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<DIV>
<DIV>
<DIV>The need to tell the tale of the horrors you've seen and the relief you get
when you tell the tale a hundred times tends to support the hypothesis that the
symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder are disabling to the victim but
beneficial to society, beneficial to the social group. This need to
blurt out the worst tends to support the idea that the post traumatic
stress disorder victim becomes a marker of danger, a "do not go here"
sign.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>And Alice, I believe, is right. Most adaptive things start out as
accidents, as side effects of something else. But once these traits prove
useful, evolution favors their retention. Then they take on a life of
their own.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>However if what I've said above is true and most adaptive things start out
as accidents, how do we account for the smart evolution, the guided evolution,
the evolution-that-has-intelligence-built-in that Eshel has chronicled in
bacterial colonies? Does an agglomeration of cells in something as
simple as a volvox have a collective intelligence? It must. If I
remember my Lynn Margulis rightly, early multicellular organisms--<FONT
face="News Gothic MT">Carchesium and Zoothamnium--</FONT> were wired together
via something that preceded a nervous system. If a <FONT
face="News Gothic MT">Carchesium or Zoothamnium has roughly the number of
cells in a volvox, that would make a community of roughly </FONT><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT
face=Arial size=2>65,536 interconnected individuals, far more than enough
microprocessors to make a supercomputer. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT
face=Arial size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT
face=Arial size=2>Let's put it differently. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT
face=Arial size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT
face=Arial size=2>A cell is a collective of <SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"> roughly
300 million macromolecules, smart molecules. In it is a genome which Eshel
says is a sophisticated central processor. That central processor,
like a supercomputer, is also set up as a parallel processor. Between 400
and 35,000 genes work simultaneously to solve the problems of the cell.
One of the simplest multicellular organisms we know is the Volvox, which, as I
just mentioned, has 65,536 cells. That gives even a volvox a total of
19,660,800,000 smart elements sharing their opinions.
</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT
face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"></SPAN></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT
face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">That could
make for quite a collective intelligence. It could even make for what
Eshel sees in bacteria--a purposeful intelligence. An intelligence wired
to overcome obstacles and survive. An intelligence made from a
team that participates in larger teams. An intelligence designed for
survival of the group and for survival of itself simultaneously. An
intelligence smart enough to feel that in times of crisis, you have to
make a sacrifice. If you want the traits of your tribe or of the organism
you're a part of to survive, sometimes you have to make small sacrifices,
sometimes you have to make big ones. </SPAN></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT
face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'"></SPAN></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><FONT
face=Arial size=2><SPAN
style="FONT-FAMILY: Arial; mso-bidi-font-family: 'Times New Roman'">An
intelligence smart enough to sense that when you've hit something dangerous
or something simply confusing, your job is to share it with the
group. Your job is to raise a warning even if you suffer from
becoming an ambulating signboard. Your job is to alert the group to a new
problem. By advertising the problem, you, in fact, become a vital
starting point to the solution. </SPAN></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>There's more. Remember Jeff Hawkins nested hierarchies? Nested
hierarchies, by the way, showed up in E.O. Wilson's 1976 Sociobiology.
Knowing what a great idea-collector and synthesizer Wilson is, I'm sure he
got the term and the idea from a previous source. Meaning Wilson and
Hawkins wors the way the cells in you and me or in a bacterial
colonies operate. They operate the way Alice Andrews, Lynn Johnson,
and I operate in this dialog--as gatherers of threads of information
that we twiddle with, we knit with, we make new knots and stitches
with, and in the raggedy-ended new weave made with our sewing,
knitting, and knotting, we pass a swatch of half-made fabric along to you
and back to me.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But I digress. Hawkins' basic principle is that a group of things
work together to detect a tune and name it. Then they pass that name
upward to the five cortical layers above them and to the cell
assemblies they gossip with horizontally in the brain.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Smart groups of cells work in a similar nesting of hierarchies. 400
genes laboring together form something greater, a genome.
300 million macromolecules working together form a cell. 65,536
cells working together and competing with each other form a simple
organism. A group of organisms working together and competing
with each other form a colony. A group of colonies of different species
working together and warring with each other form an ecosystem. A
group of ecosystems working and warring together form a planetary system, a
Gaian system.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>At every level the elements working and warring are likely to make a
collective intellect. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>And the goal of that collective intellect is to survive. How do we
know this? Every form of organism, colony, and ecosystem on this planet
today has managed to make it through many a woe and many a difficulty, yet has
managed to reproduce itself successfully, whether it's done so for a
mere 100,000 years, as in the case of Homo sapiens, or for 3.5 billion
years, as in the case of cyanobacteria.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>How have life-forms pulled this off? There's a good chance that
they've done it with purposive intelligence, one of nature's best survival
mechanisms.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Compare the idea that post traumatic stress disorder makes us modules in a
collective intelligence, makes us warning signals on the dashboard of life, with
the following quote from Jeff Hawkins' On Intelligence. Keep something
interesting in mind--the way that the post traumatic stress disorder sufferer
keeps rerunning his or her traumatic memories. The way he has to repeat
those memories to others to get relief. On to the quote:</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV>"Instead of only passing information forward...auto-associative memories
fed the output of each neuron back into the input.... When a pattern of
activity was imposed on the artificial neurons, they formed a memory of this
pattern. ...To retrieve a pattern stored in such a memory, you must provide
the pattern you want to retrieve. ....The most important property is that you
don't have to have the entire pattern you want to retrieve in order to
retrieve it. You might have only part of the pattern, or you might have
a somewhat messed-up pattern. The auto-associative memory can retrieve
the correct pattern, as it was originally stored, even though you start with a
messy version of it. It would be like going to the grocer with half
eaten brown bananas and getting whole green bananas in return. ...Second,
unlike mist neural networks, an auto-associative memory can be designed to
store sequences of patterns, or temporal patterns. This feature is
accomplished by adding time delay to the feedback. ...I might feed in the
first few notes of 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' and the memory returns the
whole song. When presented with part of the sequence, the memory can
recall the rest." Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee. On Intelligence.
