Consciousness: The Great Leap Forward (Again?)

'Bigger Than The World'
Justin Timberlake

Collective Consciousness

There has been more discussions recently about collective consciousness just recently as we remembered global events that increased our awareness of our world, including 9/11. Actually part of the reason why I blog is because of 9/11. During the aftermath of the terror, heartbreak, and trauma that occurred in NYC, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon on that unforgettable day, there was a palpable change in country I felt. I don't know if it was collective but we all changed. I don't know if we were all connected at some point mentally, spiritually or noetically but somehow our consciousness appeared altered and irrevocably affected. For many months following the siege, the offices of the Wall Street Journal were displaced and journalists were spread out in outposts dispatching daily stories of immense hope, heroicism and triumphs of human spirit. It was difficult not to cry nearly everyday reading what ordinary people were doing endearing unimaginable pain and surviving extraordinary circumstances. Their unique, individual voices could not be missed or forgotten.



Conciousness Emerged 40,000 Years Ago

Intelligence, consciousness, and sentience. AWARENESS... Mmmh... the Matrix (nsfw) expanded my mind and awareness.

Scifi author Robert J. Sawyer wrote an essay in the anthology 'Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix' entitled 'Artificial Intelligence, Science Fiction, and THE MATRIX'. Regarding humans, 'Intelligence is an emergent property of complex systems. We know that because that's exactly how it happened in us.'

'Anatomically modern humans -- Homo sapien sapiens -- emerged a hundred thousand years ago. Judging by their skulls, these guys had brains identical in size and shape to our own. And yet, for 60,000 years, those brains went along doing only the things nature needed them to do: enabling these early humans to survive.'

'And then, suddenly, 40,000 years ago, it happened: intelligence -- and consciouness itself -- emerged. Anthropologists call it "the Great Leap Forward."'

'Modern-looking human beings had been around for six hundred centuries by that point, but they had created no art, they didn't adorn their bodies with jewelry, and they didn't bury their dead with grave goods. But starting simultaneously 40,000 years ago, suddenly humans were painting beautiful pictures on cave walls, humans were wearing necklaces and bracelets, and humans were interring their loved ones with food and tools and other valuable objects that could only have been of use in a presumed afterlife.'

'Art, fashion, and religion all appeared simultaneously; truly, a great leap forward. intelligence, consciouness, sentience: it came into being, of its own accord, running on hardward that had evolved for other purposes. If it happened once, it might well happen again.'


Will A Different Conciousness Emerge Again?

Could we have another renaissance of culture, arts and technology? A neolithic intelligence, consciousness and sentience...?? I think we are on that path. The mind is the new frontier. Its barriers and miracles of its strength and potential power are being unlocked as we discover more (or learn from our ancestral warriors and healers)... Return to Matrix... energy begets energy. No energy is wasted. Life is sustained (Neo, kiss; Trinity, energetic voltage to the heart like an automated external defibrillator (AED).

Photo credit: themandus.com

Neanderthal Extinction

Neanderthals were far more advanced, culturally and technologically, and appreciative of consciouness more than earlier realized. An updated from Science Daily from today: Neanderthals More Advanced Than Previously Thought: They Innovated, Adapted Like Modern Humans, Research Shows. In terms of adaptation and evolution, the authors note 'Thousands of years ago, southern Italy experienced a shift in climate, becoming increasingly open and arid, said Riel-Salvatore. Neanderthals living there faced a stark choice of adapting or dying out. The evidence suggests they began using darts or arrows to hunt smaller game to supplement the increasingly scarce larger mammals they traditionally hunted. The fact that Neanderthals could adapt to new conditions and innovate shows they are culturally similar to us," he said.

The same speculation is discussed regarding recent information that grasslands were massively decreased as temperatures cooled at the end of the last Ice Age, approximately coinciding with the last days of the Neanderthals. Read Science Daily (August 18, 2010): Dwindling Green Pastures, Not Hunting, May Have Killed Off the Mammoth. As drier tundras replaced productive grasslands, large herbivorous mega-mammals like wooly mammoths, wooly rhinos and giant deer decreased in number. 'These habitat changes made grazing much more difficult for large mammals and dramatically reduced the amount of food available for them. The changes in grassland quality and availability coincided with increases in the distribution and abundance of modern man, Homo sapiens, ensuring a time of wide-scale upheaval for herbivorous mammals and other mammals that preyed on them.' (Photo courtesy, Science Daily)

Where did this leave the Neanderthals, the terrestrial carnivores (see post: Meat Made Us Smart, But Marine-based BAD*SSED)? Well. With considerably lower intakes of brain-nurturing omega-3 sources. Hunting smaller animals and increasing broad spectrum utilization of plant sources as the larger mammals migrated north away from Italian/Mediterranean and Euroasian shoresides toward Slavic and Siberian geographies.

