FREEDOM: The End of the Human Condition Paperback – May 24, 2016

Reading Freedom was amazing and astonishingly insightful as all the missing pieces of the great jigsaw puzzle of human nature fell into their proper places, just like connecting all the dots and providing the solution through biological synthesis based on non-abstract, scientific first principles, and evidence. Before that, Human nature, “Nature vs Nurture” and reconciliation of Science & Spirituality fascinated, confused, and eluded me for a long time as why we are the way we are and whether we are Good or Bad or Evil or a mix. And despite our wonderful mental skills, scientific achievements, creativity, and great acts of kindness, are we destined to doom due to our divisive behavior, selfishness, aggression, and violence? But these are all answered for me in ‘FREEDOM – The End of the Human Condition’ which was a fascinating and revealing reading. Freedom’s significance is affirmed by Professor Harry Prosen, the former President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association in the introduction: ‘IT DELIVERS THE BREAKTHROUGH BIOLOGICAL EXPLANATION OF THE HUMAN CONDITION, THE HOLY GRAIL OF INSIGHT HUMANS HAVE SOUGHT FOR THE PSYCHOLOGICAL REHABILITATION OF OUR SPECIES….’The “INSTINCT vs INTELLECT” conflict which is one of Jeremy Griffith’s key revelations is just brilliant and the conflict between our gene-based moral instinct that gives genetic orientation to our species and our nerve-based conscious thinking mind that operates by understanding cause and effect, its reason, timeline, how instinct and intellect got distanced, etc., is wonderfully explained in chapter 3. I liked this chapter and in short, like all other animals our earliest ape ancestors were controlled by their instincts, but just over 2 million years ago our first human ancestor Homo Habilis evolved a fully conscious mind capable of understanding cause and effect. This fully conscious mind started to understand cause and effect and tried to take control of our lives by defying our original moral instincts and this resulted in an ongoing internal battle or conflict in our genus ‘Homo’. And it is this conflict between our moral instinct and our conscious thinking mind, which is the cause of our Upset State or Human Condition.Another of Jeremy Griffith’s profound insights into the human condition is that it was our ape ancestors “NURTURING” of their infants that created our species’ Unconditional Selfless, Altruistic, Moral Instinctive Self or Soul. In his words from para. 389, ‘while nurturing is a genetically selfish trait, from an observer’s point of view it appears to be unconditionally selfless behavior—the mother is giving her offspring food, warmth, shelter, support and protection for apparently nothing in return. This point is most significant because it means from the infant’s perspective its mother is treating it with real love, with unconditional selflessness. The infant’s brain is, therefore, being trained or indoctrinated or inscribed with unconditional selflessness and so, with enough training in unconditional selflessness, that infant will grow into an adult who behaves unconditionally selflessly.’ It appears selfish maternalism can train an infant in altruistic selflessness. This is simply amazing, and the proof of our fundamental goodness and moral self or compass based on gene-based learning, or ‘Love-Indoctrination’ process over millions of years supported by primate studies and fossil evidence in chapters 5 and 6 blew my mind. Living evidence is the highly intelligent, peaceful, and extremely nurturing primate species Bonobos, used to be called Pygmy Chimpanzees but now a distinct species and our closest living relative.Freedom also provides insights into many human phenomena such as: The psychological event of ‘Resignation’ at teenage (chapter 2); False savage instinct excuse (chapter 2); The Integrative Meaning of Life based on the principle of Negative Entropy (chapter 4); How, when and why humans became fully conscious while other animals got blocked from developing full consciousness (chapter 7); ‘Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny’ in the stages of humanity’s maturation (chapter 8); How understanding solves the human condition and creates a path to transformation (chapter 9). Jeremy Griffith also makes sense of the conflicted men-women relationship; racial & religious discrimination; misinterpretation of human nature by the left and right in politics; demystifies mythology, religion, and God; and explains how reconciliation and transformation is possible by understanding the biological origins of our upset.The biologist convincingly reveals that, the involvement of our species’ fully conscious thinking mind in our daily affairs and self-management demonstrates that there is a psychological dimension to our behavior; that we do not suffer from a genetic-opportunism-based, non-psychological ‘ANIMAL CONDITION’, but a conscious-mind-based, psychologically troubled ‘HUMAN CONDITION’ making us the sufferer of an underlying insecurity and resulting psychosis. However, the wonderful news in Freedom from para. 290 is that ‘Finding understanding of the human condition is what rehabilitates and transforms the human race from its psychologically upset angry, egocentric and alienated condition.’ In my opinion the insights and understanding from Freedom can finally clear up all misunderstanding and confusion about ourselves and fellow humans, leading to reconciliation of races and religions, left and right in politics, old and young, men and women, etc., etc., and end our psychologically troubled human condition.So, I strongly recommend this important book because it impressed me and gave me positive experience as follows:… Understanding that our species original instinctive orientation was to live in a psychosis-free, peaceful, and harmonious state of cooperation, love, and selflessness. Babies are born with instinctive expectation and need of unconditional love, but human condition affected adults fails to provide that unintentionally. And knowing the biological origins of our conflicted state and its reason cleared up many confusions, self-doubts and a feeling of uncertainty. It appears the focus must be on becoming more secure and settled within us and make nurturing a priority.… A huge sense of relief that genetically we are not bad or evil with false savage instincts, but all humans are fundamentally good with a true gene-based nurtured unconditionally selfless moral instincts. This makes me feel more secure and settled in myself.… A better understanding of myself and others from understanding the root cause of human condition. And appreciating the chapters on “The psychological event of ‘Resignation’ (in teenagers); Consciousness (How, when and why humans became fully conscious while other animals got blocked from developing full consciousness); Stages of humanity’s maturation and Integrative Meaning of Existence based on the principle of Negative Entropy gives me a sense of reconciliation and inner calm.… A convincing feeling that “UNDERSTANDING” will end our human condition, reconcile Science & Spirituality/Religion and we humans can transform and shift our attitude towards cooperation and integration not based on pressure or dogmatic propaganda but through conscious understanding. This is giving me a sense of purpose and integrative meaning or existence.

This book is a must read, it is the answer to all the questions and it is the liberating truth that the world needs. This book to me is a grounded scientific approach to the way humans are and to me it makes perfect and logical sense. I would recommend this book without hesitation. My interpretation of the book and the author is that it was written with the kindest and best intentions. This author has found, through his extensive years of research, information that can help the human race and he is presenting it to us through his book. So wether you don't like the grammar or the repetition, surely anyone who is a bit fair dinkum can see through this and realise there is some beautiful and liberating information there for the taking. I mean far out who doesn't want to fix the world and all the upset?!!!No one can deny the fact that the world is a mess (to say the least). Apart from the obvious atrocities of terrorism, murder, rape, etc. the human race has reached a whole new level of self preoccupation. Who could ever imagine that we would live in a world so full of self promotion and attention seeking where "selfies" are the norm and the amount of "likes" you receive on Facebook determines how popular you are. We are so preoccupied with reinforcement and proving self worth. Watching the news, I often become completely numb to the obvious fact that the world is such a mess because to ponder on this issue too much sends me into a spiral of depression. And even worse if I begin to look at the imperfections within myself! And so I distract myself with goals of being the best at my profession and winning awards to make myself feel better. This provides temporary relief but id be lying if I said it fixes things. That's where this book really helped me. I have come across many self help books and seen many Ted talks about "how to be happy" (the fact that humans need these is itself a testimony to Mr Griffith's information). Nothing helps me the way that "Freedom" does in terms of understanding the world. It's raw truthful words are so relieving and dignifying that I cry every time I read it. As the author explains, after millions of years and generations of resignation and avoiding the truth (which was all necessary by the way), this book can be quite confronting and hard to digest. As mentioned in another review on this page, the author does repeat his concepts a number of times throughout the book. But instead of interpreting this as a negative, I find it helpful for me to digest the concept. I often have to re read paragraphs because I tend to block it out due to its raw truthfulness. I think the repetition really helps me absorb the ideas. When I get through my mental block out I realise this information is so unbelievably true and explains all human situations. I think if people push through this resistance to the information, this book is ultimately the most liberating bit of information you will ever be exposed to! It is such a relief that someone is FINALLY addressing the human state in such a pure and truthful way. Fixing the human condition must come from understanding and I believe Mr Griffith has found this understanding.As a young person (25) growing up in a world where adults avoid your questions, it is so utterly amazing to have someone finally speaking truthfully to you. As a teenager your screaming out for answers. You lock yourself in your room and listen to music because it's too hard to understand why things are so messed up and why you aren't perfect. And then you give up and you adopt the adult "everything is fine" way of living which is often so full of pretence and shallow conversations. This book explains all that! It explains men and woman and their relationships, it explains the obsession with body images, it explains depression, it explains animal cruelty, it explains all your questions about humans! And it explains why all that was so necessary! But now we don't have to be like that anymore. We can put down our false pretences and we can be REAL again! I just hope that other young people can get a hold of this book because it really does explain life in a way that lifts the weight off your shoulders. Please give this book a chance, it has helped me beyond words and even more importantly it can help humanity.