This is the online draft of my new book "THE DECLINE OF MIND: THE MODERN DEVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN BRAIN."

My thesis is:  almost every aspect of our "modern" way of life serves to undercut the integrity of the human mind, and its physical repository the human brain, most recently our aggressive embrace and development of A.I., so-called Artificial Intelligence, by which pursuit we now, ourselves, actively collaborate in a more explicit and advanced stage of this destruction of the mind and brain, the harms of A.I. so numerous and severe. The only pertinent questions now are precisely how, and when, will the human brain revert fully or mostly back to its earlier, pre-homo sapiens form? And, what will happen to the human race, then?

"Brain health is a critical aspect of human well-being, affecting cognitive abilities, socioemotional stability, and overall quality of life (World Health Organization, 2022). However, the growing prevalence of brain disorders is taking a steep economic toll. Mental health disorders alone are estimated to cost the global economy $5 trillion per year, and this is projected to rise to $16 trillion by 2030 (Arias et al., 2022; Bloom et al., 2011). Similarly, every year, dementia costs the global economy more than $1.3 trillion, a value that is set to increase to $2.8 trillion by 2030 (World Health Organization, 2023b)."

"Brain health plays an increasingly critical role in an economy predicated on "Brain Capital" (which encompasses an individual's social, emotional, and cognitive resources) (Smith et al., 2021; World Health Organization, 2023a). Global economies are becoming increasingly dependent on Brain Capital, whereby a premium is placed on brain skills (both cognitive and non-cognitive) and brain health (Lundbeck, 2023). This is particularly true in the context of accelerating AI advances which are disrupting and replacing lower-skilled tasks (Eyre et al., 2023)."

(https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-global-brain-capital-dashboard)

Shifts in global society that weaken the human brain such as delineated above, are now initiating a period in human history when it's likely that the large brain that homo sapiens has evolved that has made us king of all species, is starting a long slide back to its smaller, primitive caveman form.

As this happens, humanity will slowly cease to be what it is, the dominant species, leaving us increasingly vulnerable along the way to injury or even extinction, either by internecine conflict that we have become too stupid to prevent or redress, or domination by other species, possibly including extraterrestrial, if they exist. Most scientists assert such existence likely.

Probable only solution:  meaningful redress of the above factors, with alacrity, meaning quick global consensus favoring a world 1.) materially and technologically simpler in every way, with 2.) a smaller population, 3.) operating under a behavioral ethic of cooperation, at least, and outright "brotherly love," at best, in essentially full contradistinction, in my view, with the injurious bases upon which the world operates today:  profit and ego.

In other words, in the view of this writer, it is modernity itself, or humankind's present version of it, that is responsible for all or most ill-health, including that of the brain. You'll note that the ten factors, above, identified as causing injury to the brain, a single though singular organ, are precisely the same factors, in whole or part, commonly identified as injurious to other human organs or our human organism, that is, our human body as a whole.

I wouldn't be worth a hill of beans to you, and to my society national and global, if, as a philosopher, I didn't go where the ideas led me, identifying both the etiology, or cause, and remediation, or redress, of human ill-health, especially regarding the brain, the subject of this book. The ideas that emerge victorious, upon serious examination and deep reflection, are the ones that I espouse, including those having fallen out of favor with the public.

The first factor, above, emotional stress, includes A.) every kind of conflict with other human beings, from marital infidelity to war, and B.) financial and economic stress.

To redress #1, above: recommendation for elimination of capitalism or any social mechanism that artificially (i.e. without genuine social need) drives production and consumption, in favor of either libertarian socialism (see the work of this writer, BROTHERHOOD OF MAN (site re-upload underway); Daniel DeLeon; Erich Fromm, Et al.), or libertarian social democracy, that is, capitalism with a large welfare state but without oppressive government control. To redress #3, above: see Vincent Frank De Benedetto, this writer, ("Love, Properly Understood"), Erich Fromm ("The Art of Loving"), Martin Luther King Jr. ("Beloved Community"), Charles E. Hansen ("The Technology of Love"), Et al.

