Mental Evolution and Psi

The idea that physical bodies evolved is a standard and basic idea that is supported by data collection about all living things.  Given that the smallest unit of life is a single-cell organism, it is simple to view complex organisms as multi-cellular systems where the cells have developed specialized functions.  A "build" of orderly physical processes is imagined to reveal how complex behavior is supported by well-adapted life systems.

On the other hand, how the mind works is still not modeled as to its evolutionary pathways.  Why this strange lack of insight on what is phenomenally life's greatest asset in adapting?  The current paradigm has settled on that since we don't have a science foundation in how mind is evolving in living things - total focus has been on the brain and mental activity is not understood as to the output of lessons learned by species.  The overview of evolutionary history is that the environment is challenging and living things solve the problems of existence by mental work.

Psi appears to be mentally achieved; and not physically rooted.  If true, then following the evolution of mind should provide as much or more insight, just as following the development of physiology has done for the evolution of bodies.  A "build" of how minds work could point to what Psi is all about.

Mind - in terms of the science - is best described as the processing of information; and in the last century information science has been rapidly moving forward.  The traditional idea of mind as abstract (and magical) are being replaced with measurements and process models.  One myth is modern humans have "some special sauce".

It is now being shown that modern humans were not so special as compared to their older cousins the Neanderthals.

 It’s long been an insult to be called a Neanderthal. But the more these elusive, vanished people have been studied, the more respect they’ve gained among scientists.
On Thursday, a team of researchers offered compelling evidence that Neanderthals bore one of the chief hallmarks of mental sophistication: they could paint cave art. That talent suggests that Neanderthals could think in symbols and may have achieved other milestones not preserved in the fossil record.
“When you have symbols, then you have language,” said João Zilhão, an archaeologist at the University of Barcelona and co-author of the new study....

The two new studies don’t just indicate that Neanderthals could make cave art and jewelry. They also establish that Neanderthals were making these things long before modern humans — a blow to the idea that they simply copied their cousins.

The earliest known cave paintings made by modern humans are only about 40,000 years old, while Neanderthal cave art is at least 24,000 years older. The oldest known shell jewelry made by modern humans is about 70,000 years old, but Neanderthals were making it 45,000 years before then. - C. Zimmer

Feb 22, 2018 NYT

The idea that physical bodies evolved is a standard and basic idea that is supported by data collection about all living things.  Given that the smallest unit of life is a single-cell organism, it is simple to view complex organisms as multi-cellular systems where the cells have developed specialized functions.  A "build" of orderly physical processes is imagined to reveal how complex behavior is supported by well-adapted life systems.

On the other hand, how the mind works is still not modeled as to its evolutionary pathways.  Why this strange lack of insight on what is phenomenally life's greatest asset in adapting?  The current paradigm has settled on that since we don't have a science foundation in how mind is evolving in living things - total focus has been on the brain and mental activity is not understood as to the output of lessons learned by species.  The overview of evolutionary history is that the environment is challenging and living things solve the problems of existence by mental work.

Psi appears to mental and not physically rooted.  If true, then following the evolution of mind should provide as much or more insight as has following the development of physiology has for the evolution of bodies.  A "build" of how minds work could point to what Psi is all about.

Mind - in terms of the science - is best described as the processing of information; and in the last century information science has been rapidly moving forward.  The traditional idea of mind as abstract (and magical) are being replaced with measurements and process models.  One myth is modern humans have "some special sauce".

It is now being shown that modern humans were not so special as compared to their older cousins the Neanderthals.

Feb 22, 2018 NYT

You've reveal the true mindset of much of humanity that our species has some special sauce.

You've reveal the true mindset of much of humanity that our species has some special sauce.

Of course, my worldview is: all the "sauces" are open to observation and data gathering.  Likewise, the "special sauce" - where random mutations and mindless events cause living things to adapt to their actual environments.  I see neoDarwinism as a wrong-headed mindset and ignores the role of mind as exhibited by life.

If anyone has read through the recent evolution threads - they will have seen me citing C. Darwin as supporting mental evolution.  

