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Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs, and the Origins of the Human Mind
The history of science abounds with momentous theories that disrupted conventional wisdom and yet were eventually proven true. Ajit Varki and Danny Brower's "Mind over Reality" theory is poised to be one such idea-a concept that runs counter to commonly-held notions about human evolution but that may hold the key to understanding why humans evolved as we did, leaving all other related species far behind.
At a chance meeting in 2005, Brower, a geneticist, posed an unusual idea to Varki that he believed could explain the origins of human uniqueness among the world's species: Why is there no humanlike elephant or humanlike dolphin, despite millions of years of evolutionary opportunity? Why is it that humans alone can understand the minds of others?
Haunted by their encounter, Varki tried years later to contact Brower only to discover that he had died unexpectedly. Inspired by an incomplete manuscript Brower left behind, DENIAL presents a radical new theory on the origins of our species. It was not, the authors argue, a biological leap that set humanity apart from other species, but a psychological one: namely, the uniquely human ability to deny reality in the face of inarguable evidence-including the willful ignorance of our own inevitable deaths.
The awareness of our own mortality could have caused anxieties that resulted in our avoiding the risks of competing to procreate-an evolutionary dead-end. Humans therefore needed to evolve a mechanism for overcoming this hurdle: the denial of reality.
As a consequence of this evolutionary quirk we now deny any aspects of reality that are not to our liking-we smoke cigarettes, eat unhealthy foods, and avoid exercise, knowing these habits are a prescription for an early death. And so what has worked to establish our species could be our undoing if we continue to deny the consequences of unrealistic approaches to everything from personal health to financial risk-taking to climate change. On the other hand reality-denial affords us many valuable attributes, such as optimism, confidence, and courage in the face of long odds.
Presented in homage to Brower's original thinking, DENIAL offers a powerful warning about the dangers inherent in our remarkable ability to ignore reality-a gift that will either lead to our downfall, or continue to be our greatest asset.
At a chance meeting in 2005, Brower, a geneticist, posed an unusual idea to Varki that he believed could explain the origins of human uniqueness among the world's species: Why is there no humanlike elephant or humanlike dolphin, despite millions of years of evolutionary opportunity? Why is it that humans alone can understand the minds of others?
Haunted by their encounter, Varki tried years later to contact Brower only to discover that he had died unexpectedly. Inspired by an incomplete manuscript Brower left behind, DENIAL presents a radical new theory on the origins of our species. It was not, the authors argue, a biological leap that set humanity apart from other species, but a psychological one: namely, the uniquely human ability to deny reality in the face of inarguable evidence-including the willful ignorance of our own inevitable deaths.
The awareness of our own mortality could have caused anxieties that resulted in our avoiding the risks of competing to procreate-an evolutionary dead-end. Humans therefore needed to evolve a mechanism for overcoming this hurdle: the denial of reality.
As a consequence of this evolutionary quirk we now deny any aspects of reality that are not to our liking-we smoke cigarettes, eat unhealthy foods, and avoid exercise, knowing these habits are a prescription for an early death. And so what has worked to establish our species could be our undoing if we continue to deny the consequences of unrealistic approaches to everything from personal health to financial risk-taking to climate change. On the other hand reality-denial affords us many valuable attributes, such as optimism, confidence, and courage in the face of long odds.
Presented in homage to Brower's original thinking, DENIAL offers a powerful warning about the dangers inherent in our remarkable ability to ignore reality-a gift that will either lead to our downfall, or continue to be our greatest asset.
384 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2013
44 people are currently reading
1105 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
July 14, 2013
I gave this book 2 stars because of the way it is written, not its premise.
Despite the intriguing premise that humans developed Theory of Mind simultaneously with the ability to deny death (necessary for our ancestors to not get paralyzed by fear), the book was full with "sidetracks". Things that do not directly build the argument and feel like just "page-fillers". Many times it also feels too repetitive to the point of being annoying.
Don't buy the book. Search the Internet for its summary. Or go to the bookstore, open the last chapter "Coda". It is few page summary that really all you need to know.
Despite the intriguing premise that humans developed Theory of Mind simultaneously with the ability to deny death (necessary for our ancestors to not get paralyzed by fear), the book was full with "sidetracks". Things that do not directly build the argument and feel like just "page-fillers". Many times it also feels too repetitive to the point of being annoying.
Don't buy the book. Search the Internet for its summary. Or go to the bookstore, open the last chapter "Coda". It is few page summary that really all you need to know.
November 16, 2013
My deceased ex-husband, a brilliant biologist, wrote the first 2 drafts of this book which was finished by his co-author after his death. Shortly before he died, Danny told me about his theory about the evolution of denial in humans and how it relates to the evolution of the human mind. He was about the smartest person I have ever met so of course I had to read it. I'm not a scientist but I found that I could understand pretty well the concepts presented. The authors don't claim that their theory is proven beyond doubt, and I find I have some doubts about it. Nonetheless, what they had to say about denial gave me a lot to think about. The question of why no other species has developed an intelligence such as humans have is certainly a great topic to consider. I highly recommend this book to scientists and non-scientists alike.
November 9, 2013
Every person who reads this book review will die, obviously not as a result of reading this, but just because the nature of human life, and indeed all life, is that it is finite.
Of course almost every human being who has reached the age of reason knows and understands that that our time on earth is limited, yet our behaviour is very often at odds with that knowledge and we behave as if our lives will continue indefinitely.
Authors Varki and Brower maintain that though we can intellectually grasp our own impermanence, on an intuitive level we don’t really believe it. When it comes to our own mortality we are in a state of denial.
This may well be necessary for our personal wellbeing and the survival of the species as a whole. Evolution has moulded us to be capable of denying the risk of mortality. If we were to be constantly and viscerally conscious of our imminent demise we would be in permanent panic mode, essentially so terrified of our own existence that we would be all crouched in foetal position gibbering in a corner. Any creature exhibiting this type of behaviour would be unlikely to find a mate and consequently unlikely to pass down its genes.
While the rational analytical mind is a useful tool and has allowed us to dominate this planet as a species and go beyond, or at least stretch (close to breaking point) the environmental constraints placed upon us, our biological makeup has also prepared us for times when thinking is not such a good idea. When being attacked by a wild animal, or a neighbouring tribe, the fight or flight mechanism overrides rational thought. Biologically and neurologically we haven’t evolved beyond this point. The mechanisms that allow us to act, or rather react, without having to give any sort of rational or logical analysis of a given situation are still very much in place.
The pathways between prefrontal cortex and amygdala involved in the stress response are not fully developed in humans until we reach our early twenties. This goes some way to explaining the sometimes reckless behaviour of ‘invincible’ teenagers, and specifically young men. They will take incredible risks, often just for the fun of it, risks that no sane middle-aged person would ever consider. This incidentally makes young men very useful military recruits.
Reality denial comforts us. We do not brood on death all the time. Yet sooner or later we all experience some form of existential angst and ask ourselves the big questions: Who am I? What am I here for? What will happen to me after I die? The thought of our own discontinuity is unnerving. We may be troubled by the idea that our lives would be pointless if it was all just to end in a black void. We look for a meaning in our lives.
Along with our innate capacity for denial we may also be hardwired for spirituality as part of the same survival mechanism. Many choose to see their lives as fitting into some sort of divine plan, believing in a greater scheme of things and some sort of higher authority that governs our lives to some inscrutable end. All major religions play on this and have evolved to assuage our doubts. They tell us that even after we die we will continue on in some other form, that there will be an after-life or another life. Billions of humans accept this on faith, without a single shred of evidence, because we are in denial of the reality of our mortality, because our intuition insists and whispers reassuringly that we are immortal.
This book is full of examples of our capacity for self-delusion and denial. We develop and maintain nuclear weapons and assume that they will never fall into the wrong hands or be used against us. We blithely dismiss the fact that we have irreparably altered environment, that there have been countless extinctions within our lifetimes and many more to follow, that we have created an economic model that thrives on inequity, exploitation and human misery. Despite decades of warnings from the world’s top scientists we avoid dealing with the issue environmental destruction and fail to instigate any meaningful legislation or action to offset the worsening state of our climate. We assume, quite wrongly, and against all scientific evidence, that it will somehow all just sort itself out.
The authors assert that ‘we are in a state of denial about our denial of reality.’ We can’t change that denial is part of our genetic makeup. We have to face up to the reality of the problem in the same way an alcoholic or addict takes the first step to overcoming their addiction – by admitting that there is a problem.
On the bright side we can see optimism as a useful aspect of denial. The same neural wiring involved in our stress response is better at informing our brains about good news than bad news. Ignoring the likelihood of failure allows us to carry on in the face of the most unlikely odds and has enabled us to achieve countless advances of all sorts. Ultimately we need to recognize when our capacity for using ‘mind over reality’ is useful to us and when it isn’t.
Denial is a meaty book that merits being read slowly, but is definitely a thought provoking and well worthwhile read.
Of course almost every human being who has reached the age of reason knows and understands that that our time on earth is limited, yet our behaviour is very often at odds with that knowledge and we behave as if our lives will continue indefinitely.
Authors Varki and Brower maintain that though we can intellectually grasp our own impermanence, on an intuitive level we don’t really believe it. When it comes to our own mortality we are in a state of denial.
