The Theory of Psychological Survival
The following essay puts forth the theory of Psychological Survival. This theory seeks to unify perspectives from psychology and philosophy to explain the basis of human behavior. This theory uses Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs as a conceptual framework and draws from various disciplines of thought for theoretical support. In attempt to draw a conclusion about human nature, the theory of Psychological Survival first outlines the basis of human behavior and then describes the role of consciousness as it relates to behavior.
In 1943, an American psychologist named Abraham Maslow, proposed a comprehensive theory to explain behavior. Maslow argued that human behavior is motivated by a set of inherent needs. These needs, categorized into a hierarchy, represent five conditions which all humans can inhabit. He coined these conditions, ‘The Hierarchy of Needs’ (Maslow, 1943). Certain aspects of Maslow’s Hierarchy will be useful in describing the theory of Psychological Survival and others will need to be amended to satisfy the theory in full.
Physiological Survival
The first two levels of Maslow’s Hierarchy represent physiological needs, those which humans cannot survive without (i.e., oxygen, water, food, and physical safety). These needs stem from the organism’s most natural desire to survive on a biological level. When in a state of dire physiological need, the human cannot will itself toward any other goal besides physiological safety (for now, we will not be concerned with sacrificial or suicidal acts as these are exceptions to the rule). This assumption seems reasonable given what we know about life on Earth. If life did not prioritize survival in every moment, life would likely not exist. This remains true across all scopes of life and whether an organism is simple, complex, conscious, or not conscious. As Maslow argues, only once physiological needs have been met, can the human move up the hierarchy to a more ‘desirable’ level of existence.
Similar interpretations were put forth by the Austrian psychologist, Sigmund Freud. Freud is best known for founding psychoanalysis, a medical treatment that seeks to uncover unconscious inflictions that manifest themselves as ‘neuroses’ (Freud, 1920). Through psychoanalysis, Freud developed an extensive theory of human behavior which focused on childhood as the basis from which all behavior is rooted. Children, he argued, develop an ‘obsessional neurosis’ which force them to act selfishly to sustain their own life. The development of this selfish mental faculty, also called ‘the Ego’, is imperative for the child to survive their “venture into the hostile world” (Freud, 1930). This selfishness becomes less obvious as the child ages because the Ego becomes adept at taking care of the child. Despite an improved ability to mask its selfishness, the Ego maintains an ‘obsessional neurosis’ throughout adulthood, giving highest priority to physiological survival.
Modern psychology considers survival not only the basis for behavior, but for cognition. James Nairne argues that human cognition (e.g., perception, memory, attention) has been designed to process information based on its relevance to survival. The memory system, for example, prioritizes the encoding and consolidation of fitness-related information, making that information more memorable in the future than non-fitness-related information. This effect persists whether survival content is processed consciously or unconsciously (Nairne, Thompson, & Pandeirada, 2007; Nairne & Pandeirada, 2008). Nairne argues that because humans evolved to perpetuate their bloodlines, cognitive processes have been naturally selected to interpret information in survival terms.
As evidenced above, humans are inherently bred to survive. Maslow, Freud, and Nairne all argue that human behavior is motivated to sustain life. In addition, the human mind itself seems fundamentally tuned toward processing information to preserve existence. Whether behavior is motivated toward life or away from death, persistence in life remains the most fundamental aspect of what it means to be human.
Psychological Survival
It follows that humans can only begin to prioritize other aspects of life once physiological needs have been met. The next priority, specified in Maslow’s Hierarchy, is the need to obtain psychological satisfaction. According to Maslow, this is the need to obtain a sense of belonging within a family or social group. Maslow argues that social acceptance is very important for the human, especially as it is concerned with the need to be loved. The need for love is particularly important in childhood. When children do not receive love from others, those children are likely to become depressed, distraught, and even dysfunctional (Runyan, Wattam, Ikeda, Hassan, & Ramiro, 2002). Freud also studied the psychological consequences of withholding love from a child. He argued that if a child does not receive the love which they desire, there can be serious consequences later in life (Freud, 1933). According to Freud, the child’s ‘Id’, or mental energy that motivates behavior, forms around sources of love. Once the child learns to receive love in a certain way, it will behave similarly to elicit love in the future. When a child cries, for example, the child receives physical and emotional comfort. The child learns that crying elicits love, and thus, uses crying as a means of satisfying its psychological needs.
The pursuit of love is a main pillar of the current theory of Psychological Survival. Throughout life, the goal of the human is to seek love. Obsession with love originates in childhood as the initial means of survival, first, to satisfy physiological needs (crying to gain satisfaction through nourishment) and second, to satisfy psychological needs (crying to gain satisfaction through comfort). In this sense, survival is dependent upon the acquisition of love in whichever form it may inhabit. According to the current theory, the pursuit of love is the foundation of all human behavior. If a human does not pursue love, the human is likely to die, or at least become unfit for reproduction—a form of death from an evolutionary perspective. Thus, all human behavior can be explained by the pursuit of love in a physiological and psychological sense.
Culturally and societally, humans have been taught that love is a scarce resource. This is the reason love is pursued indefinitely. Through experience, humans learn that the easiest way to find love is through their physical environment, whether it be from another person, an external experience, or a material object. The Ego, which Freud defined as the mediating apparatus between the Id (instinctual desires), and the Superego (moral code), is employed with finding love in every moment. The Ego is the mental faculty that seeks to obtain immediate gratification as desired by the Id and societal perfection as desired by the Superego. Finding love that will satisfy both psychic energies in a single instant is impossible, as the desires of the Id and the Superego directly oppose each other (e.g., stealing as opposed to buying). Despite this conflict, the Ego’s role is to satisfy the desires of the psyche as best as possible. The Ego perceives its ability to keep the human alive as dependent on its ability to find love for the psyche. The human would be dead if the Ego did not satisfy its physiological needs, so why would the case be any different for the human’s psychological needs?
The current theory of Psychological Survival uses Freud’s theory of the psyche to explain the mind. The mind, here, is defined as the subjective experience of the Ego satisfying the desires of the Id and Superego. Thought, is merely our awareness of the Ego maintaining the psyche. To further explain, it may be useful to draw from Plato’s theory of the Tripartite Soul. In the Republic, Plato describes the soul as consisting of three distinct parts that exist together to form the psyche. Plato defines the soul similarly to how Freud defines the psyche, with ‘Appetitive’ (the Id), ‘Spirited’ (the Superego), and ‘Rational’ (the Ego) components. Although Plato’s Tripartite Soul is functionally different than Freud’s Psyche, the two seem to explain the same faculties in theory. After all, Plato likens the Tripartite Soul to a chariot driver (the Rational component) being forced to rein its horses (the Appetitive and Spirited components) as it rides. Interestingly, Plato describes the Tripartite Soul as an internal conflict:
“Is there something in the soul of those who are thirsty but refuse to drink, something bidding them to drink and something different, something forbidding them, that overrides the thing that bids them to drink? And doesn't the thing that forbids in such cases come into play, if it comes into play, as a result of calculation, while what drives and drags them to drink is a result of feelings and desires? Hence isn't it right for us to claim that they are two, and different from one another?” (Plato’s Republic).
Here, Plato is discussing the conflict of the Tripartite Soul. He posits that a desire to act in one direction is often counteracted by the desire to act in another. This conflict exists because one experiences thought as the desire of the psyche, which, as mentioned above, is at odds with itself. The Appetitive desire wills the human to drink water because of thirst, the Spirited desire wills the human not to drink to show strength, and the Rational desire wills the human to reach a practical consensus. This conflict drives Plato to assert that the ‘soul’ is not one entity:
“It is obvious that the same thing will never do or suffer opposites in the same respect in relation to the same thing and at the same time. So that if ever we find this happening we shall know that it was not the same thing but a plurality” (Plato’s Republic).
Plato’s description of the soul is, in theory, our experience of the mind. Whether a desire manifests itself as thought or as feeling predicated by thought, our experience of desire is a product of the mind. This is the reason people often experience conflict in their lives: they are caught in the middle of divergent desires manifesting themselves as thoughts and feelings. Moreover, because thoughts and feelings constitute the subjective experience of cognition, it becomes difficult to discern how to think or feel in any given moment. This exact conflict is reflected brilliantly in René Descartes’s, Meditations. Here, we witness Descartes thinking as rationally as possible while remaining circular and inconclusive in his arguments. Often, Descartes uses God to justify his reasoning when his thoughts do not lead to logical conclusions (Descartes, 2013). Thought will perpetually justify itself depending on whichever aspect of the psyche is in charge at that moment. It is not surprising that the greatest philosophers of western society have written about the conflicting nature of thought. Conflict, after all, is the very nature of the mind.
Humans have come to believe that their mind (thoughts and feelings) reflects desire. The mind, however, has different desires than the human itself. The mind’s only desire is to find love. This remains true even when the desire to find love overcomes the desire to live. Most obvious examples of this contradiction can be seen in situations where destructive behavior is justified as desirable (e.g., victims of drug abuse, domestic violence, suicide). How can a human admit wanting something that directly contradicts their will to survive? To answer, destructive behavior is justified by the mind because that behavior is a source of love for the mind. A drug or abusive partner can become a source from which the mind learns to elicit love. The mind will continue to elicit love in the same manner by producing the same behavior (much like a child crying for comfort). Astonishingly, the mind can also become a source of love for itself. In the case of depression, for example, the mind acquires love by thinking negatively about itself. To think negatively of oneself, in this instance, becomes an incredibly strong desire of the mind. Ultimately, the same mechanism which is employed to keep the human alive becomes the same mechanism which seeks to satisfy its own, sometimes destructive, desires. Once physiological safety has been realized, the mind begins to believe that it now exists to keep the human alive by finding love for the psyche. This, however, is an illusion of the mind. The importance of the Ego becomes an illusion created by the Ego to maintain the need for survival. Survival, in this instance, becomes the survival of the Ego, not the survival of the organism. From the Ego’s perspective, without itself, the human will die. The Ego, after all, protects the human from death. If the Ego protects the human from death, what would happen to the human if the Ego ceased to exist? Critically, the Ego does not realize that the human can exist without awareness of the Ego.
The Ego’s attempt to acquire love for the human remains futile because the human does not require psychological love (perhaps, beyond childhood). Once the physiological needs of the human have been met, the Ego is not required. Similarly, beyond physiological safety, the human desires nothing. The human has no intentions, desires, or beliefs; these are merely the antics of a mind that has learned to acquire love in the past by intending, desiring, and believing. Belief, intention, and desire are products of the mind, and thus, are all sources of love for the mind. Just as someone may acquire love from drinking soda another may acquire love from having strong beliefs about soda. Any mental activity that exists to keep the mind believing that it exists, is an illusion. Even when stripped away from external sources, the mind will pursue love by engaging mental processes to remember the past or visualize the future. The mind may reminisce about a past lover, a lost friend, or imagine how good life will be in the future, all with the purpose of satisfying itself psychologically. Unfortunately, the Ego believes that its efforts are forever required, and will pursue psychological love endlessly. Sadly, this pursuit has the potential to inflict serious harm upon other organisms, the earth, and the host itself.
This is where the theory of Psychological Survival gets its name. For the most part, humanity experiences consciousness from a state of psychological survival. If the Ego is left in charge of a human, it will drive its host to pursue immediate gratification to stay alive. Once the Ego finds a source of love, it derives ephemeral pleasure, and then continues searching without ever becoming satisfied. This endless dissatisfaction leads many people to believe that they are unhappy with their lives. Western philosophers have famously commented on this phenomenon. Kierkegaard says that “unhappiness is written in the script of life” and that unhappiness is an inevitable part of being human (Kierkegaard, 2004). Heidegger speaks about “the fallen-ness” of people who search for satisfaction outside of themselves and follow the incessant “chatter” of society without ever obtaining happiness (Heidegger, 1996). This may also be what Plato meant when he spoke on the negative consequences of letting oneself be “pulled by their emotions” (Plato’s Republic), and what Nietzsche meant when he said, “God is dead” (Nietzsche, 2010). The inability to remove oneself from their thoughts has been the major cause of unhappiness for the human and for its species. Fortunately, unhappiness is an illusion as is the mind itself.
Self-Transcendence
It is only through psychological death that a human can obtain true happiness. Once one realizes that thoughts are an illusion created by the mind, they realize that their sense of self is also an illusion created by the mind. This awareness allows the mind to absolve itself because it realizes that it is not needed to keep the human happy. Kierkegaard echoes this concept beautifully when he says, “to have faith is to lose your mind and win God” (Kierkegaard, 2013). In this respect, ‘winning God’ requires one to take a leap of faith into psychological death, or, as the Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou calls it, “the no-self” (Cai, 1992). Heidegger alludes to this idea when he speaks about humans needing to overcome ‘Das Nichts,’ or, the nothing. Only once we overcome our “thrown-ness” into the world, he writes, can we understand our true authenticity (Heidegger, 1996). To maintain happiness is to maintain awareness that one is not a self but merely the space for a self to exist. As Schopenhauer put it, “life is a constant process of dying” (Jacquette, 2000).
Maintenance of this awareness is dependent solely on realizing a state of Presence every moment. Eckhart Tolle discusses the importance of doing so in his book, The Power of Now (Tolle, 2010). Presence is the cornerstone of many spiritual teachings and is, arguably, the aspect which unites all of religion and spirituality. Presence, as used here, is the state of awareness in which the space of the self becomes distinct from the mind of the self. It is the realization that the present moment is the only mental state that truly exists. All mental activity surrounding Presence is an illusion maintained by the mind to avoid Presence. For the Ego, a state of Presence offers the only way to obtain pure psychological satisfaction. Unfortunately, the Ego can never obtain Presence because obtaining Presence requires psychological death. For this reason, the Ego can only exist in, what Eckhart Tolle calls, psychological time, or, the mental past and future (Tolle, 2010). The Ego can, of course, gather knowledge about Presence, but it can never truly understand it or experience it. The mind can only exist within a state of psychological survival. Only once the mind has been absolved from its psychological duties, can Presence be established within the human. Presence, therefore, can only be realized once the individual has become physiologically sound (biologically safe) and psychologically sound (aware without the mind).
At the top of his Hierarchy of Needs, Maslow establishes a tier which resembles that of Presence. He calls this tier “self-transcendence” (Maslow, 1954). For this reason, the current theory of Psychological Survival adopts Maslow’s Hierarchy but amends it to consider only three tiers: physiological needs, psychological needs, and self-transcendence. In this way, the human is only able to exist in one of three mental states. Any behavior, therein, can be explained as movement between tiers. Although behavior can be described by the transition between tiers, the sole purpose of the human is to advance into the highest tier. This is the optimal state of the human. Plato discusses a similar state when he references ‘eudaimonia’, or, human flourishing. Heidegger refers to this state as ‘Das Sien,’ or, the being (Heidegger, 1996). Even Nietzsche may allude to this state when he describes the ‘Übermensch’, or, the state of super-human quality (Nietzsche, 2016). Once one is able rise above the self (the illusion of the mind), they can embody their best and truest form. Carl Jung describes the adoption of this form as ‘individuation’ (William, 1980). By disbanding the Ego, the individual can live in a higher plane of existence—one that the theory of Psychological Survival defines as true consciousness. True consciousness, in this sense, is nothing more than existence realizing existence.
Once the human has become truly conscious, the human has found an unlimited source of love. Here, love is derived from the acceptance of existence. Because the human is removed from its mind, it realizes that there is no meaning in life other than to be. The human has become aware of its oneness with the Universe. The human’s liberation from psychological survival offers a new form of existence—one not in pursuit of love, but saturated with love. At this point, the human realizes that it is nothing but love itself. The human can now exist within a communal form of consciousness—a collective state of love that has evolved beyond a state of psychological survival. The agenda of the conscious human becomes the sacrifice of the illusion of self in service to the human species. From an evolutionary perspective, the behavior of the individual becomes adaptive because it provides the best means to promote the survival of the species. Once the individual rises above its own psychological survival, the human can finally understand itself, its species, and its purpose. As Plato states:
“The soul is like the eye: when resting upon that on which truth and being shine, the soul perceives and understands, and is radiant with intelligence” (Plato’s Republic).
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