The Third Nature of Homo sapiens: Biological Nature, Proximate Functional Independence, and Open-Ended Goal Generation

Why do humans pursue proofs, deities, fictional worlds, and ideals? Why does attaining one end often open up further ends? The 2020 book The Third Nature of Homo sapiens proposed that, alongside survival and reproduction, Homo sapiens possesses a Third Nature, named tanzhang xushi xing (贪张虚实性; literally, “greedy expansion across the real and the virtual”). This paper characterizes its functional core as “unbounded expansiveness toward the real and the virtual.” Represented actual, future, fictional, and abstract objects can acquire motivational value, and existing goals can thereby expand. The paper distinguishes phenotype, functional unity, biological–developmental nature status, and specific configurations and mechanisms. The phenotype of humans repeatedly forming and pursuing such ends is established; its status as a species-typical biological–developmental disposition, and the judgment that its proximate function is not exhausted by direct survival and reproductive ends, hold on current reliable support. Long-term religious commitment, inquiry, and aesthetic pursuit provide functional evidence across contexts; children’s active inquiry and representational generation, cross-cultural dispositions, and research on biological valuation provide convergent support. An evolutionary adaptive origin does not turn every present pursuit into a means to survival or reproduction. Culture helps shape content and value, and reward, language, learning, and control can implement Third Nature. Its components are widespread in other animals; on current evidence, humans exhibit a pattern combining open recombination, cross-domain expansion, and cumulative updating. The specific interoperability–valuation coupling and its incremental prediction remain to be tested; their failure would not automatically negate nature status or proximate functional independence. The paper accordingly proposes further research on acquisition conditions, private pursuits, model comparison, and comparative cognition.