This may well be necessary for our personal wellbeing and the survival of the species as a whole. Evolution has moulded us to be capable of denying the risk of mortality. If we were to be constantly and viscerally conscious of our imminent demise we would be in permanent panic mode, essentially so terrified of our own existence that we would be all crouched in foetal position gibbering in a corner. Any creature exhibiting this type of behaviour would be unlikely to find a mate and consequently unlikely to pass down its genes.
While the rational analytical mind is a useful tool and has allowed us to dominate this planet as a species and go beyond, or at least stretch (close to breaking point) the environmental constraints placed upon us, our biological makeup has also prepared us for times when thinking is not such a good idea. When being attacked by a wild animal, or a neighbouring tribe, the fight or flight mechanism overrides rational thought. Biologically and neurologically we haven’t evolved beyond this point. The mechanisms that allow us to act, or rather react, without having to give any sort of rational or logical analysis of a given situation are still very much in place.
The pathways between prefrontal cortex and amygdala involved in the stress response are not fully developed in humans until we reach our early twenties. This goes some way to explaining the sometimes reckless behaviour of ‘invincible’ teenagers, and specifically young men. They will take incredible risks, often just for the fun of it, risks that no sane middle-aged person would ever consider. This incidentally makes young men very useful military recruits.
Reality denial comforts us. We do not brood on death all the time. Yet sooner or later we all experience some form of existential angst and ask ourselves the big questions: Who am I? What am I here for? What will happen to me after I die? The thought of our own discontinuity is unnerving. We may be troubled by the idea that our lives would be pointless if it was all just to end in a black void. We look for a meaning in our lives.
Along with our innate capacity for denial we may also be hardwired for spirituality as part of the same survival mechanism. Many choose to see their lives as fitting into some sort of divine plan, believing in a greater scheme of things and some sort of higher authority that governs our lives to some inscrutable end. All major religions play on this and have evolved to assuage our doubts. They tell us that even after we die we will continue on in some other form, that there will be an after-life or another life. Billions of humans accept this on faith, without a single shred of evidence, because we are in denial of the reality of our mortality, because our intuition insists and whispers reassuringly that we are immortal.
This book is full of examples of our capacity for self-delusion and denial. We develop and maintain nuclear weapons and assume that they will never fall into the wrong hands or be used against us. We blithely dismiss the fact that we have irreparably altered environment, that there have been countless extinctions within our lifetimes and many more to follow, that we have created an economic model that thrives on inequity, exploitation and human misery. Despite decades of warnings from the world’s top scientists we avoid dealing with the issue environmental destruction and fail to instigate any meaningful legislation or action to offset the worsening state of our climate. We assume, quite wrongly, and against all scientific evidence, that it will somehow all just sort itself out.
The authors assert that ‘we are in a state of denial about our denial of reality.’ We can’t change that denial is part of our genetic makeup. We have to face up to the reality of the problem in the same way an alcoholic or addict takes the first step to overcoming their addiction – by admitting that there is a problem.
On the bright side we can see optimism as a useful aspect of denial. The same neural wiring involved in our stress response is better at informing our brains about good news than bad news. Ignoring the likelihood of failure allows us to carry on in the face of the most unlikely odds and has enabled us to achieve countless advances of all sorts. Ultimately we need to recognize when our capacity for using ‘mind over reality’ is useful to us and when it isn’t.
Denial is a meaty book that merits being read slowly, but is definitely a thought provoking and well worthwhile read.
June 30, 2013
What makes people so very different from all the other species on earth? Most people would say we are smarter. Ajit Varkie and Danny Brower argue that it is not just intelligence, but intelligence combined with denial. The ability to deny reality extends to many areas but the essential ingredient in our humanness is denial of death. Varkie argues (ironically Brower died before this book was started) that even atheists manage to deny (or avoid thinking about) death.
I was initially inclined to say "baloney" to this theory, but while reading this book my 87 year old mother became quite ill and is currently in intensive care. I am an atheist so have no expectations of seeing her again in the afterlife. Still I find myself unable to realistically grasp that she might die. It is a bit comforting to think of that as part of my humanness.
There is more to this book than denial of death. Varki lays out their arguments in a straightforward interesting manner. Denial is well worth reading if you are interested in what makes us human.
I was initially inclined to say "baloney" to this theory, but while reading this book my 87 year old mother became quite ill and is currently in intensive care. I am an atheist so have no expectations of seeing her again in the afterlife. Still I find myself unable to realistically grasp that she might die. It is a bit comforting to think of that as part of my humanness.
There is more to this book than denial of death. Varki lays out their arguments in a straightforward interesting manner. Denial is well worth reading if you are interested in what makes us human.
May 13, 2020
A weird book. I like weird. This is a Bower Bird of a book. It mixes Darwin with the Dalai Lama, and the Old Testament with Oscar Wilde. It creates - or really extends - the theory of evolution and explores why denial exists.
We are all going to die. We are all pointless specks of dust on a very minor planet in a very minor solar system. So why do we think that we are important, significant and relevant to the pathway of the universe?
Denial, dear friends. Denial. This book probes why "reality denial" has emerged in humans. While there are some wonky steps in this argument in terms of philosophy, and correlation is often confused with causality, it is a potent kick in the face for humans in denial.
We don't actually matter. So from this truth, how will you live your life?
Hell yes. Confronting. Fascinating.
We are all going to die. We are all pointless specks of dust on a very minor planet in a very minor solar system. So why do we think that we are important, significant and relevant to the pathway of the universe?
Denial, dear friends. Denial. This book probes why "reality denial" has emerged in humans. While there are some wonky steps in this argument in terms of philosophy, and correlation is often confused with causality, it is a potent kick in the face for humans in denial.
We don't actually matter. So from this truth, how will you live your life?
Hell yes. Confronting. Fascinating.
January 3, 2023
البشر هم نِتاج التطور البيولوجي - لذا فإن الفهم الأساسي لهذه العملية وكيفية تولّد الأنواع أمر مهم . لكن بعض الناس ما زالوا يقاومون فكرة أنهم يتشاركون سلفًا مشتركًا مع الشمبانزي. بمعنى آخر ، لا يقبلون ما حقّقه الاستكشاف العلمي. يكشف العلم حقيقة الأشياء من حولنا وكيف تعمل. غالبًا ما تثير الاكتشافات الجديدة المزيد من الأسئلة. لكن الاستنتاجات العلمية ترقى أحيانًا إلى مستوى الحقيقة التي لا جدال فيها. على سبيل المثال ، اعتقدنا ذات مرة أن الأرض كانت مسطحة ، وأنها كانت مركز كوننا. لكننا نقبل الآن أن الأرض مستديرة ، وأنها تدور حول نجم صغير يسمى الشمس. بطريقة مماثلة ، التطور البيولوجي عن طريق الانتقاء الطبيعي أصبح الآن حقيقة لا جدال فيها. السبب الوحيد الذي يجعلنا نشير إلى التطور على أنه "نظرية" هو أن علماء الأحياء ربما يكونون أكثر تحفظًا من علماء الفيزياء ، الذين كانوا سيُعلنوا منذ وقت طويل "قانون" التطور . لا يزال الخبراء يجادلون حول التفاصيل ، لكن الأدلة على المبادئ الأساسية لنظرية التطور عن طريق الانتقاء الطبيعي ساحقة لدرجة أنه لا يوجد عالم أحياء مرموق يعترض عليها. كما أنها تشكّل أساس الكثير من الأبحاث البيولوجية والطبية الحيوية الحديثة.
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Ajit Varki
Denial
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
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Ajit Varki
Denial
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
November 12, 2013
The Evolutionary Power of Denial
Do not underestimate denial. It's part and parcel of our cognitive heritage. I'm reading an amazing book called Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs and the Origins of the Human Mind. In brief, the author asks why other intelligent animals have not evolved like humans? His answer is that we have crossed a major psychological evolutionary barrier by developing an ability to deny reality, in particular our own mortality. We are not only self-aware, but also aware of the personhood of others, and their mortality, and hence our own mortality (what he calls "Full Theory of Mind"). Since this is such a major drag (!?!), it is likely to lead to serious depression and interfere with our evolutionary "fitness" (i.e., we would put our personal survival ahead of procreation and the survival of the species, which is the only thing that matters from an evolutionary perspective). Our ability to deny reality has allowed us to get beyond this barrier and evolve far beyond the other very smart animals like elephants, dolphins, chimpanzees, etc. We crossed the Rubicon by developing full theory of mind and denial of reality at the same time.
Clearly denial of reality has been a useful approach for humans. We get through the day by being optimistic and denying reality. Denial contributes to great human qualities like optimism, bravery and courage. However, it doesn't always work. For example, if we get it wrong on climate change, it may be too late to change our mind and try to reverse climate change...
I've including a link below to a great ~ 20 minute audio interview from CBC radio with one of the book's co-authors. The other co-author died before the book was finished. That in itself is a very interesting story.
I'm not sure yet how to apply this to my climate change work, but after reading the book (and I'm only part way through) it's amazing how many examples of reality denial I see around me. It really is endemic to the human condition. I think this book and theory gives us a deeper insight into how hard wired denial is in the human brain. This knowledge can help us develop better frameworks, strategies and tactics to address denial of climate change science.
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/...
Do not underestimate denial. It's part and parcel of our cognitive heritage. I'm reading an amazing book called Denial: Self-Deception, False Beliefs and the Origins of the Human Mind. In brief, the author asks why other intelligent animals have not evolved like humans? His answer is that we have crossed a major psychological evolutionary barrier by developing an ability to deny reality, in particular our own mortality. We are not only self-aware, but also aware of the personhood of others, and their mortality, and hence our own mortality (what he calls "Full Theory of Mind"). Since this is such a major drag (!?!), it is likely to lead to serious depression and interfere with our evolutionary "fitness" (i.e., we would put our personal survival ahead of procreation and the survival of the species, which is the only thing that matters from an evolutionary perspective). Our ability to deny reality has allowed us to get beyond this barrier and evolve far beyond the other very smart animals like elephants, dolphins, chimpanzees, etc. We crossed the Rubicon by developing full theory of mind and denial of reality at the same time.
Clearly denial of reality has been a useful approach for humans. We get through the day by being optimistic and denying reality. Denial contributes to great human qualities like optimism, bravery and courage. However, it doesn't always work. For example, if we get it wrong on climate change, it may be too late to change our mind and try to reverse climate change...
I've including a link below to a great ~ 20 minute audio interview from CBC radio with one of the book's co-authors. The other co-author died before the book was finished. That in itself is a very interesting story.
I'm not sure yet how to apply this to my climate change work, but after reading the book (and I'm only part way through) it's amazing how many examples of reality denial I see around me. It really is endemic to the human condition. I think this book and theory gives us a deeper insight into how hard wired denial is in the human brain. This knowledge can help us develop better frameworks, strategies and tactics to address denial of climate change science.
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/...
January 10, 2022
A friend recommended this book to me because he knows I love books on self-deception, and this book is fantastic. It’s different from any of the other books I’ve read on the topic, and I didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Unlike other books, Varki and Brower took a really in-depth, narrow focus on one specific type of self-deception, and that’s the denial of death. Rather than purely taking a psychological approach to the topic, they wrote from the angle of evolutionary biology. Evolutionary biology is typically something I don’t enjoy reading about, but this book made it so digestible and engaging that I binged this book in a couple of days. They develop a theory of why we evolved for theory of mind and why we deny death while also bringing in many other theories and studies from throughout the years. While this book didn’t touch on a lot of the aspects of denial and self-deception that I’m curious about, the fact that it went so deep on this one topic was actually quite interesting. It made me think a lot about how we evolved the way we did to deny our own mortality and how it was advantageous to our species.
Lastly, I want to note that the story of these two authors, how they met, and how this book came to fruition is so serendipitous. It’s honestly one of the craziest true stories I’ve heard, and I’m so glad these two authors met and that it led to this book.
Lastly, I want to note that the story of these two authors, how they met, and how this book came to fruition is so serendipitous. It’s honestly one of the craziest true stories I’ve heard, and I’m so glad these two authors met and that it led to this book.
July 26, 2014
This was not what I expected. I thought it would be a look at why we are so prone to denial and instead it explains why denial is a key to being human. I think the point the author wanted to make could have been done in an essay, not a full length book. He posits that we separated ourselves from the other creatures because we grasped self-awareness of ours and others mortality and then just as quickly developed a way to deny that mortality. Got it.
March 30, 2021
While there are surely a few flaws in this theory and it needs to be worked on, it nevertheless explains the world an our own personalities way too well to be dismissed.
May 10, 2020
lots of overviews of evolutionary biology concepts that are much better covered in "Behave" by Sapolsky. Indeed, the notion that self-deception emerged to enable organisms to win signaling games by hiding their true motives came up all the way back in Richard Dawkins's "The Selfish Gene", and is explored wonderfully in "The Elephant in the Brain" by Robin Hanson. However, I think this book did a much better job at concisely summarizing the evidence and theories behind the idea that the human mind and our level of consciousness emerged from self-deception not so much bc we needed to coordinate with other homo sapiens, but rather bc we needed to deny the inescapable truth of our mortality. In many ways, this made me more confident in Carl Jung's idea that the unconcious emerged bc the human mind is burdened with the awareness of its own death, a notion so dreadfully terrifying that it risks turning anxiety into full out paralysis.
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January 13, 2023Some excerpts from the book:
So what factors might have provided a positive selection for increased intelligence? This may seem simple, but it is in fact not obvious that having humanlike intelligence is such an excellent strategy. Yes, we may appear to be the dominant species on the earth at this time, but many other species have adapted quite well without being smart enough to write War and Peace. Cockroaches have been around for many, many more millions of years than we have, and they are likely to be scurrying about long after we are gone. If one does a quick mental survey of all animals, there actually does not appear to be much of a correlation between overall intelligence and long-term success as a species (in terms of numbers and longevity). The reality is that while intelligence comes with many benefits, it also has some potential downsides.
Concern for posthumous reputation. Many social animals pay close attention to their status, rank, and reputation within their group. But some humans also seem to be concerned about their status and reputation after they are dead and gone—their “legacy.” Why would that be, since we are no longer there to witness what others have to say about us after we are dead? It appears that we can project ourselves into that distant future and imagine how others who are still alive are thinking about us—and even imagine that our own minds are there, reacting to what others are saying about us. This kind of “mental time travel”25 is likely unique to humans, and would be hard to imagine if we did not have a ToM of others (a more realistic view of immortality comes from Woody Allen, who said: “I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment”). This concern for posthumous reputation might also be partly explained by the discovery of the “end history illusion”––when studied, people of all ages “believed they had changed a lot in the past but would change relatively little in the future. People seem to regard the present as a watershed moment at which they have finally become the person they will be for the rest of their lives” (and presumably beyond their deaths).
the initial negative psychological cost to the individual of attaining a full ToM and a more complete appreciation of reality (especially awareness of one’s mortality) was too great to allow the first such individual to get past it, reproduce, and successfully propagate that ToM ability within a species. And the situation stayed this way in many species, until humans finally broke through the barrier by simultaneously generating mechanisms for denial of reality and mortality.
Why should being aware of one’s mortality have a major impact on natural selection? After all, natural selection simply selects from existing variants for whatever functions best in the environmental and competitive situation a given population finds itself in. The idea we present is that crossing this psychological evolutionary barrier into maintaining a full ToM would have inevitably resulted in selection against such individuals—because the simultaneous awareness of mortality would result in such individuals being rapidly eliminated from the population. Why should this be so? Such an animal would already have built-in reflex mechanisms for fear responses to dangerous or life-threatening situations. But this unconscious fear would now become a conscious one, a constant terror of knowing one is going to die, and that it could happen anytime, anywhere. In this model, selection would only favor the individual who attains full ToM at about the same time as also achieving the ability to deny his or her mortality. This combination would be a very rare event.
If your brain is dominated by thoughts and emotions that have been shaped by natural selection, you will most definitely go for the fight if you feel there is even a slim chance of victory. Winning the battle will mean that you can mate at will with multiple females and that your genes will be shooting into the next generation by the bucketful. Your fitness, as measured by your reproductive success, will increase tremendously.
However, if you are that very rare young lion with full ToM who has thought about your mortality at length, you will realize that if you are killed, that’s it—your life will be over. Bummer! It might be nice to have more little lions like you, but it will be a personal disaster if you fail instead and cease to exist.
Why haven’t other species progressed to the point of fully understanding death the way humans do? It appears that many intelligent social animals have been on the brink of gaining a full ToM, but they’ve failed to reach the level of awareness that humans have. This actually favors the idea of the existence of a strong evolutionary barrier that has prevented these other animals from crossing over. And the best explanation is that they are unable to cross over because truly recognizing the death of another individual would result in recognizing one’s own mortality, and the terror of this would be evolutionarily maladaptive.
All these animals could, in principle, gain advantages from being smarter. Yet only humans managed to break through this wall. This suggests that we have some special mechanism that compensates for the potential selective disadvantage we encounter when we place too much emphasis on survival purely for the sake of staying alive (as opposed to staying alive for the sake of reproduction). How do we deal with the contradictory demands of maximizing both our reproductive fitness and our odds of survival? The answer is quite simple: We just deny our mortality. Despite all rational evidence to the contrary, humans generally don’t actually believe that they will die. At first glance this may seem a contradictory statement. Of course we all know we are going to die. We see evidence for this around us daily. The point is that despite our rational and intellectual understanding of death, we routinely deny the reality in a practical sense, on a daily basis, in the way we behave and function.
Potentially related to denial is the psychological state called depression, which is very common in humans and thought to be one of the most poorly diagnosed and treated diseases in the world. When someone has a temporary “situational depression” it is usually straightforward: We can understand why depressive thoughts arise from a recent negative incident or difficult personal situation. However, this does not explain the very common problem of unprovoked major depression,31 which can even end in suicide. While depression is undoubtedly one of a variety of disease processes that are driven by various biochemical changes in the brain, major depressive disorder (as it is officially called) should be highly maladaptive in terms of survival and reproductive fitness. Among the many theories for explaining this disease is one called depressive realism.32 As Tali Sharot puts it, “While healthy people are biased toward a positive future, depressed individuals perceive possible misfortunes a bit too clearly. While severely depressed patients are pessimistic, mildly depressed people are actually pretty good at predicting what may happen to them in the near future.” Thus major depressives may in fact be the true realists who fully appreciate the enormity of all the negative issues that face them every day, socially, personally, and professionally. In this line of reasoning, “normal” people are the ones who are deluding themselves!
