, those beings became depressed and decided not to reproduce or do anything, so they died out. This evolutionary process kept happening until a ‘leap’ was made – i.e. a random mutation led to a genetic predisposition to believe in an afterlife. This stopped the latest large-brained being from dying of ennui like all his failed distant relatives but had the unfortunate side effect of causing people to deny all sorts of important stuff (like resource depletion etc.)
More often than not, the simpler, shorter explanation is the correct one.
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To falsify MORT you can:
– find another species with an extended theory of mind that does not deny death
– find another species that denies death and does not have an extended theory of mind
– identify a human tribe that does not believe in life after death
– find evidence that belief in life after death emerged before our extended theory of mind
– find evidence that our extended theory of mind emerged before a belief in life after death
Judaism, Buddhism, and Paganism all believe in forms of life after death.
People do believe every conceivable crazy story. The point is that all tribes, not some tribes, believe in life after death. And all tribes also have a tendency to deny unpleasant realities, like human oveshoot, peak oil, and the danger of injecting mRNA, regardless of the strength of evidence that they are wrong.
Your simple explanation does not explain why only one species developed a powerful brain, which is a clear fitness advantage because it has enabled us to dominate the entire planet. Other useful adaptations, like eyes, have a tendency to independently emerge multiple times because of their utiity. Something is blocking other intelligent social species.
There are multiple open questions about the explosive emergence of behaviorally modern humans and MORT is the only theory I have found that provides a plausible answer to all of them.
MORT also explains why we are unable to see and act on our own overshoot and demise despite plenty of intelligence to do so. This, by far, is the most important question we face.
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Mind OVER reality (theory?) is already a postulate of mind or minding as set over, above, upstream or controlling ‘reality’.
So ‘mind’ and ‘reality’ can clearly mean many things (to many moments of perspective).
To posit ‘reality’ is physical and therefore OVER mind (as distinct from having physical, emotional-psychic & mental facets, is a reduction of what is – to what can be defined & measured. But then we are in a model OF reality.
That denial is denied is inherent as a function of the capacity to map out & selectively ignore or discard information & embracing feeling of participation -from the development of focus in the experience that results from denial of a direct knowing – that has no separation or fragmentation of its elements or qualities.
Denial of truth must focus in something ELSE (than truth- vis a vis self-image or illusion by which a ‘self’ adapts to the ‘world’ that it makes BY belief. The release of beliefs puts nothing between that you are and awareness of being – regardless what is appended to the object of devotion (or indeed of affliction in terms of a denial-framed need to accuse and oppose itself in others).
Anyway MORT has far too many assumptions already framing the ‘issues’.
But a self-differentiating individuation can give priority to a mental or conceptual image at cost to functional physical survival or development. Confusing past impressions with present focus within the physical experience can and does react to a past that is not here – apart from the projection of the mind or minds that reinforce their be-lived experience by reaction set in terms of gain of function (as a private agenda – not truly integrative function).
Species-trauma or Separation trauma runs within a life, no less than the collective context of lives. You can observe its effects as a dissociated or split mind relative to a conflicted experience or world.
We are free to persist in the line of our current core definitions & beliefs, as we are to bring them to question or release them for a fresh expression of being. But the freedom does not reside in the character we take on as a masking adaptation within a fusion of physical biologic and psychic or mental definitions.
https://x.com/onemindinmany/status/1726930789827534948?s=20
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I’m a retired electrical engineer. My brain does not do philosophy or spirituality. Perhaps someone else will engage with you.
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Among secular, Western societies, religious belief is not that high and may be declining, yet athiests reproduce. Do they, by will power, overcome their genetic predispostion to believe? That would be like trying to overcome one’s innate sexuality by will power.
In areas of the world where hardship is greatest, religious belief is highest – there is a direct correlation, and it’s unnecessary to invoke a genetic propensity for belief.
People deny unpleasant realities like the ones you mentioned, because they evolved with no need for long term thinking, or for planning future societies. The evolutionary pressure, in all but the recent blip that is ‘civilization’, was to meet immediate needs, i.e. food, shelter and sex. Just because a reasoning mind can accept the realities you mention, it doesn’t follow that the masses can – or want to.
Humans did not evolve to seek truth, and knowing the truth – for example, about government corruption or some horrible crime – confers no fitness advantage (and maybe even a disadvantage via depression). Maybe that’s what MORT boils down to, in the end.
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I do not know what you believe to be true so I can’t judge if you see the same near universal denial that I do, or if you are in denial like most people. If the latter, we are talking past each other.
Please summarize your beliefs on overshoot, resource depletion, species extinction, climate change, energy transition, and what a sustainable human population will likely be in 2050.
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I do see mass denial, which I put down to people not being bothered/ignorance/stupidity/short term thinking/lack of critical thinking.
I don’t deny overshoot, resource depletion, species extinction or climate change. Governments and media put all the emphasis only on climate change, but the other issues are just as, if not more, important.
As for energy transition, I don’t believe civilization as it exists now can be run on ‘renewable’ energy (RE).
RE is dependent on FF, not just for its initial build but also for maintenance (and eventually building again when it expires).
Also, RE’s energy density is nowhere near that of FF. Diesel engined vehicles are integral to how civilization is now. RE can’t replace diesel engined vehicles/ships or jet fuel. Plus – all the products – chemicals, fertilizers, paints, drugs, plastics etc etc that FF provides can’t be provided by RE.
A sustainable human population in 2050? I wouldn’t like to guess… probably fewer people than now.
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Very good. Now I know that you, like me, probably have defective denial genes which means in principle you are capable of seeking the best answer to explain the denial we observe.
You started your arguments against MORT saying it is unscientific because it cannot be disproved. I showed how it could be dispproved. You ignored this and moved on to the next argument.
You named 3 religions that do not believe in life after death. I replied that this is untrue. Instead of providing evidence for your claim you ignored my response and moved on to the next argument.
Now you are arguing that atheists reproduce and therefore MORT is wrong. I could counter with the reasons this does not undermine MORT but I suspect you would ignore my arguments.
I suggest we get to the heart of the matter. You do not like the MORT theory. Most overshoot aware people do not like MORT, so you are in good company.
Setting aside any discomfort from acknowledging that god is a mutation for denying mortality, it seems the reason most overshoot aware people dislike MORT is that it implies that they and many other people who have devoted their lives to researching overshoot related problems and educating the public on why we need to change our behaviors, is a complete waste of time.
Despite a lot of effort from many people, nothing of substance has changed for the better over the last 50 years, and nothing will change for the better in the future, until MORT is acknowledged and a way found to override it.
You think igorance, sloth, short term thinking, etc., etc. explains the denial you see. The best evidence that you are wrong is that every famous polymath is in denial about everything that matters.
Another good piece of evidence is to find someone with normal denial genes and a bright mind that trusts and respects you, like say a good friend, and then spend hours and hours presenting the evidence for overshoot and a collapse of civilzation that will kill billions in their lifetime. If you watch closely you will see the curtain come down over their eyes blocking them from absorbing what you are saying. Then observe that they ask no questions and never bring the topic up again.
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Hello Anonymous.
I just wanted to say I like your comment and reached the same conclusion. Thank you.
However, it took me more than half a life (making some optimistic assumptions about my life expectancy here :)…
From the mental world, it is very hard to accept we float in a sea of unknowns with a few (not necessarily useful) buoys of reason here and there… Once we free-fall into the abyss it’s liberating though.
I am of the opinion that mental addictions can not be stopped with argumentation, they eventually stop by themselves. There are things that are extremely hard to share in words. The time needs to be right…
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An alternate reading of inheritances:
What we resist, persists.
What we disregard fades from non use.
The patterning of physical & biological structure is assigned ‘laws’ in our genetically based evolutionary backstory of a materially determined focus in object continuity.
Workability is integral to function. So that our intent or desire to focus in experience as a specific representation or embodiment of significance, value and meaning is a functional consciousness within an infinite or unbounded field of probabilities drawn from ‘potential’ both of ‘past & future’ – which thus shift the gestalt of the framing consciousness through which a ‘self’ & a world of selves, arise as if ‘self-existing’ separate organisms.
That we acknowledge shared Biome reflects a shared life in terms of the edge of our visible structures, yet all perception is an organised selectivity that – like quantum probabilities – has collective predictabilities when we generalise and normalise rather than engage the specific directly – as a unique expression of the Field – that we each are as well as participate in.
My point is to notice our framing assumptions or ideas that have practical of commonplace usage – but are not directly participating in the field of aligning our current appreciation of meaning or value-fulfilment in both significance and gratitude for being.
Group-think is a habit that goes along to get along within a world of masking over back-grounded conflicts to persist a past onto a present into a future – or continuity of self-imaged meanings, as identity-complex given permission to run as ‘subconscious’ framing for the life we are choosing now (knowingly or as determined by narrative or mythic identity.
There’s nothing but reality to experience – but we cannot define without a representational image or concept of ‘What Is’. Where we ‘come in’ to our sense of self & world will thus shape all experience that derives from it. The release or ‘death’ of an identity pattern opens multiple perspectives as an integrative consciousness of resonant compassion – in place of exclusive identity struggle. Resonance is a quality of being – that can be framed by hindsight to object continuity, but is qualitative & thus the field of energy information as consciousness that we assign to levels of shifting judgement.
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Hi, I find this an appealing conversation. Let me add another line of thoughts. I’m considering the distinction between species and specimen. Anthropology says I (we) am separate from my species’ constraints (not only western neoliberal thinking, I assume) (but also recognice indigenous people doing differently). I can deny my people, family, culture, species, and be more successful than they (success in very biological terms). Wolves and many other mammals do leave their group, but do they evolve better? A younger alpha male might win over their predecessors and rule, but does he change anything? I have read that animals tend to die alone rather than outlive their group. Even if ecosystem’s failure have the adventurer a chance, did he change anything? (in understand evolution would in the long term). No, I think only humans individually have denied their folk and succeeded over them, forcing change at whatever cost, aware or not of the risks.
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I started my arguments against MORT by saying that if someone believes they can fly, jumps off a cliff and lands on rocks, then their denial of reality (that they can’t fly) has removed them from the gene pool, contradicting MORT’s assertion that reality denial confers fitness – a point you did not address.
I said MORT might be unfalsifiable, you replied with a list of five suggestions that could falsify it. Four of those methods are either not practical or impossible.
The third one could be said to be done already, i.e. the ‘tribe’ (or section of society) that is athiests. They survive and reproduce. You failed to address this point (except to say that you could say why it didn’t undermine MORT, but that I would ignore your arguments).
When I mentioned three religions that might be said to not include an afterlife, I did include the caveat/question: “Even if these examples aren’t acceptable…”.
I went on to invoke Occam’s razor, but you said the short answer did not explain why only one species developed a powerful brain. Only one species has developed such a brain so far, but as evolutionary time scales are so vast, it’s still a bit early to say no other species will develop a similar brain.
Most people are in denial. I attribute this fact to apathy/ignorance/stupidity/short term thinking/lack of critical thinking. You say I’m wrong because every famous polymath is in denial about everything that matters – but your own site contradicts you, as it includes a list of polymaths who aren’t in denial.
In passing, you state that god is a mutation for denying mortality. To aver whether or not god exists, or to claim insight into the nature of god, is to assume knowledge. Metaphyical questions are not amenable to the scientific method.
Leaving that aside, you went on to say the reason most overshoot aware people dislike MORT is that it implies their efforts (at educating the public etc) are a complete waste of time. Indeed they are – but here again, MORT is redundant: many people just can’t be convinced by rational argument. Plus la change.
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If you have a fact that contradicts Dr. Ajit Varki’s MORT theory I will pass it on to him for review.
Varki has stated publicly that he welcomes MORT being proven wrong. Until then MORT is consistent with all known facts and explains many open questions about the origin and unique behaviors of our species.
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