Evolution III
BOOK TWO
Evolution III
our common mind
The seeds of the human brain were scattered through the cosmos by the big bang and were planted in this solar system as the Earth. The human being grew out of the planet like a blade of grass through concrete, seeking the sunlight of a universal intelligence.
That intelligence which informed the energy that guided matter through space and time is the same intelligence that brings us forth.
The imperative of understanding human origins is the imperative of understanding ourselves in the world now. Not just your self or my self, but the self of our common mind, which now controls the world, and includes each personal self.
in that first moment of creation
aspects of mind arose
order, stability, pattern, symmmetry
apparent purpose
sense
the mechanism of perception
as in action and reaction, stimulus and response
paradox, duality, polarity
Mind is the evolution of matter in the universe.
The Universal Mind formed matter into man.
A hundred thousand years ago the fully human being was created whole, brain and body, Over the course of seventy five thousand years mankind, in its infancy, begins to divide its perceptions into memories and names creation. About twenty five thousand years ago specialized knowledge and technique, art and religion are being conceived and born. The emergence of the first civilizations began only five thousand years ago - as noted by advanced techniques in agriculture, engineering, architecture, metal, wood, and stone work, powerful governments, expanded populations, universal religions, written language, literature, music, dance, drama, painting, poetry, sculpture, law and war.
The human being came out of the animal just as surely as you came out of your mothers womb.
our brain and body
a vast conglomeration of accumulated memories
built up by natural selection
engineered by the dna molecule
dating back to the beginning of time
The animal we came out of is completely determined by heredity and environment. It acts in only one way - with an automatic response according to its genetic programming. The human body which includes the brain is animal. Straight up. Its OK. We couldn't have got here any other way. The fact is we are driven by genetic and biological programs so powerful - eating and reproducing and the world history they have created - that it is sometimes hard to see, other than our tools, just what it is that separates us from the animal.
but thats enough in itself
our tools, our knowledge, our technique
- culture -
though we are animal bone deep
we possess an innate ability
to transcend space and time
by virtue of our brain
through insight and technology
insight - the power or act of seeing into a situation : penetration
the act or result of apprehending the inner nature of things : discernment
insight is
the catalyst
of consciousness
an event
the significance of which is
comparable to the big bang or replication
At present we are onlly semi-conscious,
our life's energy being wasted
by the self
in the pursuit of an impossibility.
the seat of the senses
in the process of perception
contacts the world
with its habitual neural firing patterns
the influx of extra energy
generated by an intense
unceasing observation
of the environment
sends those neurons firing
through the vast surplus
of newly acquired brain cells
outside the limits
of the genetic
and environmental
conditioning
producing the initial insights
in the mind of man
Thats the birth of what makes us human.
Homo sapiens were born whole.
The earliest men were like infants,
innocent and unschooled,
fully human,
only less sophisticated than we.
The earliest insights were like magic,
a gift of the gods.
Their ideas and inventions,
of gods and demons,
and agriculture, metal, and math,
were far more momentous for mankind
than any of the theories and technologies
we come up with today.
We are the tail end of an evolutionary phase they began.
They produced a world of which we are the product.
The primal, fundamental human insights
were not a product of man,
were not a product of the self.
They were a product of the universal mind -
a manifestation of the highest, most complex
interaction of matter and energy
apparent in the universe.
The seed of insight was sown in the first moment of time.
Matter formed into man
and looked at itself
and saw that it was good.
The primal, fundamental insights
became memory and formed the core paradigm of human thought -
- the self -
it is out of perception that insight is born
In the Garden of Eden, Eve Tempts and Adam Tastes.
In the first fully human perception was the key to the universe.
We could see the world and our self,
and we could see ourselves in the world,
and that ourselves in the world was one small part
off an awesome, immeasurable, living whole
that fit together, perfectrly, like a special blessing.
The perception was perfection,
we knew life was an astonishing mystery
and that it was good absolutely.
Its like the ultimate pleasure
and as soon as the animal within us,
the flesh,
our brain centered nervous system,
experienced a sense of absolute goodness,
it feared the ending of that sense -
sefishly it didn't want to let go
and the experience was committed to memory,
an aspect of the self,
a part of the past.
interlude I
POLARITY
a quality of the universe
woven into the fabric of physical law
that makes sense perception possible
In considering the evolution of life, a process of increasing order and complexity, we must recognize its inseparable counterpart - de-evolution or decay. Its just like you can't die without living or live without dying. Its just like our whole mode of linear language/thought in which virtually any idea expressed implies or contains its opposite. They appear mutually exclusive, but it is only in the imagination that positive can exist separately from negative. In actuality they define each other, simultaneously, different aspects of one whole.
