If I was granted one wish, I would ask to enter a simulation where I can hover around the globe and see the history of life on earth unfold in front of me. I would have a perfect 360 degree vision, and an instant travel option where I can locate myself anywhere I want from any distance. Biologists date the emergence of organisms (life) to approximately 3.8 billion years ago, which makes it the ideal starting point of this journey. The timespan would stretch from that till the present, with a fast forward option so I can move at any pace I like.
In the scientific realm, I do not think there exist an idea that can trigger one’s mind and fill it with imagination and wonder like evolution. Perhaps I do not know what I am talking about and this is my bias speaking, but it is undeniable that large scale events and processes tend to intrigue us in a way that make us lost for words. It makes absolute sense. Why would we have the vocabulary to express emotions our naked senses cannot capture? Technology allowed us to extend our five senses and go beyond the limitations of our bodies, and with that, we manipulated nature and conquered the world. Our intuitions and instincts, nonetheless, are still as primitive as they can get. No matter how advanced and sophisticated we get in our understanding of the world, the way we perceive it is still the same. A good example of this would be global warming, another large-scale process. Our bodies did not evolve to detect such phenomenon, let alone be wary of it. Using evidence and logic, we can totally be convinced global warming is a real threat and act upon this understanding. However, as long as altering human psyche is out of reach, good luck trying to change the way we “feel” about it. We will continue to act “as if” the threat is nonexistent as far as its consequences remain gradual and remote.
Perhaps that thought was a bit irrelevant, but it provides a similar outlook on the way we perceive large scale structures and the difficulty to place ourselves within them. The idea of evolution gives off a similar sentiment. To some, it might provide the most rational and convincing argument for nihilism. To others, it might bring salvation. Whether we feel positively or negatively about it, one cannot escape the great feeling of insignificance associated with it.
I love to think about fundamentals. This is why I have always been fascinated by evolution as a general concept. It can be used to reduce complex structures to their origins, and is found in everyday life: food recipes, music, sports, economics, politics, language, and living beings. I relate evolution to fundamental thinking because everything in front of us had a staring point, with adaptation and/or process of trials and errors it reached its current form. To think about an idea on a fundamental level, is to view it as a set of primary entities playing a game with some given rules¹, gradually making their way up to complex levels. Think about any complex structure, the more complex the better: say, the cosmos, or even better, a human being. To think how these structures came to be, we need to assume the existence of:
- A system within which entities can operate (a reality)
- A starting point
- Simple rules that we take as given (e.g. laws of nature)
Entities will act independently under these simple rules, and evolution will be the result of the arbitrary interaction between them, resulting in more complex rules, under which they interact again, and the cycle repeats until both rules and entities become infinitely sophisticated and interactions are no longer arbitrary, or until the game comes to an end (A finishing point). The reason we need to make these assumptions is no matter how much we try to reduce the universe, we will eventually hit one of these three walls, and there is no moving backward from there.
My curiosity initially developed when I was first introduced to the basic tenets of evolutionary biology, and still mostly affected by it. This began to change recently, exactly when I started to question the nature of reality. Or the study of phenomenology, as far as philosophers are concerned. Phenomenologists erase the line separating the subjective from the objective, and redefine what we call “reality” to the subjective experience of that reality. This includes different feelings and perceptions, like emotion and pain. It also includes personal experience like dreams and imagination. Following this logic, dreams become nothing but an expansion of the domain of consciousness. To put their basic premise as: “everything we experience is real” might be a bit confusing. More accurate wording would be: reality is everything we experience. Taking this assumption seriously opens doors to endless possibilities of ways we can experience reality. In this case, instead of “illusions” or “hallucinations”, dreams and imagination can be viewed as a portal to a different realm of reality.
An interesting proposition is that a great understanding of psychedelic substances must have preceded (and gave rise to) the emergence of religion², as they are (psychedelics) till this day the most powerful known doorway to higher states of consciousness. The fact that people from all around the world, with completely different backgrounds, see similar geometrical patterns and meet similar entities during their trips speaks volumes on the universality of human experience (serpents are most commonly reported)³.
To many, achieving higher states of consciousness brought salvation. A common theme reported by DMT and Psilocybin mushroom users is that their fear of death was completely gone, as what they encounter make them certain our experience is not limited to the physics of our bodies, and that after death, there awaits more. It is unfortunate that many of these questions will remain vaguely answered, and there is no scientific way of testing them. What is more unfortunate is that there is a possibility they were fully answered in the past yet the knowledge around them did not make it to us. A light of hope could shine again, if a genie was sent my way to grant me a wish. Until then, stay safe and tuned.
¹ These rules are what social scientists usually refer to axiomatic presuppositions. They take them as a given before building their theories, and they are somewhat analogous to natural laws in hard sciences. Neoclassic economists, for example, take the assumption that consumers are rational utility maximisers as a given.
² “It’s not only possible, but plausible that Moses’ legendary encounter with the ever burning bush, his conversation with Yahweh, and the bestowing of the Torah could have happened to him while he was under the influence of DMT, according to professor of cognitive psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Benny Shanon.” https://catbull.com/alamut/Bibliothek/7616docid6743.pdf
³ https://www.gaia.com/article/people-meet-dmt-entities-researchers-want-know-more
⁴ According to Tantra, kundalini energy rests like a coiled serpent at the base of the spine. When this dormant energy flows freely upward through the seven chakras (energy centers) and leads to an expanded state of consciousness, it’s known as a kundalini awakening.
