The Serpent's Wisdom

1. The first part of this thesis suggests that there was a shift in human awareness that began to show itself roughly 3000-2600 years ago. (Though I recently invoked the bicameral mind theory of Julian Jaynes, this thesis does not depend on that argument, though it draws somewhat from the concept and offered evidence.) This shift was meme-driven in form, as a response to the shocks of civilized life. The net result of this memetic innovation has been the enhancement of the "individual self." (For other sources on similar proposed shifts in human consciousness, see for example Ken Wilber's Up From Eden and Erich Neumann's The Origins of Consciousness.)

2. The first level of influence on human thought is a biological imperative, which governed human behavior prior to civilization and memetic influence. This perspective emphasizes the survival of the species. We would expect that individuals with notable deviations from the norm in apperance or behavior would be dis-favored, as instinct would tell us that notable differences are a sign that an individual is less likely to contribute to the survival of the species. This could be the origin of prejudice along the lines of race, mental disability, or physical disability -- and by extension of other forms of prejudice that developed later.

Primate society is typically heirarchical. Heirarchy is a sublimation of dominance (which reflects duties as well as access to food and reproduction), abstracted so as to reduce the amount of violence. This reduction in violence is helpful in maintaining the peace among primates, as they are highly social animals.

For an exploration of the many ways in which biological imperatives might shape human culture and behavior, see the works of Desmond Morris.

3. Before the individuation shift began, there is little evidence that humans were much concerned with what we would call the inner life. They may or may not have had the ability or the sophistication to do this; but it is notable that ancient moral codes and myths from before the start of the shift all have an outward emphasis -- describing the place of each person in society and the place of humankind in the cosmos -- but have little, if any, emphasis on the thoughts, temptations, and feelings, that go on inside.

Moral codes, in particular, guide the action of each individual so as to maximize each person's contribution to the national economic output. Little regard is given to the welfare of each individual; the smallest unit to command any concern in Old Testament codes, for example, is the family.

A second factor shaping the ancient moral codes is a tension between instinctive primate behaviors and the peaceful co-existence of hundreds or thousands of people who don't know one another very well. Essentially, civilization required that people be "housebroken." Domesticating naked apes involved the learning of what I will call "rudimemes" -- the groundwork of domestication which does not require sentience or high intelligence, as they can be learned by dogs, horses, oxen, donkeys, etc.

The earliest sets of moral teachings identifiable as such, then, were developed in a mindset just above what we might expect from talking animals. There is an absence of introspective sophistication, but a collected understanding of what actions are good or bad for the good of the family and the nation. There is no thoughtcrime in early moral codes; similarly, motivation is not mentioned as a mitigating factor when deviation is judged and punished.

The biological imperatives have been extended conceptually to a small degree. As the scale of civilization expands, so too we might expect the memetic analogues of the tense compromise between biology and culture to grow. The primate resource-duty heirarchy has been abstracted into social class structure and even into caste systems, particularly once career specialization became practical. The "alpha male" has grown into a figure that is larger than life; he now possesses attributes we would recognize in a tribal ruler, a god, and a national proxy.

4. The shift began when awareness grew that civilized life was unpleasant. This awareness would not have required the notion of individual welfare, simply the observation of wasted life and potential. It could be that civilized life was so dreadful that human survival was at stake, and the survival instinct was triggered. The archaeological record shows that in early agricultural society extreme malnutrition was endemic. There also appears to have been a lot of warfare. Some archaeologists have argued that once agriculture was introduced to a region, it grew so rapidly that it was not possible for nomads or pastoral herders to resist being caught up -- so there was no way to simply "walk away" and abandon civilization as a failed experiment.

Early radicals became non-participants in the system. They "dropped out" and became wandering mendicants, beggars, and hermits. Siddhartha Gotama sought a way out from the cycle of dread he saw around him; Diogenes the Cynic lived in a jar and carried around only what he needed to exist as a beggar. The Jewish prophets were an interesting case in point, separating the divine figure of the Lord from the ruling king and priests and seeing him as a higher authority whose moral code (blueprint for human survival) prohibited the ruling classes from exploiting and abusing orphans and widows.

