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sudly
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The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory
#24250178 - 04/16/17 09:10 PM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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On psilocybin, evolutionary adaptation and consciousness: Thousands of years ago as forests in Africa dried out and turned into grasslands the primates inhabiting them were forced to take to the ground as the habitat changed around them.
Psychotropic plants have been and still are a part of the natural landscape, especially within grasslands as psychedelic mushrooms thrive in such environments. These coprophilic, manure loving mushrooms often grow to become large, warm coloured and easily be visible against a backdrop of green grass.
This new African grassland environment would place considerable pressure on protein availability for the primates encouraging them to expand their diets to become more omnivorous and high in fibre such as plant and mushroom material rather than the fruits of the previous rainforests.
In nature we observe primates often picking up objects, viewing and sniff testing them for edibility. Psychotropic mushrooms would easily fall into the category of edible for these grassland primates.
The addition of psychotropic mushrooms to their diets would have significant effects on their behaviour, individually and socially. MRI scans during tests with the active ingredient in ‘magic mushrooms’ psilocybin show that it stimulates the language forming centre of the brain as well as producing a greater facility for the processing of symbols and patterns.
This may have given these primates an adaptive advantage to their surroundings as sub-acute doses have been shown to improve visual acuity and awareness to surroundings. This added with the stimulation of the brains language forming centre is likely to have provoked these primates to use vocal calls more often. In essence creating a basic form of language.
This adaptive advantage of increased vocal usage may have aided early pack hunting primates in coercing hunting strategies through vocal positioning of movements within the pack.
The active ingredient psilocybin metabolises through enzymes to pump the brain with neurotransmitters almost indifferent from serotonin. It is reasonable to assume that psilocybin could have acted as a catalyst for language in early humans being the stepping stone to achieving higher culture.
The human brain has developed more in the last 30,000 years than the past 3 million. Magic mushrooms are very likely to be the catalyst for the burst of primate development because of the presence of psychoactive compounds in the food chain. This dietary addition could be the template for cognition, self-reflection and language.
As the use of mushrooms from grassland primates increased with experience they would surely learn that cattle are the source of the mushrooms seeing as they are produced from their manure. This realisation would create the impression that the cows are gifting them and is very likely to have led to a symbiotic relationship between early humans and cows as the cattle were easily domesticated with a reciprocal relationship which additionally aided in their survival through the protection from humans.
Historically cows have been revered for thousands of years and seen as religious figures, even gods in many religious contexts. Cows eventually became domesticated as they became used for milk, meat, fur and fuel via dried manure. Not only have cows often been religious icons but the magic mushrooms themselves have been too.
Many cults of the old world have expressions of vegetation goddesses focused on the image of a mushroom, namely the Aztecs. The Aztecs held many religious beliefs and praised various gods, several of which were mushroom gods. In the creating myths of Aztec writing mushrooms are referred to numerous times and are often cited as sacred for their culture.
Most of the Aztec religion was based on undergoing hallucinogenic experiences, they had enormous numbers of plants and other substances, mushrooms and things to create trance states.
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Nobody is born understanding string quartets or reading Latin or creating poems; How will their children become capable of "feeling everything," of gaining "a pervasive being," capable of helping the bird to spread its wings and the fish to grow their fine fins and the scholar to pour forth his personalia?
When reality is freshly seen, through the artists and their commentators, something happens to the felt essence of life.
On nurture vs nature I think behaviour is influenced by both.
There is innate genetic behaviour and learned environmental experience, with an appreciation of evolutionary influences it can be both.
The first professor of animal behaviour Niko Tinbergen taught that there are ways to quantify behaviours in animals with the use of observation methods such as those of modern behavioural ecology.
I think it's about asking the right questions and allowing for more than one answer.
The reference to Tinbergen was to what questions can be asked in behavioural fields of ethology and ecology which includes ontogeny(learning behaviours/development) and genetics.
Tinbergen was the man who proposed four categories of questions and explanations to the evolution of animal behaviours.
 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinbergen%27s_four_questions#Four_categories_of_questions_and_explanations
I believe there is more to the magic of mushrooms than a good time. Here is partially why, any thoughts would be appreciated.

Alas...
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OrgoneConclusion said: This is not even close to a theory - and is not taken seriously simply because there is no evidence. It's a real shame that random drug-fueled ramblings go relatively unnoticed. That being said, you are more than welcome to spend your life dedicated to turning the academic world upside down and going for your Nobel Prize.
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”Since shamanism is characterized by ecstasy. Many scholars have tended to treat every form of ecstasy, particularly in an archaic or primitive environment as, ipso facto, shamanistic, ignoring the possibility that it may take more than one form.
And a very ancient form is the vegetal rites of the Goddess where there isn't a shaman, or male of authority conducting the ritual, but where all the celebrants take the psychedelic and become 'possessed'. This is what the classical Dionysian Mysteries would have been like, it was a an orgiastic ritual where all the participants just come together in an ecstatic celebration which could also include sensuality and sex.
This is important to know, because the 'acceptance' of psychedelics by the medical model bases its ethics on the mono-shamanic version and puts down what it terms 'recreational tripping'. This is a big reason that all people are prohibited from having access to psychedelics.
I also don't see anything wrong with the idea of an experienced shaman leading a ceremony. There is healing work that shaman are capable of doing which would not happen without the intent and know-how of the shaman. A bunch of people getting high together and having sex or whatever might be ecstatic, but if one of those people has some serious physiological or psychological problems then they might benefit a lot more from working with an experienced healer
All I am trying to add, which I think it is important, is alternatives. Is saying that just because shamanism is old, this doesn't mean it is THE prototypical archetypal technique of ecstasy."
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
Edited by sudly (04/18/17 04:15 PM)
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sudly
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: sudly]
#24253495 - 04/18/17 03:26 AM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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A Christian calling on Jesus was just as successful as a Lokota Sioux shaman, a Ch’i Gong master, a Jewish Kabbalist healer, a Buddhist and a New Age practitioner from the School of Healing Light. What they all seemed to have in common was the ability to leave their individual sense of self behind: Their ego sense of self was surrendered to some kind of healing force.
How this operates has still to be elucidated but it has been shown by Elmer Green (Copper Wall Project in Topeka, Kansas), that experienced healers have abnormally high electric field patterns during healing sessions
For you my gnostic.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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redgreenvines
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: sudly]
#24253541 - 04/18/17 04:26 AM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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what is your point? fragmented collection of bits of info. some info very iffy - eg,
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Thousands of years ago as forests in Africa dried out and turned into grasslands the primates inhabiting them were forced to take to the ground as the habitat changed around them.
would that not be millions of years, or several hundred thousands of years...
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sudly
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: redgreenvines]
#24254745 - 04/18/17 03:25 PM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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My point is lateral mind stretch yoga because I don't so much see the functions of the brain as being about the left brain, right brain model, instead I personally find a level of understanding in a sort of lateral model of the brain that is modeled in the same way as the brain is argued to have evolved over time from reptiles, to mammals and us.
Whether it was a million, or a hundred thousands years ago, somehow our hominid ancestors came to be able to sculpt their environment to suit their own needs and I thought this might be an interesting topic at the least
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An East African savanna landscape of tree-dotted grassland is shown in this image from Samburu National Reserve in Kenya. The more heavily vegetated area in the middle distance is the corridor of the Ewaso Ngiro River. A new University of Utah study concludes that savanna was the predominant ecosystem during the evolution of human ancestors and their chimp and gorilla relatives in East Africa. http://www.livescience.com/15377-savannas-human-ancestors-evolution.html
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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BlueCoyote
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: sudly]
#24254860 - 04/18/17 04:21 PM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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If we not so much shaped the environment to suit our own needs, but more shaped ourselves to not so much abuse the need of the environment, maybe we would be better going...
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sudly
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: BlueCoyote]
#24254873 - 04/18/17 04:28 PM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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Maybe we just have different ideas of how humans are capable of evolving.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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BlueCoyote
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: sudly]
#24254891 - 04/18/17 04:37 PM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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Evolving simply includes that we don't go extinct in a changing environment. But what if we are the cause of that change already ?
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laughingdog
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: sudly]
#24254940 - 04/18/17 05:00 PM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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sudly said: ... This adaptive advantage of increased vocal usage may have aided early pack hunting primates in coercing hunting strategies through vocal positioning of movements within the pack.
The active ingredient psilocybin metabolises through enzymes to pump the brain with neurotransmitters almost indifferent from serotonin. It is reasonable to assume that psilocybin could have acted as a catalyst for language in early humans being the stepping stone to achieving higher culture....
Perhaps getting Lamarckian here. ... Perhaps if those who used psilocybin had an advantage, then a dependence on psilocybin would have been selected for and not a brain that could be more intelligent on its own. Of course it's all wildly theoretical guesswork anyway.
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DividedQuantum
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: sudly]
#24255096 - 04/18/17 06:42 PM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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The problem with this hypothesis is that there is not now, nor will there ever be, any way to test it. Which means that it is not remotely scientific. Which means that it is basically religion.
-------------------- Vi Veri Universum Vivus Vici
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sudly
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This is why I referenced Niko Tinbergen and what questions might be useful to ask when discussing evolution and behavioural ecology.
etc. do any of you know where psilocybin effects the nervous system? That it is sympathomimetic, that it structurally resembles serotonin when metabolyzed and that it works on 5-HT receptors?
Like a fox eating mushrooms and staring into car lights, the selective advantage in my view is control of the fight or flight response, which isn't helpful when fending from predators but is helpful for abstract behaviour that could lead to more refined behaviours such as vocal calls and perhaps even a primitive form of language.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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sudly
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: BlueCoyote]
#24256211 - 04/19/17 05:13 AM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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BlueCoyote said: If we not so much shaped the environment to suit our own needs, but more shaped ourselves to not so much abuse the need of the environment, maybe we would be better going...

I think it's also important to note when we most likely began to shape the environment to suit our needs and this provides two suggestions.
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Out-of-Africa versus the multiregional hypothesis Broadly speaking, there are two competing hypotheses on the origin of modern humans: the Out-of-Africa hypothesis and the multiregional hypothesis. Both agree that Homo erectus originated in Africa and expanded to Eurasia about one million years ago, but they differ in explaining the origin of modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens). The first hypothesis proposes that a second migration out of Africa happened about 100,000 years ago, in which anatomically modern humans of African origin conquered the world by completely replacing archaic human populations (Homo sapiens; Model A). The multiregional hypothesis states that independent multiple origins (Model D) or shared multiregional evolution with continuous gene flow between continental populations (Model C) occurred in the million years since Homo erectus came out of Africa (the trellis theory). A compromised version of the Out-of-Africa hypothesis emphasizes the African origin of most human populations but allows for the possibility of minor local contributions (Model B).
© 2000 Nature Publishing Group Jin, L. & Su, B. Natives or immigrants: modern human origin in east Asia. Nature Reviews Genetics 1, 127 (2000).
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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BlueCoyote
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: sudly]
#24257406 - 04/19/17 01:39 PM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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It kind of begun as we climbed down the trees somewhere ... And yes, there had been different regional and genomic species of us kind of, and at some occasion even offspring was reported from archeologists, but all in all we all developed from bacteria or even something more 'primitive' like the conglomeration of some protein molecules ... lol
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sudly
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: BlueCoyote]
#24257714 - 04/19/17 04:24 PM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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I think you're going a bit too far back in history. I agree that life itself evolved from prokaryotic bacteria over 4 billion years ago. etc.

But what I am thinking of in this thread is when our hominin ancestors developed the self awareness to be able to make stone tools and build the fires that led to the evolution of our society and culture.
Essentially I'm talking about the potential of a shift from homo erectus to homo sapien.

And if you are interested this is the type of psychology I am talking about and what I am positing is similarly likely to occur when experiencing the anxiolytic effects of psilocybin.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
Edited by sudly (04/19/17 05:18 PM)
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BlueCoyote
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: sudly]
#24259420 - 04/20/17 10:54 AM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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I'll watch that old rat laboratory video later... meanwhile....
And what is it you think about psylocybin... It just replaces serotonin, which is the most common neurotransmitter in our brain. If you raise the dosage, just more connections of neurons were made, which often don't make external sense but is just a projection of our internal state (hallucination)
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sudly
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: BlueCoyote]
#24259946 - 04/20/17 04:00 PM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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BlueCoyote said: And what is it you think about psylocybin... It just replaces serotonin, which is the most common neurotransmitter in our brain. If you raise the dosage, just more connections of neurons were made, which often don't make external sense but is just a projection of our internal state (hallucination)
I'm mainly focused on the sympathomimetic effects of psilocybin and what their likely effects are on blood pressure, heart rate and the effectiveness of the fight or flight response.


