Just a Smart Ape

On the Irrationality of the Human Mind

I’ll rarely forget the first time I heard humans referred to as “just a smart ape.” For one thing, it made a lot of sense to me in the moment because it explained so much, so succinctly about the average person and their everyday, moment-to-moment behaviors. We do so many things without being conscious of them and , if consciousness is the hallmark of what makes us who we are, then the Buddhist admonition that most people spend their lives “sleep walking” must have some very pointed validity because according to modern neurobiology much of what we do we ARE NOT conscious of. Now this information did to me what I’m sure it does to most people because it is in stark contrast to how most of us view our sense of “I” and “self.”

“What do you mean, I make a decision before I’m aware of it? That makes no sense to me. I know exactly what I’m doing.” is the standard response to being presented with this information. And, unfortunately, it turns out to be true. Modern neurobiology can demonstrate this with new ways of scanning brains and the results are a little disconcerting to say the least. What implications does this have for how we design SO many things in society? What does this mean for our laws and criminal procedures? What things have we taken for granted that either should or must be re-examined? What are the implications for what we consider rationality vs. emotions? How must we redesign our educational institutions to take advantage of the new ways we see the brain and human behaviors? The list of questions is long…

The inspirational fount for this essay came from my readings into the workings of the human mind which really started many years ago as I pursued my masters degree in School Counseling and the psychology we studied. As the years progressed, decade upon decade, the works of people like Steven Pinker and others were just too good not to research. Further readings including Atomic Habits and Thinking: Fast and Slow lead me to a pretty stunning realization… We humans are nearly as smart as we think we are. We really are “just a smart ape.”

The Stoics Had It Right

In the interim between my initial psychology studies and now, our notions, taken by so many at face value, that we are rational, thoughtful beings has been put under scrutiny and found to be wanting. It turns out that our brains were designed not to allow us to think logically but to survive, the logic coming later in our evolution. Think about the ancient past when our ancestors were prey animals and taking time to think things through probably meant you were lunch for some saber toothed cat or other predator. You had to have a heuristic system that allowed for survival actions to be taken before the conscious networks of the brain could act in order to survive. “No Mind” comes to mind: the martial arts admonition that if you have to “think” about it, you’re gonna be dead. And so the present thinking about the subject is that we have two methods or “systems” that the brain uses simultaneously BUT that one system tends to do things on more or less and automatic way and the second system only intervenes when it HAS to but that it tends to be “lazy.” I quote so much here because the terms used are not universally accepted by scientists yet they convey what needs to be said. In Thinking: Fast and Slow, the author refers to them as System 1 and System 2 where #1 is the fast, automatic system and #2 is the more methodical, logical system that can do complex tasks like mathematics and logical reasoning. The big problems are two fold: System 1 can’t be turned off and can be seriously wrong when not constrained by System 2, and secondly that System 2 despite being the “thoughtful” system, is often lazy and acquiesces to the judgements of System 1. The idea that most humans are “lazy” thinkers is NOT out of line at all, not once you know how the brain really tends to analyze the world.

One of the 4 virtues attributed to Stoicism is Self-Control, often termed as Temperance in most texts. As Epictetus said, “The struggle is great, the task divine - to gain mastery, happiness, freedom, and tranquility.” when discussing the goals of Stoic practice especially where it concerned one’s own behaviors and goals. It seems that the Stoics had seen the way most people behaved and came to the realization that much of what a person needs to do to gain peace with reality begins with self-control. The Stoics designed practices to help a person reign in their own feelings, their own emotions by demanding that one cultivate a deep seated ability to examine one’s own thoughts and the emotions that arose from them. Reactionary responses to life’s problems usually led to situations only getting worse, but people usually DID react without much thought and this troubled the Stoics to where they came to address this action/reaction loop as something that needed “conscious” control - ergo, the cultivation of System 2 in over-riding the involuntary responses of System 1 (even though a Stoic never uses those terms).  Even the Shakyamuni Buddha in his teachings emphasized the need for a “stillness of mind” and that the “ego” or “I” notion of the brain/mind was of great importance, so much so that the yogic, meditative techniques of Buddhism have become a common technique used in clinical psychology of today. 