Selection by agents is an activity measurable in terms of information science.  In an objective and statistical fashion, environments select successful behavior on a collective level -yes.  This is well understood.  However, this understanding doesn't include the selection type we are all most commonly aware - mental selection by individuals and communities.

I simply assert that from single-cell organism to primates - part of natural selection includes all of the selections made by biological processing of information.  Neanderthals and modern humans selected to mate.  This was a choice made from emotions and experience and was adaptive behavior.

Of course, my worldview is: all the "sauces" are open to observation and data gathering.  Likewise, the "special sauce" - where random mutations and mindless events cause living things to adapt to their actual environments.  I see neoDarwinism as a wrong-headed mindset and ignores the role of mind as exhibited by life.

If anyone has read through the recent evolution threads - they will have seen me citing C. Darwin as supporting mental evolution.  

Selection by agents is an activity measurable in terms of information science.  In an objective and statistical fashion, environments select successful behavior on a collective level -yes.  This is well understood.  However, this understanding doesn't include the selection type we are all most commonly aware - mental selection by individuals and communities.

I simply assert that from single-cell organism to primates - part of natural selection includes all of the selections made by biological processing of information.  Neanderthals and modern humans selected to mate.  This was a choice made from emotions and experience and was adaptive behavior.

I've misunderstood your "special sauce" euphemism. I thought you meant it in the creationist sense. 
Perhaps they had sexual congress because someone said: ooh! she's cute!

Everything psi related has massive evolutionary benefits and so it's almost unthinkable to me that it would not eventually evolve in pretty much every species in one way or another.

Telepathy, remote viewing and the like would be amazing for long range communication and tracking. It would allow any sort of social predator immense advantages in coordination, tracking and the like. 

Furthermore, telepathy opens up the ability to influence other species and trick them which could open up many possibilities for species that use trapping or ambushing as a survival method such as pitcher plants, venus fly traps, trapdoor spiders, or crocodiles. Also for species that have a more symbiotic relationship such as any plant that needs insects to pollinate it or those little fish that clean shark teeth.

Since life is only about survival and nothing more, since, that which strives to continue existing tends to... continue existing... then passes on whatever traits helped it do that... survival of consciousness, especially permanent survival, would be an obvious thing to evolve.

Reincarnation would be extremely adaptive to anything. being able to shoot an organism full of past experiences that my have been learned by the failure of others would allow subsequent incarnations to avoid the same mistakes easier. Whether done as single soul evolution or the ability to access the collective knowledge of many entities, it doesn't matter.

I suspect either would be more adaptive in certain contexts. For example if a species has a lot of infighting, it would be bad to be putting all of your personal experience out there in the "psinet" for others to use agaisnt you later, better to keep it to yourself as a single soul. Likewise for low infighting species like ants, it would be better to have a sort of private data network that you could pull from collectively. With each drone and warior able to learn off of every other drone and wariors expereinces simultaneously.

The benefits of telekinesis are obvious.

I suspect the only reasons these things haven't evolved as strongly as they could've is that they simply weren't neccessary to develop to that degree. There were many other traits that did the same job better and thus psi abilities would've remained as largely neutral traits. It won't be until something somewhere figures out how to apply the full potential benefits of these traits that this will change. These are at least my thoughts on the subject.

Anthropology is dotted with reports of telepathy in so called primitive cultures.
I think cultural acceptance goes along way in cultivating the skill.

I've misunderstood your "special sauce" euphemism. I thought you meant it in the creationist sense. 
Perhaps they had sexual congress because someone said: ooh! she's cute!

My euphemism was perfectly understood by you.  I think both the fundamentalist/creationist narrative and the fundamaterialist paradigm are equally magical thinking.

The desire to reproduce as a specific selection is based on communication of information, of which declaring attraction is an important part.  My point is that there is a lot to be learned scientifically by studying the communication of information that structures behavior.  Interbreeding of the species of our ancestors involved personal signs and symbols, cultural tranmission and genetic/epigenetic coding.

Mind is a natural phenomena and open to examination.  Fundamaterialists try to replace it with natural selection that magically works in a mindless fashion.  Fundamentalist have mind as beyond our organic involvement.  My point is natural selection has as a key functional element -- mind and organic choice.  Living things understand their environment and use that feedback to change their circumstances.  Natural selection being insulated from the minds of living things is over in modern science. Lamarck and Darwin had it right.

