Some Musings on Dharma and Evolutionary Psychology

The Buddha's radically phenomenological method describes all moments and units of experience as having one of three types of vedana (feeling tone); they are pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral. Suffering results from a triad of responses to feeling tone: grasping at pleasant experiences, resisting unpleasant experiences, and ignoring/overlooking neutral experiences. What the Buddha never attempts to answer (to my knowledge), however, is why experiences have a particular feeling tone. In other words, why do human beings in general consider certain experiences pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral? This is where I think the study of Evolutionary Psychology provides some answers.

From what I understand, Evolutionary Psychologists treat psychological mechanisms the same way that Evolutionary Biologists treat biological mechanisms; specifically, that these mechanisms evolved by way of natural selection, leading to genetic inheritance within a species. Such mechanisms would be chosen by the process of natural selection itself, rather than by the conscious preferences of an individual human being or collective species. Traits that favor either reproductive success and/or survival win out over others, as the ones who survive and reproduce are the ones whose genetic material is passed on. In light of this, I hypothesize that the reason certain sensations result in a particular responsive feeling tone is because that type of response may have served a purpose in either encouraging reproductive success or the survival of the organism (or both).

In a basic sense, our brains seem to be wired somewhat hedonistically (pain = bad, pleasure = good). And those things we find pleasurable (sex, certain foods, etc.) are usually those things that would have served an evolutionary function in the ancestral environment*. Unfortunately, evolution has very little regard for individual happiness where it doesn't work toward keeping one's genetic material in the world.

The Buddha was smart. Genius smart. He must have been. For, those with higher levels of general intelligence (usually measured in terms of IQ) are the ones who can conceive of and comprehend entities and situations that did not exist in the ancestral environment. He was intelligent enough to use his own evolved psychological mechanisms against themselves in a way that resulted in release. He devised practices that allowed him to reduce and eventually eliminate clinging, aversion, and delusion; and thus, to end suffering. Like I said, the dude was a genius. And now that we have an idea as to why these responses arise, we can actually appreciate them for how intelligent they are. They serve a real purpose. They evolved as a way to make it through this human life, and to have offspring -- much in the same way that we develop psychological responses to cope with desires and fears starting at a very early age. We can both respect these processes and practice a way of relating to them differently.

I get such a sense of wonder thinking and writing about this stuff. Thoughts?

*I say "in the ancestral environment" to note that many of these evolved mechanisms are sometimes counterproductive in modern cultures, particularly in the area of sugary, fatty foods. There were no cupcakes or Big Gulp sodas in pre-historic Africa.

Evolutionary biology and psychology?

Huh, clearly over the past year or two I've read a lot of stuff that was written from these perspectives but until now I didn't know that there was a name for this point of view.
Jackson, didn't you and I once discuss an article that made a case for religion as some kind of evolutionary good thing, i.e., humans/cultures that were religious tended to survive and prosper more than those that weren't. ?

Could "evolutionary" ways of looking at things be just a trend, a passing phase, or is it a new development that will really last and really change how things are studied? (will doing evolutionary psychology make a Ph.D. candidate more likely to survive graduate school?)

If this point of view is true and valid, then both the things we do to stay ignorant and in suffering have to be natural impulses as well as the impluse to awaken and to be free of suffering.

Is the impluse to awaken something that will enhance reproductive success? (When you hit third or fourth path you lose the ability to ejaculate, right? )

I know all this wasn't exactly what you were talking about above but they are my random thoughts.

Hey Mike,

"If this point of view is true and valid, then both the things we do to stay ignorant and in suffering have to be natural impulses as well as the impluse to awaken and to be free of suffering.

Is the impluse to awaken something that will enhance reproductive success? (You know that when you hit third or fourth path you lose the ability to ejaculate, right? )" ~Mike

I think the impulse to be free of suffering goes right along with our desire to be from unsatisfactory experiences in general. Where I think the Buddha's message runs counter to the status quo is in the fact that he was able to go against the flow, so to speak. Which, as I said, shows just how intelligent he really was. That's the funny thing about general intelligence... yes, it helps us to survive by adapting to scenarios that are unfamiliar, which is why capacity for general intelligence continues to be inherited. But, the better one is able to think outside the box, the more likely they are to act in ways that run counter to the norm. So the impulse to be rid of suffering can manifest itself very differently depending on the individual. The Buddhist tradition (among others) found a way to institutionalize some of these practices and made them available to people who couldn't have thought them up alone (including yours truly). The Buddha really did benefit all beings in that way.

