Yesterday’s writings turned into quite a long treatise on consciousness and I’m not done with that yet, but it will have to wait for below. Last night I studied the Windows 7 libraries functions and made up a little folder and files structure, to test it out.

I will now have my image file folder referenced in the Document library along with my Daily Entry 2013 folder. This way I can immediately select an image file to go with the new daily entry of the day. This in turn eliminates the need for my having to hunt that reference to that same image file all the way down - eight clicks - into the TTS-Launch Yearlist folder.

The time saved may not be that much, but it does reduce the feeling of frustration about that cumbersome a procedure. It is interesting to note - as I write this - that the switch from cumbersome to elegant and efficient, has a sense of beauty to it along with its feeling of satisfaction. Hence, efficiency appeals to our human sense of beauty and is so motivated. Steve Jobs understood this very well.

The one thing that did not work, was the renaming of a folder that is in the library. The old folder and its name stay in the library, but now have lost their reference and won’t be deleted. I’ll have to consult John’s big MS Windows7 Secrets book on this.

Elisabeth and I are planning for a possible coffee at the newly opened ‘Phil & Sebastian’ roastery here on Forth SW. And, also today, I’ll have to get serious with my talk preparation and the hand out for it. So, I’ll be busy until that talk is out of the way by Sunday afternoon.

John and I did meet up for a tea yesterday, this after several in vain attempts. On my walk back I dropped in at ShelfLife Books, but more for a break than any thing else. I have several recent books that still have not yet been read; they come first.

The model of human consciousness needs a few additions, as based on my readings over time. My reference to Carl Sagan’s ‘The Dragons of Eden’ yesterday, made me recall some earlier readings and concepts that relate to my model describing human’s journey into conscious awareness. I read Sagan’s very readable book in ca 1978, borrowing it at the old Calhoun branch building on 14th street SW. ‘You’ll enjoy it’, the librarian urged me on at the check out counter and I did.

The book was an important and much needed addition to my biology, which was meagre, if at all. Sagan explained how humans could have acquired conscious awareness through the development of the neo-cortex that overlays and modifies the functioning of the limbic system and the lower yet Pons, which is reptilian in origin, hence the dragons.

My next reference point became a suggestion by C.G. Jung (d.1961) somewhere in his writings, reading -ca 1984- that consciousness may have arisen from the need to resolve conflicts between instincts. I recall no elaborations about this possibility there or any where later.

Myths and belief systems structure the world of human experience.

A following such fulcrum - leverage point - came when I finished reading Joseph Campbell’s four volumes on world mythology, ca 1986. At that point I concluded that myths provide structure, which today I reword as, ‘Myths and belief systems structure the world of human experience’. And, I may add, the amazing things is that humans have done so by themselves for themselves and that over time, it has worked with revelations!

The following point of reference became an essay by Jay Gould titled ‘The premature Ape’, which I read in around 2005. In this fairly short work Gould mentions that the primate foetus goes through a stage of having typical human features, such as the opposition of the thumb to the fingers, frontal sex position and several other human characteristics. It then proceeds to specialise further to be born as ape baby.

All these authors predate several new findings that relate to the human situation. The first such discovery is from ice and rock (lava?) cores revealing the earth’s temperatures fluctuated as much as ten degrees for short intervals - 200 years- during an overall period of about four million years. This, prior to the present stable one of the last ten thousand years, during which humans developed agriculture and husbandry.

Two other new significant findings are the new brain function mapping and the genome project, the latter tracing how recently - since 40kya - the humans populated the planet, as reported by Spencer Wells in ‘Deep Ancestry‘.

Combining these mentioned points of reference as stepping stones for tracing a narrative on the development of human consciousness, we add to the model I described yesterday, as follows.

The premature ape birth can have been triggered by frequent changes of ape habitat due to the mentioned temperature changes; ancient ape presence has been found in the Balkans. Eventually these premature apes unsuited for tree habitat, but capable of bipedal motion and its efficiency, adapted to new ways of finding food and shelter. These then being two and at time conflicting, ‘instincts’ that would have to be satisfactorily resolved for survival and procreation.

These adaptation processes led in turn to modification of the brain wiring as we now know it can do. I suggest that this resulted in the neo-cortex becoming more powerful and efficient in modifying the limbic brain system and its amygdala in particular, as we now it does, also know from the fMRI work.

…in these few short paragraphs we journeyed from ape, via myth to the science of human consciousness.

Over time languages - sound and call systems - developed, probably analogues to that of the later script in addressing daily needs, such as ‘Where did you find the water?’. This in turn facilitated the composing more sophisticated narratives that explained the world of experience. These we now know as myths, and the handed down traditions such as Hammurabi’s early laws.

So, this morning in these few short paragraphs we journeyed from ape, via myth to the science of human consciousness. It this a true model? It is a possible one and worth a study, some new input and modification. Whatever the case maybe, it is important for us humans that we understand the way we acquired consciousness and to that purpose I make this contribution.
<9:48am~