Evolutionary Psychology Quotes

“[L]asting love is something a person has to decide to experience. Lifelong monogamous devotion is just not natural—not for women even, and emphatically not for men. It requires what, for lack of a better term, we can call an act of will. . . . This isn't to say that a young man can't hope to be seized by love. . . . But whether the sheer fury of a man's feelings accurately gauges their likely endurance is another question. The ardor will surely fade, sooner or later, and the marriage will then live or die on respect, practical compatibility, simple affection, and (these days, especially) determination. With the help of these things, something worthy of the label 'love' can last until death. But it will be a different kind of love from the kind that began the marriage. Will it be a richer love, a deeper love, a more spiritual love? Opinions vary. But it's certainly a more impressive love.”
― Robert Wright, The Moral Animal: Why We Are the Way We Are - The New Science of Evolutionary Psychology

“Any human endeavor rooted in the pursuit of truth must rely on fact and not feelings.”
― Gad Saad, Parasitic Mind: How Infectious Ideas Are Killing Common Sense

“Some people think that evolutionary psychology claims to have discovered that human nature is selfish and wicked. But they are flattering the researchers and anyone who would claim to have discovered the opposite. No one needs a scientist to measure whether humans are prone to knavery. The question has been answered in the history books, the newspapers, the ethnographic record, and the letters to Ann Landers. But people treat it like an open question, as if someday science might discover that it's all a bad dream and we will wake up to find that it is human nature to love one another.”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“The common denominator of all jokes is a path of expectation that is diverted by an unexpected twist necessitating a complete reinterpretation of all the previous facts — the punch-line…Reinterpretation alone is insufficient. The new model must be inconsequential. For example, a portly gentleman walking toward his car slips on a banana peel and falls. If he breaks his head and blood spills out, obviously you are not going to laugh. You are going to rush to the telephone and call an ambulance. But if he simply wipes off the goo from his face, looks around him, and then gets up, you start laughing. The reason is, I suggest, because now you know it’s inconsequential, no real harm has been done. I would argue that laughter is nature’s way of signaling that "it’s a false alarm." Why is this useful from an evolutionary standpoint? I suggest that the rhythmic staccato sound of laughter evolved to inform our kin who share our genes; don’t waste your precious resources on this situation; it’s a false alarm. Laughter is nature’s OK signal.”
― V.S. Ramachandran, A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Impostor Poodles to Purple Numbers

“Thinking is computation, I claim, but that does not mean that the computer is a good metaphor for the mind. The mind is a set of modules, but the modules are not encapsulated boxes or circumscribed swatches on the surface of the brain. The organization of our mental modules comes from our genetic program, but that does not mean that there is a gene for every trait or that learning is less important than we used to think. The mind is an adaptation designed by natural selection, but that does not mean that everything we think, feel, and do is biologically adaptive. We evolved from apes, but that does not mean we have the same minds as apes. And the ultimate goal of natural selection is to propagate genes, but that does not mean that the ultimate goal of people is to propagate genes.”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“The typical imperative from biology is not "Thou shalt... ," but "If ... then ... else.”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“You are not alone in the struggles of life. Entire cosmos is with you. It evolves through the way you face and overcome challenges of life. Use everything in your advantage.”
― Amit Ray, Mindfulness Meditation for Corporate Leadership and Management

“Evolutionarily speaking, there is seldom any mystery in why we seek the goals we seek — why, for example, people would rather make love with an attractive partner than get a slap on the belly with a wet fish.”
― Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works

“If there is any hope for changing the world for the better, from reducing family violence to reversing overpopulation and international conflict, economists, educators, and political leaders will need to base their interventions on a sound understanding of what people are really like, not on some fairy-tale version of what we would like them to be.”
― Douglas T. Kenrick, Sex, Murder, and the Meaning of Life: A Psychologist Investigates How Evolution, Cognition, and Complexity are Revolutionizing our View of Human Nature

“You are not the king of your brain. You are the creepy guy standing next to the king going, ‘A most judicious choice, sire.”
― Steven Kaas

“What is the Conscious leap?

Conscious leap is a term that refers to a process of change.
It specifies a particular point in the process where a change cannot be undone or reversed.

The leap is the singularity point ,the point of no return.
It will be a fundamental change in everybody's way of living.
Not everybody will remain alive during this turbulent phase.

Thought of the Day”
― Katerina Kostaki, Cosmic Light

“Обывательский вариант подхода к соотношению между мыслями и чувствами с одной стороны и стремлением к достижению целей с другой — не только отсталый, но и неправильный. Мы склонны полагать, что наши решения начинаются с выработки суждений, в согласии с которыми и осуществляются наши поступки: «мы» решаем, кто приятен и поэтому оказываем ему дружескую поддержку, «мы» решаем, кто откровенен, и приветствуем его, «мы» вычисляем, кто неправ, и противимся ему, «мы» вычисляем, что есть истина, и следуем ей. К этой картине Фрейд добавил бы, что у нас часто есть цели, которых мы не осознаём, цели, которые могут преследоваться косвенным, даже контрпродуктивным способом, и что наше восприятие мира может деформироваться в ходе этого процесса.
Но насколько эволюционной психологии можно верить, настолько эта картина должна быть вывернута наизнанку. Мы доверяем чему-либо — ценности персональной этики и даже объективной правде — лишь потому, что это возбуждает поведение, передающее наши гены в следующее поколение (или, по крайней мере, передававшее наши гены в древней обстановке). Эти поведенческие цели — статус, секс, эффективная коалиция, родительские инвестиции и так далее — остаются неизменными, в то время, как наше восприятие действительности настраивается, чтобы приспособиться к этому постоянству. Всё, что отвечает нашим генетическим интересам, кажется нам «правом», нравственным правом, объективным правом, какой бы напряжённости это ни потребовало. Короче говоря, если Фрейд подчеркивал трудности людей в наблюдении правды о себе, новые дарвинисты подчёркивают трудности и наблюдения, и понимания правды. Дарвинизм вплотную подходит к тому, чтобы подвергнуть сомнению само значение слова «правда». Над светскими беседами, которые возможно могут открыть правду, — беседами о морали, политическими беседами и даже иногда академическими беседами — дарвинизм включает свет элементарной борьбы за власть. Кто-то в этих дискуссиях победит, но часто нет оснований ожидать, что этим победителем будет правда. Возможно, что цинизм глубже фрейдовского трудно вообразить, но он существует.”
― Robert Wright, Моральное животное

“Anthropologist Donald Symons is as amazed as we are at frequent attempts to argue that monogamous gibbons could serve as viable models for human sexuality, writing, "Talk of why (or whether) humans pair bond like gibbons strikes me as belonging to the same realm of discourse as talk of why the sea is boiling hot and whether pigs have wings.”
― Cacilda Jethá, Sex at Dawn: The Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality

“We get into fights or lust for imperial dominion over another nation for reasons of pride.”
― Richard W. Wrangham, Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence

“Natural selection shaped us to care enormously about waht other people think about our resources, abilities, and character. This is what self-esteem is all about. We constantly monitor how much others value us. Low self-esteem is a signal to try harder to please others.”
― Randolph M. Nesse, Good Reasons for Bad Feelings: Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry

“Если Триверс прав, если формирование совести молодого человека включает частично инструкцию о выгодном обмане (и выгодную защиту от обмана), то можно ожидать, что маленькие дети будут легко изучать практику обмана. И это, пожалуй, преуменьшение. Джин Пиагет, в своём исследовании морального развития в 1932 году, написала, что "склонность говорить неправду — естественная тенденция… Непринуждённая и универсальная". Последующие исследования подтвердили это.
[...]
Смысл здесь в том, что эти детские неправды — это не только стадия безвредного проступка, на который мы закрываем глаза, но первый из серии тестов на корыстную непорядочность. Посредством положительного подкрепления (для необнаруженных и плодотворных неправд) и отрицательного подкрепления (для неправд, которые раскрываются товарищами или влекут выговор семьи) мы изучаем, где можно, а где нельзя избежать последствий, и что наша семья рассматривает (или нет), как законный обман.
То, что родители редко читают детям лекции про ложь и добродетель, не означает, что они не обучают их лгать. Дети явно продолжают лгать, если это не будет настоятельно пресекаться. И не только те дети, чьи родители лгут чаще, чем в среднем, имеют шансы стать хроническими лгунами; но также дети, растущие без должного родительского присмотра. Если родители не препятствуют неправде детей, заведомо выгодной для них, и если они говорят такие неправды в их присутствии, то они дают им продвинутый курс лжи.”
― Robert Wright, Моральное животное

“Malamuth, Sockloskie, Koss, and Tanaka (1991) proposed a model of the characteristics of aggressors that suggests that coercive sex may be conceptualized as resulting from the convergence of (1) relatively high levels of ‘impersonal’ sex and (2) hostile, dominating characteristics… According to this model, the determinants of coercive sex can often be traced to early home experiences and parent–child interactions… Individuals experiencing this type of home environment may develop negative views of male–female relationships, which may foster a relatively impersonal orientation to sexuality, a hostile ‘schema’ about social relationships, or both.” (pp. 281–282)”
― David M. Buss, Sex, Power, Conflict: Evolutionary and Feminist Perspectives

“We lived in a mist of half-shared, unreliable perception, and our sense data came warped by a prism of desire and belief, which tilted our memories too. We saw and remembered in our own favour and we persuaded ourselves along the way. Pitiless objectivity, especially about ourselves, was always a doomed societal strategy. We're descended from the indignant, passionate tellers of half truths who in order to convince others, simultaneously convinced themselves. Over generations success had winnowed us out, and with success came our defect, carved deep in the genes like ruts in a cart track – when it didn't suit us we couldn't agree on what was in front of us. Believing is seeing. That's why there are divorces, border disputes and wars, and why the statue of the Virgin Mary weeps blood and the one of Ganesh drinks milk. And that was why metaphysics and science were such courageous enterprises, such startling inventions, bigger than the wheel, bigger than agriculture, human artifacts set right against the grain of human nature. Disinterested truth. But it couldn't save us from ourselves, the ruts were too deep. There could be no private redemption in objectivity.”
― Ian McEwan, Enduring Love

“إن سحب آليات نظرية التطور على الأمور الاجتماعية واستخدامها كنظرية سحرية تفسر كل شيء بدءا من وجود الدين في جميع الحضارات وانتهاء بوجود مؤسسة الزواج والأسرة لتنظيم عملية التناسل ورعاية الأبناء من غير أدلة قوية على ذلك هو خيار ساذج وسطحي وطريقة غير علمية في التفكير!”
― طارق أحمد السيد, معادلة الإيمان

“Although we suffer from many of our ancestors' bad habits, they also evolved a motivational system that continues to reward us when we get it right. This is happiness.”
― William Von Hippel, The Social Leap: The New Evolutionary Science of Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What Makes Us Happy

“Neuroscience is Poetry (Sonnet 2717)

Human brain is the most astonishing
transdimensional engineering of Mother Nature,
from outside it's just a 3 pound lump of goop,
but inside, the very fabric of spacetime
bursts into existence -

we stretch time when we suffer,
we compress time when we're joyful,
we expand space in empathy,
we collapse distance through memory -

we invent gods when we feel helpless,
we invent weapons when we're scared,
we invent poetry when we're inspired,
we invent politics when we want control -

in short, the human brain is bigger
on the inside than the outside.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“Human brain is the most astonishing transdimensional engineering of Mother Nature, from outside it's just a 3 pound lump of goop, but inside, the very fabric of spacetime bursts into existence.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“The human brain is bigger on the inside than the outside.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“We invent gods when we feel helpless, we invent weapons when we’re scared, we invent poetry when we’re inspired, we invent politics when we want control.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Nazmahal: Palace of Grace

“The Naskar DSM (NDSM Sonnet 2596)

If your history book, pol-sci book,
criminology book, doesn't register
the US government as the planet's
number one terrorist organization,
followed by the british empire,
you are studying fake history,
fake sociology, fake criminology.

If your psychology book
doesn't declare upfront,
that ultraindividualism is a sickness,
you are studying fancy make believe;

if your DSM doesn't mention that,
fundamentalism and nationalism
are the vilest plague of the mind,
it's the DSM of a lesser species.

Yet you know what the irony is -
egotism, dollarism, fascism,
fanaticism, fundamentalism,
these are all normal, all natural,
but they are normal in the jungle.

The question is not, is it natural!
The question is, should it be human nature!”
― Abhijit Naskar, Hazrat-e Humanity: The Uncultured Polyglot

“Violence is a social and political problem, not just a biological and psychological one. Nonetheless, the phenomena we call ‘social’ and ‘political’ are not external happenings that mysteriously affect human affairs… they are shared understandings among individuals at a given time and place.”
― Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

“Now more than ever, if the human race stops doing art, writing literature, writing philosophy, poetry, code, writing songs, music and mathematics, because apparently generative ai can do all of that, soon indistinguishable from the human article, then this is the exact moment in history when the human brain, particularly the prefrontal cortex, starts to shrink, rendering our species into vegetable with limbs.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“Generative AI is going to have the biggest impact on brain evolution, since primitive humans learnt to harness fire, for better or worse.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth

“Stereotypes are archetypes of self-preservation. Look outside the self and you'll find assimilation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Find A Cause Outside Yourself: Sermon of Sustainability

“Earthlog Sonnet 3001

In a tiny backwater of the milkyway galaxy
there spins a hilarious blue pebble called earth,
which is dominated by a species of monkeys,
whose lives primarily revolve around power,

first it was prophets, then it was kings,
later it was ceo's, and all these top monkeys claim
to seek power in the interest of their people,
they even have an earth-specific name for this
seemingly idealistic sentiment, they call it "humanity,"

but by the time they reach to the top,
they have hardly any trace of humanity left -

whereas the only people who stand as exception
to the traditional ape-hunger for power,
are often ordinary individuals, who care neither
for power nor fame, yet carry out the majority
HUMANly duties on behalf of their entire species.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Tierra Carta: Naskar Charter of Earth