Comments on THE Interview

Well, you’re in for an absolute feast with Jeremy Griffith’s explanation of the human condition, Ian, because in explaining the human condition Jeremy has been able to unlock astonishing and almost innumerable insights into humanity’s history, from the origin of consciousness in our ape ancestors and from there the stages of maturation that humanity as a whole has gone through and humans individually go through — and significantly, to your interest in the differences that exists from “continent to continent”, he explains and brings reconciling understanding to the differences that exist between individuals, sexes, ages, generations, races, cultures and civilisations, and the reason for prejudice and the cause of inequality between them. We highly recommend reading Jeremy’s definitive book FREEDOM after watching THE Interview, because in it the full story of life on Earth is finally told. As Professor Harry Prosen, a former president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, said of FREEDOM: “This book of books, indeed this greatest of all books, effectively takes humanity from a state of bewilderment about the nature of human existence to a state of profound understanding of our lives. It is a case of having got all the truth up in one go! I believe this is the most sensational information to ever appear on planet Earth.” FREEDOM and all of Jeremy’s books are available for free here on the WTM’s homepage.

Hi Barbara, it’s great you’ve watched THE Interview as it’s the ideal introduction to Jeremy Griffith’s explanation of the human condition. From there, at top of our homepage HumanCondition.com, it states ‘WHAT NEXT after watching THE Interview?’ and guides you through the steps to pursue your interest. This includes subscribing to our mailing list where you will receive one email per week, occasional News Flashes, and notifications for our Live Events. We also encourage people to join our Facebook Group to learn more about this amazing, human-condition-resolved new world.

Yes, what Jeremy Griffith has presented shows that the conscious mind was ‘good’ or ‘heroic’ to defy our pre-established instincts in order to pursue the all-important search of knowledge. We suggest that the real issue here is the difference between a more literal fundamentalist interpretation of scripture and our more biological, science-based interpretation. If you prefer the more literal interpretation then we respect your right to do that, as we hope you’ll respect our right to a science-based interpretation. For those interested, we recommend our FAQs on Religion.

That’s marvellous you want to learn more Dottie! At top of our homepage HumanCondition.com, it states ‘WHAT NEXT after watching THE Interview?’ and guides you through the steps to pursue your interest. This includes subscribing to our mailing list where you will receive one email per week, occasional News Flashes, and notifications for our Live Events. We also encourage people to join our Facebook Group to learn more about this amazing, human-condition-resolved new world. We are a not-for-profit organisation and make all our material and publications free to read online, watch, listen to and even download and print!

Our “ever troubled human condition” is certainly real Johanes and has caused so much suffering and destruction in ourselves and the world it has been a deeply tragic reality. Thank goodness we now have Jeremy Griffith’s ‘instinct vs intellect’ explanation of the human condition which solves all the confusion, frustration and suffering in human life at its source — see FAQ 1.6 ‘Why does this understanding solve everything?’ If you haven’t yet watched THE Interview we hope you do as it explains we can now understand that our behaviour has been driven by a deep insecurity about our fundamental goodness, so now that our goodness is biologically established we no longer have to behave insecurely and selfishly and can legitimately return to a selfless way of living. This is the rapidly transforming effect of being able to understand the human condition, however because it presents a huge paradigm shift in our thinking it does take a little time to fully grasp. Our FAQs 1.4 to 1.5 are also helpful as they talk about the far-reaching practical applications of this understanding. For the most detailed explanation of the transformation that is now possible we recommend Jeremy’s two seminal presentations on the topic: The Great Transformation and Sermon On The Beach.

An interview so much impressed scholars. I need to think about it. However, don’t think and pretend to say the meaning of humanity.could be understood by this thinking. Here rather we need to confirm that this interview explains the truth of Christian philosophy through biological understanding.