A surprising treatment advance has been the finding that ketamine (a short-acting anesthetic that is commonly used for animal and human surgeries) can have an immediate positive impact in some patients with depression.33 If our hypothesis about depressive realism being a lack of reality denial is true, then further studies of the mechanism of ketamine action may provide clues as to how the optimism bias persists in nondepressed humans. Notably, ketamine is also a commonly abused drug, altering reality in a manner that many apparently find pleasurable. Ketamine can produce short-term hallucinatory effects at subanesthetic doses, followed by a sense of detachment from one’s physical body and the external world, effectively enhancing one’s state of reality denial. So perhaps ketamine is acting to counter depressive realism by enhancing reality denial.
In addition to our physiological and behavioral processes (as they are classically defined), our biological history demanded that we be masters of denial. Reality denial was essential for us to become smart, and it is now an ingrained component of our biological heritage. But we are not still creatures of denial just because biological evolution is slow. As we became genetically and culturally smarter and smarter, and better able to probe the meaning of reality and mortality using deeper levels of reflection, it was probably necessary for our innate capacity for reality denial to grow as well. Of course this process did not have to be complete, as other mechanisms such as religion came into play for those without adequate culturally enforced denial. Regardless, the point is that this transition has happened only once, despite the fact that smart, warm-blooded social animals have been around for tens of millions of years. Even if biological evolution could now be speeded up, there is no reason to think that we would lose our propensity for denial. Knowing more about the world in general and specifically about the biological workings of living things makes our requirement for denial even greater now than it has ever been. Denial of reality is an essential skill for us to function normally in the world. It is a fundamental property of being human.
So what factors might have provided a positive selection for increased intelligence? This may seem simple, but it is in fact not obvious that having humanlike intelligence is such an excellent strategy. Yes, we may appear to be the dominant species on the earth at this time, but many other species have adapted quite well without being smart enough to write War and Peace. Cockroaches have been around for many, many more millions of years than we have, and they are likely to be scurrying about long after we are gone. If one does a quick mental survey of all animals, there actually does not appear to be much of a correlation between overall intelligence and long-term success as a species (in terms of numbers and longevity). The reality is that while intelligence comes with many benefits, it also has some potential downsides.
Concern for posthumous reputation. Many social animals pay close attention to their status, rank, and reputation within their group. But some humans also seem to be concerned about their status and reputation after they are dead and gone—their “legacy.” Why would that be, since we are no longer there to witness what others have to say about us after we are dead? It appears that we can project ourselves into that distant future and imagine how others who are still alive are thinking about us—and even imagine that our own minds are there, reacting to what others are saying about us. This kind of “mental time travel”25 is likely unique to humans, and would be hard to imagine if we did not have a ToM of others (a more realistic view of immortality comes from Woody Allen, who said: “I don’t want to live on in the hearts of my countrymen; I want to live on in my apartment”). This concern for posthumous reputation might also be partly explained by the discovery of the “end history illusion”––when studied, people of all ages “believed they had changed a lot in the past but would change relatively little in the future. People seem to regard the present as a watershed moment at which they have finally become the person they will be for the rest of their lives” (and presumably beyond their deaths).
the initial negative psychological cost to the individual of attaining a full ToM and a more complete appreciation of reality (especially awareness of one’s mortality) was too great to allow the first such individual to get past it, reproduce, and successfully propagate that ToM ability within a species. And the situation stayed this way in many species, until humans finally broke through the barrier by simultaneously generating mechanisms for denial of reality and mortality.
Why should being aware of one’s mortality have a major impact on natural selection? After all, natural selection simply selects from existing variants for whatever functions best in the environmental and competitive situation a given population finds itself in. The idea we present is that crossing this psychological evolutionary barrier into maintaining a full ToM would have inevitably resulted in selection against such individuals—because the simultaneous awareness of mortality would result in such individuals being rapidly eliminated from the population. Why should this be so? Such an animal would already have built-in reflex mechanisms for fear responses to dangerous or life-threatening situations. But this unconscious fear would now become a conscious one, a constant terror of knowing one is going to die, and that it could happen anytime, anywhere. In this model, selection would only favor the individual who attains full ToM at about the same time as also achieving the ability to deny his or her mortality. This combination would be a very rare event.
If your brain is dominated by thoughts and emotions that have been shaped by natural selection, you will most definitely go for the fight if you feel there is even a slim chance of victory. Winning the battle will mean that you can mate at will with multiple females and that your genes will be shooting into the next generation by the bucketful. Your fitness, as measured by your reproductive success, will increase tremendously.
However, if you are that very rare young lion with full ToM who has thought about your mortality at length, you will realize that if you are killed, that’s it—your life will be over. Bummer! It might be nice to have more little lions like you, but it will be a personal disaster if you fail instead and cease to exist.
Why haven’t other species progressed to the point of fully understanding death the way humans do? It appears that many intelligent social animals have been on the brink of gaining a full ToM, but they’ve failed to reach the level of awareness that humans have. This actually favors the idea of the existence of a strong evolutionary barrier that has prevented these other animals from crossing over. And the best explanation is that they are unable to cross over because truly recognizing the death of another individual would result in recognizing one’s own mortality, and the terror of this would be evolutionarily maladaptive.
All these animals could, in principle, gain advantages from being smarter. Yet only humans managed to break through this wall. This suggests that we have some special mechanism that compensates for the potential selective disadvantage we encounter when we place too much emphasis on survival purely for the sake of staying alive (as opposed to staying alive for the sake of reproduction). How do we deal with the contradictory demands of maximizing both our reproductive fitness and our odds of survival? The answer is quite simple: We just deny our mortality. Despite all rational evidence to the contrary, humans generally don’t actually believe that they will die. At first glance this may seem a contradictory statement. Of course we all know we are going to die. We see evidence for this around us daily. The point is that despite our rational and intellectual understanding of death, we routinely deny the reality in a practical sense, on a daily basis, in the way we behave and function.
Potentially related to denial is the psychological state called depression, which is very common in humans and thought to be one of the most poorly diagnosed and treated diseases in the world. When someone has a temporary “situational depression” it is usually straightforward: We can understand why depressive thoughts arise from a recent negative incident or difficult personal situation. However, this does not explain the very common problem of unprovoked major depression,31 which can even end in suicide. While depression is undoubtedly one of a variety of disease processes that are driven by various biochemical changes in the brain, major depressive disorder (as it is officially called) should be highly maladaptive in terms of survival and reproductive fitness. Among the many theories for explaining this disease is one called depressive realism.32 As Tali Sharot puts it, “While healthy people are biased toward a positive future, depressed individuals perceive possible misfortunes a bit too clearly. While severely depressed patients are pessimistic, mildly depressed people are actually pretty good at predicting what may happen to them in the near future.” Thus major depressives may in fact be the true realists who fully appreciate the enormity of all the negative issues that face them every day, socially, personally, and professionally. In this line of reasoning, “normal” people are the ones who are deluding themselves!
A surprising treatment advance has been the finding that ketamine (a short-acting anesthetic that is commonly used for animal and human surgeries) can have an immediate positive impact in some patients with depression.33 If our hypothesis about depressive realism being a lack of reality denial is true, then further studies of the mechanism of ketamine action may provide clues as to how the optimism bias persists in nondepressed humans. Notably, ketamine is also a commonly abused drug, altering reality in a manner that many apparently find pleasurable. Ketamine can produce short-term hallucinatory effects at subanesthetic doses, followed by a sense of detachment from one’s physical body and the external world, effectively enhancing one’s state of reality denial. So perhaps ketamine is acting to counter depressive realism by enhancing reality denial.
In addition to our physiological and behavioral processes (as they are classically defined), our biological history demanded that we be masters of denial. Reality denial was essential for us to become smart, and it is now an ingrained component of our biological heritage. But we are not still creatures of denial just because biological evolution is slow. As we became genetically and culturally smarter and smarter, and better able to probe the meaning of reality and mortality using deeper levels of reflection, it was probably necessary for our innate capacity for reality denial to grow as well. Of course this process did not have to be complete, as other mechanisms such as religion came into play for those without adequate culturally enforced denial. Regardless, the point is that this transition has happened only once, despite the fact that smart, warm-blooded social animals have been around for tens of millions of years. Even if biological evolution could now be speeded up, there is no reason to think that we would lose our propensity for denial. Knowing more about the world in general and specifically about the biological workings of living things makes our requirement for denial even greater now than it has ever been. Denial of reality is an essential skill for us to function normally in the world. It is a fundamental property of being human.
May 28, 2017
A fascinating theory linking the evolution of human intelligence to our unique ability to deny reality
Ever wonder why, of all the various life forms on this planet, humans are the only creatures with the brainpower necessary to plan far in advance, collaborate, tell stories, and pass along information in ways that help future generations succeed? If you answered yes, this book will interest you, unless your answer also included “because god.” Religious types and climate change skeptics might want to give this a pass.
