Monkeys

From 15 Monkeys

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We are just like other primates in our behavior, instincts and emotions. The only difference is that we have cultivated the illusion that we are different from and even better than other animals.

The viewpoint that we are just monkeys will give us better understanding and greater acceptance of our own and others' needs and behavior. It will give us full understanding of matters of social, cultural and psychological concern. And as a result the possibility to change them effectively. As in; we try to give animals in a zoo the best circumstances for them to express their natural behavior, why can't we do this for us naked apes?

The goal of the 15 monkeys is to design our lives and our world in ways that allow us to express our natural behavior and fulfill our needs, ways that allow us to let out the monkey inside! To accomplish this we collect knowledge and ideas that help us understand ourselves and join forces with other people who support these and similar goals.

1 Who think they are not just monkeys
2 Who are just monkeys after all
- 2.1 Desmond Morris - The human animal
- 2.2 Robert Sapolsky
3 What could a life/ society/ culture designed around human needs look like?
- 3.1 Creating a new life and worldview based on reality
- 3.2 Habits and institutions which we'd better stop supporting
4 More resources
5 We speak Dutch too

Brass monkey thinks it's shiny

still the brass won't turn to gold
monkey groomed into perfection
greasy monkey has been sold

When you think the monkey's nutty
and it's peanuts to be more
you can leave the trees behind you
to be sapient for sure

Monkey jumped out of the garden
right into the monkey zoo
all the little monkeys follow
monkey see and monkey do

Who think they are not just monkeys

And we're right, we're the only species that has enslaved itself in unnatural behavior and eliminated almost anything natural in the world around us.

But this is because we are just animals who don't understand themselves and the world around them. Because everything we do is just a way of getting what we need in a biological sense; if not we'd go extinct. But evolution, our genes, don't care if we're happy or miserable as long as it doesn't get in the way with multiplying as effectively as possible.

Collective beliefs/ belief-systems/ meme-sets

We don't understand ourselves and our needs as human beings. Let alone ourselves as part of huge structures comprised of thousands or even millions of people.

One of the tools that keep us functioning in these huge confusing structures called societies, while being miserable and not understanding why, are collective belief-systems or memes-sets. Through us as carriers, these compete with other belief systems like species compete with each other. These belief systems are what dictate the ways we try to life our lives.

We are social animals evolved to live in tribes. Since the argocultural-revolution living in tribes has been increasingly replaced by living in impersonal societies. Living this way has made us completely miserable. The way a caged animal in a cage without natural group and surroundings is miserable. Without our natural tribal environment everything we do feels meaningless. The relationships we have, the work we do and everything else is pointless because it is lacking the context in which all our instincts, behavior and needs are evolved. We are no longer able to satisfy any of our evolved biological needs in a satisfying way.

To keep us functioning and do our evolutionary duty we need something that eases the pain or at least makes us believe that the efforts we do will eventually easy the pain. This is where believe systems or meme-sets come in to place.

On our constant misery meme-sets have evolved. Memes ease our pain like the next shot of their favorite drug eases the pain of a junk. Like addicts have a psychological and physiological dependence on their substance, so do all of us have a psychological and physiological dependence on our meme-sets. The major difference is that our dependence on meme-sets is overwhelmingly more powerful as is an drug addiction. Drug addiction is merely a symptom off not being able to quiet down ones misery with their meme-sets, a lack of believing in them or not being able to fool oneself enough to accept our miserable state of existence. While our collective addiction to memes is based on the very pain of the pathological ways we live in.

Like with an addiction we are in pain when not being able to get our fix and all our striving is concentrated on getting the perceived reward of the next one. Likewise we are reasonable satisfied, or numbed down, when we do get our fix. And like with an addiction, the effects start to wear off pretty soon and we start looking for our next fix. Though unlike an addiction, the satisfaction reached by acquiring the rewards dictated by memes are believed to be permanent. The temporary extacy is indeed much more overwhelming, but at best it lasts a while longer. Acquiring one of these perceived happy-making circumstances can temporary result in some peace of mind some sense of happiness. As a situation lasts, a nice relationship or a good job, soon one starts to be unhappy again. While still being addicted to the same meme set we start to believe that our relationship or our job isn't that good at all and we start to put effort in it to improve the ones we have or start looking for another one altogether. When this better relationship or better job is acquired everything will start all over again.

The power of this meme addiction is that it promises to give us what we need, what makes us happy, while the things they make us strive for can never do that for us. They exist in the first place because we have lost the possibility to get what we need, the possibility to live in ways that satisfy our needs as human beings. They promise to make our lives better but we have long forgotten what makes live worth living.

Human needs which belief-systems promise to satisfy

We need to be part of a tribe.

We need to feed ourselves and be able to feed our tribesmen.

We need to feel healthy and able and wish the same for our tribesmen.

We need to feel save and be able to provide safety for our tribesmen.

We need to procreate and raise children and want to help other tribesmen to raise theirs.

We need meaningful relationships with the people in our tribe.

We need to feel part of a common morale shared with our tribesmen.

We need share an understanding of the world with our tribesmen.

We strive to improve the living standard of ourselves and our tribe.

We need to have a sense of being able to control what happens to us and our tribe.

We need to face danger and feel heroic together with our tribesmen.

The current world neurotic deriviates

We have to control ourselves and the people we live with. For this we need to construct rules and we have to impose fear of breaking the rules unto one another.

We clearly have a need to see the world in a comprehensive way, and because in the course of history scientific knowledge of the world has been lacking, we made up the missing parts, resulting in a fairy tale-like worldview. A comprehensive fairy tale centered around us humans.

We seem to have a need to feel important/ heroic, resulting in beliefs that give great importance to what we do or don't do.

We also need to feel in control and also that doing it right will gain more success compared to doing it wrong. We need to believe that our success in live depends on something more controllable than mere chance.

We need to believe that anything that really seems out of our control, like natural disasters and suchlike, happens for a reason and not just out of chaos and chance, and for lack of comprehension of the natural world gods are invented.

We feel the need to believe that we can gain superhuman abilities and powers. We always have the feeling that it is not us who are in control. Because it's not us who are in control it must be others who already have these superhuman abilities or powers or are, at least, super cunning and/ or super mighty. These people are of course the ones responsible for everything that isn't liked about our lives and they are commonly seen as evil.

To complete the story we will be liberated from evil by one or more superhuman being(s) who have good intentions towards all good people of the world.

A lot of these beliefs seem to be fairy tales, outdated with evolving scientific knowledge. Why don't they get replaced by memes based on science, reason and understanding? Is it simply that we cannot grasp scientific reality with our minds? Is it due to the size of the structures we live in, which we can't understand with our minds evolved within tribal communities?

Religion

What is religion?

Religions are belief systems that keep us functioning in the world we created by satisfying our need for understandable answers to the questions of who we are, where we came from and where we're going. Thereby satisfying all, or most, of the above mentioned needs.

Religious institutions as we know them today seem to be especially successful in imposing fear unto people for breaking the rules set by these institutions. Maybe this strong need for imposing fear is a result of the need to keep us in line within our ever growing impersonal societies?

It is no coincidence that large organized religions arise whenever people start living in large impersonal hierarchical societies. Religion is very clearly a construct to make us believe we will be rewarded for doing our duty. If not in this live, then in the live after. It gives people the illusion of satisfying needs that are not being satisfied. It makes one feel part of a 'tribe'. It makes people feel save. It makes people feel like their efforts will be rewarded and that they will become more happy when being 'good'. When still being miserable it is made clear one is not being really 'good' and should try harder. Even when not succeeding in being less miserable in this live, there's the afterlife in which the 'good' people will eventually be rewarded. When unpleasant things happen to somebody, or whole groups of people, even when being 'good', which just can't be united with our needs or the promises of religion, those things are called 'fate' or 'work of the devil' preventing people to lose fait and doubt their beliefs. Even making people look for those of them who weren't faithful enough and punishing them for evoked evil upon them all. At the end it is only god, the highest authority, which holds the responsibility and power for your safety and well-being.

Why do traditional religion and belief systems still exist alongside a developing scientific worldview?

This day in western society many people don't consider ourselves as being religious. Society nowadays is considered to be ruled by common sense and, for instance, democracy, the right of self-determination and free will, capitalist principles and a free marked economy. Looking at some of the most important meme-sets that make up our personal lives, coupling and romantic love, our entire job morale and the way our personal safety is accounted for are constructed, it is clear they are exact duplicates of the beliefs making up religious thinking. Our ideals about romantic love stem from religious husband-wife ideology, feeling worthy when working hard stems from religious ideals of doing ones duty and our collective safety being in the hands of the highest authority and our personal safety depending on complying with the rules is an exact, more worldly, version of the religious mythology.

As with religion, failure to get what you want is usually considered to be due to a lack of effort. When this is obviously not the case or when people just get unmeasurable more successful in some efforts, this is just chance. Some people just get lucky. Also 'talent' might be a valid excuse for some people being very successful and other not being successful at all as is the notion that everybody is unique.

Normally when somebody is being successful in acquiring there fix within one meme-construct, they will be less successful acquiring them in others. When somebody is very successful in their job-success-fix they will most probably be less successful in acquiring their rewarding-relationship-fix and vice versa. Being successful in getting one fix enforces the illusion that one is satisfying the human need related to it. Being successful in any area thought, normally requires us to spend more energy on it then we actually have, leaving us with no energy to spend on others areas. When one is a 'workaholic' and lives alone or has a partner who is on the same trip this might actually be a satisfying lifestyle. Even so, being on this trip might even satisfy some of our other human needs as one is involved in a company that might in some ways take the place of a tribe. But still, most, or some, of our needs will not be met, which leaves us inevitably feeling unhappy inevitably. Which will result in us thinking we have to try harder to be better, get us to put more energy, which we don't have, in other areas of live or make us use drugs to keep on going.

