It perturbs the body in precise ways

“Consciousness satisfies emotion by the physical actions it selects in the midst of turbulent sensation. It is the specialized part of the mind that creates and sorts scenarios, the means by which the future is guessed and courses of action chosen. Consciousness is not a remote command centre but part of the system, intimately wired to all the neural and hormonal circuits regulating physiology. Consciousness acts and reacts to achieve a dynamic steady state. It perturbs the body in precise ways with each changing circumstance, as required for well-being and response to opportunity, and helps return it to the original condition when challenge and opportunity have been met.”

(page 113)

Edward O. Wilson. (1998)  Consilience: The unity of knowledge. New York: Knopf.

The indelible stamp of our animal ancestry

“Human beings create cultures by means of malleable languages. We invent symbols that are intended to be understood among ourselves, and we thereby generate networks of communication many orders greater than that of any animal. We have conquered the biosphere and laid waste to it like no other species in the history of life. We are unique in what we have wrought.

But we are not unique in our emotions. There are to be found, as in our anatomy and facial expressions, what Darwin called the indelible stamp of our animal ancestry. We are an evolutionary chimera, living on intelligence steered by the demands of animal instinct. This is the reason we are mindlessly dismantling the biosphere and, with it, our own prospects for permanent existence.”

(page 13)

Edward O. Wilson. The Social Conquest of Earth. New York: Norton, 2012.

Borrowed from the Grande Bibliothèque.

Thinking about thinking is the core process of the creative arts

“If the great riddle of the human condition cannot be solved by recourse to the mythic foundations of religion, neither will it be solved by introspection. Unaided rational inquiry has no way to conceive its own process. Most of the activities of the brain are not even perceived by the conscious mind. The brain is a citadel, as Darwin once put it, that cannot be taken by direct assault.

Thinking about thinking is the core process of the creative arts, but it tells us very little about how we think the way we do, and nothing of why the creative arts originated in the first place. Consciousness, having evolved over millions of years of life-and-death struggle, and moreover because of that struggle, was not designed for self-examination. It was designed for survival and reproduction. Conscious thought is driven by emotion; to the purpose of survival and reproduction, it is ultimately and wholly committed. The intricate distortions of the mind may be transmitted by the creative arts in fine detail, but they are constructed as though human nature never had an evolutionary history. Their powerful metaphors have brought us no closer to solving the riddle than did the dramas and literature of ancient Greece.

Scientists, scouting the perimeters of the citadel, search for potential breaches in its walls. Having broken through with technology designed for that purpose, they now read the codes and track the pathways of billions of nerve cells. Within a generation, we likely will have progressed enough to explain the physical basis of consciousness.

But — when the nature of consciousness is solved, will we then know what we are and where we came from? No, we will not. To understand the physical operations of the brain to their foundations brings us close to the grail. To find it, however, we need far more knowledge collected from both science and the humanities. We need to understand how the brain evolved the way it did, and why.”

(pages 8-9)

Edward O. Wilson. The Social Conquest of Earth. New York: Norton, 2012.

Borrowed from the Grande Bibliothèque.

The creation myth is a device for survival

“The creation stories gave the members of each tribe an explanation for their existence. It made them feel loved and protected above all other tribes. In return, the gods demanded absolute belief and obedience. And rightly so. The creation myth was the essential bond that held the tribe together. It provided its believers with a unique identity, commanded their fidelity, strengthened order, vouchsafed law, encouraged valour and sacrifice, and offered meaning to the cycles of life and death. No tribe could long survive without the meaning of its existence defined by a creation story. The option was to weaken, dissolved, and die. In the early history of each tribe, the myth therefore had to be set in stone.

The creation myth is a Darwinian device for survival. Tribal conflict, where believers on the inside were pitted against infidels on the outside, was a principal driving force that shaped biological human nature. The truth of each myth lived in the heart, not in the rational mind. By itself, mythmaking could never discover the origin and meaning of humanity. But the reverse order is possible. The discovery of the origin and meaning of humanity might explain the origin and meaning of myths, hence the core of organized religion.”

(page 8)

Prologue to Edward O. Wilson. The Social Conquest of Earth. New York: Norton, 2012.

Borrowed from the Grande Bibliothèque.

Like a waking dreamer

“Humanity today is like a waking dreamer, caught between the fantasies of sleep and the chaos of the real world. The mind seeks but cannot find the precise place and hour. We have created a Star Wars civilization, with Stone Age emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology. We thrash about. We are terribly confused by the mere fact of our existence, and a danger to ourselves and to the rest of life.”

(page 7)

Prologue to Edward O. Wilson. The Social Conquest of Earth. New York: Norton, 2012.

Borrowed from the Grande Bibliothèque.

To explore the labyrinth of myth

“There is no grail more elusive or precious in the life of the mind than the key to understanding the human condition. It has always been the custom of those who seek it to explore the labyrinth of myth: for religion, the myths of creation and the dreams of prophets; for philosophers, the insights of introspection and reasoning based upon them; for the creative arts, statements based upon a play of the senses.

Great visual art in particular is the expression of a person’s journey, an evocation of feeling that cannot be put into words. Perhaps in the hitherto hidden lies deeper, more essential meaning.”

Prologue to Edward O. Wilson. The Social Conquest of Earth. New York: Norton, 2012.

Borrowed from the Grande Bibliothèque.