3(c) First Solution: Instinct

Initially the dangerous self-adjustment mistakes simply occurred, with the result that those members making them died. Those who happened to have genetic characteristics or propensities avoiding those particular mistakes survived. In some cases these naturally selected restraints or shepherdings would have been anatomical. For example, if the mistake was taking the body or genetic animal for a walk over a cliff, an anatomical safeguard may have been to ‘naturally select’ members with short legs who could not climb around in mountainous places. In other cases, the genetic shepherdings were the establishment of reflexes, in which the nerve pathways themselves were organised against certain brain misadventure through natural selection. (To see how nerve pathways can be organised through selection take what happens at the simplest reflex level as an example. It is easy to comprehend how the primitive nerve net that controls the movement of the tentacles of the hydra polyp could be organised through natural selection of hydra varieties having nerve connections that produce an effective response, such as contraction of the tentacles when touched. Varieties not having such a useful arrangement of their nerve net would be at a survival disadvantage.)

As soon as nerve nets (primitive nervous systems) appeared in animals to co-ordinate the activities of their cells, the capacity to at least temporarily remember impulses through the nerve pathways was also acquired. As a consequence, memories would have been related and self-alterations or anticipations or predictions would have begun. Predictable regularities were identified (that is, the nerves had insights) and acted upon (the future was anticipated); at the same time genetic refinement learnt toPage 124 of
Print Edition block any insights which led to self-destruction. As the brain (the nerve centre that developed for this information processing) developed, the genes ‘watched over it’ and brought it under control so that gradually the species learnt to anticipate or change its behaviour safely according to regularities which were identified in its nervous system (that is, according to understandings). A gradual, hand-in-hand process of the genes ‘following’ the brain occurred, the genes shepherding the brain away from self-elimination and reinforcing successful self-alterations.

At some very early stage in the development of nerves, soon after they appeared in primitive organisms, we can imagine mutations or varieties of these organisms occurring whose behaviour was affected by their nerve memories. Since the nerves were connected to what we now recognise as ‘effector muscles’, the memories could affect muscles and thus bring about movement. These self-induced (as opposed to genetically induced) variations in behaviour represented a new source of variety for adaption for the species. Natural selection could reinforce modifications that were beneficial through, for example, selecting nerves that received certain memories over those which received other memories or, possibly, selecting some memory-to-muscle connections and not others. In time we can imagine it becoming possible for the nerve memories to be compared for similarities in experience and these insights being used to affect the organism’s behaviour. Again, those memories which had beneficial results would be genetically reinforced and those which were self-eliminating would be genetically blocked or shepherded.

The shepherdings and reinforcements together constituted genetic orientation for the behavioural alterations induced by the organism’s mind or mental self. They areInstincts what we now term instincts.

Genetically refined or organised nerve pathways which involve little or no information association are termed reflexes; genetically reinforced and shepherded information associations are termed instincts.Page 125 of
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To illustrate an instinct, recall the suggestion earlier that short legs could have developed to stop brains taking their bodies for a walk off a cliff. In fact this inhibition was not achieved anatomically; instead an instinct developed which protected against this mistake. So-called ‘visual cliff’ experiments with young animals show they are born with an innate knowledge which stops them going over an edge. To realise how refined this innate orientation has become, we have only to think of bird migrations. The birds know exactly where to fly — and where not to fly — to survive from summer to winter to find their feeding and breeding grounds. This is now thought to be achieved largely through instinctive orientation to the magnetic grid on the earth. It has to be remembered however that, as the behaviourist Tinbergen showed in his experiments with stickleback fish and gull chicks, ‘complex’ innate behaviour was controlled through the accumulation of ‘simple’ innate sign or cue triggers. For instance, Tinbergen found that gull chicks feed in response to the recognition of a red dot on their parent’s beak — they will even attempt to feed from a cardboard cutout as long as it carries a red dot. Tinbergen also found that it is the red belly in stickleback males that releases fighting instincts in other males. Instincts were simplistic.

The first instinctive containments or disciplines and reinforcements for the mind would have involved organising the animal to satisfy its basic needs for food, shelter, space and a mate. Biologists have referred to these primitive or base instinctive orientations or guidances as ‘drives’. As we would expect, these drives, acquired at the reptilian level of development of life, are deep seated in the human brain; they lie at the very inner layer — in the brain stem and hypothalamus.

So the genes followed the brain, shepherding it to safety. In recent years biologists have suspected that a theory first propounded in the early 19th century by aLamarckism man called Lamarck had significance. Lamarck hypothesised that habits acquired in a lifetime could be passed on to the next generation. In hindsight, as is often thePage 126 of
Print Edition case with our suspicions, Lamarck was right, although highly confused. Obviously what our mind decided did influence our chances of reproducing and therefore our genes’ chances of reproducing, but only now can we see (actually ‘admit’) the full significance of this ‘genes following brain’ association.

We have evaded clearly describing what instincts were because a clear description would have exposed the fact that our soul was none other than our instinctive self. We could not afford to expose/confront God and ‘his’ integrative expression which was our soul until we could confront or reconcile ourselves with God/integrativeness. All interpretation of what ourSoul soul was had to be repressed. Reconciliation of our enshrined absolute truths with our evasive mechanistic inquiry into those truths — reconciliation of theology and biology, of religion and science — depended on finding the full truth about ourselves.

As an illustration of the need that has existed to repress any clear understanding of what instincts are, take the obvious fact that if many people are trying to cope with life under the pressures of the human condition some will do so better than others and therefore will survive better than others. It follows that some people and races of people are more instinctively adapted to the battle than others. If 1000 people are trying to survive in extremely compromising surroundings those who happen to have a nature or genetic makeup that is more ‘realistic’ will cope better than those who are more ‘idealistic’. The ‘realists’ were those who were in essence more determined to apply themselves to the struggle to be free from ignorance to search for understanding — which means those who were more able to defy the criticism from their conscience such as by blocking it out or ignoring it. On the positive side realists had great strength of will or resolve and thus were more heroic. On the negative side they were more alienated and cynical (more hidden from the real beauty on earth and the ideal truths our soul knows of), more egotistical, more aggressive and angry, and more opportunistic/selfish/greedy (as the sayings go ‘only a fool [innocent] playsPage 127 of
Print Edition fair or stands on principle’ and ‘if you are smart you look out for number one’ [be selfish] — note here also the association of cleverness or I.Q. with ‘realism’).

Consequently realists have been in more need of material compensation for the price they have paid in continuing the search for understanding, for not quitting. (Of course as the amount of upset increased so qualities of self-discipline, restraint and civility were also required of realists which could slow but not stop the increase in exhaustion.) The ‘idealists’ who did not cope and thus survive so well were the more innocent, those who were still prepared to share, consider others, not ignore/block-out the ideals of theirRealists & idealists conscience and in general be less intellectually responsible and less determined to pursue the ideal of finding understanding which was necessary for the long term success of humanity and thus the long term consideration of others. The paradox here being that the ‘realists’ turn out to have been ‘idealists’ and selfless after all! To quote a realist’s defence of their position that this author found written in a Chinese fortune cookie, ‘The only good is knowledge and the only evil is ignorance’.

So the ‘genes followed the brain’ and over two million years humans have become instinctively more and more ‘realistic’. Until now we have not been able to clearly explain the virtues of realism perceiving them mostly as vices. We have not been able to defend Adolescentman. We have not been able to defend the instinctive exhaustions/sacrifices we made to the ideal of finding understanding. We have not been able to explain that we had to ‘cash in’ our soul or spend our soundness of self or ‘lose ourself’ in order ‘to find ourself’. We have not been able to define our ‘strength of character’. In this situation the only safe course of action, the only sensible thing to do, was to evade admitting and thus seeing too clearly what instincts were. We did not want to look too closely into what our instinctive self was like just as we did not want to look too closely at what our everyday upset exhausted self was like — at least not until we could defend thesePage 128 of
Print Edition corruptions of our soul’s original beautiful unembattled state. We have been insecure about our instinctive self’s state.

To balance this emphasis on the positive side of our embattled state we need also to recognise its negatives or dangers. Obviously the divisiveness or selfishness involved in realism would eventually lead to total disintegration, to social breakdown. We could not go on being divisive forever. In doing so we were spending soundness/integrativeness and during these last days in the two-million-year-long search we have been spending at a colossal rate. Everyone has been ‘getting into the fast lane’. In the United States the beautiful but virtually unpopulated and mostly wilderness state of Wyoming has removed almost all taxes and is offering many other amazing incentives to entice people to live there. Unable to confront the truth that is implicit, albeit accusingly, in wholesome (integrative) nature and return to a life of soundness, living gently, sensitivelyMaterialism/
Business/Work and non-materialistically in harmony with nature, all that has been possible as we have neared the end of humanity’s adolescence was all-out materialistic/consumeristic escape — which produced even greater exhaustion, insensitivity and devastation. (Of course the hypocrisy then was that when living in the superficial, materialistic ‘fast lane’ we often vigorously supported such causes as preservation of wilderness areas that the ‘fast lane’ we were occupying was actually destroying! This made us feel better about ourselves without tackling the problem which, in essence, was ourselves.) The question was always, would we exhaust our soul/soundness (and our earth) before we found our freedom (from ignorance)? Towards the end our hope and faith that we would was being sorely tested, as has all been explained before in this book.

Life during humanity’s adolescence has been one long deadening (which, stressing only the positive and evading the negative we chose to refer to as ‘toughening’) process requiring great courage and heroism. For two million years now the more exhaustion-adapted have been replacing the less exhaustion-Page 129 of
Print Edition adapted not so much through confrontation and bloodshed (although ‘the massacre’, ‘fucking’ and ‘crucifixion’ of innocents has occurred, especially during the last half million years) as through the more innocent being unable to cope (survive) in the new reality of (what is to them) compromise. In truth all realists had to do to replace innocents was be realistic. While in the early days of white settlement in Australia relatively innocent Aboriginals were murdered because of their innocence they now quite often self-destruct with alcohol through being unable to adjust to the white population’s more advanced level of reality. For two million years now the first to advance down the ‘exhaustion curve’ to a new level of reality replaced those at a less advanced position. Women of two million years ago would have no instinctive ability, would not have been selected to cope with, what happens to women now. They would be appalled and shocked and generally incapable of coping. They would have no preparedness for the level of upset that exists on earth now. Women from the present find it hard enough to cope. A fashion magazine about how to be ‘attractive’ would be meaningless to women from two million years ago. Similarly an ego battleground ‘business journal’ or a competitive ‘sport’ magazine would be meaningless to an un-embattled non-competitive man of two million years ago. A man of two million years ago had not yet realized he had to ‘work’ to find understanding and not experiencing the mistakes that result from such searching, wasn’t preoccupied and ‘driven’ to defend an embattled ego or conscious thinking self.

The process of reality/exhaustion replacing idealism/innocence took place in our own personal lives just as it did in the life of adolescent humanity. It even happened throughout each day. All writers learnt they could only write creativelyEnthusiasm for a few hours a day before expending their natural enthusiasm, their access to the uncorrupted world of our soul, to the ‘God within’. (In our now mad, driven state we have expended our original self or soul’s natural day within us by about 10 am after which we entered a state our soul knew almostPage 130 of
Print Edition nothing of and by evening we were in a completely weird world as far as it was concerned.) At last this horrible process of advancement down the exhaustion/departure curve can end. The catch-cry that ‘you can’t stop “progress” ’ is no longer valid. The way forward now is back since going back is now at last possible.

So, while the whole human race is now two million years instinctively battle-adapted (which we should remember is still insignificant compared to the ten million years of adaption to an integrative, beautiful, happy existence now instinctively embedded within us) some races are marginally more advanced down the exhaustion curve having been in the thick of the battle longer. The most advanced will be those from the earliest civilisations such as the Chinese from the Yellow River Valley civilisation, the Indians from the Indus River Valley civilization and the Arabs and Jews from the Tigris, Euphrates and Nile River Valley civilisations. European races are almost as embattled as these races. It should be stressed here that our instinctive exhaustions, along with any differences betweenOur neuroses
run deep people and races in the degree they are instinctively exhausted, will not be a problem for the future because we are entering a world of so much beauty and happiness all remaining problems will be drowned out by that beauty and happiness. We will have so much generosity in the future nothing will be a problem for us. With the weight of the criticism from ignorance lifted from our shoulders we will feel so free that the few remaining problems we have will not be noticeable and will be easily overcome with the love, generosity and pride we have in our great effort and achievement as a species.