Some of these ideas, thinkers, and writers are unknown to the majority of Americans, but if one wants to traverse and settle new territory one needs new maps and new human guides. I would also point out that most Americans, for that matter, really aren't even familiar with the writing and philosophies of our vaunted American thinkers like Thomas Jefferson or Thomas Paine. Moreover, I advocate no idea that is opposed to the best of our American program and philosophy, including political freedom and civil liberties, specifically, freedoms such as thought, speech, assembly, and religion. In fact, the new paradigm apparently needed now even includes a freedom not afforded us in our present for-profit, ego-driven world: economic freedom, that is, the freedom to control our work and remuneration, though in the most advanced version of this new paradigm there is no traditional remuneration like money; it's simply unnecessary. Our human community, family, even (the term "society": obsolete) will have advanced beyond the need for slips of paper to survive and flourish.

Operation

Specifically, though briefly, provision and availability of goods and services under this paradigm (notice the shift in nomenclature from "products" to "goods") would operate thusly:  goods and services would be freely taken, in accord with need by a population of persons imbued with Love for each other, everybody loving everybody, and thus working hard each day in accord with their (ever-developing) capacities for the purpose of providing for each other. The baker bakes for everyone, the doctor heals for everyone, the bus driver drives for everyone, the teacher teaches for everyone, the furniture maker makes furniture for everyone, the computer programmer programs for everyone, and in this reciprocal, token-free manner all needs are elegantly and cooperatively filled.

And such a paradigm also obviously offers us, if we wish to include it, a more robust, manifold morality than a strict capitalist society generally advocates or could ever tolerate, to wit, my argument that the principle of "Brotherly Love" will be required for the new society to function in the morally and technically elevated manner that we want, and require, as just sketched in the briefest of terms.

"Love, properly understood," my writing tagline asserts, "is the most powerful social force available to humankind," perhaps a rough social analogue to the "governing dynamics" of the world of mathematics so intensively sought by mathematician John Nash, at least as represented in the remarkable film A Beautiful Mind.

Continuing: if the paradigm eliminating capitalism is not favored, we can achieve our vital solution to preserve health, generally, and the health of the brain, specifically, through the preservation of a for-profit society, with a far greater social framework around it, commonly known in political philosophy as social democracy. Under such a system the chaotic, free-for-all style of sale and distribution of products and services that we suffer under now would shift, and distribution of same would not occur until human safety was firmly established--thus preventing in the first place the harms to brain health that occur routinely and ubiquitously under our present system. This paradigm could work provided the principle of Agape was firmly and formally in place, so that economic producers would cooperate with, and, indeed, themselves, advocate the necessarily longer time periods required to bring their products and services to market, because they'd acutely know and feel the moral imperative, ala' the rationale Dr. King advanced for the likelihood of moral behavior in his Beloved Community.

I assert that human beings, in the main, are little more than "smart monkeys," reflected in our inadequate choices in regard to our most foundational questions, such as: "What is our basic relationship to be with each other?" Our de facto answers have been altogether immature and insufficient, and thus has Humanity crippled itself. Can you say Ukraine? Gaza? George Floyd? Twin Towers? Slavery? the Holocaust? the Crusades? ...and innumerable transgressions, violations, injuries, and slights before, after, and in-between committed by we humans--against we, humans.

While our de facto (informal, unofficial, and ad hoc) answers to the foundational questions of Humanity have been generally deplorable, our de jure (formal, official, and planned) answers have been somewhat better, evidenced by the generally high ideals and standards for behavior of many or most of our religious and philosophical belief systems. But even there Humanity lacks because how many of us actually follow the rules and guidelines of our religious and philosophical belief systems?

In view, then, of this substandard way that Humanity has so far organized and conducted, itself, in regard to health, brain health, and simply everything else, do I soberly and plaintively intone: "I need to believe that something extraordinary is possible." (adopted from the film A Beautiful Mind). And I do elect to believe it.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Artificial Intelligence creates at least seven of what I term hazard or "harm streams." It is an explicit threat to the human mind and brain, as well as, arguably, the very continued existence of humanity, itself, and must thus be dramatically curbed.

This section pending. For now, please see my extensive remarks interspersed throughout this web site.

Vicious Psych-cle

My "Under Construction" content is probably more relevant, interesting, profound, and thought-provoking than the completed and polished writing of most other writers.

