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So genes are like gravity—but animals aren’t like atoms.

Let’s call our ancient animal software, which is still very much in our heads—our Primitive Mind. And let’s call this highly advanced, independent new consciousness our Higher Mind.

When you have a relentless force consuming finite resources, something’s gotta give. In a star, atoms give, fusing into bigger atoms. In the animal world, animal species give, morphing into new, mutated species—or, more often, going extinct.

The craziest thing about the new human superpowers was their unexpected side effect. Each of the advanced capabilities was like a new stream of mental potential, and when combined together, it was as if they formed a glowing orb of light in the center of the human mind.

Animals are just a hack these outlier genes came up with—temporary containers designed to carry the genes and help them stay immortal.

Reason and imagination, combined together, lead to something even more incredible.

Up until this development, the early human mind was like all animal minds—powered by genetic will and run by ancient software, with one purpose only: genetic immortality. But this new mind was something different entirely—something running independently of the human’s survival software.

This light was so bright and so clear and so powerful that it was as if it had its own awareness—an awareness of itself, of the human it lived in, of the ancient software running beside it. The human brain had grown a mind of its own that could think for itself.

But genes can’t talk to their animals, so instead they control them by having them run on specialized survival software.