YOU – the soul of money!

How hungry do you feel for the life you want?
How hungry do you feel for success?
How hungry do you feel for food?

Assuming you read the first two articles of this series, you might have understood that life from a philosophical perspective of biology along with physics began with the creation of this universe, a collective feeling that we discovered through observation which we as an individual have no control over.

Now let’s look at our evolution from an observer’s point of view. You were there when the universe was created or stimulated at the quantum level of reality. As you kept evolving, through the spacetime continuum creating physics, chemistry and with the formation of life – biology, you started taking control of the environment for survival. You were then categorised as homo sapiens with higher intellect. Each individual functioned according to their IQ and EQ which was a result of past events. As we developed anthropology, we discovered that it was the prefrontal cortex of the human brain that evolved to process information from the environment creating our environment for survival.

But why did we not stop after we survived the jungle and conquered the planet?
That’s the magic of physics and other sciences that explain human evolution.

Biologically speaking, as we climbed up the ecological pyramid, the source of energy to sustain ourselves became a priority, and we emerged out of our naturally designed food system to processed food. In short, agriculture made us the humans we are today. When we succeeded at securing our food, we started observing more as science progressed and also began giving way to sociology, where we started collaborating in large numbers. As we developed, to serve human needs, especially food and shelter, we had to set up administrative bodies that evolved from kingdoms to governments, resulting in peaceful trade. The study of this trade became a branch of science called economics.

Trade started with our want to grow and have a higher quality of life with comfort. Hence, barter systems came into existence. However, the valuation of each commodity was different as the production or manufacturing cost or energy varied from unit to unit and the owner’s decision on the value. Since this was asymmetrical in the barter systems, the government created the concept of money where everyone can do their own business in harmony. To manage this money that was created, banks were created. So our pursuit of happiness got catalysed and to equalise global trade among different jurisdictions, currency was evolved where the government, banks and market decided the value of money. If the government produced money without any regulations, it would be difficult to maintain peace as the value of everything would go down. Well, economics is a study of a complex evolutionary process that overlaps with sociology and geopolitics.

Money became the driving force of human evolution. The more valuable commodities one has, the more money one can have. And since we evolved out of an animal kingdom, the powerful ones first took over the land, and that power was distributed down the pyramid that divided this species in terms of money. So the powerful and rich live the life they want, whereas the powerless and poor struggle to meet even their basic survival needs. The motivation to live and thrive defines an individual’s position in society.

Humans progressed in all directions, and in 1943, a psychologist named Abraham Maslow created Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, a theory of psychological health predicated on fulfilling innate human needs in priority, culminating in self-actualization. Below is an illustration that explains.

Over time, we found out that not everyone goes through these stages in the order. Taking into account the gist of my last article that explains you are just an observer of this magical physics, some individuals reach self-actualization, bypassing the lower levels of need. For example, highly functional humans who dedicate their lives to the development of others and the environment. And monks who leave everything and just observe the physics.

Each individual of this species is at different points on the same path of evolution. Even if one has reached self-actualization, they might be working on living the life they want. Or even if one is living a life they want, they might be struggling to understand themself. The reason everyone is at different positions in life and society is, as mentioned earlier, money is the driving force of evolution.

Now, let’s connect physics, biology, sociology, and economics. As mentioned in the first two articles, consider you are just an observer in this magic of physics that began with the birth of the universe 14 billion years ago. After around 10 billion years, or 4 billion years ago, biology emerged with the formation of life on Earth. Then, 2 lakh years ago, it is estimated that humans evolved. But it was only 70,000 to 50,000 years ago complex modern societies emerged, which comes under sociology. As humans developed, money was invented around 600 BC, and over centuries, currency along with banking, emerged. Now, economics is a science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. It focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. The agents of economies are the people that include you. And all they do is take power to make decisions. So, any economy around the world is driven by decision-makers through positions of power. If we connect this to Libet’s experiment and other experiments I mentioned in the last article, this is all an automated system where even the decision maker is in an illusion that they have control over their decisions. So, in a deterministic universe, does it mean the powerful and rich are destined to be powerful and rich, while the powerless and poor are destined to be powerless and poor?
What do you believe in?

Going back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, if you have met your basic survival needs, it comes down to what you need more from your life. And when you have achieved those higher needs, what do you need? Now, imagine you have met all your needs.

Would you still be going forward with your life? If so, why? The answer to this is simple when looked through science – evolution. Your journey of survival is a process of meeting your needs that later on become your wants. And if you are unable to achieve your wants, does this again mean you are destined to be where and what you are? Well, life is a huge long learning curve where you find yourself in this illusive world. The game is to either reach your destiny or create your destiny. Hence, knowing why you want what you want is vital in this path, which gives you liberation from this physical state of existence. No matter what you want, the only way you can go about it is by learning how. And to live the life you want to live, you need to earn it through education that helps you get into the workforce to make money. The more you grow, the more power or money you will have.

When growth comes into discussion, we should under the Spiral Dynamics model created out of Emergent Cyclical theory, which talks about human development as an individual or group. Below is a simple illustration.

Combining this with Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you can assess where you stand as an individual or as a species. To reach where you feel you want to reach as an individual first, you should start playing the game of money which is the driving force of the workforce. So the game is putting your physics to work converting it into money for the life you want.

Thus, the game of physics that began with you 14 billion ago has now reached money, which is just another form of soul that your body contains.