#146. The Neurobiology of Myth and Ritual

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Blog entries beginning with #101 are not essays but minimally-edited notes and reviews from the files I've collected over the last few decades. I no longer have the time and energy needed to sort out and put together into decent essay-form the many varied ideas in these files, but I would like to share them with all who are interested.

If you have questions and think I might help, you're welcome to send me a note: sam@macspeno.com

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This post, #146, is a recent (January, 2013) attempt on my part to provide a summary of Chapter 5 of the Biogenetic Structuralist 1979 text, The Spectrum of Ritual, A Biogenetic Structural Analysis (Columbia University Press). The principal authors are Eugene d'Aquili, Charles Laughlin and John McManus.

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The main point of this highly significance chapter is the presentation of an understanding of how and why myth and ritual go together. It makes good sense, but it's complicated: there are many aspects that need to be considered.

Earlier chapters describe forms of animal ritual seen among canines, cats, monkeys and chimps. While human ritual shares much in common with the ritual of animals, what distinguishes human ritual is myth. There's no religious or cultic ritual that is not set in a mythic context.

From a neurobiological point of view, the myth-connected ("cognitive matrix") aspects of ritual are thought to have originally evolved separately, and only later did they become linked up with ritual behavior.

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A basic note about animal ritual: All animal behavior has evolved for adaptive/survival advantages. One of animal ritual's primary functions is to overcome the normal adaptive separation ("distancing") usually found in all animal species; its purpose is to promote needed cooperative-communal activity. Mating is the most obvious example.

In general, "intra"-group distancing and aggression needs to be overcome and would often, although not necessarily, involve "inter"-group uniting against others-- for, for example, access to, and the exclusion of others from, the limited resources of a specific environmental niche.

All animal and human ritual works to overcome "intra" distancing and aggression; it does it by influencing the brain structures of those involved-- via rhythmic repetitions.

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A basic note about myth: Humans, no less than other animals, are at the mercy of the forces of nature; but we also have a drive to make sense of the world; the biogenetic structuralists call this drive a "cognitive imperative." We need to understand reality.

"Myth," meaning explanatory stories in the broadest sense, arises from this need to make meaningful sense of all that threatens and which we would like to control. Via elaborate stories, the cosmic powers and forces of nature are usually expressed in the form of personal agents-- the "spirits" of Paleolithic traditions, the "gods" of many religious traditions, the "angels" of Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition.

The cosmic energies are always expressed in terms of pairs of complimentary (not mutually exclusive) opposites or polarities. Here, too, mating is a fundamental image: "resolution" of the tension of the opposites via their union.

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An interesting side note about cultural myths: For any given myth, the basic structure remains constant over time, although the details of the myth continually grow-- until they are exhausted. [Looks like we are at a time when many traditional religious myth-stories have become exhausted, something which Jung was saying around a century ago!]

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An important note about the polarity issues expressed via myth: The tensions of the opposites only get resolved via existential (i.e., personal) experience of that resolution-- which is what happens in ritual.

(The ultimate pair of opposite polarities is each vulnerable human being on one side and the ultimate cosmic force/power/dynamis on the other. The ultimate resolution is their coming together. [In perhaps more familiar terms, Bulgakov's human-divine sophia and Panikkar's cosmo-the-andric unity.])

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About myth: A major question from a neurobiological perspective is how myth arises from (or in) the central nervous system. Myth involves concepts, causes and polarities (i.e., named categories of objects, sequential linkages, and opposite di-poles).

All of these aspects of consciousness come from the same area of the brain called the "parietal lobe" or "inferior parietal lobe." It is "an association area of association areas," made of the overlap of those three areas which involve sensitivity to body, sight and sound. (Evidence for this is that injuries to the parietal lobe prevent a person from comparing things-- such as "smaller than", "larger than," "better than"-- or naming the opposites of things.)

The early evolution of this area of the brain-- of conceptualization, sequential thinking, language and opposites-- can be "traced" (i.e., described); these authors did this in their earlier book, Biogenetic Structuralism. The development of the parietal area in mammals and primates is what led to the coming of "man the culture bearer."

It is the last area to myelinate [mature in some sense] in humans, and its maturing corresponds to some extent to the development of Piaget's "formal operations"-- the 7-year old's ability to reason logically and the adolescent's ability to think about thinking.

The very earliest humans, Australopithecus, had a larger parietal lobe area than did the earlier primates, and so despite having a fairly small brain that were probably capable of abstract thought, causal and opposites thinking-- the minimum needed not just for ritual but for culture.

Because they lacked developed speech, however, they probably didn't have too much by way of myth or ritual.

But homo erectus did. And those humans were strongly lead by the "cognitive imperative"-- the universal adaptive drive [the drive to understand for sake of survival]-- to observe and try to control the forces of nature. Humans universally ask about an unknown stimulus, "What is it?" Emotional-affective responses are secondary.

But if the parietal area is chemically inhibited from functioning, the result is guilt, feelings of unworthiness, worry about the future, sense of loss of mastery over the environment, and thus depression. When that area's functioning is chemically enhanced, the result is euphoria.

And so we today cannot do otherwise than try to understand the world around us. And if we lack an explanation, we make up one. This is where science differs from myth.

Science accepts as valid only those explanations which are derived or inferred from observed data, but mythological (story) explanations don't. Whenever real understanding is lacking, our minds automatically make up explanations; they spontaneously personify the powers of nature.

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About ritual in contrast to myth: Humans can't resist acting-- "doing something"-- about every problem. "Ritual" is the name we give to the "motorized conceptualization" of myth.

But ritual by itself doesn't solve the problems expressed by the myths.

Myths are the stories made up to explain problems caused by opposites (basically, the polarities of life and death) and ritual is action stimulated by the problems.The actual (if temporary) resolution of the tension of the opposites results from ritual's impact on the emotions of participants.