There is every reason for this forum to embrace the science of how information is measured; to get to the root of how mind works.  Having an understanding of circumstances is of value in adaptation to environments, even when occuring at subconscious levels.  Animal and plant instincts evolved just as did stems and arms.

So here is the idea.  If we know how mind has evolved, it will lead us to a better understanding of how mind works.  Knowing more about how mind works will tell us more about how mind evolved.  I suggest that in terms of science that mind and mental work are best measured as information transfer.  In particular the MTC (mathematical theory of communication) and subsequent engineering research enables quantification and clear models for communication systems.  Heck, we live in the information age.

In the opening post - the teaser is that "higher cognitive function" may have been exhibited by Neanderthals before modern man, in Europe.  The phenotype for HCF may have existed with any number of species of early humans and primates.  The progress toward symbol use and language may be a long-term race between many living species - and machines - and these imaginary futures are well-depicted by Sci-Fi.

from Technology Review about Google AI -- Google thinks it’s close to “quantum supremacy.” Here’s what that really means. It’s not the number of qubits; it’s what you do with them that counts.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/61027...lly-means/

 The magic of quantum computers lies in those qubits. Unlike the bits in classical computers, which store information as either 1 or 0, qubits can exist in multiple states of 1 and 0 at the same time—a phenomenon known as superposition. They can also influence one another even when they’re not physically connected, via a process known as entanglement.

What this boils down to is that even though a few extra bits make only a modest difference to a classical computer’s power, adding extra qubits to a quantum machine can increase its computational power exponentially.

Who knew qubits are real enough to be used?  They are not physical properties of materials.  Here qubits come; and the general public doesn't get it that fundamentals of our natural environment are being discovered and exploited.  

Are the phenomena called Psi - just part of how mind works?  The research is pointing to information science as having the right tools.  The idea that information is as real as matter - in measuring our environments - is the change in context and methodology.

The human mind - as amazing as it is - may fit into natural ways and means much more than we realize.  What our minds do is maybe just a half-step ahead of a genus full of species.  Planet of the Apes and Terminator machines from the future are exploration of this idea.  The close pairing of mental and physical evolution of phenotype could change in the future of species.  Computation and cunning superiority could become a bigger driver of reproductive success. 

The state of neuroscience is undergoing some sea changes. The discovery that the cerebellum is actively involved in perception and emotions was acknowledged in only the last decade.  Instinct is a sore spot, when its seems to be a key for understanding mental evolution.  Instinct and telepathy seem connected to me.

 the cerebellum contributes to emotional control (Baillieux et.al., 2008; Ito, 2006, 2008; Levin, 2009; Schmahmann & Caplan, 2006; Schmahmann, Weilburg & Sherman, 2007; Stoodley & Schmahmann, 2010) and to psychiatric disorders (Allen & Courchesne, 2003; Hoppenbrouwers et.al., 2008; Konarski et.al. 2005; Stoodley, & Schmahmann, 2010).

Overall, it has been remarked that:-
“. . a staggering amount of convergent, multimodal data has been gathered to build a strong case for the role of the cererbellum in various cognitive and affective functions.”
(Habas et.al. (2009)

The human mind - as amazing as it is - may fit into natural ways and means much more than we realize.  What our minds do is maybe just a half-step ahead of a genus full of species.  Planet of the Apes and Terminator machines from the future are exploration of this idea.  The close pairing of mental and physical evolution of phenotype could change in the future of species.  Computation and cunning superiority could become a bigger driver of reproductive success. 

The state of neuroscience is undergoing some sea changes. The discovery that the cerebellum is actively involved in perception and emotions was acknowledged in only the last decade.  Instinct is a sore spot, when its seems to be a key for understanding mental evolution.  Instinct and telepathy seem connected to me.

It seems to me that any encounter I have with dogs and cats seems to confirm the reality of telepathy more so than encounters with fellow humans. So I'm not sure how that would plot on an evolutionary curve.

Oh, and I should have included parrots: