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March 08, 2008
A Basic Evolutionary Conflict? (Logical, Scientific, Historical)
As previously noted, the origins of empirical science, although murky, go back (at least) to the time of Copernicus (1473-1543), whose informed speculation about the relationship of Earth and Sun were also known to Galileo (1564-1642 ), and Kepler (1571-1630). An enduring schism between Science and Religion began when Galileo's early observations with the telescope confirmed the heliocentric nature of the then-known Universe. Although our powers of observation have since been augmented by technologic discoveries Galilieo could not have imagined, we continue to explore the limits of the Universe without knowing if the “answer” (which may require an understanding of infinity) will even be comprehensible.
In any event, human curiosity now seems sufficient to guarantee a continuing quest for ultimate knowledge, absent such rude interruption as the extinction of our species. Ironically, such an event would more likely be seen as chance by atheists, simply because committed theists would assume any such cosmic events would have to be preordained by an all-powerful creator.
A recent entry (March 4) promised a hypothesis explaining how our cognitive process might have became so flawed as to bog humanity down in controversy at a time when it also faces an unprecedented existential threat. The part of that threat I won’t address is that it can only be dealt with by an equally unprecedented degree of cooperation; thus so long as a majority of humans are either unable or unwilling to even acknowledge it, effective response is unlikely.
A similar existential threat was posed by the Cold War between 1950 and 1990. We now know that during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, nuclear war was narrowly averted because Kruschev and Kennedy compromised. The current threat, an as-yet unknown degree of global climate change, is far too diverse to be avoided by cooperation between two, or even a majority, of powerful national leaders; it will require that our species, now more numerous than ever, cooperate in ways that are literally unprecedented. A major limitation of Science in this instance is that despite (or perhaps, because of) the overwhelming technologic advantages it has provided over the last two centuries, it has remained diverse and under the control of older, more hierarchical institutions, whether nations, religions, or other transnational organizations.
To return to this blog’s basic commitment, a study of patients previously placed out of reach by an authoritarian drug policy has allowed a more precise understanding of why that policy’s global effort to ban cannabis has proven so unsuccessful. The next, and largely unanticipated problem I faced was why information gathered during the course of that study has been so completely denied by those with the most reason to (at least) discuss it. The totality of that denial, when considered in the light of both the study’s main conclusion: that human behavior is driven at least as much by our emotions as by logic, is also daily reinforced by readily available evidence from all over. At some point, it seems almost inevitable that a significant minority of thinking people will have to agree; what remains unknown at this writing is whether that agreement might lead to a serious effort to address present problems.
The cognitive flaw referred to earlier, and hypothesized here, seems structural: our evolutionarily older (emotional) centers are functionally at odds with our newer (younger) cognitive centers. Although both have literally been evolving together in all surviving species, it hasn’t been until quite recently that the problem was manifest enough to be appreciated. Put another way, our highly evolved brain remains an organ with critical “executive” function over basic life processes, just as in older, less highly evolved species. However, with the addition of abstract thought including both language (as a specific brain function) and communication (the meaningful transmission of information requiring a response), a new evolutionary entity came into existence: human culture. Although our ever-accelerating cultural evolution is dependent on our cognitive function in ways we are still unraveling, its emotional component is clearly an inextricable part of that function and generally traceable to the mesolimbic system, an older brain region that first appeared in reptiles. To pursue the concept further: humans, as the most recently evolved primates, have, through their cultural evolution, particularly as recently accelerated by Science, further developed human cognitive abilities to a degree that has allowed us far greater control over the planetary environment than possible by any other species.
Even though far from the complete understanding of the universe humanity’s leading thinkers have been seeking for the past several thousand years, those empirical skills have accelerated both population growth and the means of sustaining it to such a degree that sheer human numbers and the resources needed to sustain them pose significant threats our viability.
From the perspective of drugs and drug policy, the flaw strongly suggested by the relatively brief history of global cannabis prohibition is fairly precise: a conflict between the mesolimbic system and the neocortex. Beyond that, although both are still relatively poorly understood components of our brain, we have new and urgent reasons to both understand and resolve the conflict between them.
Doctor Tom
Posted by tjeffo at March 8, 2008 08:28 PM