when I was young, I often used to wonder "why" people do the things they do.

Why do some people believe in "god",while others don't? Why do some people focus on earning money, while others focus on more human or art-oriented ideas?

Most people people just shrug these questions off as too hard, too complex to understand. For a long time, I agreed with them. Then, in the last few years, after reading and studying many different theories and areas of knowledge, I began to start believing that it might be possible for there to be answers to these questions that I can understand. Then, very recently, I started thinking that there could be answers to these questions that most people could understand.

I started calling this idea a "Literacy of human nature".

A "literacy" means that understanding, and using knowledge about something is not just within the grasp of experts, but also within the grasp of the majority of people (or a large amount of people) in a society.

So, I started parking what I know about Human nature on this page:

Literacy Of Human Nature

And here is the whole page, created by myself, and added to by others. I am interested in what you think abou tthis:

The following is a core framework for understanding human nature. The fundamental element of human nature is that it is an open system, although it may tend to stabilize into certain patterns when environmental and BioPsychoSocial? syetems do the same.

Dr. Clare W Graves observed:

• ..man..s nature is not a set thing, that it is ever emergent, that it is an open system, not a closed system...-Clare W. Graves
• ....in response to the interaction of external conditions with internal neuronal systems, humans develop new BioPsychoSocial? coping systems to solve existential problems and cope with their worlds. These coping systems are dependent on evolving human culture and individual development, and they are manifested at the individual, societal, and species levels. Graves believed that tangible, emergent, self-assembling dynamic neuronal systems evolved in the human brain in response to evolving existential and social problems... -Quoted from the Wikipedia:Clare W. Graves entry.
• What people are saying and doing is important. BUT, it is not as improtant as why they are saying or doing it. To apply this theory, ask the question ..who is doing what to whom, and why?..
• ....the emergence within humans of new BioPsychoSocial? systems in response to the interplay of external conditions with neurology follows a hierarchy in several dimensions, though without guarantees as to time lines or even direction: both progression and regression are possibilities in his model. Furthermore, each level in the hierarchy alternates as the human is either trying to make the environment adapt to the self, or the human is adapting the self to the existential conditions...-Quoted from the Wikipedia:Clare W. Graves entry.

Human nature is shaped by a combination of factors:

• Human biology (brain and neuro-endochrine system function), and how it interacts with the physical environment.
• The ..Psychological.., which is rooted in the ..psyche.. or concept of the ..self... Mental processes and behavior observed from the outside of the person.
• The ..social.. environment. The way that a person is tied into different social networks. The ..roles.. they play in different social situations.

This is combined together as a BioPsychoSocial? system. This is standing back and looking at a larger picture than the subsystems that make up the BioPsychoSocial? system.

Standing back and looking at this system of sub-systems, one fundamental pattern was found to emerge:

People are found somewhere on spectrum between the poles of trying to make the environment adapt to them, or people are trying to adapt themselves to their environment.

Furthermore, looking closer, there are different patterns that emerge over time, from the first proto-humans to immediate human behavior in the present.

These patterns were represented by Clare Graves in this hierarchy:

http://clarewgraves.com/theory_content/CG_FuturistTable.htm

Timeline

These patterns were estimated by Graves to emerge roughly in this way:

100.000 years ago: (A-N) First humanoids, express self now for physiological satisfaction

50.000 years ago: (B-O) Forming tribes, creating mythologies, oral histories,advancing language, symbols, music, first experiments with agrculture, sacrifice self to the ways of ancestors.

10.000 years ago: (C-P) Warlords, conquest, discovery, one ..Big Man.. ruling many tribes, express self now for what self wants, and to hell with everyone else.

5000 years ago: (D-Q) Literature, emergence of monotheism, emergence of science, sacrifice ..self.. now for later reward

1000 years ago: (E-R) Plurality, individualism, economic and materialistic gain focus, express self now for materialistic gain now

150 years ago: (F-S) Socio-centric, Human right, honesty/transparency, collectivism sacrifice self now so that all may gain now

50 years ago: (G-T) Complexity, interconnections, systems understanding, individualist. Express self now for what self wants, but not at the expense of others.

30 years ago: (H-U) Globalism, eco-consciousness, post-humanism, ??? (still emerging)

..Express self..=trying to make the environment adapt to you

..Sacrifice self..=trying to adapt yourself to your environment.

Examples from complexity theory

Wikipedia:Complexity_theory emerged about 20 years after Graves formulated these theories. Yet, complexity theory is coming to similar conclusions about human nature.

For instance, YaneerBarYam?, of the New England Complex Science Institute, discusses this in his paper, Complexity Rising:

Neuroscience Connections

On Intelligence describes the brain as fundamentally a ..memory and prediction.. system.

Paul MacLean?..s Triune brain theory:

Neuroscience has found that emotion plays an important role in memory. And, neurosience has found that the neocortical ..intelligence.. drives complex mental prediction. neuroscience has found that R-complex (..primitive brain..) function can quickly override the whole system,

examples: Wikipedia:Amygdala and adrenaline release function during fight or flight, long term Wikipedia:Cortisol release due to Allostatic load.

Relation to Graves..s theories: People oscillating back and forth in their problem solving between:

..Express self..=trying to make the environment adapt to you

..Sacrifice self..=trying to adapt yourself to your environment.

are driven by self preservation, emotion, and intelligence, all interconnected within the brain, all reacting to external conditions (..existential conditions..), all enabled by a brain system designed for memory and prediction, that is influenced by a complex environment.

Ray Kurzweil..s book ..The Singularity Is Near.. (pg 192) states that one thing that seperates Apes and Humans from other mammals on a neurological level are the presence of ..Spindle Cells... ..Spindle cells.. are involvd in emotional intelligence. Kurzweil says that humans have about 80,000, Gorillas have about 16,000, Bonobos about 2,100 and Chimps about 1,800 (he didn..t mention Orangutans) other mammals lack them completely, according to Kurzweil.

(The Wikipedia article states that Chimps have the most, that Gorillas have less than chimps, but agree that only great apes possess spindle cells).

The patterns listed above under ..Timeline.. may have emerged to due to adaptations and changes in the human neurosystems, where people become progressively better at offsetting Allostatic load:

This ability to become progressively better at offsetting limbic and R-complex overriding is reflected in the increasing complexity of the patterns that Graves observed. It may be enabled by the presence of ..Spindle Cells.., which allow the ..intelligence.. regions of the brain to increasingly be able to deal with the ..overrding.. tendancy of the emotion and more ..primitive.. regions of the brain.

Summarization

• Humanity is always changing. (An ..open system...)
• Humanity develops coping systems, to solve problems that arise.
  • The coping systems are BioPsychoSocial? systems.
  • To understand the coping systems, we look at patterns of behavior in:
    • the individual
    • a society
    • the entire human species
  • Neural and neuroendochrine systems evolved (in, for example, the brain,) in response to problems, both material and social.
• The way these patterns emerged follows an order, a hierarchy.
  • The hierarchy is complex.
  • But there is no timeline for any individual person, nor guarantees.
    • As individuals We could go forweards, we could go backwards. Yet, historical patterns tend to show a ..progression.. of increasingly complex systems in the human species.
  • It is possible, that further observation and research could reveal that even the hierarchy changes, as humanity changes.

So, where does this get us?

Briefly: understanding ..why.. people are doing something, or solving problems in a certain way can help you ..tune your transmitter to their receiver.., it can help you see reality from their perspective, from their world view. this can in turn help you communicate with them better.

This can help you design better systems for the way that people learn. This can help you help other people work together in more sustainable ways.