Authors Ajit Varki a distinguished physician and researcher, and Danny Brower, an insect geneticist, came up with a fascinating theory to explain our incredible, almost ludicrous success thanks to our unique brains. (Brower died in 2007 and really only contributed the fundamental argument to the theory in a long-ago conversation; crediting him was a nice touch). The theory posits that developing a full theory of mind, meaning one is self aware and realizes other people have similar minds and thoughts—and thus are predictable and able to be influenced—faces an almost insurmountable evolutionary barrier. The realization that you are going to die (‘mortality salience”) is maladaptive, refocusing precious energy on preservation instead of procreation. In other words, once you are truly self aware, you would be better served ignoring biological dictates to reproduce at all costs, and focus on living longer.
The authors believe that it’s highly likely our ancestors, and even other animals (elephants, corvids, etc.), bumped up against this barrier many times in the last few hundreds of thousands of years. And, unable to continue reproducing effectively, those new traits—that would have been so beneficial—were out-bred changes that increased overall reproductive fitness. And so, we were doomed to never get thse sexy brains of ours until we, luckiest of all creatures—at this point, a group of maybe ten thousand or so proto-ancestors—developed full theory of mind while simultaneously developing the ability to deny reality.
We all are pretty clear on how good humans are at denial. If you really think about how short our lives are, how meaningless in the grand or even the mediocre scheme of things, we would probably just curl up at home with a jug of whiskey and Netflix and wait for the end. Instead, we march around the world doing things and fighting wars and building skyscrapers and generally just strutting about being confident that what we do is important and matters.
The theory is simple, brilliant and completely un-provable, but makes a great deal of intuitive sense and offers an explanation of why humans have thrived. Of course, there are some issues that accompany our expertise in reality denial, including building our own religious straight-jackets, and the current skepticism around climate change, to which an entire chapter is devoted.
Here are a few great lines:
“Anxiety attacks represent a sudden episodic failure of the human reality denial system, transiently unmasking the fear of death. The fact that there is no known naturally occurring equivalent of this disease in other animals … suggest that it is telling us something about human cognitive origins.”
And, when writing about how lying to procure mates (an adaptive reproductive strategy) might have created the full theory of mind: “Males would be selected to be better and better liars [to convince females to mate], and females would counter by being selected to be better and better lie detectors [to ensure mate choices were based on the best available information]. Evolving something approaching a full TOM [theory of mind] would be very helpful to both sides in this mental gamesmanship.”
It’s a good read, a little repetitive at times, but built on a solid foundation and filled with interesting and thought provoking asides. For example, I couldn’t help but wonder if some of the current mental health issues humans deal with are a by product of the genetic mutations that allowed us to develop our significant reality denial mechanisms.
Intriguing and well worth the time, and hopefully an area that will get more scientific research attention.
Ever wonder why, of all the various life forms on this planet, humans are the only creatures with the brainpower necessary to plan far in advance, collaborate, tell stories, and pass along information in ways that help future generations succeed? If you answered yes, this book will interest you, unless your answer also included “because god.” Religious types and climate change skeptics might want to give this a pass.
Authors Ajit Varki a distinguished physician and researcher, and Danny Brower, an insect geneticist, came up with a fascinating theory to explain our incredible, almost ludicrous success thanks to our unique brains. (Brower died in 2007 and really only contributed the fundamental argument to the theory in a long-ago conversation; crediting him was a nice touch). The theory posits that developing a full theory of mind, meaning one is self aware and realizes other people have similar minds and thoughts—and thus are predictable and able to be influenced—faces an almost insurmountable evolutionary barrier. The realization that you are going to die (‘mortality salience”) is maladaptive, refocusing precious energy on preservation instead of procreation. In other words, once you are truly self aware, you would be better served ignoring biological dictates to reproduce at all costs, and focus on living longer.
The authors believe that it’s highly likely our ancestors, and even other animals (elephants, corvids, etc.), bumped up against this barrier many times in the last few hundreds of thousands of years. And, unable to continue reproducing effectively, those new traits—that would have been so beneficial—were out-bred changes that increased overall reproductive fitness. And so, we were doomed to never get thse sexy brains of ours until we, luckiest of all creatures—at this point, a group of maybe ten thousand or so proto-ancestors—developed full theory of mind while simultaneously developing the ability to deny reality.
We all are pretty clear on how good humans are at denial. If you really think about how short our lives are, how meaningless in the grand or even the mediocre scheme of things, we would probably just curl up at home with a jug of whiskey and Netflix and wait for the end. Instead, we march around the world doing things and fighting wars and building skyscrapers and generally just strutting about being confident that what we do is important and matters.
The theory is simple, brilliant and completely un-provable, but makes a great deal of intuitive sense and offers an explanation of why humans have thrived. Of course, there are some issues that accompany our expertise in reality denial, including building our own religious straight-jackets, and the current skepticism around climate change, to which an entire chapter is devoted.
Here are a few great lines:
“Anxiety attacks represent a sudden episodic failure of the human reality denial system, transiently unmasking the fear of death. The fact that there is no known naturally occurring equivalent of this disease in other animals … suggest that it is telling us something about human cognitive origins.”
And, when writing about how lying to procure mates (an adaptive reproductive strategy) might have created the full theory of mind: “Males would be selected to be better and better liars [to convince females to mate], and females would counter by being selected to be better and better lie detectors [to ensure mate choices were based on the best available information]. Evolving something approaching a full TOM [theory of mind] would be very helpful to both sides in this mental gamesmanship.”
It’s a good read, a little repetitive at times, but built on a solid foundation and filled with interesting and thought provoking asides. For example, I couldn’t help but wonder if some of the current mental health issues humans deal with are a by product of the genetic mutations that allowed us to develop our significant reality denial mechanisms.
Intriguing and well worth the time, and hopefully an area that will get more scientific research attention.
February 17, 2024
A 4.5
There is a lot in this book, and I regret not writing down thoughts/refelctions as I read. I read this slowly, stretched over a week. Whether or not the ideas Varki & Brower put forward are ever proven true, the book offers much to contemplate. And I greatly appreciate the tone of uncertainty. The authors acknowledge they can not proof their ideas. And we may never be able to prove it. Additionally, the book is well laid out, written, and presented.
For decades I have contemplated that what separates humans from other animals is not our ability to be rational, but our ability to be irrational. We often act against our self interest and against obvious facts. It has led to the success of our species, but also to much individual hardship. The authors' labeling this as a "denial" is a much better term than "irrational." So much of the human mind is about denial, believing we are making choices rationally, when we are not.
Written in 2013, and reading in 2024 makes me appreciate the book all the more. It feels prescient to American politics since 2016. And it is yet another book talking about the dangers of another pandemic, pre-Covid. Being a decade old, I am also curious discoveries have supported or gone against the ideas presented. And this would be the case in with both what we know about the human brain, and with archeological discoveries in the last decade.
A thought provoking book that will likely make you feel uncomfortable.
There is a lot in this book, and I regret not writing down thoughts/refelctions as I read. I read this slowly, stretched over a week. Whether or not the ideas Varki & Brower put forward are ever proven true, the book offers much to contemplate. And I greatly appreciate the tone of uncertainty. The authors acknowledge they can not proof their ideas. And we may never be able to prove it. Additionally, the book is well laid out, written, and presented.
For decades I have contemplated that what separates humans from other animals is not our ability to be rational, but our ability to be irrational. We often act against our self interest and against obvious facts. It has led to the success of our species, but also to much individual hardship. The authors' labeling this as a "denial" is a much better term than "irrational." So much of the human mind is about denial, believing we are making choices rationally, when we are not.
Written in 2013, and reading in 2024 makes me appreciate the book all the more. It feels prescient to American politics since 2016. And it is yet another book talking about the dangers of another pandemic, pre-Covid. Being a decade old, I am also curious discoveries have supported or gone against the ideas presented. And this would be the case in with both what we know about the human brain, and with archeological discoveries in the last decade.
A thought provoking book that will likely make you feel uncomfortable.
November 14, 2014
This book has a novel idea. If novelty was everything, I would have given this book five stars without hesitation. Nevertheless, the book has some problems that earned it two stars in my opinion that I will discuss later.
The book discusses the origins of behaviorally modern humans in contrast to anatomically modern humans. It notes and tries to solve two problems in human origins:
1. Hominids seem to exist for more than a 100000 years before the appearance of behaviorally modern humans around 70000 years ago in Africa before their dispersal in the whole world. The answer here is that a block existed that did not allow other hominids to evolve full human cognitive capability for this long time. What is this blocking wall? It is awareness of mortality. A psychological block!!
2. In most species when we have a feature that appears in a single species only while its precursors exist in several other species, usually some disadvantages accompany this feature which blocks its utilization by other species. For example, the giraffe's long neck makes it vulnerable when the giraffe is drinking. It is clear that humans have an unusual cognitive capabilities (intelligence) but what can the disadvantage of intelligence be? The answer here is that once a member of a species develops a full theory of mind (ToM), (s)he becomes aware of its own mortality by noticing the mortality of others. This in turn reduces her/his overall fitness due to the onset of some form of existential depression and makes it impossible for this trend to have root in the genetic makeup of the species.
