INSTINCTS
An Unseen Influence
We can't see the invisible influence of a magnet placed below a plate of iron fillings. We can see only the intricate pattern formed by the tiny pieces of iron as they're attracted to the magnetic field lines from the magnet under the plate. So too, we're largely oblivious to the unseen instinctual templates that still influence so much of our behavior, emotions and thought - not through magnetic field lines - but through instincts that are still 'soft-wired' into our brain. These instinctual templates still pattern and structure our way of being in the world to a much greater extent than most people realize. There are four major instinctual templates we still share with many other creatures, but which for us; no longer have survival value... In fact, they're now actually impeding our further evolution.
"There is no future for man, I repeat, without the neo-sense of the species."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Self-Regulating Feedback Loops
One of the most ubiquitous processes at every scale of biological life, is the use of self-regulating feedback loops. Self-regulating feedback loops determine the 'start' and 'stop' of enzyme and hormone production. They also regulate the 'start' and 'stop' of most other physiological processes of a bio-chemical and electrical nature within our bodies. Eco-systems also have self-regulating feedback loops to stabilize populations of flora and fauna. Our planetary climate system is itself, a self-regulating feedback loop that maintains the homeostasis of Earth's temperature levels. Nature long ago equipped our species with the self-regulating feedback loop that we'd eventually need to 'stop', or extinguish our instinctual templates, because at some point in our evolution it was inevitable that they'd no longer be required, and in fact, would actually begin to interfere with our functioning.
The self-regulating feedback loop to 'switch off' our instinctual base emerged through our evolving brain. Two distinct stages of brain evolution have taken place in Earth-life since it first ventured out of the primeval oceans to crawl up onto dry land. The first major development took place when tissues of a more evolved midbrain, or mammalian brain, began to develop and enfold our more primitive reptilian brain. Evolution always moves in the direction of greater consciousness, and eventually, a third layer of totally new brain tissue began to grow atop even the more advanced mid-brain of mammals. The forebrain, or neo-cortex; bestowed upon higher mammalian life forms even greater cognitive abilities and mental functioning. It's this highly convoluted mass of salmon and gray colored cortical tissue that enables us to think abstract thoughts and to self-reflect. Gorillas and other primates, as well as elephants, dogs and many other mammals also have a forebrain, and some capacity for self-reflection. Proportionate to their body size; dolphins even possess a larger forebrain than we do.
Our forebrain, or neo-cortex, is the self-regulating feedback loop Nature provided for us to 'switch off' our instinctual templates when we outgrew the need for them. The enhanced self-awareness our forebrain endowed us with, would enable us to reflect back on and 'switch off' our instincts when the time came to do so, in the same way that self-regulating feedback loops at the molecular level tell our body when to stop making certain enzymes and hormones so an over-abundance of them doesn't cause us physical harm - or even kill us.
Our Evolutionary Conundrum
Only, in our hubris, we've come to largely regard our greater capacity for self-awareness and self-reflection, as evidence of our superiority. And even though Nature endowed us with this 'wetware' for greater self-reflection - we use it as 'proof' that we're no longer a part of Nature... We don't see the emergence of our forebrain as part of the ongoing expansion of consciousness and awareness which naturally emerged through the evolutionary process. We have yet to realize our forebrain's seminal role in extinguishing the instincts we still possess - and that its purpose is not just to serve as fodder for self-aggrandizement and illusions of separation from Nature. Also because of our hubris, we remain in a stubborn state of denail regarding the fact that we still possess the same instinctual templates that rule so much of the behavior, feelings and thoughts of other creatures... And if something isn't acknowledged - it can't be overcome.
And by not extinguishing our instinctual templates, we've stymied any futher evolution of our species. Because of our desire to imagine ourselves devoid of any instinctual remnants from our earlier state of animalicity, we've hobbled ourselves from unfolding to an even higher state of being. The only way we can actualize the next stage of our evolution is to truly free ourselves from our instinctual templates - and not just pretend they don't exist, just as a butterfly can only come into being by first shaking off the prison of his dried up chrysalis.
"If humanity is to fulfill the order-building direction of the universe, it must make itself a bridge from the animal to a higher existence of a kind that we cannot even dimly imagine."
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin