Part 4:2 Even with the development of science, it wasn’t until Darwin introduced his idea of natural selection that it finally became possible to explain the human condition

Once the discipline of science was established, it was then a matter of finding sufficient knowledge about the workings of our world to make possible the explanation of the human condition that would liberate the human race from the horror of the insecurity and resulting psychosis and neurosis of that condition forever. And it was that all-important process of accumulating knowledge, over many generations, that eventually led to Charles Darwin making his breakthrough insight into how species emerged through the process of natural selection.

Darwin’s idea of natural selection was a critically important breakthrough not only because it allowed us to understand how the great variety of life on Earth emerged, but because it finally enabled us to explain the human condition. This enlightenment of our troubled condition became possible after Darwin introduced his idea of natural selection because with understanding of the process of natural selection we were finally in a position to explain that our instincts were only orientations to and not understandings of the world around us, which, as has now been revealed, is the key to explaining the human condition.

Of course, when molecular biologists James Watson and Francis Crick found the mechanism behind natural selection of the DNA molecule in 1953 we were even better equipped to explain that natural selection was only an orientating and not an understanding system, but with the publication of Darwin’s idea of natural selection in 1859 we had sufficient knowledge to explain the difference between being orientated by instincts and being able to consciously understand the nature of change.

Darwin explained that some varieties of individuals succeed in reproducing more than others in a given environment, which led to species becoming adapted or orientated to situations, so although genes were yet to be discovered we had the necessary insight to determine that instincts are only orientations and not understandings. Once we understood the principle of natural selection we had the potential to explain the human condition.

I should clarify an earlier statement I made in Part 3, when I said that it was with the arrival of the ability to explain the difference in the way genes and nerves process information that it first became possible to explain the human condition. This is not entirely correct. Rather, it was the ability to understand the effect of the way genes process information, namely the process of natural selection, that allowed the human condition to be explained. As mentioned above, Darwin’s explanation of the process of natural selection was not based on being able to understand the way genes work—genes hadn’t even been discovered in Darwin’s time. Darwin didn’t understand the physical mechanism behind natural selection. He didn’t know how traits passed from one generation to the next. That insight required Watson and Crick’s discovery of the structure of the DNA molecule. What Darwin did work out was how species changed through the natural selection of individuals who were better adapted to their environment. He explained how, through natural selection, species were orientated to their environment both physically and behaviourally. These behavioural orientations were what we had long recognised as the innate or born-with instincts of animals.

What is so significant about Darwin’s breakthrough in terms of being able to explain the human condition is that once we knew instincts were only orientations we were in a position to realise the basic difference between our instincts and our intellect. We were in a position to realise that our instinctive self’s orientations to the world would have, in effect, been intolerant of our fully conscious mind’s experiments in managing our lives from a basis of understanding.

Similarly, with the discovery of the nervous system and nerves’ ability to remember events, which, as was explained in Part 3:3, is the basis for reasoning, insightful learning, we could clearly explain why consciousness was insightful—and, knowing that, we could then explain why an instinctive orientation would have, in effect, been intolerant of a fully conscious, insightful, self-managing mind. The difference between knowing the mechanism behind consciousness and knowing the mechanism behind instincts in terms of being able to explain the human condition is that we already knew consciousness was a thinking, reasoning, intelligent, insightful learning system without having to know the mechanism that made that possible, whereas with instincts that wasn’t the case. With instincts we weren’t able to clearly know that they were only an orientation to the world until Darwin explained the principle of natural selection. Essentially, the greater our ability to understand the mechanisms by which our instinct and our reasoning intellect worked, the easier it became to see into, explain and understand the dilemma of the human condition.