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Trunk/Chapter four of Silent Oracle
The conscious mind developed in response to the pressures mentioned in the previous Trunk 3. Chimpanzees, gorillas and other apes may have changed little physically but they devised social systems that worked well, and ways of defending themselves by team-work. Over time they were superseded in terms of intelligence by hominids, forerunners of the human species, whose conscious minds enlarged as they adopted an upright stance, enabling them to carry things. They also grew more dexterous - their thumbs lengthening, enabling them to grip objects with greater sensitivity and accuracy - and their erect stance gave them better hand-eye coordination. As the result they made better tools and weapons, and used them efficiently. They also widened their territory, venturing northwards into colder climates and modifying their habits and diet accordingly.
It is known that Neanderthal hominids had larger skulls, making it safe to assume that they developed their conscious mind further than ours. That they became extinct indicates that greater conscious mind size was not the factor vital to optimum advance in intelligence. Elephants and many whales have much larger brains than humans, but although they have survived they have not developed intellect. It was less a question of quantity than of quality, and it seems to me that this was illustrated when one member of one species of hominid (with smaller brain than the Neanderthal) experienced a brain mutation, making this individual the first human. This marked the ultimate step in the evolution of life.
The most reasonable explanation of this significant event that I have arrived at is as follows :
The human mutation did enlarge the conscious faculty but, since there was not time to evolve a larger skull, space was made for this mind-extension by downward expansion within the existing skull, making humans unable to breathe and swallow at the same time (as monkeys and young human babies evidently can) but seemingly helping to provide the larynx, resulting in improved ability to speak. The mutant survived because it promised well because, it is suggested, it had a new feature - six levels of reasoning ('The Self and its Brain' Popper & Eccles (Springer International) Cerebral Cortex Pp 235-240.) Such a refined reasoning capacity would enable humans to override instincts and choose alternative behaviours. Optimum, six-level reasoning capacity was adopted as the best prospect of survival success without instinct because, in order to be sure of doing the right thing, of embracing humantruth, the human must be able to understand everything and thus to anticipate anything.
How could the first humans understand the significance of their new faculty - that the mind mutation it offered would fulfil their potential? All they knew was the vital necessity to survive, but the vast capacity of this new mind led them to think in various complex directions which so confused as to persuade them that the new faculty actually threatened survival rather than served it. So these early humans made a disastrous decision, the ill-effects of which we increasingly feel. Exercising self-will, they embraced that part of the conscious extension which they could control - the first level of reasoning - but closed off the rest, unwittingly forming a second mind which I call the postconscious.
So a barrier was formed between the conscious and the postconscious mind, put there by the conscious, initially, but then reinforced by the postconscious. The conscious did not want interfering questioning upsetting its 'progress' driven by instinct and ridden by wilful ego, so it prevented postconscious axons and dendrites from crossing its border, probably by placing negative boutons in all the border synapses. On its side, the postconscious did the same, preserving its now very necessary freedom and independence by refusing entry to the conscious wilful self. This postconscious protective barrier is absolutely essential to the preservation of truth, and must be permanent. The opposite barrier however, that which prevents postconscious influence over consciousness, must be removed if we are to fulfil our human potential and realise truth.
The closure of the postconscious from traffic with the conscious is nothing new in the sense that the heart and other internal organs also function independently of consciousness. The difference is that those organs slowly evolved to the best biological advantage whereas this was a sudden and fatally mistaken decision to stifle the full effect of an equally sudden but vital mutation. It was a case of the ignorant domination of what should be our supreme mind by a lesser mind.
I have said already (more than once, but it is a vital point) that this book is written by a conscious under the influence of a postconscious mind. This enables me to say that neither at the point of mutation, nor before nor since, anywhere in the universe, is there anything equal in significance to the all-embracing truth, and the ultimate intellectual faculty capable of discerning truth. All the concepts of 'cosmic consciousness', 'god', or 'spirits' are figments of conscious imagination envisaging these things because unable to break through to recognition of the postconscious mind existing in every individual.