We certainly respect people’s religious views D Wilson and thank you for your interest. We encourage you to continue watching THE Interview as Jeremy Griffith does mention the Negative-Entropy-driven integrative meaning of existence (which we have personified as ‘God’) in Part 3 and refers the audience to where this is explained in chapter 4 of his definitive book FREEDOM. So Jeremy’s explanation of the human condition doesn’t actually contradict a belief in God or Christianity. It simply brings biological understanding to all those pre-scientific concepts. In fact, Jeremy considers the Bible to be a repository of extremely rare denial-free truth about human life albeit from that pre-scientific view. For instance, Jeremy explains in this interview how the story of Adam and Eve is a pre-scientific metaphor for the emergence of consciousness or free will and its clash with our pre-established, cooperative loving instincts, resulting in humans becoming psychologically upset or ‘sinful’ or ‘evil’. However as Jeremy stresses, we can now understand from scientific first principles that ‘Adam and Eve’ were ‘good’ to search for knowledge, not bad or ‘evil’. And with that redeeming answer to the human condition now found, our psychological upset (so called ‘sinful’ or ‘fallen’ state) can actually subside. Our FAQ 6.3 ‘Does understanding of the human condition undermine a faith in religion or God?’ is an excellent resource on this topic. It is also worth mentioning that in dealing with such a historically difficult subject for us humans, these biological explanations of the human condition are, by nature, very confronting and although ultimately represent a fulfilment of religion (as explained in our FAQs about religion), they do demystify religious concepts which some people can find very challenging, so we encourage everyone to take their time investigating what’s being presented.

    Thank you for your question Michael, we appreciate you asking as it does take a little time to fully grasp this critical new science. Just to clarify our conscience is our instinctive self or orientation and, as Jeremy Griffith explains in THE Interview, it doesn’t matter what the particular orientation of the species’ instincts is, the fact that instincts are not insightful means that an upsetting clash with the insight-based, self-adjusting conscious mind has to occur. There have been many other thinkers throughout history who have recognised that our divisive, competitive and aggressive human condition is a product of a clash between our instincts and intellect however, what was missing from the analysis of all these other thinkers was the ability to explain WHY this conflict occurred and that is what Jeremy’s work answers. He explains that while gene-based naturally selected instincts give species orientations to the world, only the nerve-based conscious intellect can understand cause and effect and thus manage change; so when the fully conscious mind emerged and began managing change from a basis of understanding the instincts were in effect intolerant of such experiments, putting them at odds with the intellect. This understanding of WHY the conflict between our instincts and intellect occurred that Jeremy presents is all-important because it is only this clarifying, redeeming and reconciling explanation of the nature of the struggle between our instinctive self and conscious self that at last brings peace to our divided selves, and transforms the human race — see FAQ 1.13 ‘Is this idea original or new? / How does biologist Jeremy Griffith’s ‘instinct vs intellect’ explanation of the human condition differ from other theories that recognise these elements?’     The following two quotes from Jeremy expand on this, especially in terms of just how much this conflict “troubled us and is responsible for the aggressive behaviors we now have”. Firstly from Part 1 of THE Interview “If we think about it, if an animal was to become fully conscious, like we humans became, then that animal’s new self-managing, understanding-based conscious mind would surely have to challenge its pre-existing instinctive orientations to the world, wouldn’t it? A battle would have to break out between the emerging conscious mind that operates from a basis of understanding cause and effect and the non-understanding instincts that have always controlled and dictated how that animal behaves”. And from Video/Freedom Essay 4: “I want to make the point that all that is needed to produce a psychologically upset state in a species is for it to become fully conscious, because that self-adjusting capability will naturally have to defy the non-insightful, intolerant, dictatorial instincts. It doesn’t matter what the particular orientation of the species’ instincts is, the fact that instincts are not insightful means that an upsetting clash with the insight-based, self-adjusting conscious mind has to occur. So irrespective of a species’ instinctive orientation, if it develops a fully conscious mind an upsetting battle has to occur between those instincts and the conscious mind. Importantly however, this doesn’t mean that the particular orientation of a species’ instincts can’t have an impact on the clash with a conscious mind. It can affect it very greatly, as it did when we humans became fully conscious. As pointed out in the second video/ essay of this series, we humans have cooperative, selfless and loving moral instincts, the voice or expression of which we call our conscience. Charles Darwin recognised our distinctive moral nature when he wrote that ‘The moral sense perhaps affords the best and highest distinction between man and the lower animals’. What is so significant about humans having cooperative, selfless and loving moral instincts is that when we became fully conscious, and began experimenting in understanding, and were criticised by our instincts and unavoidably responded in an angry, egocentric and alienated way, that divisive response caused even greater criticism from our instincts because they expected us to behave cooperatively, selflessly and lovingly. In our necessary search for understanding we were firstly unjustly condemned for defying our instincts, and then again for reacting to that condemnation in a way that was counter and offensive to our instincts. We had to endure a ‘double whammy’ of criticism when we became conscious!”     Also Michael these two FAQs provide further reading on instincts and intellect and how they came into conflict, see FAQ 1.41 ‘What are instincts and what is consciousness, and how do they differ?’, and FAQ 1.42 ‘If our instincts are loving and cooperative why would they criticise the conscious mind when it began experimenting with different behaviour?’