The story told in the book is something like this:
Several species in the history of earth could attain elementary self awareness as indicated by the mirror test (i.e. the ability of an individual to know itself in a mirror).
Self awareness can evolve to a higher form that Varki calls elementary ToM which makes the individual aware to some vague level of the individuality of other members of its species which allows elementary communication and some form of tool use etc. This is assumed to be the level of most hominids before the advent of homo-sapiens. Low functioning autistic children give an analogy to this kind of elementary ToM.
The final step is the development of a "full" theory of mind which allows the agent to understand other minds and connect to them. This enables the full range of human mental potential but it comes with a price. Only individuals who attain this level of ToM get a clear understanding of death and of the individual's own mortality (by noticing the death of others). This in turn leads to a form of depression that reduces the fitness of the individual. This prevented other hominids (and other kinds of intelligent species like birds and wales) from ever attaining human-level mental development.
The special case of homo-sapiens is that some of its members could evolve this full ToM and in the same time they evolved a form of mortality denial (which developed later a a more general reality denial). This allowed these individuals to have the benefits of the full ToM (assumed to the full range of human-like intelligence) while not suffering from the aforementioned psychological block.
Varki was careful to indicate that his theory is not falsifiable but (and I agree) it is still useful to theorize this way for single-time events like the evolution of humans.
Nevertheless, there are some other problems in this proposal that makes it on the verge of becoming a just-so story. Even though Varki mentions many of these problems in his final chapter, they are just dismissed.
For example, Varki mentions that the concept of a full ToM is not clear and resolves this issue by saying that the elementary self-hood awareness up to full ToM lie in a continuum but in this case, why did not individuals develop on this continuum slowly enough to avoid the onset of depression? There must be a break someplace in this continuum. This leads me to think that the problem is not with the full ToM concept but with the intermediate vague ToM state which most hominids are assumed to live within. The analogy with autistic children is not very useful because the kind of achievement of these hominids is not similar. For example, autistic savants may be able to survive in the wild but we would expect then to see several different technological achievements that are not continued during early hominid days but what we see in the archaeological record is the opposite: Very simple tools that do not evolve for a long time. This does not seem to me the achievement of a nation of ASD patients.
Another problem is that the book gives very little notice of other factors that derived the evolution of the human mind including tool use. Even though many researchers subscribe to higher importance of social factors in the evolution of the human mind, it is very hard to completely dismiss tool use as having at least some effect.
Another deep problem I think is the assumption that attaining a full ToM would lead to appreciation of mortality and then to reduced fitness. Both of these effects are not clear. Why would appreciating mortality lead to depression. This may be true for us modern humans but why is it the case that for earlier hominids with undoubtedly different environmental condition and who are raised in completely different cultures than ours? Why cannot the individual just understand that her/his life is too short to spend without joy and people do not engage in sex for reproduction in most cases but to enjoy the moment. Was not it possible for these early individual to even become more life affirming exactly because they know that this life is short?! I do not think that they have the author's familiarity with the "life is suffering" saying.
All in all, I do think that this theory deserves being discussed but it is hardly the last word and I think Dr. Varki would agree.
The book discusses the origins of behaviorally modern humans in contrast to anatomically modern humans. It notes and tries to solve two problems in human origins:
1. Hominids seem to exist for more than a 100000 years before the appearance of behaviorally modern humans around 70000 years ago in Africa before their dispersal in the whole world. The answer here is that a block existed that did not allow other hominids to evolve full human cognitive capability for this long time. What is this blocking wall? It is awareness of mortality. A psychological block!!
2. In most species when we have a feature that appears in a single species only while its precursors exist in several other species, usually some disadvantages accompany this feature which blocks its utilization by other species. For example, the giraffe's long neck makes it vulnerable when the giraffe is drinking. It is clear that humans have an unusual cognitive capabilities (intelligence) but what can the disadvantage of intelligence be? The answer here is that once a member of a species develops a full theory of mind (ToM), (s)he becomes aware of its own mortality by noticing the mortality of others. This in turn reduces her/his overall fitness due to the onset of some form of existential depression and makes it impossible for this trend to have root in the genetic makeup of the species.
The story told in the book is something like this:
Several species in the history of earth could attain elementary self awareness as indicated by the mirror test (i.e. the ability of an individual to know itself in a mirror).
Self awareness can evolve to a higher form that Varki calls elementary ToM which makes the individual aware to some vague level of the individuality of other members of its species which allows elementary communication and some form of tool use etc. This is assumed to be the level of most hominids before the advent of homo-sapiens. Low functioning autistic children give an analogy to this kind of elementary ToM.
The final step is the development of a "full" theory of mind which allows the agent to understand other minds and connect to them. This enables the full range of human mental potential but it comes with a price. Only individuals who attain this level of ToM get a clear understanding of death and of the individual's own mortality (by noticing the death of others). This in turn leads to a form of depression that reduces the fitness of the individual. This prevented other hominids (and other kinds of intelligent species like birds and wales) from ever attaining human-level mental development.
The special case of homo-sapiens is that some of its members could evolve this full ToM and in the same time they evolved a form of mortality denial (which developed later a a more general reality denial). This allowed these individuals to have the benefits of the full ToM (assumed to the full range of human-like intelligence) while not suffering from the aforementioned psychological block.
Varki was careful to indicate that his theory is not falsifiable but (and I agree) it is still useful to theorize this way for single-time events like the evolution of humans.
Nevertheless, there are some other problems in this proposal that makes it on the verge of becoming a just-so story. Even though Varki mentions many of these problems in his final chapter, they are just dismissed.
For example, Varki mentions that the concept of a full ToM is not clear and resolves this issue by saying that the elementary self-hood awareness up to full ToM lie in a continuum but in this case, why did not individuals develop on this continuum slowly enough to avoid the onset of depression? There must be a break someplace in this continuum. This leads me to think that the problem is not with the full ToM concept but with the intermediate vague ToM state which most hominids are assumed to live within. The analogy with autistic children is not very useful because the kind of achievement of these hominids is not similar. For example, autistic savants may be able to survive in the wild but we would expect then to see several different technological achievements that are not continued during early hominid days but what we see in the archaeological record is the opposite: Very simple tools that do not evolve for a long time. This does not seem to me the achievement of a nation of ASD patients.
Another problem is that the book gives very little notice of other factors that derived the evolution of the human mind including tool use. Even though many researchers subscribe to higher importance of social factors in the evolution of the human mind, it is very hard to completely dismiss tool use as having at least some effect.
Another deep problem I think is the assumption that attaining a full ToM would lead to appreciation of mortality and then to reduced fitness. Both of these effects are not clear. Why would appreciating mortality lead to depression. This may be true for us modern humans but why is it the case that for earlier hominids with undoubtedly different environmental condition and who are raised in completely different cultures than ours? Why cannot the individual just understand that her/his life is too short to spend without joy and people do not engage in sex for reproduction in most cases but to enjoy the moment. Was not it possible for these early individual to even become more life affirming exactly because they know that this life is short?! I do not think that they have the author's familiarity with the "life is suffering" saying.
All in all, I do think that this theory deserves being discussed but it is hardly the last word and I think Dr. Varki would agree.
July 28, 2019
two rather obnoxiously large problems with the premise as it's presented.
a rather massive assumption underpins this tripe: "true" awareness of death requires the ability to "deny reality" so that one can be aware of death and continue to function.
wat? come again?
we, being ourselves, happen to know that we have some hangups about death, sure. but our take isn't (and ESPECIALLY what happens to be our take at this moment in time) any more right or real than any other take. it's hard to judge what any other life for thinks and feels about death. to claim everything else is too dumb to grasp death is just obtuse.
a second massive assumption: intelligence is what people do.
good golly.
if you start from: smart = human
you're going to be confused as to why everything that isn't human isn't smart, it's true. but that doesn't take one as far as the author seems to think.
a rather massive assumption underpins this tripe: "true" awareness of death requires the ability to "deny reality" so that one can be aware of death and continue to function.
wat? come again?
we, being ourselves, happen to know that we have some hangups about death, sure. but our take isn't (and ESPECIALLY what happens to be our take at this moment in time) any more right or real than any other take. it's hard to judge what any other life for thinks and feels about death. to claim everything else is too dumb to grasp death is just obtuse.
a second massive assumption: intelligence is what people do.
good golly.
if you start from: smart = human
you're going to be confused as to why everything that isn't human isn't smart, it's true. but that doesn't take one as far as the author seems to think.
January 2, 2021
The premise was interesting; natural selection favored the ability for self-delusion and denial as a means of overcoming the insurmountable fear of our mortality. However, I personally feel like this might be a bit overstated. Is the psychological barrier of facing death truly unsurvivable? The author also glosses over contradictions and counterarguments to his theory. All in all, an interesting thought experiment, though a bit outdated by contemporary research into theory of mind and comparative psychology. My biggest criticism is that the author merely scratches the surface of his idea, but then fills the pages by coming to the same conclusion over and over. It feels like a premise stretched into an entire book, and I found myself counting the pages to finish once I'd already gotten the gist of it.
September 24, 2020
Gets a little boring sometimes but definitely worth a read if you're jittery about the subject of death. Really good book for healing as well :) It gets better guys!
