Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind: Emotional Fossils and the Evolution of the Human Spirit

298 Pages·2018·8.6 MB·English

by  John Wylie

"In this breathtakingly original book, John Wylie proposes a new theory of
mind, one that reconciles evolutionary biology with psychodynamics. This is a
great endeavor of the intellect and a deep review of consciousness itself."
–Andrew Solomon: Noonday Demon (National Book Award) & Far from the
Tree.
HUMAN NATURE DESCENDS FROM THE STRUGGLE FOR
FITNESS
This view of man was born in October 1938, when Charles Darwin read Thomas
Malthus’s treatise on the perils of overpopulation upon which he framed his
theory of natural selection as the “survival of the fittest.”
When Darwin turned his attention to the evolution of humans in The Descent of
Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, he introduced the crucial role of sexual
selection. This book reinterprets the known facts about human evolution in light
of Darwin’s other evolutionary mechanism.
EMOTIONS AND MOTIVATIONS: A NEW NARRATIVE OF
HUMAN EVOLUTION
Major psychiatric illnesses can be understood as the breakdown of key
emotional functions that have remained stable since they arose to play decisive
roles in human evolution. Through an understanding of the motivational
component of ancient social behaviors, a new “inner” evolutionary narrative
emerges that is consistent with scientific know-ledge in paleoanthropology and
related fields—and as a bonus, a humanistic understanding of the mentally ill is
enlightened.
By means of a process akin to Darwin’s conception of sexual selection, the
dominance–submission interaction between ape individuals was rendered into
the singular group function of obedience to authority. Under threat of extinction,
the defining phenomenon of authority arose in our earliest human ancestors as
the nascent capacity to share their pooled motivations to survive as a single
creature.
Human authority was then submitted to classical natural selection, not for the
fitness of individuals or groups, but for the most just relationships, because,
whether it be a pair-bond or a nation, justice is the most productive social system
imaginable. Over millions of years, the struggle for justice proceeded to sanction
the evolution of the most fundamental human adaptation: the coordination of
divided labor.
HUMAN NATURE DESCENDS FROM THE STRUGGLE FOR
JUSTICE
URMENSCH

Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind Emotional Fossils and the Evolution of the Human Spirit Copyright ©
2018 John Wylie
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America Previously published in 2017 as: Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind:
The Evolution of the Human Spirit Cover design by Martin A. Padley
ape by minden pictures/master file drawing by Jügen Willbarth thinker by innoxius
Illustrations by [email protected]
www.whywebecamehuman.com
HOMININ PRESS
Olney, Maryland
For Ann
We have also seen that expression in itself, or the language of the emotions, as it has
sometimes been called, is certainly of importance for the welfare of mankind. To understand,
as far as possible, the source or origin of the various expressions which may be hourly seen
on the faces of the men around us, not to mention the domesticated animals, ought to possess
much interest for us.
—Charles Darwin, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872)
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
Diagnosing and Treating Mental Illness:
A Guide for Physicians, Nurses, Patients, and Their Families
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part One: Methods Employed and Objective
Chapter 1: How I Became a Hunter of Emotional Fossils
A surgeon’s life
Carl Jung
Sigmund Freud
Brain science
Meeting Charles Darwin in prison
Chapter 2: Six Facts of Human Evolution & A New Paradigm
A larger narrative
What we know and how we know it
From the outside into the inside
The law of parsimony
Part Two: Emotional Fossils
Chapter 3: Prisons Within Prison
A day job
An early morning conversion
Why justice?
Why groups?
Dominance and submission
Sexual selection
A runaway passion for justice
More prison legacies
Chapter 4: The Social Emotions I: Separation
First things first
Atypical depression
Emotional fossils
Is depression really depression?