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SOCIETY AND CONSCIOUSNESS: HOW ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS SHAPE SOCIETY
(Amanda Feilding - The Bath Conference, Exploring Consciousness - June 2004)


 

While humans are an incredibly clever species, we often lack common sense to the point of insanity thereby drastically threatening our own survival. Sir Martin Reiss, the Astronomer Royal, gives our species less than a 50-50 chance of surviving beyond the end of this century. A gloomy view, considering we control the planet. So it's an interesting question how has this come about? How has an animal evolved to such an incredible level of sophisticated interaction, while losing touch with the natural instinct of self-preservation? I suggest that consciousness, and its many manifestations, including deficiency of consciousness, are at the centre of the problem and the key to its solution.

Many, including myself, have long been fascinated by the thread of expanded consciousness, interwoven with the evolution of human society. It is critical to understand the neurobiology underlying the expanded mind, so that we can more easily assimilate its advantages into modern society, thereby improving both our overview and our common sense. By using the new magic-key of brain imaging, we can see further into the human brain, and the workings of the mind, than ever before. We can dive deeper into the 3-pound fatty universe of chemical and electrical activity that in some amazing, and still mysterious way produces consciousness. A major objective of the Beckley Foundation is to help explore this hidden world.

As an artist and a researcher of altered states of consciousness, I can recognise the creative hand inspired by heightened awareness. How that state was achieved, whether by dancing, chanting, breathing or the ingestion of plants and animals, which affect the workings of the psyche in a special way, is impossible to know for sure. However the marks left behind in the artwork of such ancient civilisations as Chauvet, Tassili, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Crete, Eleusis, Mesoamerica tell of a deep involvement with enhanced states of consciousness at the very core of human development.

HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS: ITS ROLE IN THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SOCIETY

LAST COMMON ANCESTOR
Very few of our genes are uniquely human. We share 50% with bananas, 60% with worms, and 98-99% with the great apes. The last common ancestor we shared with the chimpanzees was 5 to 7 million years ago. Changes in brain shape and structure, particularly the development of the cortex, have had the most significant impact on the dominance of the human species. The development of the human brain has depended on the increasing complexity of neuron connectivity.

AQUATIC APE HYPOTHESIS
After the time of the last common ancestor it is probable that groups of apes settled near water, and there found food supplies rich in essential fatty acids. The evidence to support this theory comes from certain adaptations of the hominid form to an aquatic environment, such as bipedalism; hairlessness; a fatty layer to improve insulation; a descended larynx allowing mouth-breathing; and advanced breath control. This aquatic phase of the ancestral ape would probably only have lasted 2 or 3 million years, a brief period in evolutionary terms.

The Upright Position and Hypothesis of its Hidden Disadvantage Walking in the upright position, which probably evolved in the water, had immediate and indispensable advantages. However, there is one possible disadvantage, which has so far been overlooked: the loss of a quantity of blood from the brain due to gravity. Since blood is heavier than cerebrospinal fluid (the other fluid in the central nervous system), the ratio of the two fluid volumes changed in favour of CSF. In order to keep the diminished volume of blood directed to those centres most essential for survival, an internal mechanism of distribution was required. The solution to this problem came about by the evolution of the speech system, which provided an initial stimulus to a particular centre, to which blood would then be directed, enabling it to function. Function in other parts of the brain would simultaneously be repressed, because arteries leading to these areas would be constricted, thereby reducing the flow of blood directed to them. In this way the speech system became a superimposed control tower over other functions of the brain.

How can we account for the great leap forward around 50,000 years ago? For hundreds of thousands of years, our ancestors had been making tools that did not develop much. At some point around 50,000 years ago, there was a dramatic change in the human mind, even though the brain did not alter in its gross physical structure. Something radical happened to the human brain to make it significantly more creative and intelligent, producing an explosion of artistic and technical skills. The development of language, music, religion, art and increasingly more complex technology happened in a very short span of time in evolutionary terms.

I suggest that this largely came about due to the interaction of three developments, all related to the tendency towards the hyperconnectivity of neurons:
1. Genetic changes in fat metabolism
2. The development of a sophisticated mirror neuron system
3. The practice of mind-altering techniques including the ingestion of psychoactive substances

HYPERCONNECTIVITY
Hyperconnectivity is the name of the human game. Man has the most highly evolved system of neural networks. There are around 100 billion neurons in the human brain, each through its axons and dendrites, communicating with anything from 1000 to 10 million other neurons. Somewhere between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, there was some change in the way neurons make and break connection with each other. For communication to be successful there need to be channels to conduct electricity, and effective insulation to stop the channels interacting when not required. Phospholipids (fats) serve this function, providing insulation that can be opened up easily at specific points, to let electrical impulses and chemicals pass. As connectivity increased, so did the number of associations that could be made. This provided the structure needed for complicated mechanisms, such as the mirror neuron and language systems, to evolve.

CHANGES IN FAT METABOLISM
Many of the features that distinguish us from the apes are intimately related to the biochemistry of fat. Both the neurons themselves, and their many connections, are fat rich. The human brain is 60% fat, of which 20% is essential fatty acids. The growth of this fatty brain may have evolved simultaneously with the growth of other fat deposits that formed bosoms and bottoms. These features distinguish us from our closest animal relatives.

It is probable that a chance genetic mutation changed the metabolism of essential fatty acids, which were found abundantly in food sources in and near water. Omega-3, an essential fatty acid, is used to produce a faster, more richly connected network of nerve cells. This gave rise to the modern human mind with its apparently unique capacity for processing multisensory information at high speed and making far-reaching associations that formed the basis of complex symbolic thought. The huge increase in the complexity of synapse connections caused a massive improvement in cognitive function and memory, providing an intellectual power unique to the human species.

THE MIRROR NEURON SYSTEM
Another genetic mutation that may have played a crucial role in human evolution was the development of a sophisticated mirror neuron system. A mirror neuron is one that fires not only when a monkey grabs a peanut, but also when it watches another monkey grabbing a peanut. Mirror neurons enable a baby to copy its parent sticking out their tongue, by creating an internal model of the action, and then re-enacting it in its own brain. Amazing, considering it can't see its own tongue, yet it matches the visual appearance of the parent's tongue with the felt appearance of its own.

Mirror neurons have played a vital role in the evolution of language, empathy and self-awareness. By improving the ability to learn through imitation, the mirror neuron system has contributed to the rapid transmission of cultural innovations, liberating humans from the chains of a strictly gene-based evolution.

SYMBOLIC REPRESENTATION & METAPHOR
The mirror neuron system is likely to have increased our capacity to produce symbolic representation in the form of language. Our brains are essentially model-making machines, constructing useful virtual reality simulations of the world. The increased connectivity of neurons allows greater communication within and between different brain systems, enabling higher order symbolic representations of sensory input to be formed. This economic encoding helps subsequent computation, enabling higher cognitive processes like speech and thought to evolve.

What artists, poets and all creatives have in common is their skill at forming metaphors linking seemingly unrelated concepts in their brain. Increased hyperconnectivity throughout the brain would make a person more prone to metaphor. Such people with their excess of connections (which may be linked to a hyperconnectivity gene) tend to make far-flung associations more fluidly and effortlessly than other people.

LANGUAGE
The improved connectivity in the brain together with other mutations, such as increased breath control and changes in the larynx, enabled the ape to evolve language, which is a superimposed sound-symbol system capable of condensing multiple perceptions. This crossing over of sensory sensations is like that found in synesthesia where brain modules become accidentally cross-wired as a result of genetic mutation. Anything that increased the inclination to hyperconnectivity, such as the taking of psychoactive substances, could enhance creativity including the development of language. Language separated humans from other animals and led to the evolution of societies and the development of culture.

ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS
The practice of mind-expanding activities such as the taking of psychoactive substances was fundamentally interwoven with the early development of man, helping to expand the boundaries of consciousness. The mind was opened to new visions by maximising hyperconnectivity and spreading further the network of simultaneous associations. The heightened perception of altered states was the basis of shamanic tradition and the focus of innumerable cults, the tool by which the seer revealed new knowledge, and was inspired to reach a higher level of creativity and spirituality.

THE BECKLEY FOUNDATION
The Beckley Foundation reflects my own position of being interdisciplinary, respecting no borders between science, religion, philosophy, history and politics. It is a charitable trust that supports and directs research at the top academic institutions in collaboration with leading experts in these fields. It was set up to investigate consciousness and its modulation, and the science of drug use. It has recently extended its areas of interest to include drug policy. The Beckley Foundation is currently directing separate scientific and policy programmes, as well as organising biannual seminars to disseminate the findings of the research.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, I would suggest that the great creative artworks of early man were often inspired by altered states of consciousness. His developing abilities and unique form of awareness, resulting from changes in brain structure, and a love affair with mind manipulation, helped separate the talking ape from his last common ancestors. With the development of language, and finally writing, man evolved a self-reflecting gaze, and an ability to transmit knowledge to future generations. The internal network of associations became a virtual reality, a superstructure able to monitor its own workings, so enabling man to evolve creativity, and communication, far surpassing the abilities of his fellow animals. However, there is some deficiency in man's state of consciousness, which limits his vision and makes him act in ways detrimental to his own happiness and survival. Only by finding means to overcome this inadequacy, by enhancing his consciousness, and regaining the lost overview and common sense, will man avoid causing his own extinction. Buddha's claim, echoed by most of the great sages of the Axial age was that, only by reaching beyond themselves, to a reality that transcends their rational understanding, do men and women become truly human.

 

 

 

 

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