Also, I think (and hope) that evolutionary psychology is here to stay. I think that learning to see human thought and behavior in this way is extremely beneficial. I can recommend some books, if you'd like.

Jackson

I've always had a theory that kind of goes with this subject.

This is it:

Many humans thoughout time have done the following:

Inspired by some life event or series of negative events or some desperate existential situation, a person just stops, has a natural moment of emptying out of their memories and concepts and all the learned behaviors and ideas because somehow they just know that this is the only way they are going to see things clearly enough to learn how to have some real peace in their lives. They stop and look. Hard. Depending on the person and the situation this moment may turn into wisdom that lightens this person's life for the rest of their life. What they learn by just really stopping and really looking has complete value and validity because it is an original discovery (a form of vipassana really).

These people who do this don't necessarily ever tell any one else about it (they may have no words for it anyway), it just becomes a natural part of who they are.

So what i'm saying is that I think there are all kinds of awakened people out there and always have been that don't even know they would be considered "awake" by dharma people. And, their friends and family may or may not even notice their paricular abilities to see things clearly and or to live at peace.

I think I am right about this and it reflects a natural (but relatively rare) human impluse.

Hi guys Really fascinating discussion you're having, I'm finding it thought provoking. I'm about to leave for a weekend workshop on Reiki (anyone familiar?) which I think will be neat (it's for school and I get credit! wheee!). But a few thoughts:

Jackson, I like the way you're looking at Evo Psych. It reminds me of how Dan Seigel presents his neuroscience knowledge, and the upshot is that it really helps us to integrate difficult or seemingly negative experiences and capacities to understand the present neural and past evolutionary mechanisms which contribute to things like anger or panic or what have you, and being able to see these things in a more neutral, even positive light-- at least taking the pressure off of us for taking every trait, positive or negative (conventionally speaking), so personally, and seeing our emotional-behavioral-cognitive LIFE as integral with nature and other natural processes. Including our capacity to transform the way our brain is structured, and hence functions, whether we do so intuitively or deliberately. I'd love to hear you reading recommendations.

Mike, I think you make a good point too. That this impulse and capacity of the human being to radically revise-- literally, re-see-- itself and its situation is natural and universal to some extent. I think this is evident in developmental psychology generally, as you will see if you consider how much your sense of identity and of how the world worked changed several times dramatically on the way from infancy to adulthood. And this capacity doesn't go away at adulthood, it's just that

A) whatever culture we're born into is "set up" to be populated by adults at specific levels and styles of development and

the strategy necessary for change itself changes at each stage.

In other words, major developmental shifts seems to me occur at "right angles" to our habitual experience to date and thus require us to "stop" or suspend the old way in order to create a fresh free space for a "new" way that's radically different to emerge. At some point, what we call "spiritual" development becomes necessary and natural, when we begin to suspect that the fresh, free space which allows change and transformation and doesn't cling or resist and trusts the natural intelligence of Universe is itself, in important ways, more significant than any particular form of life that solidifies within it, and we want naturally to rely more on that open intelligence and intimate connectedness than on whatever we've learned so far. What do you guys think?

http://www.aroencyclopaedia.org/shared/text/c/compassion_ar_01_ncr_08_psychology_eng.php

This is too apropos not to send along-- hope it doesn't seem like I'm overly advocating...

An appetizer:

"Q:
Is it possible that a Sravakayana practitioner could be
someone who is fairly integrated, but is only listening to the
teachings? They might have consideration for others, have a family, have
compassion? This seems a bit different from what you said previously.
R:
This does not deny what I said earlier; it is a parallel
way of seeing how these nine yanas reflect the life of a human being
from early infancy throughout. One of the reasons I am a Buddhist is
that it does this: Everything applies to everything. It is quite
spectacular – the way it functions. A stone is heavy because it is
heavy, and that has a certain beauty to it. If you look at it in this
way, placing Sravakayana at this infant level, it offers perspective on
what Atiyoga means: What could that be? With a hologram, if you
smash it, every little bit has got every little bit on it. It is like
that. Whenever you look at teachings like the Six Realms, you can find
the six realms within the six realms within the six realms. It becomes
microscopic and macroscopic in terms of how it functions. From this
perspective on Buddhism, particularly on Tantra, it has a whole series
of colourful psychologies that paint pictures of human reactions in
various different ways. This would be to compare Sravakayana to Atiyoga
yana in terms of what the experiential difference is."

[for those not conversant with the Nyingma 9-yana description: Sravakayana is the first, Atiyoga the ninth]

http://www.thesecularbuddhist.com/episode_011.php

Thought of you when I listened to this today, Jackson, because he goes into 'positive psychology.'