Ancient man on the other hand continued to and perhaps were propelled toward marine-sourced carnivory and less plant based outsourcing as the mega-fauna dwindled in number and size. As brains improved synaptically, the bigger the brain, the bigger the hunt and the bigger the fish/seafood? It appears so from the evidence thus far.



Electrically, electrochemically, what is omega-3?

It fills in and controls our lipid double-layer cell membranes, and membranes are the master controllers in many emerging ways.

It behaves like high-speed internet. Long-chain Omega-3 fatty acids are the strongest, longest 'cables' in nature and behave like the cables of Comcast and DSL for our brain/heart/GI hardware and connections.




Bigger Omega-3 --> Bigger Brain --> Bigger Consciousness --> Bigger Display/Capture --> Bigger S*XXX --> Bigger Progeny/DNA-push-forward




References:

Explaining longevity of different animals: is membrane fatty acid composition the missing link?
Hulbert AJ.
Age (Dordr). 2008 Sep;30(2-3):89-97. Epub 2008 May 31.

Membrane fatty acids as pacemakers of animal metabolism.
Hulbert AJ.
Lipids. 2007 Sep;42(9):811-9. Epub 2007 Apr 27. Review.

Membrane phospholipid composition may contribute to exceptional longevity of the naked mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber): a comparative study using shotgun lipidomics.
Mitchell TW, Buffenstein R, Hulbert AJ.
Exp Gerontol. 2007 Nov;42(11):1053-62.

The exceptional longevity of an egg-laying mammal, the short-beaked echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus) is associated with peroxidation-resistant membrane composition.
Hulbert AJ, Beard LA, Grigg GC.
Exp Gerontol. 2008 Aug;43(8):729-33.

Pimping Robb: 'Keep Your POOP Where It Belongs'

ANIMAL (Far East Movement)

Pimping The Wicked Animal

I love Robb (and his beautiful wife Nicki V.) and I love pimping Robb and everything he endorses.

My favorite chapter of the new book 'The Paleo Solution: The Original Human DIET' is naturally 'Grains and Leaky Gut or Keep Your Poop Where it Belongs'. In typically Robb-fashion he breaks down gut dysbiosis and how it is the central dogma for our S.A.D. health in Western civilizations at this time. If there were other s*xy chapters, I'd love them too but this is unfortunately not too heavy in the s*x departments (unlike the other recent book reports I discussed). The health professional version hopefully will cover more hormones...


Personal Story

What drew me in first to the whole paleo story is his blog and the generous sharing of stories which were re-enforced when I attended the nutri cert (for Crossfit) in Chico in 2008 where he recounted again more stories of health recovery, autoimmune disease reversal and tremendous body fat recompositioning. I've met Sarah twice the screaming hawwwt chick with 3 children and painful swollen legs which reversed on paleo and functional xfit exercises. Two stories at the nutri cert were the tale of 2 pharmacists (!!!hey man) which Robb appeared too delighted in telling knowing I was the lone pharmacist in the audience. Both had liver disease and one was already on the liver transplant list. They had NAFLD, fatty liver, a Metabolic Syndrome condition related to gluten and the fatty infiltration and calcifications related to high carbohydrates and a grain-heavy Western diet.

Paleo cured them. In 1-2 months both had reversed the liver enzyme tests to normal. Robb affected their health where modern medicine failed and actually wanted to take out and replace the worthless liver, the ultimate solution, no?

Robb's book is filled with these type of stories and the most compelling is his and his mother's. He reports thathis mother's quiet diagnosis of celiac (and 3 other autoimmune diseases -- Sjogren's, Rheumatoid and Lupus) at the time she was nearly dying on a heart/lung machine, saved his own life when he was suffering from severe debilitating inflammatory intestinal issues.


'Academia: Abandon All Hope Ye Who Study Here'

Totally I would second this notion...


All About Digestion and Why Paleo Works

Robb's a wicked animal when it comes to coaching and cajoling performance and outcomes out people... it comes through in the writing. He's there explaining in simple, easy-to-understand terms and encouraging in the same way.

He has seen it work not just for himself but COUNTLESS Crossfiters and non-Crossfiters.