Hi April, THE Interview is freely available in many formats, including being able to download or listen to the audio version, HERE on our website — happy listening!!

What is the cure

Very enlightening. I think this should be taught in every school instead of making money and buying a big house and expensive car.

    Hi Deborah and thank you for your question. The human condition has been such a deeply, deeply tragic journey full of so much unthinkable pain and suffering and some of humanity’s acts are so bewilderingly terrible, “mind boggling” as you say, that it is tempting to think they have to be the result of some inexplicable ‘evil’, but we suggest that biological understanding of the human condition can explain and heal our psychologically upset state. It is important to immediately stress that of course this breakthrough explanation doesn’t legitimise, condone or sanction such depravity you mention (what historically has been termed ‘evil’) rather, through bringing compassionate understanding to the source of humans’ upset behaviour, it gives us the power to ameliorate and thus subside and ultimately eliminate it. Jeremy stresses this in his main publications and is summarised in our FAQ 1.38 Aren’t some people just born psychopathic, or even ‘evil’? / How does this explanation rehabilitate people capable of ‘evil’ behaviour? / Does this condone ‘evil’ behaviour?.     This FAQ also answers your question Deborah so we encourage you to read it and the references to further publications it includes. To quote an extract:     “The agonising psychologically upset state of the human condition has created an extremely frustrated and ferociously angry ‘dark side’ in humans, which has meant we are capable of horrific acts. As biologist Jeremy Griffith describes in his definitive book on the human condition, FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition: ‘despite our species’ magnificent mental capabilities, and undeniable capacity for immense sensitivity and love, behind every wondrous scientific achievement, sensitive artistic expression and compassionate act lies the shadow of humanity’s darker side—an unspeakable history of greed, hatred, rape, torture, murder and war; a propensity for deeds of shocking violence, depravity, indifference and cruelty.’     But what is so utterly exonerating and psychologically healing about our ability now to understand the human condition is that we can finally appreciate that there was a very good reason for our angry, egocentric and alienated lives—in fact, we can now see why our species has not just been ego-centric, but ego-infuriated, even ego-gone-mad-with-murderous-rage for having to live with so much unjust criticism/guilt, for some 2 million years. At long last we have the reason for humans’ capacity for shocking acts of cruelty, sadism, hate, murder and warfare—we now know the source of the dark volcanic forces in us humans. (For the explanation of our psychologically upset, ‘good and evil’-stricken human condition, see Video/Freedom Essay 3.)     And with the ability now to explain and understand that all humans are good and not bad, all the upset that resulted from not being able to explain the source of our divisive condition is able to subside and disappear. Finding understanding of the human condition is what rehabilitates and transforms the human race from its psychologically upset angry, egocentric and alienated condition. As Professor Harry Prosen, former President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, has said about the psychological effect of this redeeming, all-compassionate and all-loving understanding of ourselves: ‘I have no doubt this biological explanation of the human condition is the holy grail of insight we have sought for the psychological rehabilitation of the human race.’ Yes, our ability now to understand the dark side of ourselves means we can finally achieve the ‘wholeness for humans’ that the great psychologist Carl Jung was forever pointing out ‘depends on the ability to own our own shadow’.     Importantly, this understanding of why we became upset as a species does not condone or sanction ‘evil’, rather, through bringing understanding to humans’ inevitable various degrees of psychological upset, it gives us the power to ameliorate and thus subside and ultimately eliminate all the psychological upset in us humans—and, in the short term, to transcend all that upset and take up a transformed life in complete support of a human-condition-free world...”     It is also important to stress Deborah that since what is being introduced is a new scientific paradigm, based on confronting rather than the historic practice of avoiding the issue of the human condition, it does require some studying and digestion time to reasonably comprehend aspects of the new paradigm which you do acknowledge. So we highly recommend you read Jeremy’s definitive book FREEDOM which is freely available in many formats, including an audio book, HERE on our homepage along with his other key books. You might also find our extensive FAQ facility helpful as you further explore this work.

