The transmission of genes is the core of natural selection's value system, and it is also the guiding principle for designing the human brain.
----Robert Wright
Hello everyone, I'm Manyou. Today, I'd like to share the book "The Insight" by Robert Wright with you.
Where do our "feelings" come from?
Why is happiness always so fleeting?
Are decisions made after careful consideration by the brain based on rationality?
Does the "self" truly exist?
How can one break free from the shackles of "natural selection" and achieve liberation?...
About This Book
The English title of this book is "Why Buddhism is True," which directly translates to "Why is Buddhism True." The author, Robert Wright, is not a Buddhist, and the purpose of writing this book is not to prove the correctness of Buddhism. In fact, it is a book about human cognition.
Robert Wright is an evolutionary psychologist and science writer. There are two main motivations that inspired him to write this book: first, to share the benefits and insights he gained through mindfulness meditation; and more crucially, the core ideas of Buddhism can overcome or at least weaken "tribalism" – which the author believes is the biggest problem of our time.
As a professor of evolutionary psychology, Wright is well-versed in the cutting-edge findings of cognitive science, such as psychology and brain science. However, he also deeply feels that relying solely on scientific rationality cannot lead people to profound happiness; instead, it leads to a double discomfort: the discomfort of recognizing a problem, and the discomfort of being controlled by it.
A meditation retreat in 2003 opened a door to "mindfulness meditation" for Wright. Since then, Wright began reading more Buddhist philosophy books, communicating with Buddhist scholars and meditators, participating in more retreats, and developing a daily meditation habit. Mindfulness meditation, first and foremost, could address his personal double discomfort.
Can this personal experience extend to more universal human cognition? Wright's method of thinking is to return to the foundational ideas of early Buddhism, shared by all schools. By cross-referencing them with numerous experimental results from modern science, especially in evolutionary psychology and brain science, he not only argues that the core ideas of Buddhism accurately diagnose the human predicament but also that the proposed solutions are reasonable and important.
Where do "Feelings" Come From? Why is Happiness Fleeting?
Humans are products of evolution. "Feelings" are evolved and shaped by natural selection, with their sole purpose being gene transmission.
From the perspective of behavioral complexity, the evolution of "feelings" began by enabling organisms to approach things beneficial to them and avoid things harmful to them. As biologist George Romanes stated in 1884: "Pleasure and pain must have evolved as subjective products accompanying processes beneficial or harmful to the organism, their purpose or origin being to drive the organism to pursue one and avoid the other."
Taking sweets as an example, sugar provides energy, and natural selection makes us "feel" happy when eating sweets. Thus, we pursue sweets to gain more energy, obtaining an advantage in survival and reproduction. This feeling of happiness does not last long, which constantly drives us to seek out more sweets.
Happiness is always fleeting; this is one of natural selection's design principles. Brief happiness leaves us perpetually "dissatisfied," prompting us to continually seek things that bring us joy. And natural selection's design goes further: it makes the anticipated pleasure stronger than the actual pleasure received, leading us to indulge in things we don't even truly need, unable to extricate ourselves.
Are Humans Rational Beings?
Starting from Homo sapiens, human evolution has spanned approximately 40,000 years. During this process, human organization has become increasingly complex, giving rise not only to civilization but also to science. Normal individuals who have received modern education tend to believe they are rational. However, modern science, especially evolutionary psychology, tells us that what truly makes decisions in the brain is not rationality, but "feelings."
Cognitive scientists conducted an interesting shopping experiment: they provided participants with cash and a range of products available for purchase, such as wireless headphones, electric toothbrushes, movie DVDs, and so on. Scientists showed each product and its price to the participants while simultaneously scanning their brains. The results showed that researchers could quite accurately predict whether a participant would buy a certain product by observing which part of the brain was more active or less active. All the active regions were not the parts of the brain that primarily control rationality, but rather those that control feelings, such as the nucleus accumbens, which governs pleasure, and the insula, which controls unpleasantness or pain.
The experiment demonstrated that the brain's weighing process is achieved through conflicting feelings competing with each other. For instance, based on the degree of aversion to a price, the strongest feeling—whether attraction or aversion—ultimately prevails. Even rational analysis of real-world situations, such as having an unopened electric toothbrush, only takes effect by influencing "feeling," the ultimate motivational factor.
Feelings are primary motivators. Hume once said, "Mere reason is insufficient to excite any volition." Although feelings and the algorithms behind them become increasingly complex during evolution, it is ultimately feelings that guide our behavior. What we call "rationality" is largely just a persuasive tool for various feelings; human beings are essentially driven by feelings.
Does the "Self" Truly Exist?
Evolutionary psychology focuses on how natural selection shapes the human mind, and the current consensus is that human thought is "modular."
The brain's modular thinking model has been gradually constructed over a long period of evolution, including modules for safety, courtship, and so on. These "modules" can assess situations and react, and their interactions shape our behavior. Furthermore, most of the interactions between these "modules" are beyond our conscious awareness.