The Polarity Paradox
Life and Death
Dividing the World
Good and Evil
Here we acknowledge that old devil - duality
mind and matter
Inherent in symbolizing sense perceptions
predator and prey
management and labor
master and slave
Though they appear in diametric opposition
pleasure and pain
They are aspects of one whole
male and female
One is not known without the other
future and past
Which implies syntax
subject and object
And drives our logic
cause and effect
And breeds technique
action and reaction
stimulus and response
perception-experience-thought
All occurs within a spectrum of polar awareness.
Adam Swallows and Digests the Forbidden Fruit.
Selfishness, violence, greed, fear, hatred,
the devil,
-whatever you want to call it-
was the polar extreme of the memory of the absolute goodness
born of a whole perception
giving birth to our basic insights.
Its because implicit in seeing ourselves and the world and seeing ourselves as an inseparable facet of the world,
we knew death was at hand for all living beings -
and death is what we have spent the last four billion years avoiding
with every ounce of our energy (matter, space and time).
Knowledge, produced by insight, captured by thought,
-memory-
-the self-
is an extension of the animal instinct for survival,
so extensive, in fact,
that absolute physical and material security
is now technologically available.
As the same extension emotionallly and psychologically
man creates god
out of fear.
Just as the infant learns that sense objects have an existence independent of her perception, early man came to believe the unperceived cause and forces of the world had their own independent existence, and that these forces could be manipulated for her own benefit via magic, religion, and ritual.
Out of the observation of the world, man created syntax - subject-verb-object - born of the symbolization of the cause and effect appearance of matter in motion.
This syntax is the code that orders our world. This is the foundation of knowledge. It implies a vast past and an apparent future intimately bound to the present moment.
This syntax implies god as beginning and end, cause and effect all rolled into one whole.
Thought created the idea of god to answer the impossible question and superseded direct perception of the fact.
what it is
replication
-echo-reverberation-copyy-reproduction-
and/or
the action or process of reproducing
culture
-the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behaviour
that depends on man's capacity for learning
and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations-
ergo
it is the nature
of the human brain
to produce insight
and cultivate knowledge
knowledge produces
great physical and psychological gratification
with its corresponding
deprivation, destruction, and decadence
insight reveals
one
whole
living
world
working in perfect harmony
it goes somethin' like this here
thought works kinda like a machine
the hardware of the brain
forms the structure of thought
runnin' on automatic
senses contact particular facet of the world
-division of perception-
triggers memory
-knowledge, program, prejudice-
(culture)
equals reaction
-in favor of personal benefit-
(selfish)
with the occasional flash of insight
-brought about by sustained attention-
that reveals the true connection between different facets of the world
which become the new knowledge
and on and on
from stargazer to starflight
Basic human thought processes extend themselves through observation, introspection, and the sharing of knowledge based upon a mechanism of replication that takes place in human brains and produces our common mind.
Knowledge, ideas, belief, culture, presupposition, programs, and prejudice - the whole of thought - consumes our common consciousness (and look at our global human behaviour).
Thought, as an electrochemical process of replication taking place as neural firing patterns of human brain cells, has had an evolution of its own.
Thought symbolizes the world, memory retains the pattern in the brain, and there that image replicates and variegates and successful variations (ones that lead to more abundant life) dominate the environment of the human mind.
Insight propels knowledge forward from the individual to the collective. The evolution of thought has been one of constant acceleration by way of culture and culture is the manifestation of our common mind.
Our Common Mind II
95% of human history
occurred without benefit
or universal laws
or the one all commanding god
Human beings lived tribal magic
in a world of mysterious forces
and invisible beings
and everything in the world
was inhabited by spirits
with whom we might communicate.
The universe, having essentially perfected the animal in the form of homo sapiens, set the stage for the next phase of evolution - consciousness.
The semi-consciousness that has emerged on the planet is as yet dominated by the animal aspect of ourselves - fear - the primal memory to avoid death - at its evolutionary peak - thought-culture-technique-the self- me, myself, and i.
in the beginning was the word
but what the word came out of
and what the word appears in
is our common consciousness
-it requires more than one brain-
Each brain functions fundamentally the same way
-thought seeking security-
regardless of any particular culture or conditioning.