The supreme postconscious mutation, experienced by us and who knows what others elsewhere in the universe, is indeed the ultimate event possible in life. That the human race has failed to develop its potential can be seen as a graceless failure to accept a priceless gift. Yet, although few real chinks of light have appeared in the barrier we have erected against such acceptance, we are in fact quite close to a possible breakthrough.
In the event, the result of this human mutation was that instinct retained its hold over the wilful self, which was then able to apply its new conscious power of intelligence to the competitive drives of instinct. This made humans the most effective but potentially the most dangerous species on Earth. At that juncture we laid the foundations of our reality, and having laid them down we have been stuck with them ever since.
The ill-effects of our failure to fulfil our mutation, and our wilful control and misapplication of it, were not felt immediately. Whilst human numbers were still few and wide open tracts of land were available we were able to prosper as intelligently peaceable hunter-gatherers, though in separate and isolated races such as the Australian Aborigines, the American Red Indians, the African Bushmen and Baka-people. Their intelligence was developed as far as was necessary for successful but simple survival and, as far as it was able, to arrive at some sort of understanding of the significance of themselves and their world.
Things might have stood as they were but for the fact that success brings increase in numbers which then brings competition for available land and resources. Add to this the fact that isolation caused races of people to be different from each other in feature, stature, colour, culture and language, and that they were essentially guided by instinct, not by higher intellect, and you have the ingredients of war. That there have been continuous wars on Earth ever since, and that we are engrossed in and divided by other competitive practices, is because we have cut ourselves off from our chief faculty, the postconscious mind, and confined our thinking to the lesser conscious mind.
Increased numbers in competition brought civilisation, an attempt to control the consequent mayhem. The resultant social complexity forced conscious minds to develop, rising to their highest levels of intelligence. The requirements of simple survival no longer moulded the way of life and thought and were not enough to absorb minds challenged by the new situation. As conscious awareness broke out in every direction anything possible became actual, both relatively good and bad or right and wrong.
But a side-effect of banning the postconscious was that it was given exactly the conditions it needs to perform its function - the discovery and realisation of truth. Through being cut off from interference by the instinctive conscious self and all realistic worldly influences, the postconscious was given the freedom and independence it vitally needs.
As a consequence postconscious minds continued to think, independently and unconsciously, either more or less depending upon the degree to which they were stimulated by indirect conscious questioning. From the beginning, apart from the barrier against the conscious, the postconscious shared with the conscious full awareness of everything that its human being thought, experienced and learned, also intellectual understanding of what it felt. In addition, powerful as it is, the common postconscious managed to create a one-way route, by the 'back door' into the conscious, known as intuitive conscience as already mentioned, along which it passed its main and simple admonishments. This conscience is the source of our moral awareness.
Our enlarged conscious mind enabled us to develop language for conscious thinking and external communication. This language is unsuitable for the much more complex postconscious which undoubtedly must use its own code. Presumably it is the channel used to convey conscience that incorporated a means of translating postconscious code messages into conscious language.
Humantruth constitutes our ultimate morality, and all truth results from the making of every possible cross-reference and inter-connection of reason, a gigantic undertaking only possible to the postconscious, independently of our actual assistance but with the help of our conscientious encouragement. It has been calculated that the number of the postconscious's potential interconnections is a staggering ten to the power of several million. Just as every human individual possesses the same postconscious faculty, which uses most of this potential and whose function is one and the same truth, so every single individual has the same basic moral values. Individuals may contravene these values but never deny them, so that all people, however bad, even if they are torturers and murderers, believe themselves to be basically good. It is true that everyone is basically good because everyone possesses a postconscious mind, the source of true moral awareness. Arousal of this awareness shall open the door to a humanly true reality.
1. OPENING
2.EXPLAINING LIFE
Last Chapter 3. FROM UNCONSCIOUS TO CONSCIOUS INSTINCT
Current Chapter 4. MIND MUTATION ENDS IN DIVISION
Next Chapter 5. CONSCIOUS RULES DESPITE CONSCIENCE
6. CONSCIOUS SUBMITS, POSTCONSCIOUS PREVAILS
7. SUPRACONSCIOUSNESS
8. COUNTERFEIT EXPLANATIONS AND PERSONAL EFFECTS
9. THE TRUTH ABOVE ALL
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