Does a "conscious self" akin to a CEO exist in the brain, issuing commands to these "modules"? The answer is no. These "modules" are like different players in a game, sometimes cooperating, sometimes competing for control, and ultimately, in some sense, the strongest one prevails!
If the "conscious self" is not the guide for behavior, then what guides our actions? "Modules" are activated by "feelings." In one psychological experiment, participants who had previously watched a horror film tended to gravitate towards crowds, while those who watched a romance film preferred more private settings. The former group felt fear, so their safety module was activated, inclining them to stay with a crowd; the latter group experienced romance, activating their courtship module, thus inclining them towards private spaces.
These thought "modules" are not physically separate but are distributed across various brain regions; they are also not like individual applications on a smartphone but are interactively overlapping; unlike departments in a company organization, these "modules" often lack obedience and harmony, instead forming a self-organizing system without hierarchical differentiation.
How to See Through "Illusions"?
In modern society, drastic environmental changes have caused previously "beneficial" feelings to have adverse effects. For instance, the previously mentioned anticipation of sweets now becomes the culprit for overweight issues and even diseases. The anticipated pleasure being stronger than the actual pleasure received can cause people to indulge in the illusion of chasing pleasure, such as compulsive shopping, hoarding, etc.
Compared to these more easily understood "surface" illusions, the author's revelation in the book about the illusion of "self" is truly paradigm-shifting. The brain does not have a "conscious self" CEO dictating our behavior; instead, it is the result of several modules, activated by feelings, competing or cooperating.
Not only that, but the brain also makes us believe that this outcome is dictated by the "conscious self" (split-brain experiments). Many other psychological experiments have shown that the brain uses individual stories to create various illusions, leading humans to self-deception (pantyhose experiment, grip strength experiment, wine experiment, etc.).
Many feelings that trouble us are, in some sense, illusions. How can we dispel these illusions? The author found mindfulness meditation. Through meditation, the author no longer allows uncomfortable feelings to control him; instead, he observes them and subsequently weakens them. To explain using evolutionary psychology research, mindfulness meditation allows one to step out of the "I" perspective, observe feelings without judgment, avoid positively reinforcing them, and gradually strip the modules of their control.
Meditation may be effective for the author, but not everyone can achieve the same experience and insights as him. The two insights I gained are: first, to change perspective, just as seeing through a magician's trick might only require walking behind them; and second, not to "feed" desires, meaning not to positively reinforce illusions.
Why Is Buddhism True?
Wright was born into a Baptist family in the Southern United States and received a Christian education from an early age. In his teens, science, especially the theory of natural selection, gradually led him away from the church. In 2003, a meditation experience at an insight meditation society opened a door to "enlightenment" for him.
Wright is not a Buddhist and does not believe in reincarnation or karma. The approach he adopted is meditation practice supplemented by underlying philosophical contemplation. Setting aside the supernatural aspects of Buddhism, as well as the vastly different doctrines of various sectarian branches, he focuses on the "common ground" – the fundamental ideas shared by mainstream Buddhist branches, which are also the Buddha's original insights.
Mindfulness meditation belongs to the Insight (Vipassana) meditation tradition. "Vipassana" means clear seeing and is often translated as "insight." Buddhist scriptures explain "Insight" as the "Three Marks of Existence": the first mark is "impermanence"; the second is "suffering" (dukkha); and the third is "non-self" (anatta).
▪ "Impermanence": Constancy does not exist; the only constant is change.
▪ "Suffering" (Dukkha): Dissatisfaction. Natural selection has ingrained "dissatisfaction" into our genes; "suffering" in life is ubiquitous.
▪ "Non-self" (Anatta): One of the most famous illusions in Buddhism is the illusion of the "self." From the "self" can arise "I," "mine," selfish desires, attachment, hatred, malice... It is the source of all problems and evils in the world. Evolutionary psychology tells us that there is no "conscious self" in the brain dictating our behavior; rather, it is "modular."
Buddhist scriptures repeatedly warn people to avoid the "Three Poisons": greed, hatred, and delusion.
Greed applies not just to material things, but to anything appealing; similarly, hatred applies to aversion towards anything.
Greed and hatred can be traced back to the evolutionary origin of "feelings": good feelings prompt organisms to pursue beneficial things, while bad feelings cause them to avoid harmful things.
The biggest problem with illusion is that it causes extreme distortion of reality. The author believes "tribalism" is the greatest problem of our time, where people form different groups based on "identity recognition" from religion, race, nation, and ideology, leading to constant conflict, opposition, division, hatred, violence, and even war among groups.
From the "self" arises the "non-self," and the root of "tribalism" lies in the Buddhist illusion of "self." Furthermore, feelings are evaluations (good/bad, liked/disliked), and natural selection has made humans innate judges.
The author believes that mindfulness meditation can help one break through illusions and embark on the path to "enlightenment." By cultivating a calm and clear mind, and nurturing wisdom, it can in a small way resolve daily discomforts such as stress and anxiety; on a larger scale, it can achieve a "metacognitive revolution" of human consciousness, saving the world from distortion and revealing its true beauty.