    Hi Gilbert, there is a lot to digest here as this is new science, so take your time. Our reply is made of of two parts. Firstly, as is explained in Part 3 of THE Interview the original genetic instinct for maternalism or nurturing is a naturally selected instinctive orientation that developed because it promotes the perpetuation of its genes through better protecting its offspring. As Jeremy Griffith says “how we acquired our moral instincts has been one of the greatest mysteries in biology. The primatologist Richard Wrangham described it as ‘A question that has lain unsolved at the core of biology ever since Darwin’ (review of E.O. Wilson’s 2019 book Genesis: The Deep Origin of Societies). And Darwin himself described it as the ‘one special difficulty’ with his concept of natural selection (On The Origin of Species, 1859, p.209 of 440). The reason for the ‘difficulty’—and this is some basic biology for you—is that genes normally can’t select for unconditionally selfless, fully cooperative traits, simply because such traits tend to be self-eliminating and so normally can’t become established in a species”. HOWEVER, as Jeremy goes on to explain in Part 3, over time, through the love-indoctrination process it became a case of mothers actively loving their offspring – so you are quite right that the deep love between parents and their babies is genuine. You can read more about this fascinating nurturing based love-indoctrination process that created humanity’s loving, moral instinctive self or soul in FAQ 5.2 ‘How did we humans acquire our all-loving, unconditionally selfless moral conscience or soul?’ and also in chapter 5 of Jeremy’s definitive book FREEDOM.     Secondly, in terms of the quote you include Jeremy said “while we couldn’t explain our loss of ability to adequately nurture our offspring”, not “adequately nourish our offspring”, and he is referring to our current psychologically upset human-condition-afflicted state not our pre-human-condition nurturing and selfless state. As Jeremy stresses at last we can compassionately explain why we haven’t been able to give unconditional love to ourselves, each other and our children. In this interview and in FREEDOM Jeremy explains the importance of nurturing in the maturation of humanity and in our own lives, but because humanity’s necessary preoccupation with finding knowledge compromised our ability to nurture, it has been one of those extremely confronting truths that humans, without understanding of the corrupting journey to find knowledge, have had no choice but to largely live in denial of (which Jeremy was talking about in the quote you highlighted). We recommend you re-watch THE Interview as there is much to consider and absorb and also you might like to read chapter 6:13 of FREEDOM titled, ‘Nurturing now becomes a priority’. There Jeremy explains that “...it needs to be emphasised that having found the compassionate biological understanding of the upsetting battle that humans have had to wage against the ignorance of our instinctive self as to the fundamental goodness of our conscious self, our species’ preoccupation with that battle can at last end and focus return to the nurturing of our children. Further, now that we have found that very good reason why parents have been unable to nurture their children with anything like the unconditional love children instinctively expect and need, it is no longer necessary to deny the importance of nurturing both in the maturation of our species and in our own lives. Yes, with the arrival of understanding the terrible guilt that parents have felt for not being able to adequately nurture their offspring departs. Parents can now understand that their inability to adequately love their offspring is not their fault, but the product of the ever-accumulating levels of upset in the human race as a whole that resulted from our species’ heroic 2-million-year search for knowledge, specifically for self-knowledge, understanding of why we conscious humans are good and not bad. So yes, we can finally now admit the importance of nurturing and turn our attention back to the nurturing of our offspring—in fact, it now becomes a matter of great urgency that we do both these things.”

Hi Mare, Part 1 of THE Interview presents the explanation as quickly and simply as possible and our FAQ 1.3 presents a very brief summary of the key ‘instinct vs intellect’ concept. Essentially, when we humans developed a conscious mind some 2 million years ago, a battle unavoidably developed between it and our already established instincts. The result of this conflict between our instinct and intellect was that we became psychologically defensive, angry, alienated and egocentric — the upset state we refer to as the human condition. But now that we can explain and understand this conflict, all those insecure, defensive behaviours are obsoleted, brought to an end, and we free ourselves from the human condition.

Thank you for your request Eve and you can already watch THE Interview, and all the videos on our website, using the subtitles function (just click the ‘cc’ icon at the bottom of the video player to show subtitles, then click the settings ‘cog’ to set the subtitles to the language of your choice). We also have translations of THE Interview, and other publications, in Afrikaans, Amharic, Danish, Dutch, Farsi, French, German, Greek, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish and Xhosa, which you can access here on our website. There is also our FAQ 3.9 ‘Are translations of Jeremy Griffith’s work available?’ which includes WTM Centre websites that are presented in various languages. To be informed of WTM developments, including new translations and WTM Centres, you might like to subscribe to our free mailing list!

That’s wonderful Bernice! You can immediately access a copy of THE Interview booklet or Jeremy Griffith’s definitive book FREEDOM: The End Of The Human Condition HERE on our homepage. They are all freely available in many formats which includes an audio book of FREEDOM. You can also download free Kindle versions from Amazon. If you are particularly after a hardcopy of Jeremy Griffith’s books they are available to purchase from Amazon and other good bookstores.