(took me along time to finish because I was busy lol.
It was worth it though!
(took me along time to finish because I was busy lol.
It was worth it though!
June 20, 2021
an interesting hypothesis to explain why denying reality (through religion and other fairytales) might have been evolutionally useful when homo sapiens first developed Theory of Mind
would also explain why we were stuck in the stone age for so long
would also explain why we were stuck in the stone age for so long
March 21, 2024
This book doesn't get enough credit. The authors present convincing ideas about the complete theory of the human mind—explaining why. They also explain into why people believe in god. It's a must-read!
December 22, 2018
That was an interesting read
October 2, 2022
Comprehensive evaluation and conjecture designed to provoke much thought.
December 31, 2016
Thought provoking premise, flawed evo psych speculative argument.
November 4, 2024
Interesting idea about the evolution of human traits. Could have been stated adequately in a chapter. The rest of the book is background on evolution (cursory), background on brains (more cursory), description of animal abilities (cursory), personal pet peeves (climate change), and lots of other filler. The tone is general audience. Some of it is interesting and perhaps unknow to the reader. There is at least one 'more on this later' in every chapter and a lot of repetition of the thesis.
the thesis:
Of course the thesis is unprovable unless other animals evolve to human abilities.
- - - - -
The New Yorker, Nov 4, 2024 book review titled "Each Mortal Thing: What other creatures understand about death" by Kathryn Schultz mentions two books. Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death (Princeton) by Susana Monso, a philosopher and a soft-hearted one: "How Animals Grieve" by anthropologist Barbara J King. Per the review neither book convincingly ascribes understand of death to any animal.
the thesis:
Of course the thesis is unprovable unless other animals evolve to human abilities.
- - - - -
The New Yorker, Nov 4, 2024 book review titled "Each Mortal Thing: What other creatures understand about death" by Kathryn Schultz mentions two books. Playing Possum: How Animals Understand Death (Princeton) by Susana Monso, a philosopher and a soft-hearted one: "How Animals Grieve" by anthropologist Barbara J King. Per the review neither book convincingly ascribes understand of death to any animal.
August 30, 2016
Anyone interested in the issues relating to the exploration of the often murky and highly contentious study of the evolutionary origin of humans and the cognitive psychology and evolution of the human mind may find this book of interest. In a sense it appears to be a summary of many of the ideas associated with this study, the various manifestations of which can be united under the term anthropogeny, defined as “the scientific pursuit of human origins and evolution”.
A central aspect in this field of study appears to be a concept known as “Theory of Mind”, usually abbreviated as ToM. A definition of ToM is “the ability human beings have to think about the thoughts and feelings of others”. It is proposed that ToM is a peculiarly human quality that may be unique to humans, and gives rise to “explanations” of social behaviours such as caring, altruism, and other associated ideas humans would like to believe are unique to them.
Useful as the concept may be, more recent studies have indicated that there may be various levels of ToM: some animals seem to exhibit similar behaviours; indeed, this could also be fodder for the argument that, whatever ToM is exactly, it may very well be a biological (genetic) quality manifested by the brain, and therefore nothing particularly special in relation to humans. Some theorists suggest, however, that only humans have full ToM; but even that may progress only as the human “normally” develops. The actual mechanism how this might occur, however, can only be speculated about. And a more negative understanding of ToM must surely take into account the fact that as well as beneficial aspects, it may also contain the seeds of more unpleasant aspects, such as lying, bullying, manipulation, and causing harm, to name a few. And what is more, what is there to suggest that one person’s ToM is accurate in regards to their understanding of another person?
The conundrum exists mostly insofar as one is trying to understand just what it is that have made humans so “successful” at becoming so dominant worldwide, and which appears not to apply to any other form of life on earth.
The authors of this book are suggesting that, in some way, the concept of denial needs to be added to the mix. In particular, they refer to the denial of “reality”, but more often refer to this as the denial of “reality and mortality”. They refer to modern humans as being more interested in the “reality” they see on screens everywhere: this has become “more real” than reality itself; and a classic example they provide are those who deny Climate Change (despite extensive scientific evidence). They wonder whether such denial is also biologically significant; that perhaps the requirement of denial is also inbuilt into the brain’s equipment for dealing with reality (again, other animals must also have a certain amount of “denial” as to what options they might have for survival in their environment); and that perhaps humans have a special application of this. The mixing of reality and mortality comes from (or is caused by?) the desire for immortality (or perpetual youth?), and that the only way to have that is to deny their own mortality (but presumably not the mortality of others…)
Harder to deal with, as far as I am concerned, is the “connection” between how our belief in ToM and in Denial can be both tremendously advantageous to our success at survival so far, and at the same time dangerous for that very survival. Just how do self-deception and false beliefs (terms used in the sub-title of this book) work for our success? Would they also work towards our complete demise as a species as well? Despite this, our authors argue that “our ability to deny reality has enormous and potentially disastrous consequences for humanity as well as much potential positive value”. (p. 173)
They also admit that while they can provide many examples for this, they cannot conclude that their overall thesis can be conclusively proved. All they propose is a kind of “long argument” for its validity. This, of course, is the nub of the matter, and raises the objection that, no matter how extensive a “long argument” is, it still constitutes no proof. So what we have here is simply a lot of arguments and suggestions; and while these might be interesting enough in themselves, that’s all that can be said about them. From this perspective, however, the book can be of some use for anyone interested in this subject.
A central aspect in this field of study appears to be a concept known as “Theory of Mind”, usually abbreviated as ToM. A definition of ToM is “the ability human beings have to think about the thoughts and feelings of others”. It is proposed that ToM is a peculiarly human quality that may be unique to humans, and gives rise to “explanations” of social behaviours such as caring, altruism, and other associated ideas humans would like to believe are unique to them.
Useful as the concept may be, more recent studies have indicated that there may be various levels of ToM: some animals seem to exhibit similar behaviours; indeed, this could also be fodder for the argument that, whatever ToM is exactly, it may very well be a biological (genetic) quality manifested by the brain, and therefore nothing particularly special in relation to humans. Some theorists suggest, however, that only humans have full ToM; but even that may progress only as the human “normally” develops. The actual mechanism how this might occur, however, can only be speculated about. And a more negative understanding of ToM must surely take into account the fact that as well as beneficial aspects, it may also contain the seeds of more unpleasant aspects, such as lying, bullying, manipulation, and causing harm, to name a few. And what is more, what is there to suggest that one person’s ToM is accurate in regards to their understanding of another person?
The conundrum exists mostly insofar as one is trying to understand just what it is that have made humans so “successful” at becoming so dominant worldwide, and which appears not to apply to any other form of life on earth.
The authors of this book are suggesting that, in some way, the concept of denial needs to be added to the mix. In particular, they refer to the denial of “reality”, but more often refer to this as the denial of “reality and mortality”. They refer to modern humans as being more interested in the “reality” they see on screens everywhere: this has become “more real” than reality itself; and a classic example they provide are those who deny Climate Change (despite extensive scientific evidence). They wonder whether such denial is also biologically significant; that perhaps the requirement of denial is also inbuilt into the brain’s equipment for dealing with reality (again, other animals must also have a certain amount of “denial” as to what options they might have for survival in their environment); and that perhaps humans have a special application of this. The mixing of reality and mortality comes from (or is caused by?) the desire for immortality (or perpetual youth?), and that the only way to have that is to deny their own mortality (but presumably not the mortality of others…)
Harder to deal with, as far as I am concerned, is the “connection” between how our belief in ToM and in Denial can be both tremendously advantageous to our success at survival so far, and at the same time dangerous for that very survival. Just how do self-deception and false beliefs (terms used in the sub-title of this book) work for our success? Would they also work towards our complete demise as a species as well? Despite this, our authors argue that “our ability to deny reality has enormous and potentially disastrous consequences for humanity as well as much potential positive value”. (p. 173)
They also admit that while they can provide many examples for this, they cannot conclude that their overall thesis can be conclusively proved. All they propose is a kind of “long argument” for its validity. This, of course, is the nub of the matter, and raises the objection that, no matter how extensive a “long argument” is, it still constitutes no proof. So what we have here is simply a lot of arguments and suggestions; and while these might be interesting enough in themselves, that’s all that can be said about them. From this perspective, however, the book can be of some use for anyone interested in this subject.
January 30, 2021
“At bottom, no one believes in his own death,…in the unconscious, everyone is convinced of his own mortality.” Freud
This book proposes an intriguing scientific theory to explain why only we, homo-sapiens, of all the other ape descended species, and other highly intelligent bird and mammal species, for that matter, were the only ones over millions of years of evolution to develop such extensive intelligence and intersubjective awareness. Ajit Varki proposes that we were able to break through an evolutionary wall presented by the paralyzing consciousness of mortality that is coincidant with advanced development of ToM. (Theory of Mind, or, more loosely, awareness of self and others) According to the theory, other species were not able to break through this barrier. As they approached fuller self-awareness, this type of intelligence became a disadvantage. They freaked out! “I’m not gonna fight for a mate or for dominance, or food. I could hurt myself, or die!! Err, I’ll just stay in this cave here and not spread my seed at all.” I’m hamming, but Ajit fleshes out this theory in more detailed, and science based ways. He thinks that homo-sapiens overcame the barrier by somehow evolving a way to psychologically repress the constant dangers. Thus, the title. It’s all very speculative, but still interesting to consider. If the premise gains more traction, it could turn the field of evolutionary biology on its head. It offers possible answers to questions about our strange and paradoxical relation to death. Also, the theory has many implications for how we think about mental health, anxiety, depression, and developmental psychology.
