Oct 24, 2024 11:46 PM
https://bigthink.com/the-past/a-new-spin...ypothesis/
KEY POINTS: In 1992, the ethnobotanist Terence McKenna proposed the controversial “Stoned Ape Hypothesis,” which argued that psilocybin mushrooms long ago helped spark rapid evolution in human cognition, consciousness, and culture. One key objection to the hypothesis is that psychedelic-induced changes can’t be inherited genetically. Cognitive neuroscientist and journalist Bobby Azarian proposes an update to McKenna’s theory, arguing that psilocybin triggered useful worldview shifts that “went viral” and ultimately reshaped society.
EXCERPT: . . . Now, we’re ready to state the two claims of the New Stoned Ape Theory. The first is that psychedelics act as chemical catalysts for cognitive phase transitions, or sudden changes in cognitive architecture that precipitate radical new insights or shifts in worldview. By increasing neural entropy, psychedelics create a state of heightened plasticity where entrenched beliefs and cognitive patterns become more malleable. Like a kaleidoscope suddenly rearranging its fragments to reveal an entirely new pattern, the mind undergoes a rapid reorganization, coalescing around a novel perspective that fundamentally transforms one’s worldview and sense of self.
The second claim is that because these paradigm shifts produce insights that are useful or interesting, they don’t remain isolated within individuals. Instead, the new perspective or worldview spreads as a meme, a unit of cultural transmission that propagates through society, reshaping the cognitive systems they inhabit through a subtle but potentially powerful restructuring of neural connectivity patterns. If the psychedelic-inspired idea or worldview spreads sufficiently fast and far, it may become part of the zeitgeist and reshape the collective consciousness through cultural evolution.
To summarize the theory in a sentence: Psychedelics, as “worldview shifters,” can create a cognitive phase transition whose spread creates a social phase transition — a shift in culture. It’s that simple!
Using the same logic of the Entropic Brain Hypothesis at a higher scale of agent, the social organism, we can presume that social phase transitions are more likely to occur during times of chaos — only not in a neural sense but rather a social context, such as periods of civil unrest and war. This further suggests that psychedelics become cognitive tools for cultural movements that become revolutions — by producing worldview-shaping solutions in times of existential threat. This means that only a very small subset of any given population needs to directly experience chemically induced altered states to spark a social phase transition, because the psychedelic-inspired ideas spread to receptive minds without the need for drugs.
The psychedelic movement of the 1960s illustrates this phenomenon nicely; despite its relatively brief duration, it had a profound and lasting impact on culture, art, science, and social values. Many of the ideas about spirituality, environmental awareness, and the evils of war that were central to the psychedelic counterculture became mainstream. Even the way of dressing, the atmosphere of music, and the way people spoke changed essentially overnight. A whole new “cultural vibe” was birthed from the psychedelic era that is still very much with us today.
In this version of the Stoned Ape Theory, there is no longer the problem of explaining how drug-induced cognitive changes became heritable genetic changes, or how such changes spread across the entire human species. You no longer have: 1) the far-fetched-sounding story of mind-altering substances somehow becoming part of the typical human diet, and then for some reason largely dying out; and 2) you don’t need to rely too heavily on poorly understood evolutionary mechanisms, like epigenetics and the Baldwin effect. While those mechanisms are certainly still part of the evolutionary story, the shift to an explanation that emphasizes the causal role of cultural evolution bypasses much if not all of the earlier criticism... (MORE - missing details)
KEY POINTS: In 1992, the ethnobotanist Terence McKenna proposed the controversial “Stoned Ape Hypothesis,” which argued that psilocybin mushrooms long ago helped spark rapid evolution in human cognition, consciousness, and culture. One key objection to the hypothesis is that psychedelic-induced changes can’t be inherited genetically. Cognitive neuroscientist and journalist Bobby Azarian proposes an update to McKenna’s theory, arguing that psilocybin triggered useful worldview shifts that “went viral” and ultimately reshaped society.
EXCERPT: . . . Now, we’re ready to state the two claims of the New Stoned Ape Theory. The first is that psychedelics act as chemical catalysts for cognitive phase transitions, or sudden changes in cognitive architecture that precipitate radical new insights or shifts in worldview. By increasing neural entropy, psychedelics create a state of heightened plasticity where entrenched beliefs and cognitive patterns become more malleable. Like a kaleidoscope suddenly rearranging its fragments to reveal an entirely new pattern, the mind undergoes a rapid reorganization, coalescing around a novel perspective that fundamentally transforms one’s worldview and sense of self.
The second claim is that because these paradigm shifts produce insights that are useful or interesting, they don’t remain isolated within individuals. Instead, the new perspective or worldview spreads as a meme, a unit of cultural transmission that propagates through society, reshaping the cognitive systems they inhabit through a subtle but potentially powerful restructuring of neural connectivity patterns. If the psychedelic-inspired idea or worldview spreads sufficiently fast and far, it may become part of the zeitgeist and reshape the collective consciousness through cultural evolution.
To summarize the theory in a sentence: Psychedelics, as “worldview shifters,” can create a cognitive phase transition whose spread creates a social phase transition — a shift in culture. It’s that simple!
Using the same logic of the Entropic Brain Hypothesis at a higher scale of agent, the social organism, we can presume that social phase transitions are more likely to occur during times of chaos — only not in a neural sense but rather a social context, such as periods of civil unrest and war. This further suggests that psychedelics become cognitive tools for cultural movements that become revolutions — by producing worldview-shaping solutions in times of existential threat. This means that only a very small subset of any given population needs to directly experience chemically induced altered states to spark a social phase transition, because the psychedelic-inspired ideas spread to receptive minds without the need for drugs.
The psychedelic movement of the 1960s illustrates this phenomenon nicely; despite its relatively brief duration, it had a profound and lasting impact on culture, art, science, and social values. Many of the ideas about spirituality, environmental awareness, and the evils of war that were central to the psychedelic counterculture became mainstream. Even the way of dressing, the atmosphere of music, and the way people spoke changed essentially overnight. A whole new “cultural vibe” was birthed from the psychedelic era that is still very much with us today.
In this version of the Stoned Ape Theory, there is no longer the problem of explaining how drug-induced cognitive changes became heritable genetic changes, or how such changes spread across the entire human species. You no longer have: 1) the far-fetched-sounding story of mind-altering substances somehow becoming part of the typical human diet, and then for some reason largely dying out; and 2) you don’t need to rely too heavily on poorly understood evolutionary mechanisms, like epigenetics and the Baldwin effect. While those mechanisms are certainly still part of the evolutionary story, the shift to an explanation that emphasizes the causal role of cultural evolution bypasses much if not all of the earlier criticism... (MORE - missing details)