Looking at what modern neurobiology has been able to garner about the causes of human behaviors, the Buddhist notion of most people “sleep walking”through seems to have a new validity. We simply are not usually trained to be conscious of our unconscious systems of behavior and this lack of awareness (and the type of training necessary to more effectively bring such a system under the “conscious” control) is what may be the main cause of many of our fears and anxieties especially in the modern age where we are so very separated from the environs that the brain was originally designed by evolution to handle. Survival also meant drives that the conscious system is still not aware of, especially behaviors concerning sex, sleep, violent emotions such as anger and fear, and ourrelationships to food and caloric intake. We would be highly susceptible to starvation phases so if any highly sugar, fat or other calorie rich foods came into our path, the gorging response of such food sources was totally understandable… if you were a hunter-gatherer in a tribal unit. We are definitively NOT in a tribal societal unit in todays modern world but we retain the evolutionary mechanisms for caloric intake and have become the proverbial “fat kid in the candy store.” 

So, if we are mostly unaware of the mental processes that drive our actions, what can be done to bring these systems under “control” or at least make us more consciously aware of the unconscious process that drive us? I like the idea of mindfulness as defined by most psychologists in today’s world. That is the next step to look at…

Mindfulness, Meditation, Self-Awareness

 I learned about meditation in a very round a bout way through parents and grandparents who had learned about psychology AND through the martial art of Aikido. My grandfather, despite being an ordained Methodist minister as a life’s path, had obtained a PhD. in psychology in the 1950’s and my mother had a MS in psychology too. So, as one might guess, just through sheer osmosis and exposure, I gained some insight into meditation and mindfulness as they taught me about their specialty which was hypnosis (especially as applied to learning and test taking). The things about the min I learned I put to good use in my academic pursuits and my ability to test and study improved greatly as time went on. I can’t say that hypnosis learning techniques were the sole reason for my good academic performance, but I’m sure they played a part. Then in college, I discovered the martial art of Aikido. Deeply ingrained in this particular art is the idea of water and flow with the opponent. The ultimate goal of being so well trained at the art is that both you and your adversary are not injured in the conflict, that the conflict is ended peacefully (or with relative peace), and thus “karma is preserved.” And so a great deal of not only physical control is instilled but the mental aspects concomitant with the art are instilled in the student as well. With so many Zen principles finding their way into Aikido, the introduction to “meditation” was inevitable. 

I kept with these skills through most of my adult life and then discovered two things that arrived relatively simultaneously: Firstly, that human beings as a species are simply not ruled by rational thought as a matter of course and that, as a result, they can and are very easily manipulated; and secondly, the ancients had a way of dealing with this irrationality, especially in the Western Traditions, and it was called Stoicism. Addressing the first discovery I had read extensively on the newest research in neurobiology and behavioral studies and the implications for the human race did not look all that good. Put succinctly, the human brain was not only designed for survival mostly but “intelligence” (however you may define this term and there is a great deal of debate as to how to do that) is NOT necessary for survival and MAY NOT even be and advantage in evolutionary terms. This was more that a bit stunning to me. My self-image and what I mostly display to the world is my intelligence in my memory, talents, and what I produce. Now I learn, that just may not be what matters most. The realization did not leave me with that warm and fuzzy feeling you’d like from a discovery about self. It did explain a lot about human mating and relationships - the guy with the most muscles or wealth still gets the girl he wants (sweeping generalization, I know, but bear with me, please) and women are usually looking for someone who can provide what they “perceive” are their needs for protection and offspring whether they are “aware” of this tendency or not…. and that was explaining a lot about the relationships I was seeing in co-workers, family, and friends. As bright as we wanted to be, the biological imperative was still sticking her thumb on the scales and “nice” girls were still being attracted to “jerks” and “man child” partners who disappointed them. It pretty well destroyed my view of the institution of marriage which I have not participated in, have low hopes of EVER being involved, and a great gladness that I don’t have children to perpetuate the “crime of parenthood” and thus screw up another innocent generation of human beings by passing my sins on to my offspring.

Memento Mori and The 4 Virtues

The second discovery, which came only after a tumultuous decade in my fifties, was the ancient philosophy of Stoicism. I was somewhere between my 55th and 56th years when, and it’s hard to recall where, I came across the works of Stoicism (my current recollection was that it was from EITHER a Ryan Holiday book, The Obstacle is the Way, OR from surfing around on You Tube in the TED Talk area; exactly which escapes me). All the things that Stoicism has to offer the scientifically trained, seemingly rational person I was and am is a long list and I’m not here to discuss Stoicism, per se, that’s a different set of essays. But the two most prominent ( for me) aspects are Memento Mori and the 4 Virtues. They dovetail surprisingly well into the Zen concepts I had already adopted. Beginning with Memento Mori, which comes from the Latin “Remember Death”, we are taught that we must keep in mind that death comes to us all. The Stoics love to quote Marcus Aurelius Meditations, 2.11 “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” and it is this knowledge that drives us to do what we can with what time we have. For a man in his fifties who was nearing the end of his career, it struck very melodious chord in my brain. I had experienced the death of my mother from COPD (slow and painful) and my father was beginning to fade now without his life’s mate. I began to devour the Stoic writings and wisdom. And then, to add to the Zen ideas of stillness of mind and excellence while seeing the world as beautiful due to it’s imperfections (Wabi Sabi), the Stoics talked about the 4 Virtues: Wisdom, Justice, Self-Discipline (Temperance), and Courage. I read more and more with every spare moment I had. And I enjoyed it - Marcus, Epictetus, Seneca, and the “modern” Stoics which included Nelson Mandela, Admiral Stockwell, and Ryan Holiday. I even found references to Stoicism and Cognitive Behavior Therapy which I was very familiar with and that only served to cement in my mind that I though I had found (at least for me) the key to being able to operate rationally in an irrational world. 

Then, the world had a test for me. I left teaching in a somewhat sudden manner and retired mid year. I had not wanted to, but the situation was no longer tenable at work. The matters were resolved and I had to learn to “live” a new life with new structures of everyday, new procedures, new habits and routines. I was still teaching on-line but it wasn’t until after my “official” retirement date had passed that I learned what the author Cormac McCarthy meant when he said, “Never underestimate what worse luck your bad luck has kept you from.” 38 days after I retired, the world shut down due to COVID-19. I had “dodged a bullet” but now I had to be with myself. All by myself. How does a “smart” but “social” primate/ape like a human is handle such isolation…. Isolation and distrust or wariness of others? The Stoics advised to look at this as an opportunity. But, what type of opportunity were we talking about? Humans are not rational, and they don’t (usually) handle isolation well. What does a “smart” ape do?

The vast majority of us can probably remember what those first few months of the pandemic felt like. And then the human irrationality starts to bubble up in the summer when the rates of infection started to drop for the first time giving all those cooped-up people the belief and relief that, “Yeah! The virus is going away and won’t be anymore that another flu season.” Nature is a fickle mistress, however, and people are great at convincing themselves with stories they make up to make themselves feel better that they see things that aren’t there. Say it with me once again, “People are not rational!” How many people can you remember saying the most ridiculous things about not catching the virus, that it’s only as bad as the flu (forgetting that people die from that every year too), I don’t like masks, I don’t believe in wearing a mask ( as if Nature really cares what the hell you “believe”, Nature does what she does and human wants, needs, and beliefs are utterly irrelevant), I’m young and healthy so even if I get sick it won’t be so bad… and the list goes on, and on, and on, ad infinitum et ad nauseam. To say that the year 2020 was a year of trials, tribulations, and human revelations is perhaps an understatement for those of us who lived through it. But one of the great things it did was to show the effervescent flowing of rabid stupidity and irrationality that seems to be a human hallmark when in times of stress. 

So, what does a budding Stoic do with all that time when the world outside seems to be breaking down? You dive deep into rationality, Stoic exercises, reading lists, and practices. You learn the “who” you are part of your existence, if you hadn’t already or ,if you feel the need, a re-evaluation of life and, brother, did the pandemic lead to a lot of re-evaluation by a lot of people. I had become regimented enough as a teacher to turn that regimentation inward… and it paid off, for me at least. One of the things that we “smart” apes thrive on is consistency and routine. With retirement and an imposed isolation on me, the routine was up to me to design. The Stoics helped with journaling as a means of reflection. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it’s the use of writing daily to allow for a reflection on the the events of the day and, most importantly, how you acted that day to see what you did well and what still needs work. Marcus Aurelius is famous for his journal (something he did not expect anyone else to read) known today as his Meditations. In addition to journaling, I developed a morning routine of affirmations to start the day, and then devised a set of projects in categories such as reading, studies of science and music, what I called “maker” projects, and so on. It gave me a chance to put to rest a problem I had had when I was working. As I used to say, “I love me job! There’s only one problem… it gets in the way of my education.” Now, isolated from the rest of humanity mostly, I had a time for myself very similar to what Isaac Newton must have experienced when he had to leave Cambridge to avoid the plague. No distractions (yes, I had to learn to turn OFF the television) and time to re-acquaint myself with science, music, mathematics, astronomy, and a whole host of books in my reference library I had yet to open. For a slightly reclusive introvert, this was something I could work with…. as for the rest of the world….well… yeah…

So I dove deep into self-improvement (I suspect a lot of people did) , but the world does not like to be ignored. The news was a difficult pill to swallow but like an addict not know he’d been hooked, as the events of the year unfolded, “memento mori” kept coming to the fore and I found it difficult not to watch. More people died each day for a time before the summer came and the pandemic hit its first dip in infection numbers. Then the George Floyd incident happened. The days seemed to darken as the police responses to protests over police brutality became either extreme or ineffectual. Riots in my city, the closing of central district businesses, the general malaise over extreme political agendas from the religio-conservative, right-wing politicians all began to add worse to the bad for the day. Then… California began to burn. The smoke for days with bits of ash falling on my garden coating everything with a thin layer everywhere so that now you walked out of the house with an N-95 mask just so your lungs wouldn’t be damaged by the feted air. “You could leave this life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think,” Marcus Aurelius wrote in the midst of the Antonine Plague of his time… the timeliness of the saying was hitting all too close for comfort. The fires began to wane as the seasons cooled… then the pandemic started up again as the holidays came and people simply tried to live their lives as if it hadn’t. They paid a terrible price… and they knew better. But the “smart” ape that we are never had a brain designed by evolution for reason. It was evolved for survival and, at this moment in history, it was failing miserably. 

To keep one’s self on an even keel, you had to remember that you were better off than most (even though your daily walks were so alone that it seemed a bit post-apocalyptic for the lack of people outside). You worked on how to apply the 4 Virtues: Courage, Justice, Temperance (ie. Self- Discipline), and Wisdom (albeit a “practical” type of wisdom) and started to ask what causes might you be able to financially support… then you dove in with money when you could. And you asked yourself everyday, “How can I be a better person?” but sometimes added, “Even if the world is coming to an end…” The BLM marches and protests asked you to take on the difficult task of examining your own biases and learning to recognize cognitive biases in your everyday existence. It was not easy… but like the athlete working slowly to recover from an injury, the pay-off was hopefully worth the pain of the physical therapy.

Eventually, many months later, the crises began to be resolved… but 2021 was a painful year for recovery in many, many ways. The Stoic studies, for my part, stuck and became part of my outlook and routines of the day. I was, in practical terms, a practicing Stoic. But what about the rest of the world? It did what the Stoics had warned me would happen: nothing changed. Yes, some politics shifted, the general public became more aware of the injustices visited on many people, the pandemic lightened, the economy rumbled forward again with wild gyrations in portions due to the results of the world essentially shutting down, and reactionaries came out of the woodwork to spout authoritarian rubbish and white, christian nationalists made plays for power before anyone could reasonably act… Same shit, different century. The “smart” ape was showing just how poorly it handles change, how tribal its outlook remains, and how the default thought processes turn so readily to the need to have an “us” and “them” to justify wholly unjustifiable actions and attitudes. All this time, a toxic brew was coming to a boil on line as the “real” humanity of the “smart” ape was put on full display.

“When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back into you.”

Social media, in all its varied forms, along with the Media in general has allowed for the display of the most base human instincts in a such crass, pedestrian fashion and with such force on the psyche of the “smart” ape that I fear it may take a generation or two to repair what damage it has caused. But perhaps some perspective is in order. Consider the “social media” of its day when Martin Luther nailed his Ninety Five Theses on the Wittenberg church door in 1517. Printing was a relatively new device in Europe as it had only been around since 1454 with the printing of the Gutenberg Bible. But the Renaissance had a way of accelerating certain things and printing was one of them. Even with most or Europe being essentially illiterate, printing changed everything and the beginnings of “propaganda” came right along with the printing press. But with the printing press, history was irrevocably changed. The Internet is our printing press of our day… and everything changed… has changed… will change. Alvin Toffler, the futurist who wrote the seminal text Future Shock, warned about a pace of change happening at such a rate that the human experience simply didn’t have the needed time to adapt. Well, it seems he got a good portion of that right. With change not just accelerating, but exponentiating… what is a “smart” ape to do with a brain designed for the slow pace of evolution of tens of thousands or millions of years? It reminds me of the aphorism attributed to Nietzsche that, “When you stare in to the Abyss, the Abyss stares back into you.” and we are on the precipice of time of change unheard-of in our history much less our evolutionary information banks.  Is this change a monster to be fought? (Nietzsche was prescient there too when he wrote, “He who fights too long with dragons becomes a dragon himself.”) Or, do we embrace this change while holding onto a kind of moral/mental bungie chord and just dive in?

L’Appel Du Vide

I think there is a solution to this dilemma of what the “smart” ape must do, but I will be pointed when I say it’s the one that Nature presents to me at this moment, and ONLY at this moment. To use an analogy, imagine that humanity is on the edge of a great ledge, a mental/spiritual/technological/moral abyss… but not an abyss that cannot be explored and survived, AND, maybe, even allows us a kind of “rollercoaster” thrill of excitement. Now, I know that for many people, many, there is a strange sensation they get from being on the edge of a deep chasm or on the ledge of a tall building (even if you have no chance of falling off) and it shows up mentally as this fearfully odd, strangely thrilling sensation of wanting to just… JUMP! Modern psychologists call this “L’Appel Du Vide” or  “The Call of the Void” and I suspect that this sensation is what brings some people to do things like bungie jumping or sky diving. It’s NOT a symptom of some self-destructive, suicidal urge.  Indeed modern researchers (they call this the “high place phenomenon”) actually have surmised that it is an expression of the life affirming impulses of the brain. they further surmise that it may be a delayed communication in the brain. Your System 1, fast-acting part of the brain reacts to the height and makes you take a step back before the more deliberative, System 2 take control and when it examines why you stepped back, it accepts the System 1 explanation (a wrong one) that you wanted to jump. About half the people examined by researches say they have experienced this phenomenon and a thoughtful dialog about it brings many people to understand why sometimes you get a “thrill” sensation with it. Imagine the first time you bungie jump and, even though you know that you are firmly tethered, when you take that leap into empty air you are both frightened AND thrilled. What if there was a moral tether, a spiritual/emotional bungie chord for humanity to be attached to? Could we take our feelings with uncertainty in the world, think of them like The Call of the Void, and learn to be able “to take the leap” into the future while raining in our fears and anxieties? I think so. Certain philosophies (but almost NONE of the religious theologies) have practices that their adherents can use to give them this “moral tether” and allow just about any situation to be handled with some grace. With these practices (meditations, journaling, group talk and testimony such as AA, vows taken daily about behavior, etc.), a person can develop a “tether” that allows for them to take that leap into the void as much of the change in our present day must seem to a great many people. We are simply not a species who’s individuals are necessarily good at the process of change in their lives (as opposed to how we as a species seem to be almost infinitely adaptable). But, with the right training, the “correct” outlook to anticipate change and adapt individually to it, we can start to be comfortable with the L’Appel du Vide aspect of our present times. Hell, if we can teach humanity to collectively “take a leap into the void of the unknown” the benefits to humanity will be enormous. But that need to train the whole of humanity, now THAT… that is a problem that will take enormous courage and fortitude (not to mention time and money) to accomplish. It could be done by a compulsory education system, at least logistically, as a means of training and delivery. However, the training of staff, the re-working of the institutions, the need for buy in from the community, the necessity of removing all religious connotations and influences, these pose high bars to overcome and to redo our institutions in such a way would also take a paradigm shift in human thought and attention that, well frankly, just may not be possible. Yet, even with these seemingly gargantuan tasks, it seems to me to be the only real road to take where the benefits justify the expense and effort. 

Ego sum qui sum

So, for the now, it is up to the individual to take on the role of the agent of change. As the Mehatma is often quoted as saying, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” If you’re reading this and you’ve reached this spot, then the idea must already have a foothold in your mind that it is of some value to take such a challenge seriously and personally. And it is the personally part that is of the greatest import for by you making the changes to yourself and being an example of what is possible, you start the absolutely necessary process of the “smart ape” starting to achieve the beginnings of making our intellect a benefit and not just and evolutionary oddity that came along for the ride while evolution was designing out survival mechanisms. I start every day with a set of Stoic affirmations, recited in a “ritual” manner (because that’s the way the brain works best it seems) so that I can remind myself of what I have to prepare for as I encounter the world during my day. It becomes my tether, my touchstone for how to behave. I reinforce it by journaling just before breakfast and I rarely miss a day (I also repeat the journaling at night to act as a reflection on how I did in my behaviors). These type of practices, developed for the individual, by the individual, to handle changes that can be unforeseen are the way we learn to “take the leap.” Note, not a leap of faith, but of reason and rationality. This may not work for everyone. In fact, it won’t. But the more people who try to develop their moral tether with rational, psychologically sound practices and are helped by our institutions and hopefully eventually our entire society, the better the human race will be able to handle our increasingly rapid development technologically and socially. For those who disagree, the comments section will be available and the discussions will be factually based (all opinions not delivered in that spirit will be ignored and deleted) so that we can ALL be looking for answers to how to “take the leap” together. I hope that we can all arrive at a better way to walk proudly in the Universe, be more aware, and benefit each other in the greatest possible way and finally be worthy of our scientific name Homo sapiens… Wise man.