When ritual works, it results in a "beyond-words" (i.e., ineffable) affective experience of unity to the group and its individuals. Ritual has been doing this for many thousands of years, but a scientific understanding of it in terms of activities of brain structures dates only to the late 1960s and the early 1970s, when the so-called "non-dominant" side of the brain began to be considered of importance.

Because the dominant side of the brain is known to be where language, logic and abstract thought takes place, prior to that time the non-dominant side had almost been considered a vestigial organ. [This is yet another example of the focus on Sensing and Thinking (matter & time) in patriarchal culture; and the long-term result of (in the perspectives of Henri Corbin) the "loss of angels" that took place in 13th c with the affirmation of Averroes over Ibn Sinna.]

Today (say the authors, writing in the late 1970s), we know that that the non-dominant side is also important. It has to do with visual-spatial relationships, perceives wholistically, and is responsible for creativity. [In the quaternary language used in many posts in this blog, vision and spatial relations are (Jung's) Intuition and Feeling, energy & space (in science's basics of matter, time, space and energy), and Black Bear of the west & Green Mouse of the south on the Medicine Wheel. Additional names for wholistic perception and creativity (besides Jungian Intuition) are Steven Gallegos' Imagery and H. Corbin's Imaginality].

Wholistic perception is especially important for this discussion of the neurobiology of myth and ritual. The two sides of the brain are understood to operate alternatively, flashing on and off repeatedly. The authors note that variations are what account for personality styles-- from extremely analytic to extremely synthetic , "scientific" to "artistic" [i.e., from Sensing-Thinking to Intuitive-Feeling].

The two systems are either energy-expending or energy-conserving, called "ergo-trophic" and "tropho-trophic." The combination of these complimentary opposite systems, when operative simultaneously (referred to as their "tuning"), results in unitive experience.

To greatly oversimplify: When both systems (sides of the brain) operate at max at the same time (due to ritual rhythms, meditation, etc.), the result is those experiences traditionally described as the oceanic feeling, the conjunction of opposites, the marriage of heaven and earth, and mystical (meaning "beyond words" and "difficult to talk about") experience.

It's the maximum functioning of both the Intuitive-Feeling side of the brain and the Sensing-Thinking side together. (And so is, indeed, "difficult to talk about"!)

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The long term practice of meditation results in similar experiences; a very interesting distinction is made between the similar experiences which result from meditation in contrast to those from ritual: The meditation-sourced experience persists much longer while the ritual-based experience is more fleeting (but may be repeatedly experienced in a short amount of time).

Also especially significant is the fact that ritual works more easily for people in general than does meditation experience-- which may take years of highly disciplined practice.

In either case, however, the result is not only a sense of union of opposites but also of harmony with the universe and a lack of fear of death. And, the authors observe, it is no wonder that ritual is such a universally pervasive human activity. No culture lacks it.

[From a very basic religious-spiritual perspective, this sense of union of opposites, harmony with the universe and a lack of fear of death resulting from meditation and ritual is the source of that basic trust in reality which is the original meaning of "faith"-- before it came to mean intellectual assent to conceptual statements.]

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The authors' sum:

         1) We humans need explanations of our problems and so construct them ("myths").

         2) We, like all animals, attempt to solve our problems-- to master the environment-- by motor actions (including ritual).

         3) Ritual works as one of the few mechanisms that can solve the ultimate polarity problems.

         4) Ritual takes different forms in different contexts, but is so important to society's well-being that it is unlikely ever to lapse into oblivion.

The authors also add a fifth point: that ritual also helps to 'structure' (produce) ordered authority and things like the distribution of necessities in times of scarcity. These sociological 'uses' of ritual are discussed in four later chapters.

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#48. Do We Have a Future?

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When I started this blog to share my thoughts about the convergence of science and religion, one of the first things I published was a report to my fellow high school graduates on the 50th anniversary of our graduation. It's in post #3.

The reunion planning committee had asked everyone, attending or not, to send notes about what they've been up to in recent years, to be published in an anniversary booklet and given to all who attended the reunion or sent in a report.

What I had been "up to" was an increasing awareness of the convergence of science and religion, specifically with regard to the question, “What is our place in the vast scheme of things?” I'd been thinking about that question for sixty years, and since my retirement in 2000 I’d given a good bit of time and energy to thinking through my understanding of it and how it might be expressed clearly for anyone else who might be interested.

I still continue to find fascinating what many of the front-running scientific thinkers, psychologists and religious writers have to say about "where we fit in." Although each uses very different words, they all seem to be saying something similar: that we humans are an integral part of the evolving universe and that we thrive in a dynamic relationship with the cosmic mystery.

I expressed it this way in post #3: "The Mystery behind the universe gives itself to us as the world and ourselves, guides and directs us, gathers us as individuals for all time and from the four corners of space into a wondrous Celtic knot and into a global community of diverse peoples, and promises our completion and fulfillment and the persistence of our relationships in the in-gathering of all beyond the passing away of things."

It's that last part of the statement that I want to explore in this post.

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Probably no aspect of western religion is more subject to ridicule than the idea that we have a future "beyond the passing away of things."

Because of the body-soul dualism inherited from Greek philosophy, western religion's idea of an after-life became such a mockery that people simply stopped thinking or talking about it. Many took an agnostic position, saying "I just don't know, and there doesn't seem to be any way any of us could know." But that's not very interesting. If you enjoy thinking about science and religion, agnosticism is simply no fun at all!

The dualistic view that comes from the static perspective of Greek philosophy is that persons have a permanent component that survives the decomposition of the body-- an immortal soul that persists after death because it was created to be immortal. In this view, escape from the world is the goal of human life.

Nineteenth-century scientific rationalism, with its reduction of the world to its material components, took the opposite view-- there is no soul, there is no immortality and only annihilation awaits us.