This discussion in convert_me has me thinking today about memetic replication.

Memetic theory, for those who might not know, is based on the concept that thoughts and ideas propagate, survive, reproduce, and mutate in ways analogous to (or perhaps directly rooted in) the way genetic organisms do. This means that models tracking the development of thoughts both within a single person's brain, and within society as a whole, can be patterned after biological evolutionary theories.

In the past, and in still many societies today, religion is a meme that has increased the survival opportunities for its adherents. Therefore it lived in a symbiotic relationship with the human race. In secularized societies, however, religion has spawned a mutated memetic virus which, rather than enhancing individual human survival as in the past, now feeds like a parasite.

Let me be clear -- I am not saying that all religion is a memetic parasite. I'm saying that a memetic parasite exists which is posing as religion. This memetic parasite is the enemy not only of humankind but of religion as well.

This parasite survives and replicates by taking advantage of the human response to extreme emotional distress. The process works as follows.

1. The individual is subjected to emotional duress, which could come in the form of verbal abuse, humiliation, sleep deprivation, physical exhaustion, and so on.
1a. Alternatively, the meme-parasite might encounter someone who is already in a state of emotional duress, as during the end of a marriage, the death of a loved one, severe financial distress, etc.

2. An emotional "pressure source" is installed that teaches that this duress is the individual's fault and will always exist. In other words, the individual is made to believe that he or she deserves to experience this duress. This is an artificial deficiency, a self-activating "imp" that will cause the individual to feel shame, guilt, angst, or unworthiness, and to keep feeling this.

3. An emotional "pressure valve" is installed that teaches that the deficiency will only be corrected if the valve is turned. In the case of the meme-parasite that mimics religion, this involves belief in certain doctrines and/or participation in certain rituals or activities. (Note that other meme-parasites exist which mimic not religion but political ideology, military discipline, or pop psychology.)

In other words, in order to receive relief from the artificial distress, the artificial relief valve must be turned.

In the natural state, religion is a relief valve that relieves genuine distress and fosters true health and healing. The memetic parasite though creates its own distress within the human individual so that it can continue to exist, even in the face of threats from other memes like science, reason, other religions, etc. Only a religion-meme which cannot survive in the face of such threats would need to resort to this parasitical "artificial deficiency" survival tactic.

It is my contention that the meme-parasite which mimics Christianity has latched onto the doctrine of "original sin" or "total depravity" and uses these to install an artificial deficiency within the individual that creates fear, guilt, shame, and self-loathing which can only be relieved by maintaining belief in a particular restrictive set of doctrines.

I want to clarify something regarding my post from yesterday on the "Neoplatonist Fallacy."

Of late I feel forced by the evidence I have read into the conclusion that the materialist arguments regarding the workings of mind have more weight than non-materialist arguments. However, this does not mean I am a reductionist.

The difference is that a reductionist thinks that brain is all there is, that mind is either an illusion or an "emergent property" from the physiological workings of the brain. I am not convinced of this; in fact even if the materialist position holds, this does not necessarily or sufficiently argue for the reductionist view.

Logic and scientific examination is not the only means by which we can examine the universe; and the fact that logic alone cannot account for something we "feel" to be there, does not give us sufficient grounds to insist it is not there. Emotions and intuitions originate in something; to insist that mind, or God, or what have you, doesn't exist solely because logic cannot account for them, is to declare that emotion and instinct are simply and solely delusion.

This summer, as many of you probably recall, I was stricken with a case of chickenpox.

When one contracts varicella as an adult, there is a 25% chance that a neurological or respiratory complication will develop. But I avoided that fate, spending the week spaced out on atarax (as the itchiness caused by the vesicles was right up there with the worst agony I have ever suffered) and playing around with Acid 3.0.