Thanks for your thoughts Dave. With regard to the transformation happening in the next few generations, as Jeremy Griffith explains in chapter 9.9 of his book FREEDOM, titled ‘How the Transformed Lifeforce Way of Living will quickly repair the world’: “Although this new world for humans, which the World Transformation Movement has been established to facilitate, will, as has been stated, have a slow beginning because humans initially find it difficult even taking in or ‘hearing’ discussion about the human condition, once the WTM is discovered, word of it and what it offers every human and the world will spread like wildfire.’” And so even though we haven’t yet reached the tipping point in terms of awareness of this great breakthrough, you can see from the excitement and relief in our daily ecstatic responses to THE Interview (at the top of HumanCondition.com) and the rapidly growing appreciation and support for Jeremy’s work with exceptional commendations from scientists and thought leaders and 80 WTM Centres all over the world (also featured on our homepage), we are well on our way!! Also we thought you may find FAQ 1.40 helpful to read as it answers the questions ‘Aren’t the problems of the world too overwhelming to ever be fixed? / Isn’t it too late to save the world? / How can you hope to transform the world? — In particular, how are you going to change the behaviour of the rich and powerful? / How are you going to reach the bastions of power? / Won’t the greedy and power-hungry simply ignore this?’

There is a lot to digest here Thomas as this is new science, so take your time. As is explained in Part 3 of THE Interview the original genetic instinct for maternalism is a naturally selected instinctive orientation that developed because it promotes the perpetuation of its genes through better protecting its offspring. As Jeremy Griffith says “how we acquired our moral instincts has been one of the greatest mysteries in biology. The primatologist Richard Wrangham described it as ‘A question that has lain unsolved at the core of biology ever since Darwin’ (review of E.O. Wilson’s 2019 book Genesis: The Deep Origin of Societies). And Darwin himself described it as the ‘one special difficulty’ with his concept of natural selection (On The Origin of Species, 1859, p.209 of 440). The reason for the ‘difficulty’—and this is some basic biology for you—is that genes normally can’t select for unconditionally selfless, fully cooperative traits, simply because such traits tend to be self-eliminating and so normally can’t become established in a species”. HOWEVER, as Jeremy goes on to explain in Part 3, over time, through the love-indoctrination process it became a case of mothers actively loving their offspring – so you are quite right that the deep love between parents and their babies is genuine. You can read more about this fascinating nurturing based love-indoctrination process that created humanity’s loving, moral instinctive self or soul in FAQ 5.2 ‘How did we humans acquire our all-loving, unconditionally selfless moral conscience or soul?’ and also in chapter 5 of Jeremy’s definitive book FREEDOM.

Hi Dan, as our FAQ 1.9 ‘Should people be sceptical’ explains, the astonishing claims being made about Jeremy Griffith’s work do warrant initial scepticism however they all withstand scrutiny as what he presents is 100% logic. People find once they begin exploring the explanation the more they do the more they realise the claims are actually true, and in time become appreciated for their forthright honesty in indicating where the solution to our problems lies — as the commendations (here on our homepage) Jeremy’s work has received from eminent scientists and thinkers attest, including from Professor Harry Prosen (a former president of the Canadian Psychiatric Association) who said, “I have no doubt Jeremy Griffith’s work is the holy grail of insight we have sought for the psychological rehabilitation of the human race”. So we encourage you to watch THE Interview and judge for yourself!

Thank you for your appreciative words Douglas and you can take heart because as you can see from the thousands of impressive commendations on our homepage from thought leaders and members of the public, and the 80 WTM Centres that have opened across the globe, the relief and excitement of finally being able to make sense of human life is turning into a tidal wave of world-saving support!! As Part 4 of THE Interview and WTM FAQ 1.40 ‘Aren’t the problems of the world too overwhelming to ever be fixed? / Isn’t it too late to save the world?’ explain, while the world is fast approaching a point of no return, this understanding will turn things around incredibly quickly, because it explains and solves the underlying cause of all our selfishness, anger and egocentricity. We also recommend reading Freedom Essay 15: ‘How understanding the human condition can immediately transform your and every other human’s life and save the world’.

That’s wonderful Jennifer and it’s great you’ve watched THE Interview as it’s the ideal introduction to Jeremy Griffith’s explanation of the human condition. From there, at top of our homepage HumanCondition.com, it states ‘WHAT NEXT after watching THE Interview?’ and guides you through the steps to pursue your interest. This includes subscribing to our mailing list where you will receive one email per week, occasional News Flashes, and notifications for our Live Events. We also encourage people to join our Facebook Group to learn more about this amazing, human-condition-resolved new world. We are a not-for-profit organisation and make all our material and publications free to read online, watch, listen to and even download and print!