In a static worldview, either escape from the world into an after-life or our total annihilation seem to be the only possible responses.

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In dynamic worldview, things looks a bit different.

As Claude Tresmontant observes in his Study of Hebrew Thought (which I described in post #39), the "evolutionary metaphysics" of the Bible's wisdom tradition recognizes that "it is the nature of being to be continuously evolving." This dynamic view of the world is the basic understanding of the post-rationalist scientific view as well. Indeed, as I spelled out in post #38, the evolutionary worldview originally comes from the Hebrew experience of the Exodus.

In the evolutionary perspective, the question "Do we have a future?" becomes "Does the evolutionary process continue?"

The question isn't whether there is a direction to evolution. Direction seems clear enough; in the dynamic perspective, we easily see that the matter of the cosmos has evolved on Earth into biological life and eventually-- by way of mammalian and primate development-- into human beings, conscious persons.

We also see, although it's still a bit difficult in our individualistic society, that there is one more step in that sequence: beyond our individual development there is also our communal relationship with others. Science calls it "culture."

So, in the evolutionary perspective, the question is whether the dynamic sequence-- fourteen billion years of evolutionary development from stars to living things, persons and human communities-- is a dead-end in the long run.

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In its various forms, this is probably the most radical question we can ask. Is the universe meaningful? Or is it absurd? Do we have a future? Or is annihilation-- separately and together-- what's in store for us?

We know that once we did not exist and that we have come into existence out of apparent darkness and nothingness. Even dualistic religion and rationalist science agree on that.

But in the evolutionary perspectives of post-rationalist science, we can also see that we are part of that evolutionary process. We see that we have been gathered "from all time and the four corners of space" and that, out of the resulting complex chemical and biological components, our personal awareness and communal consciousness have emerged.

The question still remains, however, whether in the long run the process a dead-end. It's not a question science can answer. There's no empirical evidence.

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And yet almost every culture in the world has some understanding of our existence beyond death and of a reunion with those who have gone before us.

An in-gathering of some kind is imagined in almost every society: Abraham's Bosom, Happy Hunting Grounds, Heavenly Paradise Garden, a meeting with ancestors in the next world. Every culture envisions some kind of communal reality for humans after death.

C. G. Jung says that, in working with his older patients, he found that their unconscious psyche always acted as if it was to continue, even with persons who were expecting to die soon. He says that our deepest Self continues to presume and act as if it will persist. The psyche doesn't have any sense at all of an eventual annihilation.

Teilhard has an interesting comment about this. He says that if we didn't think we have a future we wouldn't even bother to answer the telephone. Today he'd probably say we wouldn't bother to check our e-mail!

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So, is there a way to make sense in our contemporary situation of the question "Do we have a future?"

I think the quaternary perspectives which I've spelled out in a number of previous posts can be of help.

I said in post #46 (Convergence?) that the best way I know to describe the distinction between science and religion is to say that science is about the anthropos-cosmos relationship, while religion is about the anthropos-theos relationship. And one way to state that difference is to use the imagery of the four directions on the Medicine Wheel which I spelled out in earlier posts: "Science is a primarily a Gold Eagle and White Buffalo expression of our conscious minds, while religion is primarily a Black Bear and Green Mouse activity."

In Jungian language we can say that science operates by way of the perception function called Sensation and the judgment function called Thinking, while religion, in contrast, operates by way of the perception function called Intuition and the judgment function called Feeling.

An easy way to summarize those concepts is to say that science looks at details and the sequential flow of things, while religion looks at the big picture and the inter-connections between everything.

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In four recent posts I used those quaternary perspectives to spell out the four-fold imagery of the anthropos-theos relationship contained in the Bible's wisdom literature. I called those posts Evening Wisdom (#42, Sophia as Architect), Morning Wisdom (#43, Sophia as Guide), Noonday Wisdom (#44, Sophia as Gatherer) and Midnight Wisdom (#45, Sophia as Provider).

I think the question of whether we have a future can be asked in terms of these wisdom perspectives, specifically in terms of the perspective I've called Midnight Wisdom.

As I spelled out in post #45, the sages among the Hebrew shepherds and farmers used agricultural imagery to describe this aspect of the anthropos-theos relationship. They pictured Sophia as vegetation (a tree, plant or vine) to describe Divine Wisdom as a source of food, shelter and protection, providing for the existence and life of the children of the Earth.

In that same post I mentioned that just as in the hunting culture of the Plains Indians the buffalo is understood to quite literally give itself for the life of the people, in these agricultural images Sophia is also understood to give herself so the people might live. She especially provides the food, shelter and protection needed in the dark of night and the cold of winter, the time and season specifically associated with North on the Medicine Wheel.

Like the North's White Buffalo, the mystery behind the universe provides us with what's needed for survival and the fullness of our lives. And as I said in post #45, "Contemporary scientists, cosmologists, theoretical physicists, psychotherapists; Orthodox and Catholic theologians; followers of ancient traditions such as Taoism and of teachings going back to Paleolithic times-- all are attempting to express the same insight."

There's one more aspect of Midnight Wisdom which needs to be mentioned here: the Sensation function's focus on details. Just as in the New Cosmology we see that it's a distortion of the cosmic process to exclude anyone or any thing from our care, so we can see that in terms of Sophia as Caretaker, nothing should to be overlooked in the long run, no one left out.

With all this in mind, we can re-word the question about whether we have a future in terms of Sophia as Protector, Provider and Caretaker: Will Divine Wisdom be consistent in the long run?

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In asking the question that way, it's important to keep in mind just what the long run looks like:

1. The world is dynamic, not static. "Being is continuously evolving."
2. The basic sequence of cosmic evolution is "matter, life, mind." In the big picture we see that human beings are "the world become conscious of itself." Persons are the matter of the world responding to itself by way of the structures and activities of the human brain.
3. In the cosmic process there is also culture, what I called in previous posts "the other half of person." Personal relationships, human community and our union with all else are also part of the evolution of the universe.
4. The Judeo-Christian tradition at the heart of western religion originally saw itself as the growing edge of that communal developmental process. In the context of the Bible's Wisdom perspectives, western religion saw the Hebrew prophets, Jesus, and the communities of his followers as the growing edge of cultural evolution, the continuation on Earth of the communal and cosmic stage of the world's development.

Western culture and religion lost this dynamic perspective for nearly a thousand years, and because modern science came into existence during that time, science too lacked the dynamic perspective for a while. But in our day, the big picture of the cosmic process has been recovered once again by both religion and science.

Today, we can recognize not only that we are associated with the destiny of the universe, but that as individuals we each have a unique contribution to make to it, and that our communal work towards peace and justice, equality and environmental consciousness is an integral part of it. We can also see today, as never before, that precisely because war, injustice and environmental damage prevent human beings from making their unique contribution to the evolution of the world that those things are distortions of the development of God's creation.

So in asking if we have a future, we're asking not only whether the cosmic process continues but also whether we can look for something else as well-- nothing less than a healing of the fragmentation we experience in our individual and social lives.

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In Christian tradition, the word used to name this healing wholeness which our minds and hearts look for is "salvation." It comes from the Latin word "salve," a word we still use for healing/medical ointments. In Greek, the word used is soterion, from soteria (desirable things), the opposite of phobia (things we fear). The basic idea in this understanding of salvation is that, as participants in the cosmic process, we can look for the healing and wholeness of all things, that in the long run we don't need to be afraid.

So in the evolutionary context, the question of whether we have a future comes down to whether we can count on the cosmic process for that healing and wholeness in the long run.

As I said earlier, there's no evidence. Nothing from the Thinking function. And if we do have a future, we have no information about the details. Nothing from the Sensation function, either.

But while the patriarchal mentality of static dualism writes off the other two functions of our four-fold consciousness as irrelevant or even as non-existent, it is via our Black Bear Intuition that we desire "our completion and fulfillment" and it's via our Green Mouse Feeling that we hope for "the persistence of our relationships beyond the passing away of things."

These two aspects of our consciousness also come from the cosmic process, no less than do our Gold Eagle Thinking and White Buffalo Sensation functions. It is via us that the universe expects to be "salved." And we experience that expectation in ourselves as a promise. It is a cosmic imperative much like what researchers in the human sciences call the "cognitive imperative." I originally described the "cognitive imperative" back in post #10 (Overview of Biogenetic Structuralism).
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The word "imperative" generally means an urge or impetus, an inner drive, something which is unavoidably necessary, like the pull of gravity. Here it refers to how the universe is ordered, and "cognitive imperative" refers to the fact that "cognition," human consciousness, results from the way the universe works.

This is such an important idea, with regard to the question of a future, that I want to offer some examples of the "cognitive imperative" at different levels of human development.

Months before we are born, the cosmic process is active in the embryological development of our brain and nervous system. Biogenetic structuralist scientists describe it this way: "The initial development of each nerve cell (in the brain) is motivated by a cosmic imperative to be active and 'reach out,' to contact and communicate with certain other cells."

At a later stage in our personal development, the same cognitive imperative is described as "the uniquely human, hardwired instinct to link cause with effect that gave us a vital evolutionary advantage over other animal species." That sounds complicated, but it simply refers to the fact that our minds look for explanations of things. When we hear a loud noise, for example, we automatically (instinctively) ask, "What was that?" The point is that it's not only a unique aspect of human consciousness to look for reasons for things but that the source of that cognitive imperative in us is the evolutionary process itself.

A third example comes from our understanding of adult psychological development; it has to do with the inner drive we experience to bring together the many aspects of our conscious awareness. In Jungian language it's described as our need to unify the various aspects of our conscious and unconscious (the Jungian "complexes") into a whole. Jungians would say that we experience within ourselves "a strong drive toward individuation." The biogenetic structuralists put it this way: "The wholistic imperative of the cosmic life-force also wants the psyche to integrate into consciousness those until now previously excluded complexes."

The point of these examples of the cognitive imperative-- this "primal urge to know," as biogenetic structuralists also call it-- is that this cosmic life-force, this "primordial cosmic dynamis," is both the way the world works and the way our hearts and minds work. It's not just the cosmic process working in us, but-- because we are the world become conscious of itself-- the cognitive imperative is nothing less than the "primordial cosmic dynamis" working as us.

So, when we look at the question of a future in this context, we can see that just as there is a cognitive imperative, there is also what might be called an "expectation imperative." We humans-- as the universe become conscious of itself-- find in ourselves a desire for completion, an instinct for fulfillment. We're hard-wired for it.

But it's not just our own expectation-- it is the expectation of the universe itself. Via us, the created world is expecting to have a future.

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Since I started this blog two years ago to share my thoughts about the convergence of science and religion I have pointed out many times that the evolutionary understanding of the world which characterizes modern science has its roots in the Western religious tradition.

Here I want also to point out that, as unlikely as it may seem to many, even this idea that the universe itself expects to have a future has been part of the Western religious tradition from the very beginning of Christianity. Although in the context of static dualism we miss it completely, the earliest Christian writer, Paul, makes the point explicitly in his letter to the Romans.

Paul says as clearly as possible that creation itself-- the whole universe, all of nature-- is "groaning as if in labor pains in expectation of its fulfillment." The many translations are fascinating. You might like to check Romans 8:22 on Bible Gateway. I especially like the version known as "The Message." In that translation Paul simply says, "The universe is pregnant."

So, just as there is a "cognitive imperative" recognized by western science, there is also what might be called an "expectation imperative" recognized by western religion.

The universe is expecting!

And it's that expectation which we experience in ourselves, via our Green Mouse and Black Bear functions, as the promise of a future. When we look at the big picture, in terms of the "Wisdom from on high who orders all things mightily," there doesn't seem to be any reason to mistrust it.

sam@macspeno.com

#10. Overview of Biogenetic Structuralism

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This is an overview of the basic perspectives of the field of scientific inquiry known as Biogenetic Structuralism, which I have found especially meaningful in terms of the contemporary convergence of science and religion.

As a human enterprise, science is broadly divided into the physical, biological and human sciences. The human sciences include things like psychology, sociology, anthropology and world religions; they are sometimes called "soft" science and hardly considered real science by those who work in areas such as physics, chemistry, astronomy. As a development in the human sciences, Biogenetic Structuralism dates from around 1970. It calls itself "Anthropology Plus" because while it centers on cultural anthropology, it does so in the context of brain and nervous system studies and of biological evolution. Because its perspectives are essentially both evolutionary and non-dualistic, it is highly relevant to the immense transition global humanity is currently experiencing.

The first book to have appeared spelling out its perspectives was called simply Biogenetic Structuralism by Charles D. Laughlin, Jr. and Eugene G. d'Aquili (Columbia University Press, 1974). While I don't understand all of it, what I do understand makes extremely good sense. It "feels right." As I've said before, I seem to be a "born" biogenetic structuralist. The following is an overview of the main points in that initial book's nine chapters. It's not easy material to follow, but in terms of the contemporary convergence of science and religion it is well-worth whatever effort we can give it.

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Chapter I. Introduction to Structuralism. The authors begin by noting that "like Existentialism in the 50s, structuralism seems to be the topic of the decade (1970s)." They are referring, of course, to the world of the "human sciences." They claim that worldwide interest in the anthropological thought of Levi-Strauss and in the linguistic thought of Noam Chomsky "have made structuralism a watchword for many." Chomsky is still alive in 2007, which shows how recent all this is in terms of scientific research and helps explain why it remains unfamiliar to most of us; it takes a while for scientific discoveries to filter down to the popular level.

Definition. A structural system is a collection of things which is self-regulating and self-transforming: an inter-related group of changes that follow specific "laws" (or "principles") while preserving the original unity of the transforming system. "Self-regulating" means that the changes are internal, not external. These ideas come basically from Jean Piaget's Structuralism (Routledge and K. Paul, 1971). Piaget died in 1980.

To this understanding of structuralism as the "principles by which a system is self-regulating and self-transforming," the authors add a dynamic (developmental) emphasis, and apply this "biogenetic" (or evolutionary) view to the central nervous system of humans, as well as to cultural systems. So their context is nothing less than the whole cosmic process. They see anthropos as a significant part of a participatory cosmos.

Philosophically, orthodox Structuralism goes back to H. Bergson (1907), Whitehead (1929) and von Bertalanffy (roughly 1950s and 60s). Bertalanffy was concerned with what came to be called "Systems Theory" and these philosophical ideas eventually were applied to social studies by people like Emile Durkheim, Marcel Mauss and his student C. Levi-Strauss, who applied them to studies of human culture.

The basic structuralist idea is that systems of things only make sense in terms of the principles which govern the relationships of their components. One key principle is that there are both surface and deep levels to cultural systems and that we tend to be unconscious of the deeper levels. A second key principle is that, specifically at the deeper levels, the components of a structural system occur in pairs of opposites. (And since these can only be reshuffled in so many ways, only a finite number of transformations can result.)

While surface patterns in systems (cultural or whatever) vary due to extrinsic factors, deeper patterns don't. There are innumerable languages, for example, but despite their enormous "surface" differences they all have the same basic ("deep") structure. Speakers tend to be unconscious of the deeper structures regulating the language they are speaking, just as people generally are unaware of the deeper unconscious components regulating their behavior.

A second important idea which distinguishes Biogenetic Structuralism from Levi-Strauss' earlier ("semiotic") form of structuralism is that it sees reality not only as dynamic but also as wholistic (or non-dualistic). 

(Note that non-dualism follows from the dynamic view: if the cosmos is developmental, then the anthropos-cosmos relationship is obviously wholistic as well as participatory. The issue, ultimately, with regard to the anthropos-cosmos relationship, is one of episteme: our understanding of understanding. This topic is dealt with nicely in the last chapter of the third Biogenetic Structuralist book, Brain, Symbol & Experience [see blog entries #1 and #7].)

Like much else of significance in our world undergoing an immense transition, neurological science began around 1875. And although much information was acquired in the 100 years since, "virtually none of it," say the Biogenetic Structuralism authors, was incorporated into the human sciences of anthropology, linguistics or sociology.

Note that, in this broader context of "Anthropology Plus," the word "structure" has several meanings. It can refer: 1) to the surface features of a system; 2) to the deeper relationships of components in a system (about which we are usually unconscious); and 3) to the literal (or physical) arrangements in the brain and nervous system. It is this neurological information that the authors want to make use of in connection with anthropology.

Looking ahead: Chapter II deals with primate brain size, Chapter III deals with pre-human brain development, and Chapters IV and V, the heart of this initial text, focus on the neurological basis of human consciousness. The remaining four chapters are concerned with applications of these perspectives to scientific research (VI), psychopathology (VII), sociology (VIII) and anthropology itself (IX). Fascinating stuff!

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Chapter II. Cerebral Organization and Kladogenesis. This chapter has to do with the evolution of brain size in animals. A clad is a branch of the evolutionary tree where all the members have the same ancestor. "Kladogenesis" refers to the fact that, in mammals and primates generally, body size tends to increase over evolutionary time and the bigger the body, the bigger the brain. But bigger isn't necessarily better. For example, we know that Neanderthals had bigger brains than some contemporary humans, and that some humans today have brains only half the size of others, with no loss of their characteristically human qualities.