The song V.I.T.R.I.O.L. was one result of the stuff I did that week. It is a blend of Indian rhythms, deep synth pads, and house rhythms. At the time, I was perplexed by the deepness of the trance this song inspired when I listened to it. I was highly skeptical that anything like a song could actually induce a trance. It seemed more likely that it was an effect brought about by the medicine, or virus, or both.

Now that I've learned more about the parasympathetic nervous system and the way it works, I understand that ritual or indeed even music can indeed bring about altered neurological states. And so, this song, as something which accomplishes that, is one of my proudest creations.

crossposting to darkpaganism

The entry I made last night, excerpting a book on neurotheology and outlining the brain processes behind the experience of "religious awe" brought about by ritual, relate also to another experience that I have had: subspace.

In the past I've made entries regarding links I and others have intuited between BDSM and yoga or religious ritual. If you haven't read them before I highly recommend them if this is a topic of interest:

http://www.livejournal.com/community/darkpaganism/197733.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sophiaserpentia/169873.html
http://www.livejournal.com/users/sophiaserpentia/171294.html

Drs. D'Aquili and Newberg describe two types of "transcendent" religious experience relating to the overflowing of the autonomous nervous systems: the sympathetic or arousal system, and the parasympathetic or quiescent. The difference between the two depends on which is focused first.

If one begins with silent stillness meditation, one activates strongly the quiescent system and feels an overwhelming sense of peace. When this "overflows" and activates the arousal system, there is a sudden feeling of "rushing" or of being transported. I have felt this, and knew immediately what it was the authors were describing.

If one begins by focusing on the arousal system, as through long-distance running, drumming/dancing (like Sufi or Voodoo dancing) -- or concentrated, rhythmic, ritualistic pain -- one's amygdala (which is on the lookout for threats and controls the fear response) is kept in an abnormally sustained state of alertness. When this system "overflows" the quiescent system can be simultaneously activated -- causing a sudden rush of peacefulness and calm.

So many things I have experienced make perfect sense now...

It's been an uncommon weekend, mostly good, definitely interesting and instructive. I need sleep and am beginning to suspect I may have developed a pinched nerve. My left arm feels kind of heavy and dull.

Was discussing with a friend the neurology of depression. From what I've been coming to understand, the process of volition involves a set of options being presented to a faculty in the prefrontal cortex, which in turn chooses to do or not do something that the body has already set in motion. The motion of your arm, for example, involves nearly half a second of pre-conscious neural and muscular preparation before the arm motion is presented to the prefrontal cortex for approval or denial. One of the things that happens in depression is that messaging to the volition faculty is suppressed. This is one of the reasons depressed people sometimes find it hard just to move or eat or get out of bed.

We have this delusion as a society that thoughts are something effortless and chimaerical, something of no substance that the mind creates when it chooses to. This delusion is the source of needless suffering for people with mental illnesses, who for years have been told, "It's all in your mind, so just snap out of it already."

Another similar problem is that our brains were developed so that we can learn survival strategies, but the ability to easily revise or edit these strategies is not something which nature afforded us. Evolution never accounted for the warped strategies of survival many people develop as survivors of childhood abuse, for example. The reason these patterns cause years or decades of adult dysfunction, even after one becomes aware of these patterns, is that the brain is inadequately equipped to revise survival strategies.

An interesting thing which has come up in my readings is the discovery that focused attention (mindfulness) can bring about some degree of neurological revision. IOW, we do have the capacity for revision. But it is something that takes time; synapses have to grow, circuitry has to be rerouted.

There is something very liberating about these recent neurological discoveries. In a way it is almost like liberation from original sin, or the idea that we as individuals each bear the immediate culpability for our psychological dysfunctions and our animal instincts. But I am perceiving that a paradigm shift (already underway, as far as I can tell) will have to occur in society regarding the nature of thoughts and awareness. A "thought" is a neural configuration, not a word typed on the "cartesian screen" of consciousness.

Is there any part of me that is really me?

