We are a living biological signature.
We are not just having to remember a piece of memory from a storage place. Our memories are a unique organic structure, designed to resonate and reshape themselves over time, through gaining experience, and the input of our 'sensory song'.
Outside of what we think we know, is the 'unknown'.
Over time, out brain forms a very special relationship with this 'unknown', which I will come back to.
Our ability to associates thoughts across time, and create narratives is the driver behind human progression. We have evolved the desire to learn, or rather, we have been selected for out ability to learn.
Fundamental to this is the earliest moments of communication, between any species
Once upon a time, humans would have crossed a very specific communication barrier - the expression of 'good' and 'bad'. When we learned to communicate signs/sounds for 'agree', or 'disagree' we started a dialogue which has resulted in the most complex, widespread species on the planet.
This is also the moment when 'consent' came into being.
Initially it would have existed in just a single pair of our ancestors, and millions of years later it has the basis for a ethical guide to behaviour for all humans. Did it spread as a cultural idea? Or did it arrive as part of a mass evolutionary change.
What other psychological marker points can we detect in human history?
The answer lies in religion.
Leaving aside the idea of intervention by a deity, the introduction of the promotion of forgiveness must have been in sync with changing relationship culture. Unless the idea was brought into the minds of people by such a deity (which defies the point of the 'lesson' in the first place) there must have been a new social code beginning to appear prior to this point.
Through the era of pre-religion a system of resolving confrontations must have been starting to develop which relied on ever more complex language progression. As concepts surrounding time began to root themselves in the language structure, there must have been a growing awareness of consequences, and choices about those consequences.
This is important because it signals another change - a change in the ongoing evolution of the human brain. So are we creating our own culture, or is our culture being created by the structural changes in our brains?
On top of this complexity, we have the small variations in the shape and function of all our brains - just like any other plant species, or animal. We are far from carbon copies of each other, in any sense.
In this way, everyone on the planet is at a slightly different point in micro-evolutionary terms.
In a 2007 study, scientists at New York University and UCLA showed that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.
If our recent history is anything to go by, ending slavery, women's rights, civil rights, and gay rights are all indicators that brain evolution is pushing us politically leftward.
This way of looking at human beings can be applied at this large-scale level, but also in much more subtle ways that help identify causes for stress or illness.
This project was originally conceived as way a re-imagining the way we look at mental health conditions.
But the application of the idea reaches much further out into what we know about 'human nature'.
It brings with it a deeper look into 'free will' and the origins of religion.
And why we are born to love what we do.
We are not just having to remember a piece of memory from a storage place. Our memories are a unique organic structure, designed to resonate and reshape themselves over time, through gaining experience, and the input of our 'sensory song'.
Outside of what we think we know, is the 'unknown'.
Over time, out brain forms a very special relationship with this 'unknown', which I will come back to.
Our ability to associates thoughts across time, and create narratives is the driver behind human progression. We have evolved the desire to learn, or rather, we have been selected for out ability to learn.
Fundamental to this is the earliest moments of communication, between any species
Once upon a time, humans would have crossed a very specific communication barrier - the expression of 'good' and 'bad'. When we learned to communicate signs/sounds for 'agree', or 'disagree' we started a dialogue which has resulted in the most complex, widespread species on the planet.
This is also the moment when 'consent' came into being.
Initially it would have existed in just a single pair of our ancestors, and millions of years later it has the basis for a ethical guide to behaviour for all humans. Did it spread as a cultural idea? Or did it arrive as part of a mass evolutionary change.
What other psychological marker points can we detect in human history?
The answer lies in religion.
Leaving aside the idea of intervention by a deity, the introduction of the promotion of forgiveness must have been in sync with changing relationship culture. Unless the idea was brought into the minds of people by such a deity (which defies the point of the 'lesson' in the first place) there must have been a new social code beginning to appear prior to this point.
Through the era of pre-religion a system of resolving confrontations must have been starting to develop which relied on ever more complex language progression. As concepts surrounding time began to root themselves in the language structure, there must have been a growing awareness of consequences, and choices about those consequences.
This is important because it signals another change - a change in the ongoing evolution of the human brain. So are we creating our own culture, or is our culture being created by the structural changes in our brains?
On top of this complexity, we have the small variations in the shape and function of all our brains - just like any other plant species, or animal. We are far from carbon copies of each other, in any sense.
In this way, everyone on the planet is at a slightly different point in micro-evolutionary terms.
In a 2007 study, scientists at New York University and UCLA showed that political orientation is related to differences in how the brain processes information.
If our recent history is anything to go by, ending slavery, women's rights, civil rights, and gay rights are all indicators that brain evolution is pushing us politically leftward.
This way of looking at human beings can be applied at this large-scale level, but also in much more subtle ways that help identify causes for stress or illness.
This project was originally conceived as way a re-imagining the way we look at mental health conditions.
But the application of the idea reaches much further out into what we know about 'human nature'.
It brings with it a deeper look into 'free will' and the origins of religion.
And why we are born to love what we do.
