“Intelligent designer”
Wright expounds, “We were “designed” by natural selection to do certain things that helped our ancestors to get their genes into the next generation-things like eating, having sex, earning the esteem of other people, and outdoing rivals…natural selection isn’t a conscious, intelligent designer but an unconscious process.” The metaphorical ‘intelligent designer’ underscores the role that natural selection plays in creating humanity’s unconscious desires. The intelligent designer increases humanity’s odds of survival. Humanity strives to attain the unconscious yearnings that have been inbuilt in humans by natural selection processes.
"The Way"
Wright states, “Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” Well, with evolutionary psychology I felt I had found the truth. But manifestly, I had not found the way. Which was enough to make me wonder about thing Jesus said: that the truth will set you free. I felt I had seen the basic truth about human nature, and I saw more clearly than ever how various illusions imprisoned me, but this truth wasn’t amount to a Get Out of Jail Free card.” Jesus, as the way, results in absolute salvation; similarly, ‘evolutionary psychology’ results in the way of discerning the effects of illusions and their effect on humanity. Wright’s recognition of the potency of ‘evolution psychology’ drives him to explore Western Buddhism and its role in liberating humanity from illusions.
'Red Pill'
Wright confirms, "Still, using meditation this way isn't, by itself, taking the red pill. Taking the red pill means asking basic questions about the relationship of the perceiver to outlooks and examining the underpinnings of our normal view of reality. If you're thinking seriously about taking the red pill, you'll be curious as to whether the Buddhist view of the world “works” not just in a therapeutic sense but in a more philosophical sense.” The metaphoric ‘red pill’ is drawn from The Matrix. The pill denotes reality. Taking the pill permits one to shift from the illusory world into reality. The pill enables one to establish the difference between illusion and reality. Meditation is a component of the red pill that serves the function of deconstructing one's perception of reality.
“Self as an Illusion”
Wright notes, “And then there is the famous Buddhist idea that the self-you know, your self, my self-is an illusion. In this view, the “you” that you think of as thinking your thoughts, feeling your feelings, and making your decisions doesn’t really exist.” Equating “Self” to an illusion implies that life is empty, Due to the emptiness; humanity is prone to delusions which they anticipate would fill their emptiness. Nevertheless, exploration of illusions hardly fills the emptiness of human beings.
Cousin
Wright elucidates, “But just as I seriously doubt that I’m the only human with feelings, I seriously doubt that my species is the only species with feelings. I suspect that when my cousin the chimpanzee writhes in seeming pain, it is writhing in actual pain, And if, from chimpanzees, you go down the ladder of behavioural complexity-down to wolves, lizards, even jellyfish, and (what the hell) bacteria-I don’t see an obvious place to stop assuming that there are feelings.”
Wright cites the case of chimpanzees to expound on the evolutionary nature of feelings. Chimpanzees, who are related to humanity in the context of the theory of evolution, experience feelings which can either be positive or negative. Natural selection, which dictates feelings, impact on the decisions that organism make. The decisions are geared towards attaining pleasurable feelings.
