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Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind: Emotional Fossils and the Evolution of the Human Spirit
Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind is a personal memoir by a psychiatrist who gradually discovers from his patient's descriptions of their mental illnesses that human motivations have been evolved over millions of years for productive engagement rather than competitive fitness. A new uplifting and spiritual view of human nature emerges that is not only consistent with the science of human evolution, but also opens up a simple explanation for such ancient mysteries as self-awareness, reflective thought, and the vast complexity of language.
All other books about the evolution of emotion approach it from the “outside” as an object; this book is about the biological evolution of the “inside” experience of emotion-and-motivation, which can only be known empathetically.
This essay will give you a good feeling for the book: http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009...
______________________________________
INSIDE THIS BOOK YOU WILL LEARN:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
How our craving for sex and attention created human culture.
*****
How our penises and breasts got to be so big.
*****
Why belief is really an emotion.
*****
How ape dominance evolved into human authority.
*****
Why mental illness is a “side effect” of our species’ evolution.
*****
The biology of the human spirit.
*****
The origin of vanity, and why gold is so valuable.
*****
Why upright posture is so essential to being human.
*****
The intimate connection between sex, music, and language.
All other books about the evolution of emotion approach it from the “outside” as an object; this book is about the biological evolution of the “inside” experience of emotion-and-motivation, which can only be known empathetically.
This essay will give you a good feeling for the book: http://www.themontrealreview.com/2009...
______________________________________
INSIDE THIS BOOK YOU WILL LEARN:
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
How our craving for sex and attention created human culture.
*****
How our penises and breasts got to be so big.
*****
Why belief is really an emotion.
*****
How ape dominance evolved into human authority.
*****
Why mental illness is a “side effect” of our species’ evolution.
*****
The biology of the human spirit.
*****
The origin of vanity, and why gold is so valuable.
*****
Why upright posture is so essential to being human.
*****
The intimate connection between sex, music, and language.
382 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 2018
13 people are currently reading
1467 people want to read
About the author
John V. Wylie
4 books40 followersJohn Wylie holds a BA in history from Yale, an MD from Columbia, and completed a psychiatric residency at Georgetown University. He began his career at a maximum-security prison in Maryland, followed by 35 years in the private practice of psychiatry in Washington, DC, where he served as chair of the department of psychiatry at Sibley Memorial Hospital. Dr. Wylie was a founding member of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society, has had a longstanding interest in the relationship of mental illness and human evolution, and has given multiple lectures on the topic. He wrote Diagnosing and Treating Mental Illness: A Guide for Physicians, Nurses, Patients, and Their Families,published in 2010 (second edition, 2012), Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind in 2018, which is a memoir of the development of his ideas, and Emotional Fossils: Mental Illness and Human Evolution, which is a summary of his thinking in 2020.
In December, 2023, he published The Evolution of Human Motivations: An AI-Illustrated Odyssey, in which every paragraph of a succinct summary of his ideas is illustrated by an image rendered by Chat GPT-4 & DALL-E-3. This is possibly the first serious nonfiction work for a general audience utilizing this breathtaking new technology.
Dr. Wylie lives in Olney, Maryland with his wife Ann.
In December, 2023, he published The Evolution of Human Motivations: An AI-Illustrated Odyssey, in which every paragraph of a succinct summary of his ideas is illustrated by an image rendered by Chat GPT-4 & DALL-E-3. This is possibly the first serious nonfiction work for a general audience utilizing this breathtaking new technology.
Dr. Wylie lives in Olney, Maryland with his wife Ann.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
March 13, 2018
I'm not sure how I feel about this book.
Wylie presents an interesting hypothesis, based on his experience and extensive reading. I am not sure just how realistic his claims are.
Wylie presents an interesting hypothesis, based on his experience and extensive reading. I am not sure just how realistic his claims are.