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Chapter III. Cerebral Adaptation and Hominid Evolution. As early as 1886, the French physician and neurologist A. Vulpian noted that the difference between the human brain and the brain of the higher apes is minimal: "We are much closer to apes than apes are to monkeys." But it was only in the late 1960s and early 1970s that it was established (by J. L Holloway, Jr.) that complexity, not size, is what makes the difference. Hard to believe it was really that recently!

There was a controversy in neurology from the 1930s to the 1970s, with regard to whether brain functions have a specific "seat" (the "localists" view) or are spread out over much of the brain (as the "generalists" hold). The Biogenetic Structuralism authors take a middle position. Note that what follows deals with the major adaptive systems of pre-hominids and hominids; they are not yet talking about the specifically human brain.

The central idea here, without which most of what follows makes little sense, is that pre-human animal brains contain Association Areas; these are localized areas of the brain associated with those brain sites which are linked with each of senses. A major function of these areas is understood to be what the authors call "adaptive gnosis." That is, the Association Areas deal with information from the environment relevant for the survival of the individual and species.

Gnosis refers to re-cognition of objects in terms of in-born information and previous experience which is stored in the Association Areas. The recognition has an affective component, and this is what makes it adaptive for survival: if negative, the object can be avoided, if positive the object may be approached. Note that this "affect" depends on the links of the Association Areas with the limbic system (part of our inheritance from reptile ancestors); it also serves a prerequisite for primate socialization.

Four important systems of the primate brain, constantly referred to in further works, are described:

1) The Visual-Limbic System, by which most conditioned learning takes place. Sight and the visual Association Areas strongly connect with emotional responses (affect, feeling, cathexis ["what we hold to"]) which are invested in the things of the external environment that are visually encountered. The Visual-Limbic System underlies motivation and such things as imprinting (in birds), and the primate infant attachment to mother and group cooperation; it thus allows for socialization.

2) The Visual-Soma-Esthetic-Motor System. It links vision and touch with the motor Association Areas; it is responsible for orientation in space and also is pre-adapative to tool-use and tool-making.

3) The Frontal and Frontal-Visual System. Jane Goodall in 1964 reported that chimps are capable of primitive tool-use and tool-making, where relationships must be perceived and organized both temporally and spatially, and irrelevant elements ignored. This is an activity of the "anterior convexity" of frontal lobe; it allows for sequential ordering, dis-attention to irrelevancies, goal-directed behavior, problem-solving and space-and-time relationships.

4) The Frontal-Thalamic System. This system allows for subject-object (or self-other) awareness.

All four of these Association Areas are found in pre-human primates. There is also a specifically human Association Area (present also, but only in rudimentary form, in chimps): the Inferior Parietal Lobule (or Parieto-Occipital). "Its importance," say the authors, "can not be over-estimated."

The Parietal Lobule includes the angular gyri (a ridge on the cerebral cortex) and involves what are referred to as cross-modal associations. 

In animals generally, the Association Areas for each of the senses are linked separately to the brain, but in humans there are "cross-modal" connections between the various Association Areas. These cross-modal connections allow human learning to be to some extent independent of the limbic (affect or emotion-bound) linkages.

Note that it is sense-data involved in the perception of an object to some degree independent of emotion which is the basis for conceptualization or categorization; i.e., for seeing similarities and being able to group things into classes or groups in their absence. This ability is related to the representation of groups or classes via artificial (arbitrary, non-iconic) signs; i.e., to our capacity for language.

It was not known until the 1960s that the human brain exhibits "hemispheric asymmetry of function," i.e., that we have a left-brain and right-brain. One side (originally called "dominant") controls language, logic, perception of quantity and "symbols" (in the sense of representation of classes of similar objects). The other, "non-dominant," side has a specific wholeness or "gestalt" (Jungian "Intuition") function.

As I've said, none of this is easy, but it's well-worth whatever efforts we can be give to it.

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Chapter IV. Cognitive Extension of Prehension. Together, Chapters IV and V are the core of the book. They deal with the neuro-anatomical basis of human consciousness. As I see it, these ideas go a long way to resolving philosophy's age-old mind-body problem by helping us to see that "there is no problem." Thanks to this neurological perspective, we can see that dualism, whether philosophical, scientific or religious, is an unnecessary imposition on our human self-understanding. It was understandable in earlier times; today, thanks to neurological science, it's just not needed anymore.

The term "prehension" refers to the kind of knowledge pre-human primates have, and the "cognitive extension of prehension" refers to the specifically human kind of knowing based on it. Human consciousness only makes sense in terms of prehension, which is why the preliminary Chapter III is so important for understanding these two core chapters (IV and V).

Whitehead describes prehension as having three factors: a subject (knower), an object (the known, data) and how (i.e., the "way in which") the knower knows the known. He probably was talking about humans, but the same ideas apply to pre-human primates. Note that the "how" does not refer to the technological "means by which" but rather to the "mode in which" the knower knows the known.

This "mode in which" the knower knows the known is described by 18th-century philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) in his An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. He realized that a knower understands the known as being connected (or related) in one of only three ways: that they are like one another, or they are near one another (in space and time), or that one is the cause of the other. Note that these three ways or modes of knowing are all relational. The authors call similarity and nearness "immediacy" (or "simultaneity") and describe "causality" as "things flowing one from another."

They define "prehension" for higher primates in terms of two things: 1) the input of data through the senses to the brain; and 2) the simultaneous association of that data with data already stored in memory within the brain. For life's survival, the incoming data is compared with what's already known. Note that the stored data generates expectations, and that those expectations are themselves capable of being, and constantly are, modified.

In pre-human primates, the stored data is located in the various sense Association Areas described above; in humans it is spread out more, "like a holograph, where the whole is in each part by way of interference patterns."

