The source of our problems

Cognitive dissonance

This term, coined by psychologist Leon Festinger, describes the human need for consistency. When we experience disagreement between thoughts and actions, we are uncomfortable. Humans like balance.

I experience cognitive dissonance when my beliefs are challenged. For example, when someone is violently disruptive in public, my belief that humans are calm and rational is challenged. Another example is lying. If we consider ourselves to be honest but embellish a story with a non-truth, we experience dissonance.

Integrity

The absence of dissonance can be described as integrity, where your actions and thoughts are balanced. When we ‘walk the talk’, we experience more peace.

Homeostasis

Humans are biological systems. We exist entirely in a biological realm. We interact with non-biological entities, but our responses are entirely biological. Homeostasis is biological balance. Biology requires system consistency to function properly. Biological health depends on maintaining temperature, chemistry, and energy within narrow parameters. Outside these parameters, we become unhealthy, dissonant, and unbalanced.

Evolution is how biology persists

Evolution is change through time. Fortunately, evolution exists because it facilitates homeostasis and a lack of dissonance for perpetuity. As time moves forward, the universe and everything in it changes. If there is one thing for certain, this is it. Things change.

For life to persist, mechanisms must exist that allow adjustment to change. It’s simple. Biology has DNA. Reproduction allows for minor changes to DNA, these changes will respond differentially to natural selection, and hopefully, some phenotypes will survive. That’s it. All of those interacting biological parts are necessary for life. For homeostasis. For balance. To reduce dissonance.

Without evolution and the associated biological machinery, species experience increased dissonance. Disorganization. Chaos. Death.

Human intervention and non-natural selection

One of the unique things about humans is our neural capacity. We have the unprecedented ability to modify our environments. These changes act as selection pressures and can affect evolution. I call this non-natural selection.

The argument, of course, is that humans are natural, so whatever we do is also natural. And I get that. But in this case, there exists a paradox. Non-natural selection implies a non-biological element. Humans are behaving non-naturally. Non-biologically. This, itself, is dissonant.

The problem

If we agree that evolution is our natural state and that diversity is the preferred condition for biology, how do we feel about the status quo?

It seems to me that modernity is selecting for sameness. Conformity is approved. Similarity is preferred. Human-designed systems, like religion, family, government, and education yield better results when the subjects are, well, not subjective.

Implementing any system or rule at a broad scale is more difficult if the audience is diverse. People are easier to train if they begin in a similar condition. This is why most military training ‘breaks a person down’ before building them back up. It’s easier if we all start from the same place.

Diversity, for all its merit, can be problematic. Or so human-designed systems would have us believe.

The Evolution Paradox

How, then, do humans resolve this puzzle? How do those of us who believe conformity is ‘the way’ coexist with those who believe in encouraging diversity?

I wonder how this might underlie the whole ‘left vs right’ thing. It’s so polarized. People feel very strongly that we should ‘man up’, ‘suck it up’, and ‘try harder’. It’s such a dichotomous world. Black and white instead of shades of grey.

It can’t be both. Of course, there is room for both positions in a diversity-oriented world. There will always be those who conform and those who do not. Currently, we are selecting for conformity and against diversity. That isn’t good.

What can we do?

Sometime before modernity, humans had different values. We probably had to. We lived closer to the Earth. Villages were small enough to manage effectively with little need for hierarchical regulation. Leadership was shared in every way. Communication was verbal and dynamic.

While we will never know exactly how we used to live, things have certainly changed as we evolved. It’s what humans do and what the Earth does. Change is inevitable. The onset of agriculture, larger village size, and hierarchical social structures likely solved a lot of problems but also created them.

The good news is, we can change again. Only this time it has to be intentional. During our transition to modernity, evolutionary pressures were toward solving uniquely human problems. One of the things that makes humans different from other organisms is this ability to create novel selection forces and affect our evolution.

Non-natural or human-induced selection is part of the problem

It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature, as the old laundry detergent advertisement suggested. Do humans have the power to affect our evolution? Yes. Should we use that power to deviate from natural selection? Absolutely not.

Flying to Mars? Not natural.

Measuring life in money, status, or power? Very limited in the natural world.

Prioritizing self over community? Debatable and mostly unknowable.

Abuse of conspecies for personal or familial benefit? Absurdly non-natural.

Popular arguments exist against these speculations.

Alpha male gorillas are more likely to pass on their genes. Only slightly accurate.

Millions of years of evolution make me non-monogamous. As an ancestral condition? Sure. For more derived organisms, not so much.

Ants have hierarchies and they do well. Yes, but read anything by E.O. Wilson. This argument better supports prioritizing community over self.

Alas, we will never know what human culture used to be like

What evolution is trying to accomplish with humans will remain unknown.

My speculation is that our highly derived nervous systems evolved to save the planet and ourselves. Others believe it is to amass as much money, status, and power in a lifetime.

The question I ask, is which one of these (or any in between) agrees with all of the evolution that came before? One of these things is not like the others. and that is the problem.

Why do we not trust Nature?

The ultimate solution to this dissonance is to remember how to consult Nature. Yes, humans are Nature, but we don’t make the rules. We follow them. Fortunately, we understand many of Nature’s rules. Whenever we make decisions, grow, change, or design, we need to consult Nature. Instead, we consult ourselves.

Human evolution follows natural evolution. Though we are unique, we are still biological. I will never understand how one species ‘got above our raisin’ to become arrogant enough to think we can do better than Nature.

When we burn fossil fuels faster than they can be created we are breaking Natural law.

When we hoard resources instead of sharing we are (largely) breaking Natural law.

When we forget we are connected to everything we are breaking Natural law. We have the power and the responsibility.

Humans are Nature

I struggle to effectively make the point that humans need to consult Nature and natural systems when making decisions. Yes, we have complex neurology that facilitates complex thinking. But when we can’t disobey the laws of Nature any more than anything can disobey the laws of physics.

Why would we think differently? Again I ask, what happened?

WWND?

Originally posted on my Medium site. Shared here for non-Medium subscribers.