We are respectful of everyone’s beliefs, but do suggest that while religions contained extraordinary truth about human life, it was all from a pre-scientific view, and that ultimately we needed to find the scientific explanation for why when the universal ideals are to be loving, cooperative and selfless are we so angry, competitive and selfish. Answering this question required finding the clarifying difference between the way the intellect and instincts work, and that clarifying difference means we can now understand that we had to defy our instincts, which is why this great breakthrough is described as ‘redeeming’. It follows that by finding the good reason we had to defy our instincts, we can reconcile ourselves with them, because all our defensive behaviours (our anger, egocentricity and alienation) are now redundant. We no longer need them because we have the real defense for why we had to defy our instincts. We recommend reading FAQ 6.3 ‘Does this undermine religion?’ where it is explained that, “The great founding prophets of religion actually looked forward to the arrival of the reconciling understanding of the human condition—which means supporters of religion shouldn’t see Jeremy’s scientific demystification of religious teachings as blasphemy, but as religious fulfillment!”

Thanks for your thoughts, Larry. Yes, THE Interview reveals humans’ selfish and competitive behaviour is not a product of unchangeable savage animal instincts within us, but the result of a psychosis caused by the clash between our instinct and intellect. Jeremy Griffith explains this key biological distinction that humans suffer from the conscious-mind-based, psychologically troubled human condition, not the genetic-opportunism-based, animal condition.

Thank you for your sincere, personal feedback, Teresa. Jeremy Griffith’s understanding does bring sanity to the seemingly “crazy” human situation you’ve fought against the reality of for so long, and especially to the existence of narcissistic behaviour. Key to Jeremy’s explanation is that to fulfil the great potential of our conscious mind we had to defy our cooperative moral instincts. This defiance or battle resulted in humans’ psychologically upset state and, in the extreme, that upset produced cynical and narcissistic behaviour. So we actually all suffer degrees of upset depending on our encounter with this battle. What is so utterly exonerating and psychologically healing about our ability to now understand this is that we can finally appreciate that there was a very good reason—indeed heroic reason—for this upset; and this applies to all humans, even those who demonstrate extreme expressions of it like those who exhibit extreme narcissim, and racism, both of which does seem abhorrent to the general public. But, importantly, as FAQ 4.2 explains, Jeremy’s explanation does NOT condone such behaviour, rather, through the power of compassionately understanding its source those behaviours subside and disappear. You can read more about destructive excessively egocentric power addicted behaviour in FREEDOM, chapter 8:16D; see especially par. 1003. So this certainly is the peaceful understanding you have long sought and which you can learn more about on our Transformation page.

    We suggest that the more you consider the interpretation of the Garden of Eden story given in THE Interview, the clearer it becomes that the story is a metaphor for the emergence of the conscious mind in the presence of pre-established loving instincts, and how the conscious mind was in effect ‘condemned’ by those instincts, and as a result became angry, egocentric and alienated.     With regard to the criticism that the metaphor really refers to knowledge ‘of innocence of morality’ rather than knowledge per se, it is worth pointing out that scholars have long interpreted ‘the tree of knowledge of good and evil’ to mean knowledge of everything rather than simply ‘knowledge of morality’. For example, in his book Genesis, the Old Testament scholar Claus Westermann wrote that the phrase “knowledge of good and evil” is: “… concerned with knowledge (or wisdom) in the general, comprehensive sense. Any limitation of the meaning of “the knowledge of good and evil” is thereby excluded. It can mean neither moral nor sexual nor any other partial knowledge, but only that knowledge which includes and determines human existence as a whole, [the ability to master]… one’s own existence.” Similarly, biblical scholars such as Cyrus H. Gordon (The Bible and the Ancient Near East), Harry M. Orlinsky (notes to the NJPS Torah) and Nicolas Wyatt (Space and Time in the Religious Life of the Near East) have written that the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” should be understood to mean a tree whose fruit imparts knowledge of everything, and does not necessarily contain a moral concept.     Which is not to say that the consciousness does not bring with it knowledge of ‘good and evil’. As Jeremy quotes in chapter 3:2 of his definitive book FREEDOM, Nicolai Berdyaev wrote in his 1931 book, The Destiny of Man, “Particularly bitter is moral knowledge, the knowledge of good and evil. But the bitterness is due to the fallen state of the world…Moral knowledge is the most bitter and the most fearless of all for in it sin and evil are revealed to us along with the meaning and value of life. There is a deadly pain in the very distinction of good and evil, of the valuable and the worthless.” (pp.14-16)     Again, we suggest that the meaning of the metaphor of eating the fruit from “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil” is that we became conscious, and had to search for knowledge, with the ultimate knowledge being knowledge of our ‘good and evil’ afflicted condition. As Richard Heinberg wrote in the quote included in THE Interview: “Every religion begins with the recognition that human consciousness has been separated from the divine Source, that a former sense of oneness…has been lost…everywhere in religion and myth there is an acknowledgment that we have departed from an original…innocence…the cause of the Fall is described variously as disobedience, as the eating of a forbidden fruit, and as spiritual amnesia [alienation].”

