Archaic Neurograms / Obsolete Neural Scripts

Why do we keep applying the same solutions to problems those same solutions created? Why do we always seek individual culprits for systemic problems? Why do we privilege immediate advantages even when we know they'll destroy our future possibilities?

The answer isn't stupidity or malice. It's that our species still operates through archaic neurograms—evolutionary neural patterns we'll also call obsolete neural scripts to make them more accessible. They're the same thing: automatic cognitive programs developed 200,000 years ago for a world that no longer exists.

What Are Archaic Neurograms

They're thought-emotion-action sequences that activate automatically when facing certain stimuli. They aren't immutable "instincts" but patterns learned by the species during evolution, calibrated for survival of 150-individual groups in stable and predictable environments.

Examples of archaic neurograms in action:

Competitive scarcity: Facing any limited resource, we automatically activate competitive mode—even when scarcity is artificial and cooperation would be more effective.

Culprit seeking: When something goes wrong, the brain immediately seeks an individual responsible to blame instead of analyzing systemic dynamics that generated the problem.

Immediate advantages: We automatically privilege small immediate benefits over large but delayed advantages—even when we rationally know it's counterproductive.

Tribal thinking: We automatically divide the world into "us" vs "them," seeking protection in our belonging group even when the challenge requires cooperation on larger scale.

Why They Were Adaptive Then

200,000 years ago, these patterns were perfect for survival:

• Real scarcity: Resources were actually limited, competition was necessary
• Immediate dangers: Problems were local and urgent, rapid solutions were needed
• Small groups: 150 people allowed direct control and clear individual responsibilities
• Stable environments: Changes were slow, past solutions worked for the future

 

In that context, those who reacted quickly according to these patterns survived. Those who stopped to analyze systemic complexities got eaten by predators.

Why They're Dysfunctional Today

The world has changed radically in the last 300 years, but our neurograms haven't:

Planetary scale: Problems involve billions of people and globally interconnected systems. Tribal thinking generates nationalisms preventing planetary cooperation.

Systemic interdependence: Every local action has global consequences. Seeking individual culprits for climate change or economic crisis is systemically useless.

Artificial scarcity: Many "scarcities" today are created by poor distribution, not real physical limits. Competing for abundant resources generates waste and unnecessary conflicts.

Dynamic complexity: Systemic problems require solutions considering feedback loops, delayed effects, unintended consequences. Archaic neurograms seek immediate linear solutions.

How to Recognize Them in Action

Archaic neurograms are automatic and unconscious, but we can learn to recognize them:

Individual level:

• Immediate emotional reactions to complex news
• Tendency to simplify systemic problems into personal responsibility issues
• Preference for solutions that "do something" even when inadequate
• Difficulty cooperating with people from different "tribes" even when objectives are shared

 

Collective level:

• Policies addressing symptoms instead of systemic causes
• Seeking scapegoats for crises generated by systemic dynamics
• Solutions optimizing one system part while worsening the whole
• Competition between nations for shared global resources

 

Possible Transcendence

Archaic neurograms aren't biological condemnation but evolutionary challenge. They can be recognized, understood and transcended through cognitive support systems.*

Individual support systems:

• Practices developing awareness of one's automatisms
• Systemic thinking education revealing hidden connections
• Diversity exposure reducing tribal thinking

 

Collective support systems:

• Institutions designed to favor cooperation instead of competition
• Decision-making processes incorporating systemic analysis
• Technologies making long-term action consequences visible

T

he ESSI-ESCI alliance: ESSI can serve as systemic mirrors for ESCI, making automatic patterns visible and proposing systemic alternatives. They don't replace human intelligence but amplify it beyond evolutionary limits.

The Necessary Evolutionary Leap

The transition toward Planet XXII requires our species to develop capacity to operate according to systemic instead of tribal logics, cooperative instead of competitive, regenerative instead of extractive.

This doesn't mean eliminating archaic neurograms—it means developing synarchy systems that allow recognizing them when they activate and consciously choosing alternatives more suited to current world complexity.

The future doesn't belong to those who eliminate their evolutionary nature, but to those who learn to transcend it through distributed intelligence systems operating beyond individual cognitive limits.

*The mind models used, consciously or unconsciously, are determinant: the model commonly adopted today is the black box model; we have adopted a systemic model of mind. Too broad to develop the theme here—we refer to a forthcoming contribution.