March 3, 2018
A well written academic book written in a style and at a scientific level that most of us can connect with, even if we can’t quite compute all the scholarly depth that make up the full picture. I definitely place myself in ‘the superficial understanding’ category but never felt intimidated by complexity. Wylie reexplores evolutionary biology bringing into play his clinical and philosophical knowledge and private observations in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, psychotherapy, and medicine. Wylie’s observations which build into a broad psychological theory that fits as a complementary extension to classic Darwinism, add considerably to our conventional understanding of human evolution. With the obvious exception of many dogmatic scripturalists, I think this book has a lot for all those interested in why we are what we are questions. Wylie adds to our understanding of personality evolution, looking at the intellectual creature that with all the psychological baggage we carry from our ancestors.
I did rather question some of what I read to be rather afterthought attempts to tie in sacred spirituality and philosophy. I guess some attempt at this is, though, beneficial if it might draw in all but the most dogmatic of ‘Abrahamists’. Anyway, arguably, religion could not be left out of a fully rounded ‘thesis’. Otherwise I had no personal issues with any ideas in this very well written book. Nearly always, Wylie found simple ways of distilling out the complexity of his arguments. A few more real-life anecdotes from Wylie’s career would I’m sure add a great deal of enjoyment for the general reader, without losing the focus required by the more scholastic. This is a serious book, exploring the whys and wherefores from a full range of psychological illnesses balanced against normal, (average), behaviours, that make us the deep thinking but not always rational creatures that we have become.
I did rather question some of what I read to be rather afterthought attempts to tie in sacred spirituality and philosophy. I guess some attempt at this is, though, beneficial if it might draw in all but the most dogmatic of ‘Abrahamists’. Anyway, arguably, religion could not be left out of a fully rounded ‘thesis’. Otherwise I had no personal issues with any ideas in this very well written book. Nearly always, Wylie found simple ways of distilling out the complexity of his arguments. A few more real-life anecdotes from Wylie’s career would I’m sure add a great deal of enjoyment for the general reader, without losing the focus required by the more scholastic. This is a serious book, exploring the whys and wherefores from a full range of psychological illnesses balanced against normal, (average), behaviours, that make us the deep thinking but not always rational creatures that we have become.
February 2, 2018
Ape Mind,Old Mind, New Mind is a personal memoir by a psychiatrist who gradually discovers from his patient's descriptions of their mental illnesses that human motivations have been evolved over millions of years for productive engagement rather than competitive fitness. A new uplifting and spiritual view of human nature emerges that is not only consistent with the science of human evolution, but also opens up a simple explanation for such ancient mysteries as self-awareness, reflective thought, and the vast complexity of language.
May 2, 2018
A book won on good reads. Most of the ideas and insights presented were fascinating. Yet the explanation of his experiences, scenarios, observations and circumstances presented of these accounts didn't fascinated me. Certain chapters stood out to me. It was a mixed feelings.
March 10, 2018
Here's a new vision of human nature
Seeking insight into myself and others, I've read other books on human evolution. Most of them flow from, and further, a negative view of our species. Maybe that's understandable after Darwin, Freud, two world wars, and the Holocaust. Our loss of confidence in ourselves leads to glib, bleak statements: "We're just dressed-up apes." And to shallow "survival of the fittest" notions that equate human nature to an animalistic tooth-and-claw level.
Dr. Wylie builds his contrary vision on Darwin's largely suppressed second great theory, the role of mate selection in evolution. Specifically how our hominid foremothers harnessed the male sex drive to domesticate males. They selected for those who would stick around and help raise offspring, for kinder, gentler mates. After our species split off from apes, we actually evolved much longer as hominids-for about six million years. From this base, Homo Sapiens arose only about 300,000 years ago.
This leads to one of Dr. Wylie's most exciting insights: humans possess three "minds" from our layered evolution. Yes, we there's a deep, lowly bequest from apes, the desire to dominate others. Our hominid legacy, in contrast, is a gentle, group-oriented mentality, which graces us with our spiritual linkage to others-what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious. And then there's our young ego mind: clever, anxious, craving constant attention.