Wonderful to have your interest, Josephine, so we encourage you to subscribe to our mailing list where you will receive one email per week, occasional News Flashes, and notifications for our Live Events. We also encourage people to join our Facebook Group to learn more about this amazing, human-condition-resolved new world. We are a not-for-profit organisation and make all our material and publications free to read online, watch, listen to and even download and print!

Thank you Anwer for your very generous offer to translate Jeremy’s work into Urdu! THE Interview is freely available on our homepage here to read online, print and download. However, the best way to do go about a translation project is to contact us here so we can coordinate our efforts as we have a global network of appreciative supporters who have translated THE Interview and many other pubications into many languages, see our Translations page for what translations are available. It is also worth mentioning that until more translations are available people can watch THE Interview (and all the videos on our website) with subtitles in their native language (use the closed captions or subtitles function by clicking on the ‘cc’ icon at the bottom of the video player/window).

thank you

Thanks for your comment Derham. We can now understand that the reason we “have made a mess of things” isn’t because we have been “bombarded with religious beliefs” and all the clash between different creeds and religions, but because of a profound evolutionary clash between instinct and intellect which is at the base of all our defensive angry, egocentric and alienated behaviour. Moreover, we can now see that the purpose of religion was to be the custodian of the ideal state while the search for liberating knowledge was underway. However, to fundamentally solve the human condition we needed to understand our behaviour — understand why when the ideals are to be loving and selfless, are we so competitive and selfish? And it’s this age-old question that biologist Jeremy Griffith has answered with this instinct vs intellect explanation.

Thanks very much for your thoughts Thomas. We would just note that what is unique about Jeremy Griffith’s work is that he has answered the essential question of why, when the universal ideals are to be integrative are we so disintegrative? Our endeavours in philosophy (Eastern and Western), psychology and biology have failed, until now, to provide a truthful, real, fully accountable, genuinely clarifying explanation. Answering this question required finding the clarifying difference between the way the intellect and instincts work, and that is the great biological breakthrough Jeremy presents here. At last we can understand our behaviour has been driven by a deep insecurity about our fundamental goodness or worth and so now that our goodness is biologically established we no longer have to behave insecurely and selfishly and can legitimately return to a selfless way of living. ‘Legitimately’ because we have the first principle science which liberates us to be honest about our conflicted upset state instead of denying or transcending it. We recommend FAQ 6.5, which explains the difference between Jeremy’s explanation and new age spirituality.

    Hi Bridget. No, the fundamental problem is that our instincts in-effect criticised the conscious mind’s necessary experiments in self-management. This resulted in the intellect becoming defensive which manifest as angry, egocentric and alienated behaviour. Knowing this is of great importance because having found the good reason that we had to defy our instincts means all our defensive, ‘bad’ behaviours (our anger, egocentricity and alienation) are now redundant. There couldn’t be a bigger breakthrough.     This information relates to all humans, whether they are being oppressed or are oppressors; we are all sufferers of the human condition, and this understanding fundamentally ends that condition. Our FAQ 1.40 addresses the questions of ‘How can you hope to transform the world? — In particular, how are you going to change the behaviour of the rich and powerful? / How are you going to reach the bastions of power? / Won’t the greedy and power-hungry simply ignore this?’ It explains that “Even those who were most committed to defensively seeking validation through gaining power and material goods, including those entrenched in positions of power, will quickly realise how empty and obsolete that strategy is now that we have the fully accountable, psychosis-addressing-and-solving, real biological explanation of the human condition that proves our worth at the most fundamental level.”

Very interesting.

