A Simple Introduction to Jeremy Griffith’s Explanation of the Human Condition

Mariusz Zaleski, founder of the FIX THE WORLD Bialystok Centre, offers a concise summary of Jeremy Griffith’s biological explanation of the human condition.

The following introduction was written by Mariusz Zaleski, Polish founder of the FIX THE WORLD Bialystok Centre. The narration in the video is by Sabina Załęska.

It offers a concise overview of some of the key elements of Griffith’s work:

• the integrative meaning of existence,
• the nurturing origins of humanity’s moral conscience,
• the emergence of consciousness, and
• the instinct vs intellect conflict that Griffith identifies as the biological cause of the human condition.

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The Human Condition: A Short Summary

The Human Condition turned out to be a rather simple yet paradoxical construct. The most fundamental questions about the origin and purpose of humankind received simple, accurate answers — and everything changed.

The epic of humankind was simultaneously meaningless and the meaning of everything. The entire legacy of our civilization served to drown out the unbearable conclusion that, as a species, we are internally contradictory, flawed, fallen, and meaningless. Humanity’s eternal feeling is guilt — just a moment of reflection reveals the growing chasm between human ideals and human actions. Even though our ideals are clearly integrative and unifying, people behave competitively and selfishly. To cope with this dilemma, we created the excuse that our behavior stems from animals. We assumed that animal instincts force us into these divisive behaviors. But this argument could not be true, because descriptions of human conduct — such as arrogance, deceit, calculation, or cynicism — point straight to uniquely human consciousness rather than instinctive reflexes. Our destructive behavior is entirely psychological.

Left: Detail of Francis Bacon’s Sketch for self-portrait, 1976. Right ‘The Scream’ by Edvard Munch, 1893

Fortunately, a humble Australian biologist, Jeremy Griffith, spent years assembling scientific knowledge and found the answers. Numbing the brain could not save humanity — what people needed was food for the brain: self-understanding.

Jeremy Griffith, 2013

First, although the scientific paradigm claims there is no purpose, direction, or meaning in existence, and that change is random, this purpose is actually obvious: it is the integration of matter into increasingly larger and more stable wholes. The simplest answer to the great question, “What is the meaning of life?” is: to live in harmony with this integrative process.

Second, Jeremy realized that the only true manifestation of selflessness in nature is motherhood — when a female, seemingly without personal benefit, protects and nurtures her offspring. From this, he beautifully deduced that uniquely conditioned motherhood in our species was the only force capable of lifting us out of the animal kingdom, giving us morality and consciousness. Our conscience — the voice of our morality — is innate and genetic. Our motherhood implanted something unprecedented in an animal species: an instinctual, unconditional selflessness, altruism, and morality.

And third, Jeremy discovered what liberated our consciousness. Natural selection — or survival of the fittest — blocks selfless impulses in animals because its driving force is genetic competition. Animals remain trapped in a competitive state, and their intelligence is limited by the imperative to reproduce their genes. Consciousness, however, is a selfless level of intelligence — only selfless thinking allows for an objective perception of reality. Through the selfless process of motherhood, early human mothers indoctrinated our selfish animal instincts, instilled our genetic, moral, and unconditional selflessness, and ultimately liberated intelligence, which began the long process of self-improvement toward full consciousness.

To summarize: the universe operates through integration, and humans have an instinctive, altruistic nature that enabled the emergence of their exceptional consciousness.

But is this the end of Jeremy’s discoveries? No. The conflict that tore humanity from nature’s cradle and threw it into an egocentric struggle for self-worth is yet another chapter in the saga of humankind. You must read about that yourself. I will simply pose an initial question: what would happen if an animal developed two management systems — one instinctual (genetic) and one conscious (neural)? Instincts are dogmatic, refined over generations, while consciousness is flexible, capable of learning and experimenting in real time.

Lithograph of Adam and Eve being cast out of Paradise, c.1880

As Jeremy wrote, while religious assurances such as “God loves you” may have been comforting, we ultimately had to understand why we are worthy of love. A rational, biological explanation of humanity’s divisive condition had to emerge, and it is our responsibility as conscious beings to reflect on it and comprehend it.

Finally, I will share the most important of Jeremy’s discoveries: the true nature of love and the fact that self-worth costs nothing. From my current perspective, love is the integrative process that creates the universe — unconditional selflessness that builds wholeness, in contrast to egoism, which destroys. The feeling of true love is something the modern, disrupted human race has almost lost, just as self-worth has become something people feel they must buy or earn. Fortunately, thanks to Jeremy’s work, everything can be easily restored, and self-worth and dignity become the first and permanent gifts after understanding the theory of the human condition.

William Blake’s ‘Cringing in Terror’ and ‘Albion Arose’