Explaining the digestion, nutrition and hormones (insulin, growth hormone, leptin, cortisol) take up 1/3 of the book. The parts I enjoyed the most were:

• 'Digestion: From our Pie Hole to Your HOO-HA in 453 Easy Steps' ch4 [why do we always ending up talking about butts and poop???]
• 'Digestion: Where The Rubber Hits the Road' ch5
• 'Cholesterol... The small, dense, reactive LDLs are born from the VLDL that is the product of high-carbohydrate intake. Although the types of dietary fats we consume do influence these LDLs to a small degree, the main influence is the amount and types of dietary carbohydrate. In case you missed that, a high-carbohydrate diet, like the one your doctor, the government, and the pharmaceutical companies endorse, is the type of diet that makes smal, dense reactive LDL particles. Good to know these people are fightin for your health! Image if they were really trying to kill you.'
• 'Osteoporosis Link to Cardiovascular Disease (CVD)... The solution we are given for CVD is a high-carb, low-fat diet that keeps insulin levels high. The solution for osteoporosis is to take a calcium supplement. Little dose our doctor know that that calcium supplement is known to be a precipitating factor in blood clots that lead to stroke and heart attack. Oops! hey, it's just your life folks!'
• 'Grains and Leaky Gut or Keep Your Poop Where It Belongs (ch6)' Here several cases from a 5 year old to diverse ages reviewed excellently.
• 'Fat Confusion' We know Robb endorses BACON BACON BACON SATFAT SATFAT SAT! This reviews W-H-Y. 'The government high-carb, low-fat fantasy is turning out to be amazingly profitable for sectors of our medical and pharmaceutical establishment. unfortunately, it's not been kind to our friends, family, and coworkers.'
• 'Cortisol ...'Without being the least bit cynical, I could boil life down to food, sleep, and sex. On the food side of the equation, we have all that goes into getting it (brains to plan, brawn to procure and defend). Once we have that food, we eat it and either burn it or store it. This is all related to our short and long term energy management, body-fatness, fertility, etc. In sulin and glucagon are there to help regulate our storage and utilization of energy. However, Cortisol is also a player in this game, as it also has effects on energy storage and a host of other functions...' Like both Robb and Andy Deas (podcast co-conspirator), I've had adrenal fatigue yet we have neolithic ways to overcome this (this is where paleo alone aint enough).
• 'Beat That Dead Horse White Boy!' Sleep sleep sleep yet again...
• 'Sex Type Thing... Charlie has two new, but very annoying things happening. Low sex drive and a need to pee at night. As Charlie's body fat increases, the has a tendency to convert his meager testosterone into estrogen because of an enzyme called aromatase that hangs out in fat tissue. If your body fat increases, whether male or female, you tend to convert testosterone to estrogen. For Charlie, this set inmotion prostate growth (benign prostate hyperplasia -- BPH) at the ripe old age of thirty-five. if thes was not bad enough, his testosterone levels are low for two reasons. Cortisol and testosterone must go down. Then add the conversion of testosterone to estrogen due to increased body fat and we have a bad situation brewing for Charlie. The effects for women are similarly powerful with a tendency to produce PMS, PCOS, fibroids and infertility. Fun, no?'
• 'Growth hormone...IGF...BDNF... Now that we have looked at being strong and hormonally sound, let's take a look at your pump and pipes before looking at our exercise prescriptions.'
• 'What About Fiber? Won't I Forget How To Poop Without Grains?' THIS STUFF KILLLLLLS ME!!!!!!
• 'Robb, You Are Big Meanie? I Have No Idea Where to Start!'
• 'But Raaawwwwbb, How Will I Get My Vitamins? And How Will I Poop Without My Fiber?' [chuckle chuckle]
• 'Quick Paleo Pancakes' My kids made this on their VERY own last wkend! The HOUSE DID NOT BURN DOWN and was filled with the lovely aroma of sweet sweet laughter and cinnamon. My paleo-as-it's-gonna-get-kids ROCK indeed.
• 'Supplements' The standard stuff -- Robb's fish oil calculator, vitamin D, probiotics, digestive enzymes, lipoic acid (reduces insulin resistance and host of other benefits), carnitine (recovery, energy, etc), magnesium, and iodine. Again, totally standard fare.

Tim Ferriss also provides a wonderful endorsement and an excerpt from the book: How to Keep Feces Out Of Your Bloodstream (or How To Lose 10Pounds in 14 Days)

Previous animal pharm: Robb and paleo cure vampirism (porphyria cutaneous tarda)

Go Team Robb!!!! *winky!*


P.S.
Robb knows I'm gonna quibble on the LDL (goal stated in book 40-70 mg/dl which is clearly questionable)... but he recties by discussing thoroughly the QUALITY of LDL is FIRST and FOREMOST (pattern 'A') over quantity. If that were the only concession to the publishers in order for this SEMINAL piece of RIDICULOUSLY S*XXXXY GENIUSNESS to *finally* published then I...will... forgive... But. Dude you'll owe me a St. Peters beer dude. Or two. FR*CK. That will be hard to dig out of...