While it takes some time to digest, we suggest that what is unique about Jeremy Griffith’s work is that he has answered the essential question of why, when the universal ideals are to be integrative are we so disintegrative? Our endeavours in philosophy, psychology and biology have failed, until now, to provide a truthful, real, fully accountable, genuinely clarifying explanation. Answering this question required finding the clarifying difference between the way the intellect and instincts work, and that is the great biological breakthrough Jeremy presents here. We can now understand that far from being a “mistake”, humans are the heroes of the whole story of life on earth.

The ‘instinct vs intellect’ explanation of the human condition is actually very simple, however THE Interview explains that the very nature of the human condition means discussion of it can be initially difficult to access. This is because historically the issue of whether we are fundamentally good or bad has been the most terrifying of all subjects to face, and so we have necessarily lived in almost total denial of it, which means our minds can initially struggle to hear and absorb discussion about it. Wonderfully however, this ‘deaf effect’ can be overcome with patient perseverance and everyone can access this most wonderful of all gifts of understanding the human condition! See our FAQ 1.16 which includes the question ‘please send me an executive summary so I have some idea of what you’re trying to say?’.

Thanks Tamara. Yes, the key to understanding human psychology is definitely in our evolution. We suggest that as you digest what Jeremy Griffith has put forward, you will come to see that it was the emergence of the fully conscious mind some 2 million years ago, and its inevitable conflict with our pre-established instincts that resulted in the human condition, which is our psychologically upset angry, egocentric and alienated state. The wonderful thing is that psychoses can be healed with understanding, so that’s the importance of the psychosis-addressing-and-solving, explanation of the human condition presented in THE Interview — it brings a complete and permanent end to our insecurity-driven selfish behaviour, completely transforming all humans into “homo sensitive”, as you so wonderfully put it!

Hi Mary, explanation of the human condition does produce a huge paradigm shift in our thinking, so this critical new science does take time to digest, but as explained in Part 4 of THE Interview (titled ‘How does the psychological rehabilitation of the human race that the arrival of understanding of the human condition finally makes possible actually occur?’), while the upset within us will take generations to be completely healed, importantly we can be immediately free of its effects. We can at last understand our behaviour has been driven by a deep insecurity about our fundamental goodness or worth and so now that our goodness is biologically established we no longer have to behave insecurely and selfishly and can legitimately return to a selfless way of living. This is the rapidly rehabilitating and transforming effect of being able to understand the human condition. FAQs 1.4 to 1.6 are helpful as they talk about the far-reaching practical applications of this understanding. This is further explained in Freedom Essay 15 ‘How our lives can be immediately transformed’, while the Transformation section of our website is brimming with invaluable insight, counsel and personal affirmations. You may also be interested in FAQ 1.30 ‘Is upset so engrained in our DNA now that we’ll never be free of it? / Have we been living with the human condition for so long now that our upset angry, egocentric and alienated behaviour has become instinctive and unchangeable even though we’ve solved the human condition?’

The book is FREE AND IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE to read online or download HERE on our homepage with no email registration required!! The work of the WTM is a scientific pursuit and was not created for profit, so all of our information and materials (including books, videos and podcasts) are provided absolutely free of charge. You can also download free Kindle versions from Amazon. (Otherwise, if you particularly want a hard copy, you can purchase them from Amazon or other good bookstores.)

While writers such as Ryan and Jetha have identified a peaceful, cooperative past, ultimately we needed to answer the essential question of why, when the ideals are to be loving and selfless, are we so competitive and selfish? It is only with our divisive current condition defended that everyone can admit and embrace the face that we have a cooperative past. It is this question of questions that Jeremy has solved with his explanation. That is the great breakthrough his work represents.

    Clearly, while other animals have various levels of ‘awareness’, or are sentient and able to perceive or feel things, none are ‘conscious’ in the fundamental sense that none can consciously manage events like humans can. Jeremy Griffith explains in THE Interview that consciousness means being sufficiently aware of how experiences are related to attempt to manage change from a basis of understanding cause and effect, and so it is accurate to describe humans as the only animals possessing ‘fully conscious minds’, see FAQ 5.5 ‘Aren’t other animals capable of conscious thought like humans? / How can you say humans are the only fully conscious animals?’ Also we recommend Chapter 7 of Jeremy’s definitive book FREEDOM which provides a comprehensive explanation of how full consciousness developed in humans as a result of nurturing or the love-indoctrination process which is absolutely fascinating.     Having become sufficiently conscious to challenge the instincts for control of our lives, as is explained in THE Interview, the instincts in effect criticised the intellect, resulting in it becoming psychologically upset angry, egocentric and aliented - the human condition.