The point that had to be stressed here about instincts was that without defence for our embattled state we could not afford to differentiate between races or individuals according to what we can now see was their level of exhaustion —Racism whether it was instinctive (acquired over thousands of lifetimes) or acquired during one lifetime — because it wouldPage 131 of
Print Edition be unfairly criticised as bad when the full truth was exhaustion is not bad. As much as possible we had to practise a policy where all people were considered equal since the full truth is, as is now revealed, we were all equally good soldiers for humanity. Exhaustion or lack of it was not a sign of either goodness or badness but while we were insecure we misunderstood this. While we were insecure the innocent criticised the exhausted, seeing them as bad, and they retaliated against the innocent because they saw the criticism as unfair. Until we understood completely and were secure in that knowledge, our interpretations would be prejudiced by the insecurity of our understanding. While races do differ in their degree of tenacity and exhaustion, racist notions of groups of people being inferior or superior to others have no credibility. The full truth is, all people have fought equally hard for humanity, the only difference being some were more embattled from fighting for humanity than others. There is no such thing as inferior or superior (good or bad) humans.

It was mentioned earlier that instincts were simplistic. Trying to develop control using instincts required that the animal make every decision without reference to any general understanding or universal law. Instincts were not insightful although they were capable of guiding insightful thought. While the nerve pathways could be organised to ward against misadventures of the mind in the same way as reflexes were developed, natural selection could not select mental information associations (insights or reasonings or mental correlations) because these were not born with the animal. Insights could favourably or adversely affect an animal’s chances of reproducing, and thus influence the genetic or innate makeup of the species but the insights themselves could not be selected, at least not directly. However, they could be genetically directed or channelled. Insights which improved an animal’s chances of reproducing would be backed up or reinforced genetically because of this effect on reproduction capability, the result being that the insights themselves were also selected, although indirectly. Genetically we could not learn understandings, but we could learn orientations to understand-Page 132 of
Print Edition ings. While thoughts or mental reasonings could not be selected there was nothing stopping the nerve net being genetically organised (as occurred in the refinement of reflexes) so as to favourably incline the passage of certain thoughts towards certain associations/insights/ideas/reasonings, or even away from them. In this way our alienation or mental blocking out, our mental detouring or evasion of certain associations/insights, is now partially genetic in us. This is why, while the truth has always been fairly obvious, as is now revealed, the millions of humans on earth all found it fairly easy not to see it.

It was possible to let some truth through these instinctive blocks or evasions by means of prayer or meditation. By quietening our mind right down some truthful conscience guidance from our soul might struggle through the blockages and overburdenings to surface consciousness. Even Christ with all his soundness, his lack of alienation, at times had to employ fasting to make full contact with his soul and thus know what it knew. Denying our brain sustenance by fasting helped break up some of these instinctive evasions or blocks that are now in all our minds. One of the problems this book faces is that it says things that we have been blocking out for so long we will find it hard to hold them in our mind. No matter howPrayer &
meditation clearly they are explained they will tend to drop out of our mind as soon as we stop reading. Even reading the book will be difficult for the more exhausted among us. The meanings will be blocked from coming through in our mind and we will think the information has not been clearly explained or even that nothing has been said. Christ experienced this when he talked unevasively. He said, using the metaphysical and highly critical language of his day, ‘Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say . . . The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God [you evade integrative meaning]’ (John 8:43-47).

Alienation is a very real phenomenonHumanity’s
insecurity although, unable to defend it, we have hardly been game to mention it, let alone study it.Page 133 of
Print Edition Instead we have coped by repressing the fact that it even existed. For example, while such things as ‘human nature’ and ‘human affairs’ are defined in most dictionaries, ‘Human Condition’ is never mentioned. That is how evasive we have been. The truth is, thinking could become so hurtful when we became exhausted that sometimes only constant chanting of mantras or counting of beads could stop the pain in our brain. In the decoration of some Middle Eastern mosques only motifs that have no resemblance to anything natural are used. The shape of a leaf would start the mind thinking of plants, then nature, leading inevitably to the confrontation with our ‘unnatural’ self that until now we have been unable to defend. Only alien patterns and objects, soothing cool colours such as blue and white and purging running water in fountains decorate the interiors. A great deal of modern Western interior decoration has taken this path, indicating a desperate need for relief emerging in the West. It has to be desperate because such alien decoration presents a false, unnatural view of our world, producing more falseness in those practising the escape and forcing others who are not already false to become so by coercing them into compromising their conscience. These examples illustrate how real alienation has been. Young people who have not yet adopted evasion will find the ideas in this book fairly simple and obvious while the older and more alienated will find it almost impossible to read.

(We can also see here the benefit of a slow mind and the danger of a fast one. A mind not very quick in understanding would still get there in the end and the preciousness of such slow progress was that the thinking didn’t become lost — there was time for the conscience to have its say and guide the thinking. Instincts need time to express themselves. Watch animals that are not under threat make decisions and itDanger of I.Q. seems to take them ages. A fast mind easily rides roughshod over its instincts, in which case, without its guidance system [conscience] our mind could only arrive at The View from Nowhere [to quote the title of Thomas Nagal’s book mentioned at the very beginning of this book], which is preciselyPage 134 of
Print Edition the view humanity had arrived at. Cleverness tended to know everything but in truth know nothing. While academia was quick to recognise the advantages of a high I.Q. it failed to appreciate the preciousness of a low I.Q. If academia had learnt to wait for slow minds it would have been amazed at what these slower minds could tell it/explain when they eventually caught up. We ignored/evaded/denied and were thus unaware of the thinking powers of introspection or soundness. For example, it was said of Christ, ‘how did this man get such learning without having studied?’ (John 7:15). The nature and roles of the mechanistic and holistic approaches to inquiry will be explained in detail in Part 3 of this book however it might be mentioned here why this book does not have a bibliography. The few references used in writing this book were able to be incorporated in the text. The synthesis of explanation in this book was found mostly by introspection not research. Mechanistic inquiry advanced step by proven step while holistic inquiry advanced by reference to conscience, by conscience guidance. Conscience indicated what information was to be trusted and what ideas were to be held onto.)

Certainly a mind could be directed by its instincts. If our body were starving instincts would soon have our mind thinking about obtaining food. Insights could be and to a degree were channelled instinctively. Such genetically influenced/directed thinking did, in its effect, represent innate insight or innate knowledge. Instincts have had a big say in the way we thought. We have lots of innate knowledge in us.

The Penguin Dictionary of Biology describes instincts as ‘elaborate reflexes’ and really that is true. Reflexes led to instincts which in turn lead to reasoning. At each level the genetic component or influence lessened while the information-associating or brain refinement became more elaborate. Reflex, instinct and reasoning were different names for different degrees of the one thing, information association, rather than separate names for different activities, as we sometimes evasively chose to believe. In our insecurity, in order to make ourselves feel uniquePage 135 of
Print Edition we humans sometimes tried to reserve the power of reason for ourselves, attributing only reflexes and instincts to other organisms.

In most animal instincts the relating of events involved is fairly simple and in no way approaches the minimum level required for what we call ‘reasoning’. By reasoning is meant the capacity to understand the relationship of events sufficiently to manage them, that is, manipulate or change them, first over the short term and then the long term. A seagull chick associating the red spot on its mother’s bill with feeding is associating or relating information but not on a very high level. It is certainly not making the sense of experience that chimpanzees do when they reason (associate disparate information) that by stacking up boxes they can reach bananas suspended from the top of their cage. Such perception or cognition, such consciousness, can only be achieved once a species has breached an impasse that appeared in the development of thinking capability. This impasse will now be explained.