Here are a few more characterizations of this paradox.
Ernest Becker, author of The Denial of Death
“the ever-present fear of death in the normal biological functioning of our instinct of self preservation, as well as our utter obliviousness to this fear in our conscious life.”
Katie Roiphe on Freud’s detached self-analyzing of his own dying as he approached and experienced it.
“Even Freud, by implication, with his graceful, bravura passages of accepting death, does not on another level believe in it. The heroic clarity he respects, then, is not entirely possible: It is a goal, an ideal, a place to move towards.”
This book proposes an intriguing scientific theory to explain why only we, homo-sapiens, of all the other ape descended species, and other highly intelligent bird and mammal species, for that matter, were the only ones over millions of years of evolution to develop such extensive intelligence and intersubjective awareness. Ajit Varki proposes that we were able to break through an evolutionary wall presented by the paralyzing consciousness of mortality that is coincidant with advanced development of ToM. (Theory of Mind, or, more loosely, awareness of self and others) According to the theory, other species were not able to break through this barrier. As they approached fuller self-awareness, this type of intelligence became a disadvantage. They freaked out! “I’m not gonna fight for a mate or for dominance, or food. I could hurt myself, or die!! Err, I’ll just stay in this cave here and not spread my seed at all.” I’m hamming, but Ajit fleshes out this theory in more detailed, and science based ways. He thinks that homo-sapiens overcame the barrier by somehow evolving a way to psychologically repress the constant dangers. Thus, the title. It’s all very speculative, but still interesting to consider. If the premise gains more traction, it could turn the field of evolutionary biology on its head. It offers possible answers to questions about our strange and paradoxical relation to death. Also, the theory has many implications for how we think about mental health, anxiety, depression, and developmental psychology.
Here are a few more characterizations of this paradox.
Ernest Becker, author of The Denial of Death
“the ever-present fear of death in the normal biological functioning of our instinct of self preservation, as well as our utter obliviousness to this fear in our conscious life.”
Katie Roiphe on Freud’s detached self-analyzing of his own dying as he approached and experienced it.
“Even Freud, by implication, with his graceful, bravura passages of accepting death, does not on another level believe in it. The heroic clarity he respects, then, is not entirely possible: It is a goal, an ideal, a place to move towards.”
February 9, 2023
The thesis posits only beings with theory of mind fully grasp the horror of death, which at a certain level of intelligence becomes incapacitating, therefore denial of our own mortality is adaptive, that religion is an adaptive mechanism borne of this mortality-denial, and that seeking explanations for it is thus inexorable from what it means to be human. Not entirely sure that all those follow, and it is unprovable without a time machine to observe the evolution of prehistoric man as we developed culture and language, but I readily believe the first 3. I like that the implications could be ammo for an atheist to say "see, that's why religion emerged independently in a parallel process across cultures, nothing supernatural about it" while also not explicitly precluding or contradicting the existence of a God or spiritual dimension. I was hoping this would go more into the variety of psychological manifestations of denial, willful ignorance and aversion, like climate change denial or being 'in the closet', but it is still fascinating even if not what I expected. There are some interesting chapters about autism spectrum disorder and cannabis that I struggled to understand the relevance of these main points, but they are worthy of inclusion regardless because - the part about cannabis ended up being remarkably prescient, looking at it as comparison of what Varki & Brower predicted would happen in 2010 vs what actually happened, and given that this is the posthumous work of Dr. Brower, I imagine that Dr. Varki strove to include all of what he was working on as a sort of magnum opus, since he regrettably did not have the opportunity to develop them into what could have been subjects of their own books. This unclear scope is the only criticism that knocked it down from a 5 for me - the ideas are novel, the science is solid, and writing style accessible to laypersons while piquing the interest of the scholar without dumbing things down.
*Edited to add: In retrospect, this book wasn't as good as I thought it was before, especially in light of the title. It is almost all about 'the origin of the human mind' and focused on evolutionary psychology, with very little investigation into denial itself. If it had a better name, it might be a 3.
*Edited to add: In retrospect, this book wasn't as good as I thought it was before, especially in light of the title. It is almost all about 'the origin of the human mind' and focused on evolutionary psychology, with very little investigation into denial itself. If it had a better name, it might be a 3.
January 2, 2014
The author (there are two authors mentioned, but only one was alive to write the book) proposes that human evolution hinges on our ability to understand our death because we can project our own reality into the reality of others and vicariously experience their dying. The rest of the book explains what that means in terms of our “natural” reaction to that reality, and our ability to create alternate realities to avoid our “natural” reaction. The upshot is that I can truthfully say that I do not recommend reading this book. Although it seemed to start with an intriguing question and an intriguing thought about a potential direction, it lost its way almost immediately. I felt as if the author’s writing was like carrying a round peg about the countryside, and every time he came to a square hole he would pound his round peg into it. The result was a deformation of the reality he encountered, but instead of accepting that his theory did not fit, he ignored the way he deformed reality and in the end had the hubris to state that although his hypothesis is not falsifiable, he nevertheless was unable to locate any anecdotal evidence that contradicted his theory. If I were not reading the book as part of a book discussion group, I would not have made it past the first chapter.
Was the work devoid of any value? It had some bright spots. For example he was passionate and descriptive about the impending horrors of climate change. But I would never recommend this book to someone who is interested in studying climate change. Its focus is something else, and it does an extremely poor job of what its main intention is, i.e. to illustrate that human beings are the result of both a physiological evolution and behavioral evolution, and the behavioral evolution is grounded in the realization of our own mortality, our reactive fear and consequently inability to focus on procreation due to that fear, and our ability to “deny” the “reality” of our mortality. I find even writing this previous sentence painful and a blight on clear thinking.
June 10, 2015
The book is about human consciousness, mortality and how we developed awareness of others and ourselves over the ages.
The focal point of the book "Denial" (suggesting that self-deception was the essential ingredient in our evolutionary development to gain the intelligence that sets us apart from other animals), is in itself simple and could have been covered much more succinctly. There is a lot of exploration and pushing boundaries, perhaps a little too far at times, but remember the old saying: "if you don't try..."
For much of the book, the author spends time arguing with himself to prove his point. (And I argued with him).
Does he succeed? It's a thorny issue, judging by many of the reviews, but a worthy exercise all the same. Someone has to try and shake things up and come up with new things and ideas.
The real question should be: Is the book an interesting read? YES, but it needs some trimming. It changed tone and became lost at around the halfway mark, however, I would read it again because even when it lost the plot it offered interesting postulations.
One fascinating thing in this book is how the author and the co-author met and how the book came into being.
This is a good book and worth reading.
Sergiu Pobereznic (author)
amazon.com/author/sergiupobereznic
The focal point of the book "Denial" (suggesting that self-deception was the essential ingredient in our evolutionary development to gain the intelligence that sets us apart from other animals), is in itself simple and could have been covered much more succinctly. There is a lot of exploration and pushing boundaries, perhaps a little too far at times, but remember the old saying: "if you don't try..."
For much of the book, the author spends time arguing with himself to prove his point. (And I argued with him).
Does he succeed? It's a thorny issue, judging by many of the reviews, but a worthy exercise all the same. Someone has to try and shake things up and come up with new things and ideas.
The real question should be: Is the book an interesting read? YES, but it needs some trimming. It changed tone and became lost at around the halfway mark, however, I would read it again because even when it lost the plot it offered interesting postulations.
One fascinating thing in this book is how the author and the co-author met and how the book came into being.
This is a good book and worth reading.
Sergiu Pobereznic (author)
amazon.com/author/sergiupobereznic
October 16, 2013
This book gets an extra star from me just because this is a subject that is so important to me (i.e., the ubiquity of denial and illusion, and specifically its unsustainable nature in modern politics). The basic idea that self-deception is a key to unlocking our vast intelligence is not new to me, however their correlation in evolutionary terms is indeed a new consideration for me, and I believe a worthy and intriguing consideration.
That said, the book meanders more than it should, and there are examples of Varki's own blind spots (e.g., and this is forgivable as I don't expect Varki to be knowledgeable about economics, but he does repeat a conservative illusion [and one that helps reinforce conservative systems of denial] by confusing income taxes with all taxes and claiming that half of the country doesn't pay taxes... there are a few other similar examples). It is too bad Danny Brower didn't survive to finish this book himself. I suspect it might have been stronger.
That said, the book meanders more than it should, and there are examples of Varki's own blind spots (e.g., and this is forgivable as I don't expect Varki to be knowledgeable about economics, but he does repeat a conservative illusion [and one that helps reinforce conservative systems of denial] by confusing income taxes with all taxes and claiming that half of the country doesn't pay taxes... there are a few other similar examples). It is too bad Danny Brower didn't survive to finish this book himself. I suspect it might have been stronger.
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