Can We Enjoy Being without Being Excellent? A Theory of Human Nature Paper

Abstract

This paper conceptualizes that a human mind consists of three components: (1) rational self (2) emotions (3) an automatic system that memorizes habits. Based on anthologists’ research, I posit that rational self is used only in the occasions that the return of using it is high, which serves human genes’ purposes of saving vital energy of physical strength for production and fighting against ferocious animals in ancient times. In other occasions, rational self is in a dormant mode, with habits determining human behaviors. The switch from dormant to active state of rational self is through the spur of emotions. For example, in ancient times, when an individual’s peers obtain something valuable, it is usually a good opportunity for him to try to obtain it as well. Therefore, human genes create the emotion of jealousy, which yields psychological pain to spur the rational self to find the best way to get it as well through learning from his peers. When an individual makes a serious mistake, human genes create the emotion of regret, which generates psychological pain to spur the rational self to learn the lesson. When humans feel contended and their energies are under-used, human genes create the emotion of greed and boredom, which yields psychological pain to spur them to act… In contemporary times, however, these emotions may often only yield tremendous human suffering while bringing no benefits to the survival of the gene. To mitigate pains or to utilize the pleasure mechanism that human genes create, rational self may choose illusions, sexual promiscuity, taking drugs, addiction to video games, or even suicide, all of which can be conceptualized as a “principal-agent problem” between human genes and rational self. Moreover, religions may be a way to reduce human suffering. The goal of rational self is to maximize the individual’s lifetime happiness by trying to be fully aware of all of the desires and emotions that human gene creates and imposed on the individual and striking an optimal balance among them. This goal can be interpreted as the “meaning of life”, which often amounts to the satisfactions of biological needs and/or the continuous pursuit of the sense of “winning” in some aspects of life.