I have been struck by how human behavior so strikingly gets in the way of human development. We keep “acting like animals” and ending up debasing ourselves and regretting it!
As it turns out, we ARE part of the Animal Kingdom and have evolved with all of the associated assets and baggage, primarily arising from what I refer to as the “Animal Kingdom Brain Core” (AKBC). This assessment is loosely based on Paul MacLean’s 1960 evolutionary model of the “Triune Brain” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triune_brain , the “core” of which is represented by the “Reptilian Brain ,,, in charge of primal instincts”. MacLean notes that evolution beyond the Reptilian Brain provided “the limbic system … in charge of emotions, and the neocortex … responsible for objective or rational thoughts.”
What MacLean’s model – and all relevant “scientifically serious” models of brain evolution, function and development – avoid addressing is what I refer to as the “Pleasure Center” of the AKBC. This “Center” is survival-engineered, driving us, for example, to seek the highest possible caloric diet, the most strategic defenses, etc., but it tends to take on a “larger than life” role when given half a chance in humans:
“You have a choice: a bowl of carrots or a chocolate chip cookie.
On the one hand, your parents have been telling you to eat more vegetables. But on the other, a cookie is so much more delicious.
There’s a reason you prefer sugary cookies over vegetables—it’s the result of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution.
The brain is one of the largest consumers of energy in our body. And like a car engine, it needs fuel [… and will NOT be denied!]
When we eat sugar, it enters the bloodstream and heads to the brain, giving us a quick source of energy. Because of this, our ancient ancestors evolved a taste for sugar while foraging.” Kyra McCague, Pitt Med Magazine, July 13, 2026
Unfortunately, as this example illustrates, most of the VIRTUES of the AKBC turn quickly into VICES in the human domain – and we tend to push them for all they’re worth.
The NUTRISYSTEM weight loss Business Model is instructive:
A prime NS advertisement carries photographs of 14 stock dietary offerings in their culinary portfolio. However, SIX of those offerings – a composite 42.9% — are desserts! So how does one maintain or lose weight? By limiting PORTION SIZE!! Ha!
After you do your weekly NS weigh-in / shaming, you meet with an NS coach / counselor who tells you how much better you can do by more rigorously sticking with the PORTION SIZE plan … exercising more WILLPOWER (which you won’t!)
This is a fail-safe business plan because WILLPOWER DOESN’T WORK!! So, one has to keep going back to NS forever for official weigh-ins and coaching … and paying for it.
“As long as we give ourselves infinite choices,
we will choose poorly …
invariably choosing that which PLEASES us
over that which is GOOD for us.”
Quartermaster
One other defining feature of the AKBC construct that too frequently gets over-played and under-appreciated in the human domain is the Alpha-type personality … which carries a variable need/desire/tendency toward DOMINANCE.
These combined factors, left untended / ungated, have had an indelibly negative impact not only on personal outcomes, but on major socio-political systems throughout history … resulting in authoritarian / autocratic dictatorships, gross economic disparities – including slavery, religious sectarian dishegience, and fundamental societal disconnects:
“If those lazy bums [who we continue to disenfranchise]
would only get off their lazy butts and apply themselves,
we wouldn’t need Medicaid!”
U.S. Alpha Aristocracy
CHOICES
One might argue that the whole point of life, in concert with maximizing PLEASURE, is to maximize CHOICES. This can be done with more than enough MONEY, POWER or INFLUENCE (social media, anyone?), and no amount of striving is spared in the search!
“Of all our passions and appetites,
the love of power is of the most imperious and unsociable nature,
since the pride of one man
requires the submission of the multitude.”
Edward Gibbon
“Our choices are not only largely irrational in the sense of uncorrelated with what seem to be our own, freely chosen preferences and desires; they are governed in good part by processes over which we have no control or, often, even knowledge. Worse, much of the time these processes actually inhibit our ability to achieve what we wish, making free choice an illusion that must, as Freud put it, ‘give ground before the claims of a determinism which governs even mental life.’” Sophia Rosenfeld, The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in Modern Life Princeton University Press 2025 pp. 263-267.
Finally, NARCISSISM is a product of ungaited / unbounded AKBC in humans. Coupled with and mutually fueled by Alpha tendencies, it can be devastating to subjects and systems in an entire sphere of influence. It seems to surface on a daily basis in the highest places.
The “Cure” for all of the above, lies in a separate universe that TRANSCENDS AKBC directives and fully engages EXECUTIVE FUNCTION.
TRANSCENDENCE is the inclination for choosing what is GOOD over what PLEASES … and choosing what is good for ALL — for OTHERS – over what is simply “good” for ME.
