Primal world beliefs
Our Primal World Beliefs form the generating equations that shape how we view the universe, our personality, political views, and emotional lives.
[M]ost of these cluster into 3 overarching beliefs called Safe, Enticing, and Alive. In turn, these 3 overarching beliefs cluster into 1 overarching belief about whether the world is a fundamentally good or bad place, called Good. Researchers call these 26 beliefs primals or primal world beliefs. [1]
The three primal world belief clusters are:
These also relate to which side of our moral foundations you tend to focus on and see in others. It is left as an exercise for the reader to map the combinations of moral foundations that interact to form each of the 26 primal world beliefs.
Researchers have created these surveys to help you reveal your primal beliefs in each of the 26 categories they have defined. The shorter surveys are great, but the long one is well worth the extra time.
99 Questions | 18 Questions | 6 Questions
Primal World Beliefs Unpacked - Collection of related articles on Psychology Today.
Primal Infographics
All credit to MyPrimals.com for this amazing research and infographic.
Primal Wiki
This is the result of applying the metaculture philosophy to the 99 question survey.
The low score in the Interactive metric is mostly due to the way the questions were phrased, which made the affirmative answer seem more like narcissistic magical thinking than healthy pronoia. The stochastic manifestation and karma pages both present a rational framework for the interactive primal that is not distinguishable by the survey questions.
The Cooperative score represents a tempered realism to avoid a Panglossian belief that this is the most cooperative of all possible worlds. The world would like to be more cooperative, but we've built crappy economic systems that incentivize selfishness. A 5 score would be a denial of this reality.
Stable represents a robust understanding of complex systems and black swan events. The world is a stable, self-organizing, self-correcting system, but when it breaks, it really breaks!
The low Acceptable score reflects a strong drive to improve society, though the ambiguous wording of the question meant it could apply both to personal "situations" or political ones. Any Buddhist analysis of suffering or serenity prayer would encourage you to "accept the things you cannot change, [have] the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference." The survey questions did not provide any insight into whether the "situations" were one or the other. Obviously, if you're at a good party, don't sit around thinking about how it could be better. If you're in a failing democracy, you might want to take action.
The principle of self-organization is pretty inherently anti-Hierarchical, but the complete rejection of value judgements is a bridge too far. The wiki is culturally neutral and respects all conscious beings. But, when push comes to shove it's women and children first, then squirrels, then fish, then trees.
The Changing score reflects the notion that "there is nothing new under the sun" and "the more things change the more they stay the same." While the universe is constantly evolving, there are also patterns that repeat themselves over and over. A 4.2 changing score represents a balance between the fact that everything changes all the time, and that this represents a universal truth that is always the same.
Overall, you can see that the wiki offers a perspective of optimistic realism, where the most positive practical perspective is taken, without abandoning critical thinking or encouraging complacency.
metaculture is therefore at least 4.96 out of 5 "good," and would be higher if the survey didn't give better scores to people who think they can control traffic lights with their mind.
Primal Pages
While this wiki was conceived before encountering the parallel concept of primal beliefs, there are existing pages advocating most of the "Good World" primal beliefs defined by their research.
Safe vs. Dangerous
The universe and modern society is a pretty safe place full of love, trust, and community.
- Pleasurable - happiness, quality of life
- Regenerative - self-correcting, self-organization
- Progressing - march of progress, self-organization
- Harmless - safety, trust
- Cooperative - in-group, persuasion, politics, trust
- Stable - incremental improvement and self-correction as modern stability
- Just - justice
Enticing vs. Dull
The pursuit of science, meaning, and peak experiences encourages us to view the universe as exciting, engaging, and full of wonder.
- Interesting - wonder, self-evident given the scope of the wiki project
- Beautiful - aesthetics, music, poetry
- Abundant - addressing the scarcity mindset is mentioned in in-group and other pages
- Worth Exploring - variety, food; this topic is "worth exploring" in more detail
- Meaningful - meaning of life
- Improvable - science, democracy, education, evolution, progressive, pretty much all of it
- Funny - humor
Alive vs. Mechanistic
The whole fractal theme is constructed around the concept that it gives us a mathematics of aliveness over Euclidean mechanism.
- Intentional - inevitable, free will, hard determinism, cosmic complexification
- Needs Me - meaning of life
- Interactive - conviction vs. indifference, stochastic manifestation, karma
Neutral / Others
These have less of an impact on the good/bad worldview dynamic, but have significant impacts on your approach to problem solving, politics, and relationships.
- Interconnected - universalism, holistic, in-group, fractals, connections, etc.
- Changing - evolution, dogma, science, self-correcting
- Hierarchical - authority, self-organization
- Understandable - necessary prerequisite, education
- Acceptable - suffering, emotions
Related Concepts
Pages not directly correlated to the 26 primals but reflect core components of the "good life" perspective.
Primal Politics
This study shows that the key differentiating beliefs all revolve around social hierarchies and whether we believe they are natural and should remain in place, or unjust and should be changed.
World vs. Universe
Primal world beliefs are unique because they represent beliefs about a situation from which there is no escape. If you think the city you live in is boring, then you have the possibility to escape by moving somewhere else. If you think the world is boring, then that perspective follows you everywhere.
What if you take a step further back and consider whether the universe is inherently good? This cosmic perspective can help you focus less on the problems of the present and see the big picture. The world may be suffering, but it is just a grain of sand in the scale of the universe, and the march of progress bends towards justice.
Primal Videos
These videos may fundamentally change your views on life, unless you're already a radical optimist.
This is one of those AI conversation podcasts, but it covers some of the genetic predispositions that influence our primal world beliefs that the others don't.
O Me! O Life!
Walt Whitman contemplates the Bad World hypothesis in O Me! O Life!
Oh me! Oh life! of the questions of these recurring,
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer.
That you are here—that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
Primal Music
The most primal genre of music is probably metal. There's probably a lot of world music that is more literally primal though. Also, where else are you going to go straight from Walt Whitman to Pantera?
Primal Scream by Screamadelica has some great songs you probably haven't heard in a minute. The first song on the album "Movin' on Up" does a good job of capturing the "Good World" vibe.