The authors note with honesty that the use of holography as a model for brain information storage is simply the latest in a series of attempts to make sense of brain activity in terms of technology; earlier models included clock, switchboard and computer. They also refer to the stored information, the "seed crystals for human behavior," as the "cognized environment," distinct from the "external environment."

It's probably not obvious, but that distinction they are making is, in more familiar language, the distinction each of us makes all the time between the external world and ourselves as conscious participants in it. While it may seem to get in the way, the neurological jargon-- if we can stay with it-- greatly helps in our understanding of the mystery that we are. And especially in our self-understanding as "the cosmic process become conscious of itself."

An important point, for example, is that the "stored information," even that which is in-born, constantly gets modified via life-experience; expectations are matched up with unexpected data, and modifications of our cognized environment result. Equally important is that these modifications are physical ("anatomical") changes in the physical links and electrochemical activities in the brain. The process is called the Empirical Modification Cycle; it has a central place in the scientific understanding of our personal and cultural development.

Over-riding all this is one more process, equilibration ("diachronic equilibrium" or "equilibrium with duration"): in the continual monitoring of sense data with the stored information, so that only unexpected data is retained. It's the retention of this new information that modifies the stored data. Again, it may not be obvious, but these ideas provide us with the beginnings, at least, of a neurological understanding of how our life-experiences change us.

The authors note that the conventional understandings found in Learning Theory, of classical and operant conditioning, may lack validity simply because those ideas were formulated without taking neurological information into account. As understood from a Biogenetic Structuralist perspective, any learning that takes place either confirms or modifies a pre-existing neural structure. Some modifications are retained only for a short time, others are more permanent. (These ideas are related to an understanding of sleep; too much to talk about here!)

The authors use the jargon phrase "common sense" to refer to prehension in primates. When prehension is extended beyond common sense it becomes cognition. Their main point is that in humans, the concepts, causes and expectations can be about non-present things: the same kind of comparison-activity takes place as in prehension, but in the cognitive process the data comes from within the organism's brain and nervous system. Perception of the immediacy and/or causality of things not present in the external environment obviously has high survival value.

This comparison of components of stored information, rather than from in-coming sense data, is true "cognition" ("consciousness" or "human intelligence"). It is clearly less stimulus-bound, and thus allows for the reformulation of stored information-- in terms of decisions, novelty, creativity, newness.

Language apparently evolved to communicate this kind of non-externally present information, and only primates with human (or close-to-human) intelligence can have language. (Chimps seem to have some kind of non-verbal language ability. )

The authors define awareness as "an extremely heightened experience of direction, causality and purposiveness." This is an important statement. As I see it, it almost identifies human awareness with the (Jungian) Thinking function and, thus, with the basis for the contrast between stasis and dynamis. It implies that human awareness is not something distinct from the developmental aspect of the world but that personal consciousness is what the evolution of the universe is all about. The next chapter enlarges on this fundamental point.

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Chapter V. Neuro-gnostic Models: Structure and Content. Chapter V, on the nature of human consciousness, expands on the understanding of how sense data is processed in terms of how it fits with previous information already stored in the brain and nervous system. The basic idea is that any sense data that enters the brain is immediately compared with already-there previously stored sense data.

A main point the authors make is that any "already-there" models (structures) are made up not of some non-material 'substance' but of the links and networks of the brain's matter (neural cells) which are themselves based on genetically determined structures. They are saying that basic human neuro-gnosis is inborn, the result of primate evolution, so that the mystery of consciousness (awareness, cognition, intelligence) comes from the material DNA base.

It's especially important to note that this rejection of mind-body dualism is not a reduction of mind to matter; it presumes the non-traditional understanding of matter which emerged in 20th century science. Just as Relativity Theory and Quantum Mechanics do, so Biogenetic Structuralism sees physical matter as something quite different from what it was assumed to be in the pre-20th century rationalist and positivist stages of science.

The authors distinguish neuro-gnosis and neuro-gnostic structures. By neuro-gnosis they mean what we usually call awareness or consciousness: the "informational content" of the models (neurological structures), that "of which we are aware." Neuro-gnostic structures refers to the media of nerve cells and their networks in which this information "is coded" and by way of which "it can be modified." Our inherited gnosis-ability is the result of a newly emerged evolutionary complexity. ("New" in terms of primate evolution). In brief, neuro-gnostic structures are the brain cells-and-networks and neuro-gnosis is the consciousness resulting from their activity.

The authors also make the point that this distinction is directly analogous to the structure-and-function distinction in other areas of physiology where organs and organ-systems are understood to function together for specific effects. The activities of our brain cells and their physical and electrochemical linkages result in conscious awareness in the same way that the components of the respiration-oxidation system, for example-- mouth, nose, lungs, heart, veins, arteries, all transmitting oxygen to the cells-- result in those energies which we call "life." The life of any living thing is itself a mystery; the human mind (soul, psyche) is no less so!

It's important to keep in mind that the neuro-gnostic structures are not something static, but rather a dynamic field of electro-chemical reactions. Yet again, the importance of seeing reality dynamically rather than statically is apparent. Consciousness is that inner version of the world which is there for our (individual and species) survival and which, for that reason, has both cognitive and affective aspects.

In humans, the structures are in the "dominant" lobe, but in fact it is all one big complex reality. The "wiring" is stable; and while much is learned (acquired), there is also much that is built-in. Built-in knowing includes categorization or conceptualization. This is an important understanding for anthropologists because it allows them to make sense of the view which sees the diversity of human cultures as "always and everywhere" similar at the deeper, "structural" level.