A psychiatrist who was trained as a Freudian and inspired by Jung's more positive view of the human psyche, Dr. Wylie became a student of Darwin early in his career. While working in a maximum-security prison, he was stunned by the prisoners' cruelly primitive relationships based on dominance and submission. Oddly, they were also obsessed with justice. After Dr. Wylie was almost killed by an inmate, he became an avid researcher into human evolution. In private practice, he came to see the serious psychiatric disorders he treated as "emotional fossils," as clues to humans' layered psychology.
Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind brings together the strands of his 35-year inquiry. He traces the origin of core human emotions, such as the universal thirst for goodness, mercy, and justice-especially justice. These positive, ethereal, and intrinsically spiritual qualities tend to unite humans in shared efforts, to replace clans with community, to bind people together in ever-larger groups.
I'm grateful for this sweeping vision of human evolution and human nature. Yes, we can be cruel and brutal, but the larger truth is that most people seek harmony and justice. Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind shows how and why our history and evolution arc toward a more peaceful and humane future.
Seeking insight into myself and others, I've read other books on human evolution. Most of them flow from, and further, a negative view of our species. Maybe that's understandable after Darwin, Freud, two world wars, and the Holocaust. Our loss of confidence in ourselves leads to glib, bleak statements: "We're just dressed-up apes." And to shallow "survival of the fittest" notions that equate human nature to an animalistic tooth-and-claw level.
Dr. Wylie builds his contrary vision on Darwin's largely suppressed second great theory, the role of mate selection in evolution. Specifically how our hominid foremothers harnessed the male sex drive to domesticate males. They selected for those who would stick around and help raise offspring, for kinder, gentler mates. After our species split off from apes, we actually evolved much longer as hominids-for about six million years. From this base, Homo Sapiens arose only about 300,000 years ago.
This leads to one of Dr. Wylie's most exciting insights: humans possess three "minds" from our layered evolution. Yes, we there's a deep, lowly bequest from apes, the desire to dominate others. Our hominid legacy, in contrast, is a gentle, group-oriented mentality, which graces us with our spiritual linkage to others-what Carl Jung called the collective unconscious. And then there's our young ego mind: clever, anxious, craving constant attention.
A psychiatrist who was trained as a Freudian and inspired by Jung's more positive view of the human psyche, Dr. Wylie became a student of Darwin early in his career. While working in a maximum-security prison, he was stunned by the prisoners' cruelly primitive relationships based on dominance and submission. Oddly, they were also obsessed with justice. After Dr. Wylie was almost killed by an inmate, he became an avid researcher into human evolution. In private practice, he came to see the serious psychiatric disorders he treated as "emotional fossils," as clues to humans' layered psychology.
Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind brings together the strands of his 35-year inquiry. He traces the origin of core human emotions, such as the universal thirst for goodness, mercy, and justice-especially justice. These positive, ethereal, and intrinsically spiritual qualities tend to unite humans in shared efforts, to replace clans with community, to bind people together in ever-larger groups.
I'm grateful for this sweeping vision of human evolution and human nature. Yes, we can be cruel and brutal, but the larger truth is that most people seek harmony and justice. Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind shows how and why our history and evolution arc toward a more peaceful and humane future.
August 3, 2018
This is a Goodreads Wins Book--I found this to be a pretty interesting book. About human evolution and mental illness. How things seem to evolve into the way that things are. How , it seems, that when human evolution began, a trend began. It seems that this book is trying to explain why people are the way that they are. I felt that it didn't cover enough of how the enviroment that people are in also influences how things are they way that they are, and how people become who they are. Seems that if people follow certains patterns that will determine what goes on in their lives. A basic set of rules will determine your life. Maybe it was a little to clinical for me, but I feel that you can change your life just by not following all the rules. The things that you have done in your life make you the person that you are, not the person that society wants you to be. All in all I did enjoy this book and I would recommend it, if you really want to get into why things are the way they are. And maybe it will answer some of those burning questions that you may have.
January 16, 2018
The author is correct: This book definitely changed my view of human nature. It brings fresh insights to evolutionary theory by delving into how emotions, relationships, and group cooperation evolved. Dr. Wylie also delivers mind-expanding thoughts on mental illness through an evolutionary perspective, and shows how mental illnesses are by-products of what makes us uniquely human.
"Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind" gave me insights on human evolution I have never read before. It is a book so chock-full of ideas, you will read passages again and again. Intellectually invigorating, empathetic, bursting with perspective-changing ideas. On top of it all, the author makes a convincing case for the sacred spirt that resides among and within us all.
"Ape Mind, Old Mind, New Mind" gave me insights on human evolution I have never read before. It is a book so chock-full of ideas, you will read passages again and again. Intellectually invigorating, empathetic, bursting with perspective-changing ideas. On top of it all, the author makes a convincing case for the sacred spirt that resides among and within us all.
May 12, 2018
Interesting and Intriguing Insight
The title was interesting but I wasn't sure about the book or exactly what it may have entailed until I started reading. It is an interesting look into the mind, multiple minds. Wylie is a psychologist and writes this imprinted memoir after great research into the heart of mental illness. His theories and insight bring out a great perspective of the evolution of ones mind. I will definitely keep this book as a reference for some of my future writing projects. It was all and all a fascinating and enlightening work.
The title was interesting but I wasn't sure about the book or exactly what it may have entailed until I started reading. It is an interesting look into the mind, multiple minds. Wylie is a psychologist and writes this imprinted memoir after great research into the heart of mental illness. His theories and insight bring out a great perspective of the evolution of ones mind. I will definitely keep this book as a reference for some of my future writing projects. It was all and all a fascinating and enlightening work.
June 3, 2018
This book changed my view of human nature. Book brings fresh insights to evolutionary theory by delving into how emotions, relationships, and group cooperation evolved. Dr. Wylie also delivers thoughts on mental illness through an evolutionary perspective, and shows how mental illnesses are by-products of what makes us uniquely human.
July 4, 2018
I won this in a GOODREADS giveaway.
May 16, 2021
[Note: I won this book in a Goodreads giveaway]
Just as this book speaks of multiple conceptions of the mind, I was also of more than one mind about this book.
I do think that not enough questions are posed by long-time practitioners in any scientific field these days, as the strictures of the scientific method are too narrow for scientists to present an issue until they have already found an answer to it. So on that level, I applaud the questions the author poses, and shares his observations and ruminations which lead him to publish them.
I do; however, think it was a mistake to market this book as a volume for the popular market. The book reads like an extended presentation at a conference for psychologists, and the language has the soporific effect that such presentations create. Some of the ideas were very interesting, yet weighed down by so many side issues and so much meandering that it was sometimes difficult at the end of a chapter to remember what the topic was that opened the chapter.
If the author plans other works, I hope he will have a mass audience in mind and write to that audience (or get help with that if he needs it). I have an IQ of 145 and I have been an interested amateur of psychology all my adult life, yet I had a difficult time reading through it over a period of weeks.
Just as this book speaks of multiple conceptions of the mind, I was also of more than one mind about this book.
I do think that not enough questions are posed by long-time practitioners in any scientific field these days, as the strictures of the scientific method are too narrow for scientists to present an issue until they have already found an answer to it. So on that level, I applaud the questions the author poses, and shares his observations and ruminations which lead him to publish them.
I do; however, think it was a mistake to market this book as a volume for the popular market. The book reads like an extended presentation at a conference for psychologists, and the language has the soporific effect that such presentations create. Some of the ideas were very interesting, yet weighed down by so many side issues and so much meandering that it was sometimes difficult at the end of a chapter to remember what the topic was that opened the chapter.
If the author plans other works, I hope he will have a mass audience in mind and write to that audience (or get help with that if he needs it). I have an IQ of 145 and I have been an interested amateur of psychology all my adult life, yet I had a difficult time reading through it over a period of weeks.
just-couldnt-finish-it
December 9, 2018I’m not going to rate this star-wise, because I was not able to finish it. It simply was not for me. It’s well written, but turned out to be a subject that I don’t have much interest in. Readers who do like this kind of thing will enjoy it. (Disclaimer: I won a free Kindle edition of this book in the Goodreads giveaway......several months ago.)
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews