Dambrot S M
fundamental factor that is invariably undefined yet implicitly or explicitly assumed to be an unchanging and unchangeable constant. HUMAN NATURE This is curious, in that the creators of said scenarios appear to be all about change, be they Singularitarians, Transhumanists, scientists, technologists, philosophers, or any other of the countless labels with which we describe ourselves to both ourselves and the world-at-large. Moreover, this cognitive bias is perhaps most pronounced in those scenarios concerned with post-scarcity economies, in which goods, services and information are universally accessible without the need for capital or its exchange in order to produce and acquire said goods, services and information. This chapter will examine the evolutionary neurobiology of what we experience and perceive as human nature 2 – the thesis being that as we learn more about the human brain and learn how to modify ourselves using a range of methods and techniques, human nature will take its rightful place amongst all other aspects of physical reality that we have studied, understood and modified. This shift in perspective will then form the cognitive foundation of a new approach to constructing a post-scarcity / post-capital scenario that is no longer bound to attitudes and behavior long and erroneously held to be inviolate. Human Nature: Fixed or Flexible? In general, we appear to understand what is meant by human nature, accepting the term as if it refers to well-defined and permanent aspect of our existence. As the above quote demonstrates, this unquestioned assumption is independent of intellect, education and imagination, being more akin to religious belief in its unquestioned adherence to the axiom that human nature is, in Einstein’ s words,“ fixed and unalterable.” While the concept that human nature is constant is understandable when viewed as an inference based on observing historically recurrent patterns in human behavior( which are amplified versions of behaviors