Self-blindness in humans as prerequisite for the evolution of advanced intelligence

(**) This page is under construction. For the time being one can refer to the short paragraph on Self Blindness and Social-role Blindness (*).

(Eerst alle paragrafen repeteren die hier iets mee te maken hebben. Dan kern van dit verhaal componeren. Enabling further evolution of intelligence. Freeing the way. ) Meer over het principe, dan over de concrete invulling betreffende zekere onderwerpen. )

Self Blindness and Social-role Blindness

✰ <level 1>   We can put a man on the moon, we can dive to the bottom of the deepest oceans, we have produced Hydrogen bombs, we can annihilate the whole of the human world population within one day, but we cannot think clearly in front of a mirror. How strange !

The human species is peculiarly unable to think clearly about its own behaviour. Our intelligent capacities are effectively blocked regarding our personal and social functioning. It can be argued that this specific blindness, a blindness which started to develop some half million to two million years ago, is a prerequisite for the evolution of high intelligence. Social and personal blindness is a prerequisite for the evolution of intelligence, any intelligence, beyond a certain level.

Social and personal blindness is culturally supported by massive and multidimensional organized ignorance and superstition. It can easily be shown experimentally that human beings are quite unawares of the way they socially interact and how their capacity to understand matters is effectively blocked to give ample space to primordial social reflexes.

The reason, why in such matters intellectual capacities are blocked in favor of original, primordial reflexes, is stemming from the functional conflict between proximal and ultimal causes of behaviour. I will explain why this is so, and what are its consequences. In short, it means that ultimal reasons for behaviour, the evolutionary usefulness of behaviour, are not the same as the short-term reasons why we behave like we do. We derive feelings of satisfaction from obeying emotional drives and instincts successfully, drinking, eating, sleeping, sex, exploration, etc. These instincts are organized in such a way that, ultimally, they serve procreational purposes.

Intelligence may / might be used to find – easier - shortcuts to short term satisfaction. However, such shortcuts are quite likely to outflank the collateral behavioural effects of those primordial instincts, collaterals that serve procreational purposes, for which reasons those instincts were evolutionarily selected for in the first place. Intelligence, applied on our own behaviour, therefore quickly leads to sterile behaviour, no matter how satisfactory from a personal emotional (very proximal) point of view. For that reason awareness blocks for the own behaviour had to develop, parallel to the development of superior intelligent capacities. Otherwise the latter never could have evolved further than a certain, not dangerous, level.

However, from an evolutionary point of view, it is also unavoidable that at some point in time the paradox of a high intelligence, paired to not understanding oneself, becomes technically too unstable to continue.

Point Omega (term of Teilhard de Chardin) is when the present system collapses, when collective ignorance cannot be maintained any longer and understanding of self and social relationships starts to spread like a prairie fire, releasing at the same time unparalleled amounts of energy, boosting in turn this process itself. It will function as a sort of chain reaction resulting in an explosion of awareness and clarity.

The presently ruling awareness blocks for one’s own behaviour, one’s emotions and motivations, imply that human beings are in particular blind to how they interact socially. For more on this phenomenon of “Social-Role Blindness” and for exploring some examples of how this works and what are its consequences for the present as well as for the future, click here(***) .

Some of the consequences of Self Blindness:

Present:

• Socially, we act like animals, especially where things matter very much.
• Nepotism
• Tribalism
• Fears continue and are not understood. Thus human beings are more easily locked up in neurotic systems permanently.

Implications for the future:

• Breaking awareness / intelligence blocks is of crucial importance.
• Awareness of the own personal motivations opens strategic moves for change and escape from neurotic imprisonment.
• This awareness and the breaking of the intelligence blocks is crucial antidote against the power structures in charge.

For more, click here: Social Role Blindness(***).

The line of argumentation will follow among other things the abstract of the "good and bad" blindfold as a safeguard to prevent ...........(where ???????)........

It is about preventing short cuts between proximal urges in our behaviour and the desired outcomes. Such short cuts would destroy the functional links between the proximal organization of our behaviour with all the emotional urges implied, and the ultimate evolutionary goals of such behaviours. Whereas very satisfactory to the individuals in question, such short cuts would impair their participation in procreation, which in turn would make the short cut capacity (superior intelligence) to go extinct again. Therefore intelligence is in principle self defeating in evolution if it would rise above a certain level.

That is what we see indeed in a number of phyla in the animal world. In studying the evolutionary processes on planet earth it appears that ordinarily intelligence indeed is stopped at a certain level. We see this in various phyla and families of species, like primates, parrots, crows, whales, mollusks, etc. Let op: kennelijk onafhankelijk van elkaar telkens opnieuw ontstaan !

In humans it could only rise above that level after a specific provision had been built into our behavioural system, making sure that such high intelligence only could be applied to any type of problems in life as long as it would not be applied to the bearer's own behaviour. This can be called "Self-blindness". Built in blindness and well consolidated ignorance towards the self have therefore been the key to the evolution of human intelligence.

(The following is an outline of part of this page. It should be worked out further.)

How Self-Blindness works out in practice: Some fundamental causes of superstition and ignorance in the human species / About the stability of superstition and ignorance in human society. (Dit deel kort houden; uitgebreidere versie naar latere paragraaf "Characteristics of Human Behaviour before and after point Omega.)

Before Point Omega:

Telic dominant --> goal oriented Goal oriented --> incapacity to enjoy moment / need for structure and purpose / incapacity to live with purposelessness and with “here and now”. Incapacity to live with the reality of evolution that has no purpose, but creates itself. Reality feels too “naked”, without a “destiny” to dress it up with. The all pervading question being: what is all this suffering good for ?

Telic dominant --> strong emotional need for shared and fixed ideas about the “purpose” of (one’s own) existence, no matter how improbable these ideas may be. Any fixed idea is much better than no idea at all. “Purpose” of the suffering gives emotional support and perspective (no matter how false).

Since superstition is in principle unstable in a field of (growing) knowledge, in power structures ignorance is preferred above intelligent insight. Intelligent insights make continuation of superstition difficult  intelligent enquiry causes instability of fixed ideas about our “goals” and “purpose”, because they are not based on reality, but on wishful thinking. Thus: successful societies cherish and protect superstition and ignorance. Otherwise they are not an ESS. For power structures it pays off to invest huge amounts of energy in keeping people stupid and prevent them from conducting intelligent enquiry.

Evolution is basically, intrinsically, goal-less. Chance and necessity determine direction of evolution, also our own evolution. The direction comes from within, not from outside. There cannot be an outside source of direction to evolution. Evolution is a blind and automatic selection process creating relatively stable structures in a changing environment, changing by evolution itself. But it is basically open ended. Reality can therefore not easily be known by telic dominant people. They cannot live with purposelessness. They have to cling to something solid and fixed.

Telic dominance implies a propensity for sufficiency-oriented recipes and world views. Such ideas and views do not contain a high level of sparsity and of logical coherence and stability, but rather a multitude of ad hoc recipes without much coherence and interrelatedness. Incongruence of ideas is not so much of a problem there. As such, such sufficiency oriented pictures of the world can easily contain ideas and concepts that appear superstitious, simpleminded and dumb, at least they appear so to more stable personalities.

After Point Omega:

Telic dominance will diminish and paratelic states will be more prevalent. Need for externally indicated purpose will dwindle away and exiting impredictability and richness of possibilities will be enjoyed instead of being feared. No need for communal tales of purpose any more, no need for superstition any more, no need for blocking of intelligence any more, no artificially stabilized massive stupidity any more. Much energy freed for creative purposes and for stabilizing growth and development and understanding. More and more dominance of necessity oriented models of reality, that are more sparse, more coherent and more stable in time. At Point Omega follows a run-away positive feed back loop.

Removal of awareness blocks, and the freeing of huge amounts of intelligent capacities and energy, will cause a chain reaction. Knowledge of and insight in evolutionary processes, also our own, will enable mankind to creatively influence and steer evolution in humans. From an evolution towards consciousness into a process of conscious evolution.

Check / scientific “bet”: These considerations would predict that in the past millennia in many strata of human societies there may have been a selection power in favour of limited intelligence and limited conceptual capacities. Such a tendency would help stabilize existing power structures and their mind block mechanisms and thus confer survival value to the power structure / culture in question and to its carriers. This effect should possibly be there from the start of the agricultural revolution, some 10,000 years ago, until today.

It should be possible to find ways to verify or falsify this postulate.