But no brain has functioned,
no brain can function,
in isolation.
-No individual is completely alienated from the whole.-
Every person who has survived childhood
has been thoroughly programmed
through social and environmental interacton.
Communication is the thread that binds human organization and social structure.
For a hundred thousand years prehistoric man lived in tribes of fifty to a hundred and fifty people consisting of generations of families and their dependents - evidence of our predisposition for cooperation. Their existence was a life and death struggle in which each day of survival, of testing the limits of their physical and mental capacities, of hunting and killing game, cooked over an open fire, eaten at home where resided your mate and offspring among other closely related families provided an almost ultimate and absolute satisfaction, each day full and sufficient unto iself.
This tribal existence allowed human beings to best meet their needs through living a communal lifestyle, all resources being shared equally.
This structure allowed for a natural justice. The tribe's people, in order for their small society to function efficiently, adhered to the highest ethical and moral standards of behavior. This was not a result of laws, police, judges, jails, politicians, preachers or priests who controlled behavior by physical or psychological force. It came about through the direct life experience of people living together with a simple, common goal - to be fed and sheltered and to procreate.
It did not occur to the tribe's people to keep track of who shared what with whom, where, when, and how much as we do today, down to the exact dollar, hour, weight, size, shape and quality of whatever goods and services we exchange. In In the tribe it paid better to give and be generous with whatever you did and had, whether hunting, fishing, gathering, fashioning clothes, building shelters, or making tools and weapons, so that whatever you might need would come back around uour way.
In these social structures there were no masters and slaves, beggars and thieves, police and criminals, judges and juries. Each person knew that the well-being of the whole tribe was the whole focus of life, creating the maximum amount of actual security possible, for both the individual and the group equally, simultaneously. The tribe's people knew not private property. The land, water, plants, and animals were for all. In cases of need personal passessions were freely exchanged. In cases of aberrant social behavior a natrual justice would ostracize perpetrators - whether voluntarily or violently, temporarily or permanently - destructive personalities could not be long tolerated.
Without laws, police, judges, or jails to enforce commands there was no single, all powerful leader. Leaders grew into their roles naturally according to skills possessed. You would follow the lead of the best hunter when pursuing game. You would follow the lead of the best craftsmen when building shelter, making clothes, tools, or weapons. No one person's opinions would necessarily carry more weight than the rest of the tribe in common matters. Although there is an innate "pecking order" discernible in social encounters, it is genetic and biological, generallly uncontested, except for ritualized combat/play among males vying for females, while cultural selection creates its own order. Tribal life was a strictly cooperative venture.
The leadership aspects which arose came from those who worked hardest and longest and were the most generous with the fruit of their labor and intellect. Those who possessed these qualities would naturally capture and maintain the attention of the whole tribe in general on a dailly basis.
The significance of this fact can hardly be overestimated as it would feed a deep seated human need - perhaps the most powerful need after food and sex that humans experience. Humans need love.
If there was any status associated with a particular occupation in the tribe, it was afforded the hunters and the healers. Of all foods man naturally craves meat most - try going seven days without any meat. The production of meat held a particular private pleasure and a public glory, both biologically as a concentration of vital nutrients and psychologiclaly as image inflation from attention and appreciation. Among the hunters themselves, the ability to organize the hunt and the display of ruthless efficiency in killing - a matter of life and death - would command a peculiar power - violence and fear.
And the medicine woman, the tribe's connection to the spirit world, associated with the major human events - birth, illness, rites of passage, death, ostracizing of aberrant social behavior, and supplicant of the gods - credited with whatever benefits might accrue - health, abundant food, luck in battle, and the cooperation of nature.
if there was any status
associated with a particular gender
than it was afforded that half of humanity
which touches upon the divine
-the female-
after all
what is it
that is universally worshiped
by all men
regardless of
tribal, religious, or national affiliation?
the original deity
-the goddess-
it does not require
any cultural sophistication
to know
that the whole of life
comes into the world
through the body of a woman
***
and the exploiters of our aesthetic sense
the artists and the craftsmen
held the real magic
initiating the next dimension of evolution
by observing, thinking, creating
they cultivated awareness and technique
and transmitted them through the tribe
over generations
actions no longer determined strictlly by
physical, chimical, and biological reactions
aesthetic perceptions and material skills
became psychological programs
and innumerable variations thereof
-culture and technology-
