3(d) Instincts Encountered the Limitations of Genetic Refinement

Through the imposition of instinctive constraints on its self-destructive capability, the mind was allowed to develop. This was all very well up to a point, the point where genetic refinement’s limitations to learning integration were encountered. At this point all the limitations of genetic refinement began to limit brain refinement too.

Genetic refinement had three limitations:

1 It could not reinforce exclusive specialisation or division of labour because the reproductive unit would not be retained (except between the sexes and where there could be elaboration of the reproductive unit).

Page 136 of
Print Edition 2 It could not reinforce altruism or love or pure (unconditional) selflessness because the sacrificed trait would not reproduce and so would not get an opportunity to continue into subsequent generations.

3 It could not reinforce a change which was an anticipation of the future unless that change first happened to suit the present (that is, conferred a reproductive advantage in the present). Only then could it become reinforced genetically, instinctively. Genetic refinement only ‘commented on’ the effect of changes in the present, it was unable to learn about change itself.

Genetic refinement’s preoccupation with the present meant that it was only by chance that what a species learnt for the present also suited the future. With the advent of brain refinement, where the genes followed and in effect ‘watched over’ the brain, this situation was changed. The brain had insights about the future but the genes were only affected by how well changes brought about as a result of those insights met the present needs of the species. Instead of the present happening to suit the future, the future, in the form of the anticipation, had to suit the present.

Genes or instincts could not reinforce an understanding which resulted in changed behaviour if it did not meet the genetic need to maintain the opportunity to reproduce. Obviously, behaving unconditionally selflessly did not do this, so the instincts blocked the mind from reaching the understanding of unconditional selflessness which was fundamentally important to integration. Genetic refinement stopped the mind thinking anything which amounted, in the present, to truly selfless behaviour.

The effect was to forbid the mind to relate information beyond a superficial level. The mind was not permitted to appreciate (understand or relate or deduce) the fundamental theme in development, which is selflessness or love. Effectively the mind was being forced to stay stupid, unable to begin to make any real sense of experience. The situation was like having to play a game of football without being allowed to learn that thePage 137 of
Print Edition object was to score goals. In such circumstances the result would be a confused collection of players wandering aimlessly about the field. Animals trying to develop understanding, to make sense of experience, could not do so. Like the players on the field, they were faced with wandering around aimlessly with confused expressions on their faces and only their instinctive orientation to guide them a little.

This blinkering effect of genetic refinement meant animals could not learn to effectively understand (the relationship of events that occurred through time), could not learn integrative meaning. It was possible to instinctively encourage integrative thinking up to the level of reciprocity where selflessness is accompanied by selfishness — where others are given something in order that they will give something back. However integrative thoughts that did not lead in the majority of instances to the reproduction of the member who thought them (thoughts that in the final analysis were not selfish) could not be encouraged; indeed they were instinctively discouraged. Selfless/altruistic/integrative thinking, truly effective thinking, was blocked by the instincts just as surely as young animals were instinctively blocked from walking over a cliff.

Despite the apparent evidence to the contrary, love or unconditional selflessness, consideration for the larger whole, characterises the whole of existence. It is the theme on earth. It is what meaningfulness is. Just as you could hardly begin to integrate if you could not learn selflessness, so a cognitive system (a system that could understand the relationship of events through time) could hardly begin to appreciate integrationExplains why non-
primates are stupid if it were not allowed to appreciate the significance of pure selflessness. Being denied this appreciation, the mind could not begin to make sense of experience, it was being forced to stay stupid; it was stalled at the level of superficial understanding. This is the impasse facing the majority of animals today. If we look into the eyes of a cow or a cat we see a confused mind kept stupid by this impasse, not conscious of its full relationship withPage 138 of
Print Edition events through time. If domestic cattle could relate information effectively, could think or reason, they would not graze so contentedly as they would likely deduce that market day and the butcher awaited them.

Just as we have become alienated from the truth and unable to think straight or be unevasive, so the mind in its initial development was alienated from the truth and rendered incapable of straight thinking. The human mind has been alienated twice in its history: once prior to its/our infancy (which was prior to the emergence of consciousness), then again during its/our adolescence (during the search for meaning), which we have just lived through.

By denying the developing mind the opportunity to relate information beyond an elementary level, by reinforcing only selfishness and not selflessness, the instincts effectively started to ‘lie’ to the mind, with the result that it could not develop any further, could not become more sophisticated in relating information. This brought an end to the development of understanding of change and thus anticipation of change in all species. Consciousness, awareness of the true relationship between events through time, was blocked. For instance, self-awareness or consciousness of self, which depended on understanding at least the relationship of the self with immediate events, was blocked.

Instinctive restraints had the double-edged effect of both making it possible for the mind to appear, which was the first stage in the mind’s development, and of hobbling it once it had appeared. What was the second stage in the development of brain refinement which freed it from the restraints imposed by the instincts?