What kind of religion/ belief system/ mythology is emerging as an answer to a developing scientific worldview?

The following beliefs seem to be part of a new kind of religious thinking. These are not all misleading ideas and beliefs, some of them involve real problems or issues that should be addressed. Though as a whole, all or some of these beliefs taken together, they are basically based on fear. Fear of damaging earth, fear of change, fear of death, fear of the end of the world, fear of a lack of self managing capacity of structures created by man, basically a fear of human nature and our place in the world and evolution.

Relatively new Fear and Superstition inducing and Enslaving beliefs and misunderstandings:

God = Gaia = Sacred
We must strive for world peace
Environmentalism
Fragility of earth and it's biologic systems
Anti Human
Humans are a threat
Overpopulation is a threat
Man made global warming exists
Global warming is a threat
Man made global warming would be a bad thing
Big corporations are a threat
Scientific thinking is just another religion
Scientific thinking takes magic and wonder out of life and the universe
Fear of self-managing structures, everything should be stewarded
Fairy-tale/ fantasy worldview based on superstition, pseudoscience, claims on misunderstood science, age old 'ancient culture' knowledge, new age beliefs, etc.
Denial of reality with aid of claims on philosophy, misunderstood science and ancient tradition
Idealization of guru's, shamans and others who claim to be able to pierce trough reality
Fear of and worldview constituting belief in conspiracies by the 'mighty'
Anti global structures and thinking
Fear of progress caused by science, e.a. genetic modification, use of chemicals, etc
Homeopathy is more than a placebo effect and a alternative to regular medicine

On how all these things are just illusions

George Carlin - Saving the Planet (video)

False beliefs

We are different from other animals

We are not really part of evolution (anymore)

Free Will

We are in Control of Ourselves

Making Decisions

Guilt, Original Sin, We're Bad, etc.

Objective Universal Morality and the existence of Good versus Bad behavior

We will be rewarded for being 'good' after we die

Reality is not really real. Taking the philosophical viewpoint that all is 'maya', that we cannot really know if reality is real, and elevating it to a valid way to view reality.

Happiness is elusive

Peace of mind is difficult to acquire

Fear inducing myth constructs generally considered to be true

Society needs to have centralized government to keep us from falling into anarchy.

We need to be policed to keep us from chaos. Prevention is needed to prevent bad things happening.

The economy needs to be regulated to keep it working. Regardless of the 'free' markets myth.

Foreign (third world) people should be protected against exploitation from big companies and bad working conditions otherwise it's morally despicable.

Third world countries should be helped to develop by the west or things will stay bad and get worse.

Economy needs the incentive of interest in order not to grind to a halt.

Copyright and patent laws are necessary or invention, entrepreneurship and creativity will disappear.

Children should be educated in schools by law and be protected from working at a young age or else we will have masses of uneducated people with no future prospects.

We need insurance for any unforeseen misfortune that might happen to us or our lives will be destroyed.

We need to save for our pension or we will live in misery and die from hunger on old age.

Man made global warming exists and if not stopped will destroy us us and the world.

Nuclear power is dangerous and no alternative for renewable energy sources.

Clean energy is a valid alternative to existing sources and needs to replace them in order to save humanity and the world.

Lack of hygiene is dangerous even for us westerners with good sanitation and good nourishment.

HIV = AIDS. HIV is a dangerous virus. AIDS is a contagious viral disease.

Drug use should stay forbidden or most off us will become junkies sooner or later.

Terrorism is a threat to us.

What we don't understand about ourselves and why

We don't understand that we have build in and taught self-blindness concerning our behavior

We don't understand our own roles inside organized social structures

We don't understand that not understanding ourselves and the world around us is a prerequisite for functioning in in this world and even for the evolution of intelligence

Who are just monkeys after all

If we look at ourselves like a biologist looks at other animals a lot of things suddenly become very clear.

Desmond Morris - The human animal

If there is anyone who as made looking at human beings as just another kind of ape into an art-form it's Desmond Morris.

Desmond Morris BBC documentary in 6 episodes.

The Language of the Body,

The Hunting Ape

The Human Zoo

Biology of Love

The Immortal Genes

Beyond Survival

Robert Sapolsky

The Uniqueness of Humans (video)

What could a life/ society/ culture designed around human needs look like?

Creating a new life and worldview based on reality

After understanding what we didn't understand and calling a halt to investing in beliefs which are false, could we identify what could be collective beliefs in a belief system which is actually based on scientific fact, while also satisfying our need for a comprehensive worldview and shared beliefs?

Can we create a power structure that sets us free as human beings or is this inherently impossible?

If it is in fact impossible to have belief systems that liberate us as human beings, instead of enslave us, then what kind of (collective) beliefs can we embrace to stop supporting our present impersonal power structures and start empowering ourselves?