Is my body me? My brain? I'm not sure. All of these atoms are on loan to me from the universe. I have never owned them and will have to give them back someday.

My thoughts? So many of the thoughts and ideas bouncing around in my mind are "colonized implants" placed there by the culture at large. Language itself is an imposition. Thoughts that seem original to me turn out to have been written down 2500 years ago. It is impossible to really sort through and determine any aspect or element of my thought that is uniquely mine.

My memories? Fleeting, vague, incomplete, not always entirely trustworthy.

My breath? Getting closer, I think. My sensations? Ah, yes. Maybe. These though are rivers that will one day dry up. Flows that pass through me, ungraspable, but controllable, capable of being savored.

My soul? My spirit? Chimaeras that I'm not certain exist.

And yet... and yet... I know there is a me. A perfect, eternal, unchanging singularity; a pearl that remains a pearl though it be lost in the mud. The only way I know its there is that I can feel its presence against the backdrop of the swirling chaos in my mind and body. But is it my me, or is it just a piece of a bigger Me that I borrow for a little while?

A monk asked Baso, "Why do you teach that Mind is Buddha?"
Baso replied, "To stop a baby's crying."
The monk asked, "What is it like when the baby stops crying?"
Baso answered, "No Mind, no Buddha."

I wonder why Yahoo listed this in the "Oddly Enough" section? Perhaps they are too good for Buddhism.

Buddhists hold key to happiness

"LONDON (Reuters) - Buddhists really are happy, calm and serene people -- at least according to their brain scans.

"Using latest scanning techniques, neuroscientists have discovered that certain areas of the brain light up constantly in Buddhists, and not just when they are meditating, which indicates positive emotions and good mood.

"'We can now hypothesise with some confidence that those apparently happy, calm Buddhist souls one regularly comes across in places such as Dharamsala, India, really are happy,' Professor Owen Flanagan, of Duke University in North Carolina, said on Wednesday.

"Dharamsala is the home base of exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama."

The comments on my poll of yesterday have been extremely thought-provoking -- especially those of lady_babalon and that of akaiyume. Thank you!

I wanted to summarize some of my realizations on this subject since yesterday and sum things up a bit from comments that I made on this thread and elsewhere.

The connection between BDSM and yoga (and, we should perhaps add, martial arts) seemed to be immediately obvious to some, while non-existent to others. This may be because people who practice BDSM derive a wide range of results from it. Some see it mostly or entirely as a means of deriving physical pleasure. Others, such as myself, see it as much more than that -- it provides for us physical, emotional, and even spiritual pleasure.

One parallel that I mentioned to cruelly_kind is between the redemption offered by worshipping a god or goddess, who redeems by "forgiving sins" or "clearing karma"... and the karmic release one finds in offering submissive service. Both create a "karma-safe" realm in which the worshipper/submissive is free to grow and explore.

Much of BDSM is of course tied into the way the human animal works; the physique, the breath, the chemical side of the emotions, the wiring of neurons, and so forth. But yoga, qigong, and perhaps martial arts (which I do not have first hand experience of) are also means of tying in the workings of the human animal with subtler aspects of existence. In my experience these are more than simply activities that work on the same parts of the human body; they yielded very similar results. For me, being tied up and flogged, being dominated and pressed into service, were profoundly spiritual experiences. I also had spiritual insights from even a single experience of being dominant.

Another possible reason for the resistance is that people do not want to see the spiritual as tied so innately to the workings of the flesh. Certainly my chosen tradition of Gnosticism is very disparaging in this regard. Yet, karma, as experienced through the workings (and failings) of flesh, provide the only means by which we learn.

Throughout this topic I have been thinking of John of the Cross, who was able to grow spiritually from his experiences of torture at the hands of the Carmelites. He wrote, in "The Dark Night of the Soul":

( Read more... )

Perhaps, too, it is simply because I am trained as a mathematician to find patterns that aren't immediately obvious; this might lead me to readily conjecture patterns that don't exist.