The inactualization of the human mind, among its many deleterious consequences, carries one, in particular, of arguably greatest, and indeed overwhelming, significance, that simply continues to elude our full and proper attention. It is the most critical behavioral principal that is, and likely ever will be, available to Humankind, "Brotherly Love,"* the immutable socio-philosophical and socio-existential cornerstone with and upon which Humankind could build a near-perfect speciel edifice, that would almost certainly endure through the ages.

*Agape (ugg op' ay), in the language of Greek philosophy.

In bio-philosophy I'm talking about a biological information conduit and the desired nature of the information that would traverse its pathways.

In broader terms we can speak of the global brain, all human brains working in defined or loose ways as possessing and providing the conduit for the transmission of the desired information. The New York Times of May 09, 2024 reports that the lonely brain, that is, a brain chronically apart from other brains, suffers in structure and function, suggesting not merely the credibility or reality of the theory of the global brain, but perhaps even its necessity. In terms of establishing the reality of the global brain one need only educate themselves to see the reality and hence the desirability of my theory of the desirability of the connectedness or connection between Americans.

About

I'm VINCENT FRANK DE BENEDETTO, pioneering political philosopher; writer; social scientist; polymath; journalist; neologist; musician (site restoration pending); Agape Master and Guide, & much more.

An AGAPE MASTER is one thoroughly versed in, and deeply committed to, the principal and practice of Agape (ugg op' ay), that is, brotherly love in the language of Greek philosophy.

Contact me!

HELPERS NETWORK

I offer this book free, as I offer all my work, as a participant in, and in my case the founder of, the nascent HELPERS NETWORK, a cooperative enterprise by which we provide our work free to everyone, and they provide their work free to us, no matter what it is, from a poem to a palace, and in this way, as you can readily see, we can provide mutually and cooperatively for ourselves, for all human needs and wants, with no requirement for money or capital, as is necessary now by the economically and certainly morally obsolete system of capitalism.

Specifically, we provide our work free to 1.) enrich ourselves as a polity, species, and human family by providing ourselves access to the goods and services that we need, while 2.) demonstrating to ourselves and others that a cutting-edge modern society absolutely DOES NOT NEED A MECHANISM CALLED "MONEY," AS IT IS OBSOLETE, SUPERFLUOUS, ALIENATING, AND UNNATURAL.

We have simply reached a stage in human history where we can do much better than our present paradigm of money and ego as the twin bases upon which society operates. Love, properly understood, now easily forms the basis for all human interaction, systems, and processes, including the operation of an entire modern global economy, in a new social form I call THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN, that generally operates under the seminal and sagacious guideline: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs," likely first introduced to the world in the Christian New Testament in the Acts of the Apostles as "...distribution was made unto every man according as he had need."

This is humankind's most advanced social principle, in every respect, most notably morally and economically, and represents the future of humankind. It is this or it is nothing. In fact, one of our greatest Americans, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., referred to his similar paradigm as "The Beloved Community."

Please read, reread, and then start your lifelong study of my Magnum Opus under development "Love, Properly Understood: the Most Powerful Social Force Available to Humankind." Read it, learn it, live it, promote it, even teach it, if you feel capable! Then watch your own life, and the world around you, improve dramatically!

And click for your free download of the most up-to-date draft of THE DECLINE OF MIND, another of my books under development, at whose website you presently reside, since this site, itself, aspires to summarize and only briefly represents the topic, but isn't the book, itself, and contains very little content. My free downloadable draft, however, contains the full current manuscript; although without polish or organization, you'll still be receiving much more of my content (in Microsoft Word XP/2002 .doc format). This more complete draft includes extensive thought-leading assessment, analysis, and social deconstruction of Artificial Intelligence, the present A.I. craze, and the other elements characteristic of the modern world that are serving, especially in concert, to compromise the human mind and brain.

NOTE: the aforementioned download is pending. For now, please see my extensive sections on A.I. that are interspersed throughout my presidential website. This content is extremely substantive, and will permit you to dip a toe into the water of these disturbing topical subjects, and get you thinking.

Last, brothers and sisters, please provide financial or task support for my work, as it is absolutely critical, intended to literally save humankind and the world, in the only way, and using the only appropriate tool, Love, properly understood, that could effect such large-scale change.

We live in a world of pain of every kind--but this is absolutely unnecessary. This contradiction, waste of personal and social resources, and intractable impediment to personal and social actualization, in other words becoming our very best, are the ugly realities that my work intends to free us from.

But I can't do it, alone!