Just as human bodies are much the same everywhere, both externally and internally, and we call their workings "life," so the human brain is "externally" (anatomically) the same everywhere, and we call its workings "neuro-gnosis" (or "psyche" or "consciousness"). That is, humans are universally similar in things like reasoning ability, emotions, image-making and group behavior. The authors offer five groups of evidence for this in-born, characteristically human, neuro-gnosis: from C.G. Jung, C. Levi-Strauss, Linguistics, Ethology and Learning Theory.

Jung's work is mentioned first. The authors say his ideas were "ahead of its time." Levi-Strauss' work came later (1940s); his main point was that "human cultural institutions have very similar structures." The authors add: Biogenetic Structuralism exists to say "And this is due to the human brain and nervous system." Hard to imagine that this basic insight about human nature dawned on us less than fifty years ago!

Levi-Strauss was first to note that social "principles" especially manifest as binary opposites. (So do Jungian archetypes, according to the authors, although that's not obvious to me). Language has a deep structure, just as do the universals of logic and of archetypal imagery. 

Additional evidence for neuro-gnosis appears in ethological data (re bird migration and bird song) and in Learning Theory. (The data, about pigeons pecking keys, is painfully dull to deal with, but its implications are important in terms of what's called "learning preparedness" or "inborn neuro-gnosis.")

An especially significant implication of all this, in terms of the convergence of science and religion, is that humans are prepared ("genetically wired") to learn via certain patterns of knowing such as story and myth. Another is that latent neurognostic structures require specific kinds of stimuli (a la Maria Montessori) in order to be activated.

We have an inborn drive not only for food and sex (for the sake of life-survival of individual and species), but also for gnosis itself. We have an inborn drive for understanding the meaning of sense-data, and this results in our abilities for things like problem-solving and tool-using. 

That is, we need to understand, to predict, to make sense of things. The same cosmic process that produces atoms and molecules, and living things when the temperature is low enough, produces conscious awareness when the neural complexity is high enough. For the survival of life, the cosmic process urges us to neuro-gnosis. Biogenetic Structuralism called this in-born impulse, given to us by the universe, the "cognitive imperative."

There are three main ways in which the cognitive imperative 'urges' us to process (organize) sense-data for personal and collective survival; each has some fascinating implications:

1) We 'order' (or organize) reality in terms of "I and not-I." (This is the most basic polarity, based on the fundamental drive to ordering via pairs, which itself is based on space perception and is manifest as images and myths. The authors say these ideas can be appreciated only by familiarity with Levi-Strauss' views.)

2) We 'order' reality into causal sequences. And, the authors note, when there is no obvious initial source to a sequence, the brain and nervous system makes up one. (They also point out that if we are unable to order into pairs and/or sequences, we experience fear. And they note that the scientific enterprise is characterized by holding back on making up causes. This seems to me an especially fruitful area to explore in terms of the convergence of science and religion which I hope to deal with in future blog entries.)

3) We also 'order' the reality of our communal lives into flexible social structures in preparation for disasters. (This is the Boy Scout ideal: "be prepared." It's an obvious Sensation-activity. And since sequencing is a Thinking-activity, the cognitive imperative would seem to be quintessentially "masculine" in the contemporary cultural sense.)

In contrast, the three ways in which we relate to reality seems quintessentially "feminine." Of the three kinds of sense-data knowing, one is the social drive (relating to con-specifics); another is relating to things (objects), with resulting feel-good or feel-bad affects (such as a mild "mastery euphoria" or depression (and even depression has survival value: by reducing violence when an alpha male needs to move down the hierarchy for a younger male to take his place); a third way of relating is to specific things, as negative phobias (snakes, insects, etc.) and positive soteria (such as the mother bond and sex-objects).

Needless to say, these two central chapters (IV and V) of the 1974 Biogenetic Structuralism text are tremendously challenging. But they also are, as I've said, utterly fascinating. And their relevance with regard to the convergence of science and religion is enormous. Having been a teacher for forty years, I know that much (maybe most) of this conceptual material is not retainable on first hearing. So in my next blog entry I will offer a summary of the main ideas which, in conjunction with this overview, will help interested readers "hang in there."

The remaining four chapters of the 1974 text spell out some applications of the Biogenetic Structuralist perspective. What follows are just a few sentences about each chapter, to round out this overview and offer some hints about the far-reaching aspects of this perspective.

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Chapter VI. Evolution and Empiricism. This chapter is about the development of science. The main point is that "science" is an everyday human activity and that it proceeds exactly as does the development of human consciousness. The essentials of the "scientific method" are the alternation of induction and deduction, exactly like the Empirical Modification Cycle for individuals and cultures. A scientific hypothesis for unexplained data holds the same place in the progress of science as do symbols in the process of personal growth and development.

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Chapter VII. Structuralism and Language Acquisition. The introduction to this chapter offers a good summary of the main ideas of this first book on Biogenetic Structuralism, and deals more than previous chapters with those ideas specifically in terms of cultural anthropology.

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Chapter VIII. Psycho-pathology and Evolutionary Structuralism. This chapter helps make sense of pathological states from a Biogenetic Structuralist point of view. It includes sections on schizophrenia, clinical depression, alcoholism, phobias, obsessive-compulsive traits and the "more or less permanent" learning deficit which can result when a person "does not receive appropriate input during a given critical period."

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Chapter IX. Implications for Social Science. The final chapter deals specifically with ideas about the need for the scientific field of Anthropology to get its act together. If I've understood it right, it is saying that there is no such thing as "culture" in an objective or reified sense. That is, that "culture" has no reality apart from the brain and external environment (any more than consciousness has). And that maintaining (in either case) that it does, simply separates Homo sapiens from all other species; it is yet another form of scientific and religious dualism and precisely one which allows for human exploitation and degradation of the environment. The authors call for the end of "culturology," as they call it, and for the establishment of a "nomothetic" (i.e., laws- or principles-based) Science of Humanity.

As I've said, fascinating stuff!

sam@macspeno.com