Finished
Denial by Ajit Varki (2013), developing an idea proposed to him by Danny Brower (who died in 2007). Their claim is this:
Strong self-awareness / theory of mind is present in humans only because of a lucky co-evolution of another aspect of the human mind, denial of death. So, without death denial, strong self-awareness would lead to depression and inaction (thus not passing on your genes). They speculate that other species did not get strong self-awareness because of that barrier.
Maybe I missed something, but my impression is they failed to make an argument for their assertion (not even a
good argument, just
an argument). We probably all know of people who got really busy getting things in order when they got news of their impeding death instead of freezing up, and I'm pretty sure that this is indeed the more common behavior. Just like when we become aware of being near a less dramatic limit (deadline for a paper, last day of your vacation and so on).
Ancient artifacts from elaborate burial rituals are used as an example by Varki (as by many others) as signs of when
self-awareness evolved. A great opportunity to point at this as a sign of
reality denial, but somehow that does not occur to Varki.
The dumbest thing is his speculation about why there wasn't more interbreeding between homo sapiens and others. He posits MENTAL incompatibility specifically for the low fertility of interbreeding couples.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/humans-and-neanderthals-may-have-had-trouble-making-male-babies-180958701/https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a-neanderthal-gene-variant-related-to-red-blood-cells-may-have-contributed-to-their-extinction-180987586/Yeah OK, the book is older than these findings, but what a stupid hypothesis. Mein Gott, has he ever observed some couples?? There are people who seek relief by fucking horses.