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The sympathetic nervous system originates in the spinal cord and its main function is to activate the physiological changes that occur during the fight-or-flight response. This component of the autonomic nervous system utilizes and activates the release of norepinephrine in the reaction.
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Behavioural effects are dependent on dose and the individual reaction and sensitivity to psilocybin, previous experiences and the setting. The major effects are related to the central nervous system, but there are also some sympathomimetic effects. http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/publications/drug-profiles/mushrooms
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Sympathomimetic: (of a drug) producing physiological effects characteristic of the sympathetic nervous system by promoting the stimulation of sympathetic nerves.
Denoting neural action, endogenous chemical agents, or drugs that simulate the action of sympathetic postganglionic nerves or their transmitters. Synonymous with adrenergic.
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Sympathomimetic drugs (also known as adrenergic drugs) are stimulant compounds which mimic the effects of endogenous agonists of the sympathetic nervous system.
Sympathomimetic drugs are used to treat cardiac arrest and low blood pressure, or even delay premature labor, among other things.
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BlueCoyote
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: sudly]
#24260043 - 04/20/17 04:47 PM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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As far as I know, there is no major differentiation of serotonin in the sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system. It's major neurotransmitter there and there... A general raise makes the whole system maybe more sensible to changes, but as even the reactive systems are more active, it kind of levels even and out in a delay...
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sudly
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Re: The Intelligent-Magic Ape Theory [Re: BlueCoyote]
#24260080 - 04/20/17 05:13 PM (6 years, 10 months ago) |
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It's not just the differentiation of serotonin and psilocybin but also that serotonin and psilocybin work on the same parts of the nervous system which are mainly that of the serotonergic system.
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The serotonergic system is one of the oldest of the amine systems in the brain. It is also one of the most mysterious. It is very hard to say in a few words what the serotonergic system does.
It originates in two midbrain areas called the dorsal raphe and the median raphe. They both innervate forebrain and midbrain structures in kind of complementary ways that are a bit complicated to go into. The serotonin system seems to be very much involved in inhibition. It opposes, in function, most of the other amine systems and it’s inhibitory both in terms of sensory input and in behavioral output.
So, let me try and illustrate that - LSD is a drug which works via serotonin receptors in the brain and of course it produces amazing visual hallucinations by working with serotonin receptors and presumably, disinhibiting those neurons. On the output side, we know that serotonin is very much involved in impulsivity, that is to say, behavior occurring without foresight.
We know in our own research with rats that if rats have low serotonin, they simply can’t restrain themselves from responding when they shouldn’t. So, this is a very intriguing function in terms of psychopathology. And in indeed in human terms, serotonin functions have also been linked to aggression, for example. So, low serotonin produces behavioral disinhibition leading to aggression. https://www.dnalc.org/view/813-The-Serotonergic-System.html
I'm also trying to explain the relation between the sympathetic nervous system and regulating blood pressure.
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Our goal in this Hypertension Highlights is to summarize and integrate our ideas on the role of the sympathetic nervous system in long-term blood pressure regulation in humans. http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/56/1/10
Isn't the goal of meditation to calm down? To reduce blood pressure and feel more content etc.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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sudly
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Quote:
DividedQuantum said: The problem with this hypothesis is that there is not now, nor will there ever be, any way to test it. Which means that it is not remotely scientific. Which means that it is basically religion.
Additionally, because I'm also trying to understand compassion. The discussion of this thread is my personal conjecture.
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conjecture: take as a hypothesis, theorize, form/formulate a theory,
I think these things because there are referenced and peer reviewed scientific journals I'm trying to bind them together into a single and coherent essay where it can be shown more clearly whether or not the 'facts' are falsifiable.
I do still acknowledge that it is my interpretation of the evidence but I do think there is evidence for more to be looked into in regards to what level we as homo-sapiens have and have developed a level of self control over the functions of our adrenal glands.
-------------------- I am whatever Darwin needs me to be.
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