Angels, Aliens, and Archetypes

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This is not so clear. In the past a distinction has been maintained between "anatomically modern humans" and "behaviorally modern humans" to distinguish early sapiens with those that appeared around 50,000 years ago, and I think I've heard some argue that anatomically modern humans may actually represent another species. Moreover, there was published some years back some evidence that several genes connected to brain development have shown evidence of being selected for over the past few dozen thousands of years.

aparently we developed rational thinking for emergency situations, but forgot where the off switch was and lost touch with the aboriginal dream time/tao/god/godess/eden etc

^That's very interesting. Maybe the reason why the alien is the new archetype is due to our cultural advances made by technology. There was a study done with DMT. http://www.rickstrassman.com/pages/dmt/ It's a chemical in our brain that scientists believe cause us to dream and hallucinate. Anyway, these people who took a large dosage of DMT had similar hallucinations of aliens directing human behavior with a panel that was described by several unrelated people in the experiment.

The same way that angels and demons pervaded our psyche with archetypes, aliens now pervade our thinking. I don't think we should put too much stock in any of it. Maybe this is what our collective unconscious is trying to warn us about. After all, almost all people who have had several encounters with aliens claim that the message they give is to warn them about the destruction of the world through what may either be nuclear war or environmental disaster brought on by technology. Either way, the message is clear to them that humans will be responsible for the end of the world.

twoshots wrote:

I don't know. Most anthropologists believe that hunter/gatherers and modern man have the same anatomical brain. We don't use most of it though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utBkbJIY ... r_embedded

Right, but hunter gatherers generally would be considered "modern man". There was an extreme bottleneck in human populations somewhere around 70,000 years ago, out of a total human history of 200,000 years, so people now are quite similar genetically (although this does not preclude mild adaptations since then). I thought we were talking about older archaic Homo sapiens. Contrary to popular opinion, hunter gatherer populations usually display significant technological attainment which puts them to a tech and culture level within the last 50,000 years, so they are not necessarily representative of what people would have been like when we first emerged.

burningviolin wrote:

If jam makes you that happy, then yes you should investigate this. Perhaps your desire for this gooey treat stems from your childhood and some repressed mommy issues.

As soon as large groups of people begin to claim that jam is abducting them at night, then we should look into jelly further.

Last edited by Magnus on 23 Feb 2009, 10:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

twoshots wrote:

The point I was trying to show is that even the same anatomical brain causes people to think differently depending upon which culture he/she is brought up in.

Even if it is true that homo sapiens are a more recent species than previously believed, the fact still remains that we emerged from another species that probably had a lower intellect.
I think it is probable to assume our brains will continue evolve, and perhaps we will become a new species. If we can figure out the other 90% of our brain and use it, then we most likely will be classified as a new group of animals. I think that if we created a new collective unconscious which deals with these archetypes, we just might break some code and evolve to a higher level of consciousness. It's worth investigating because the reward will be better than something from Star Trek.

I was abducted by jam!
Anybody else!?

I was abducted by jam!
Anybody else!?

Speaking of human evolution, it appears our minds have evolved more in the past decade than it has for I don't know how long. Neuroscience is investigating the influence of constant exposure to electronic technology and how it shapes our brain. Now, this isn't necessarily Darwinian evolution. But it's definitely our minds adapting to the environment. I know there's a book about this coming out in a few years. I'm just too tired and lazy to dig up the info right now.

The old false nonsense that we use only 10% of our mental capacity is mere rubbish. See http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=do- ... se-only-10

You have the nub of a good point there. Somewhere between 200,000 years ago and now our some members of our species developed the knack of abstract speech. That is, they could not only talk about what was here-now but of that which might exist in the future or far away. This ability gave those who had it a definite survival advantage. Why? They could plan ahead. That means they would not only be able to bring back more meat, but they had a better chance of getting a mate and making babies, some of which were also born with the knack. As time passed the social structure of humans assimilated language ability and that led to further favorable selection of those born with the ability. And so it went. Over the thousands and thousands of years, those who are verbally nimble enjoy a differential advantage in reproduction and that is exactly what nature selects. So our varieties of abstract ability is feeding back into the society which in turn creates a more favorable environment for those with the ability to be abstract. And so the wheel turns. In the case of humans, part of natural selection (differential success at reproduction) is based on social reality as well as climate, air, availability of food etc. etc..

ruveyn

Sand wrote:

Thanks Sand. That is something I heard as a kid. I think people like to stress it because it motivates us to try to live up to our potential.

As for the evolving brain, I think it might have to do with mutations. It's interesting how evolution works. There seems to be an intelligence behind it rather than it being caused by randomness. Perhaps a species can will it?

A mutation is a change in form or function or both and it is random. Very rarely a mutation provides some advantage but in general it is disabling or fatal. The way we are built is something very carefully evolved and a change is most likely disastrous.