The Primitive Mind is a set of coded instructions for how to be a successful animal in the animal’s natural habitat. The coder is natural selection, which develops the software using a pretty simple process: Software that’s good at making its animal pass on its genes stays around, and the less successful software is discontinued. Genetic mutation is like a bug appearing in the software from time to time, and every once in a while, a certain bug makes the software better—an accidental software update. It’s a slow way to code, but over millions of generations, it gets the job done.
