Series: Evolution, Neuroscience & Quest for Sustainability

[Oscar]

EVOLUTION, NEUROSCIENCE AND THE QUEST FOR SUSTAINABILITY

Part 1 in a Series

BY Jim Harding, Ph D Published in R-Town News May 27, 2016

There’s a new TV series about “the enlightenment”. It’s not about the renaissance and the rise of science after the Middle Ages in Western Europe. It looks back further, to the changes in worldview that occurred across many cultures in the ancient world, around 400-500 BC.

It takes Buddhism out of the context of comparative religion, where it is often placed because of its origins in Hinduism, and places Buddha alongside Socrates and Confucius, associating them all with the growth of reason, insights into natural law and growing awareness about the responsibilities that come with this emerging awareness. All three philosophers lived within expanding urban environments where people were being challenged to outgrow their parochial roots. The new realities gave birth to different versions of what came to be known as the Golden Rule.

This is timely, for our path to sustainability will rely on this ongoing enlightenment. Some believe we are re-entering such a period as we grapple with the challenges of diversity and sustainability, though it’s hard to see this with all the ecological, cultural and religious blowback we are facing. Some political tendencies, especially nativistic nationalism, make it seem like we are in a period of regression and reaction. The desperate migration of humans escaping warfare, failed states, climate change or burgeoning inequality certainly doesn’t seem to display much human enlightenment.

The present clash over whether Britain should or should not stay in the European Union (EU) reveals the desire of many to consolidate, and restrict identity and immigration in a period of growing human encounter. It is very different to say “I am and want to stay English” than to say “I am European”. It’s probably time we simply said “I am human”.

If we look beneath all this, we could be on the edge of a leap in human species self-awareness. As in the time of Buddha, Socrates and Confucius, this requires letting go of fixed identities. This time, we likely have to discover why we need and how we form identities, and to learn to do this in more peace-loving ways. The global human rights movement is a good beginning. There are no guarantees, but if we don’t embrace the enlightenment in our midst, the leap to a more sustainable life will be much harder to make.

PSYCHOLOGICAL ROOTS

In the mid-1960s when I was studying psychology, the field was in a fast transition into physiology. We had a joke at the time that “first psychology lost its soul, then it lost its mind and now it is having trouble with its behavior.” Psychology was leaving behind religious “explanations”, Freudianism was discrediting simplistic views of human consciousness, and many naively thought that we were primarily a bundle of conditioned behavior. The physiological model was still mechanistic, asserting that the “mind” could be explained by brain function and function was mostly reduced to brain structure.

We have now learned about what’s called our neuroplasticity: our ability to relearn brain-body functions damaged through strokes, diseases or accident. In our unequal society, not all patients have equal access to the medical-therapeutic programs required for this profound rehabilitation; I have a friend who suffered from encephalitis who didn’t have access to timely, persistent recovery-rehabilitation. Our new awareness about neuroplasticity, that what “fires together wires together”, is however already inspiring us to try new ways. Insights into PTSD, mindfulness training and advances in neuroscience have all mushroomed. This deepening knowledge has immense implications for us moving forward.

NEUROSCIENCE

We have discovered much about our evolved brain. We don’t have different brains, as some allege, rather our central nervous system has co-evolved through different species-stages. We could say we have a reptilian brain, a mammalian brain and a primate brain all wrapped up in our human body.

The reptilian brain is associated with the cerebellum and is tied to regulating bodily function. The mammalian brain is associated with the limbic system, and is tied to memory and emotion. And the primate brain is associated with the neo-cortex and is tied to thought, language and imagination.

We couldn’t be fully human without all these capacities. Our so-called higher functions, which we associate with culture and science, require memory, emotion and bonding, and none of this would be possible without a self-regulated body. Our capacity for sentience and for compassion depends upon this interwoven “whole”. I can’t help wondering why traditionally-religious people sometimes seem reluctant to learn about how such an intricate, interwoven web-of-life has evolved on this planet.

Our interwoven brain has a long and continuing history. The first brain developed with fish starting about 500 million years ago, the second came with small mammals about 150 million years ago and the third came with our primate ancestors only about 2 or 3 million years ago. This interwoven brain has evolved into an integrated system with inter-connected neural pathways. It’s no wonder that we sometimes feel caught between animism and having delusions of human separation and supremacy. Neither view of human nature or human prospects is sustainable; it’s time to let go and move on.

SELF-REGULATION

With this new knowledge, we seem able, though probably not quite ready, to better understand what and who we are. Romanticized and other delusional views will continue to erode. And, we can become much more content with who and what we are as a human species if we more fully accept how we ended up with, and learn to live with, our capacities and vulnerabilities.
We don’t want to misunderstand or mystify the interwoven brain as though it is like a programmed computer; it is not. We are a hormonal, social and spiritual being all at once and we are highly challenged straddling all these dimensions. We sometimes “go off the rails”. We know that we can go off the rails collectively, as we’ve done with genocide, preparing for nuclear war or with climate denial. Our increasingly interdependent species, which has the technological and economic prowess to alter the bio-physical processes of evolution itself, now clearly needs to make a big leap.

Next time, I’ll explore what our “split brain” may suggest about our species’ capacity to become more sustainable.

Jim Harding, PhD
Retired Professor of Environmental and Justice Studies
[ http://www.crowsnestecology.wordpress.com ]

[Oscar]

INSIGHTS FROM OUR SPLIT BRAIN: Part 2

EVOLUTION, NEUROSCIENCE AND OUR QUEST FOR SUSTAINABILTY

BY Jim Harding Ph D Published in R-Town News June 10, 2016

We now know that our evolved brain is somewhat split, with a right and left hemisphere. Interconnected and always communicating through the corpus callosum, these hemispheres nevertheless nurture different qualities of consciousness. The right hemisphere is more linked to visual and spatial orientation whereas the left is more linked to thought and speech. Meanwhile, each hemisphere coordinates the other side of the body; it is an exquisitely evolved system.

RIGHT AND LEFT HEMISPHERES

Without oversimplifying this, our logical and more linear left hemisphere tends to nurture awareness of individual identity, including our orientation through time. This can shape a consciousness of separation, which in turn leads us to query or makes assertions about “I”; “What am I? I am what?” For simplicity let’s call this the “existential hemisphere”.

The right hemisphere tends to nurture awareness about the present moment, to process the sensory explosion and field of energy within which we all exist. This can shape a consciousness of connection, which leads us to query or hold beliefs about “this”; “What is this? This is what?” Again for simplicity let’s call this the “environmental hemisphere”.

After brain scientist Jill Taylor suffered a hemorrhage in her left hemisphere, she watched her awareness of the separate “I” disappear and finally had to surrender to the cosmic “we”. After surgery, it took her eight years to recuperate. See her 2008 Ted Talk “A stroke of Insight”.

AVOIDING EXTREMES

Our self-awareness about our unique existence can take us in very different directions; it can go from “I am nothing” to “I am everything”. Both extremes are dangerous to us as individuals and to our communities. Whether we separate or merge our identity, we are setting ourselves and others up for surplus suffering. Compassionately respecting each other’s human rights is very different than dissociation or, on the other extreme, merging with totalitarian-like rule.

Right hemisphere awareness is more free-floating and thus linked to music, creativity and belonging. We have always needed awareness of our tribe-community and our habitat, and this awareness can keep us from being self-absorbed. In an evolutionary sense, we have clearly needed both kinds of awareness – as a vulnerable, individual organism and as an interdependent social being.

Once we evolved into a fully mobile, bi-pedal social animal, we had to scan the immediate environment for food and danger, and to build and maintain our essential social support networks. However, the human infant is the most vulnerable and dependent of any primate and must be cared for at length while our “big brain” grows and develops. Without our big brain, we can’t become fully human; in that sense our big brain and our need for society are inextricably linked.

Yet, as a highly socialized animal, we are also vulnerable. Rather than having an open, probing, scanning awareness, we can become conditioned to believe that “this is what the groups says it is”, or “this is what authority says it is”, or “this is what the belief system I was born into says it is”.

HUMANITARIAN WISDOM

The combination of the two brain hemispheres created the capacities for human survival, expansion and the quick (60,000 year) colonization of the planet. However, this also created the conditions for subservience and mass delusion. Climate denying is one big example. The crucial question now is, can the revolution in neuroscience encourage the self-awareness and self-regulation required to be sustainable as a species?

Wisdom can be seen as finding balance in the orientations – the verbal and visual, the logical and artistic. I think it is helpful if we think of this as balancing the existential and the environmental. This is not at all straight-forward, for the reactive or reptilian brain and the emotional and memory-shaping mammalian brain are always influencing our thoughts and behavior. While we are inclined towards existential and environmental awareness, we are also being pulled between arousal (amygdala) and foresight (neo-cortex). It is indeed quite a balancing act.

BALANCE DESIREABLE

If a child grows up to feel and believe that “I am threatened” and “this is a dangerous place”, then finding balance will be much harder. How society is ordered, one’s formative experiences, and the depth of the human support one has, will all shape how one feels about “I” and “this”. We can all be distracted and even immobilized by strong beliefs about the “I” or the “this”. And yet, as we learn more about our complex selves, our interdependence and how the two brain hemispheres can work together, we can all move towards balance.

Our beliefs matter. We can tend towards the narcissistic and/or delusional. We are always being challenged to maintain our orientation in time (mortality) and space (presence); our personal and communal well being depends on this. The power of the “tribe” can lead us to merge the “I” with a restrictive view about what “this is”. We can racialize or demonize others, relegate others to another status, gender, class or nation. And we can even embrace and violently defend such limiting self-other identities. We see this aggressive parochialism in our midst; I’ve seen it in local politics.

CARRYING ON

But our two brain hemispheres somehow got us to where we are. Deepening our awareness about these evolved capacities, and how we can go off the rails, is vital for our sustainability. Even in the midst of the turmoil in the present world, clarity about how our complex brain operates and can pull us in differing directions, can help us steer ourselves in a more careful way.

We are always somewhere between arousal and self-regulation, between animalistic survival and curious inquiry. When we are shut down and resigned to habitual beliefs about what “I am” or what “this is” we become more self-annihilating. But we all know that we have a higher capacity, upon which we can continue to build. Mindfulness and compassion, together, can be seen as a way to balance the existential and the environmental awareness that comes with the push and pull of the left and right brain hemispheres. The prospects are exciting.

In Part 3, I’ll explore what we can learn from our hominoid ancestors.

Jim Harding, PhD
Retired Professor of Environmental and Justice Studies
[ http://www.crowsnestecology.wordpress.com   ]