New York: Times Books, 2004: pp 46-47</DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV>Give me a choir of post-traumatic stress disorder victims of different
generations--Korean War Vets, Viet Nam War Vets, Desert Storm War Vets, and our
current Iraq War Vets, and I bet you this. It is very likely that we get a
melody, a variation on a theme, a temporal sequence available to you and
me. Especially when many of these vets decide to write their novels and
those novels are turned into films.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>What is the tune they are singing? What is the sequence they're
alerting us to? The horrible way in which war is cyclical. The
horrible way in which war is endemic to our species. The nightmare
that war makes, the living hell. For some it means the call to glory in
the name of a great or a truly crappy cause. But to others it is a
call to do something new, something attempted many a time but never accomplished
before--to stop the bleeding and to bring an end to war.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Is this purposive memory made from the cries of modules holding their
scarred and tortured memories and never letting go? Is this the sign of a
multi-generational community working on a problem, working toward a goal?
Is this an example of teleology--of the future drawing us forward rather than
mere prior cause pushing us to the present and stranding us there? Is it a
sign that vision is the beckoning of futures yet to be?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Does it mean that some evolution is smart evolution? That some
evolution is evolution driven by a future-projecting intelligence, even
when that intelligence, as in the case of bacteria, doesn't have consciousness,
daydreams, or a brain?</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Yes, I think the hints are there that the future hooks and beckons us, that
it makes us chew on ways to triumph over problems and to turn them into
opportunities, to triumph over losses and turn them into victories.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Eshel Ben-Jacob and Joel Isaacson have been hinting that they see this
teleonomy in the worlds they study--in Joel's computer science and in Eshel's
study of bacteria, of self-assembling neurons, and of adaptive neural
chips. Are they right? I suspect that they may be more on target
than we know. Howard</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: 'Times New Roman'; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA">Several
forms of cilia-powered protozoans<A title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1"
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#_ftn1" name=_ftnref1><SPAN
class=MsoFootnoteReference>*</SPAN></A><A title="" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1"
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#_edn1" name=_ednref1><SPAN
class=MsoEndnoteReference><SPAN
style="mso-special-character: footnote">[i]</SPAN></SPAN></A> produced a second
generation which, unlike their unicellular parents, did not totally wall
themselves off at birth.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Their
direct connection to each other allowed one cell to sense an obstacle or an
opening and to flash the data so fast that the multitude could react almost
instantly and in total coordination.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>This "wiring" between cells prefigured neural components.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It was composed of remodeled spirochetic
microtubules<A title="" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2"
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#_edn2" name=_ednref2><SPAN
class=MsoEndnoteReference><SPAN
style="mso-special-character: footnote">[ii]</SPAN></SPAN></A>--the same
construction materials from which nerve cells would evolve.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The odds are good, then, that in the two
billion years<A title="" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3"
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#_edn3" name=_ednref3><SPAN
class=MsoEndnoteReference><SPAN
style="mso-special-character: footnote">[iii]</SPAN></SPAN></A> now blank to us,
numerous further elements of primal nervous systems evolved through trial,
error, and if the University of Tel Aviv's Eshel Ben-Jacob's suspicions are
correct, purposeful invention.<A title="" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4"
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#_edn4" name=_ednref4><SPAN
class=MsoEndnoteReference><SPAN
style="mso-special-character: footnote">[iv]</SPAN></SPAN></A></SPAN><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3> </FONT>
<DIV style="mso-element: footnote-list"><BR clear=all><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>
<HR align=left width="33%" SIZE=1>
</FONT>
<DIV id=ftn1 style="mso-element: footnote">
<P class=MsoFootnoteText
style="TEXT-JUSTIFY: inter-ideograph; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 12pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify; mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: -.5in"><A
title="" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1"
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#_ftnref1" name=_ftn1><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt"><SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></SPAN></A><SPAN
class=MsoFootnoteReference><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt">*</SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt">
Carchesium and Zoothamnium</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></DIV></DIV>
<DIV style="mso-element: endnote-list"><BR clear=all>
<HR align=left width="33%" SIZE=1>
<DIV id=edn1 style="mso-element: endnote">
<P class=MsoEndnoteText
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 12pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify; mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: 0in"><A
title="" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1"
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#_ednref1" name=_edn1><SPAN
class=MsoEndnoteReference><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt"><SPAN
style="mso-special-character: footnote">[i]</SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></A><SPAN
class=MsoEndnoteReference><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt">.</SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt">.
For wonderful photos of carchesium, see: Ministry of Education, Science, Sports
and Culture of Japan.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Protist
Information Server. "Oligohymenophorea: Peritrichia: Sessilida: Vorticellidae:
Carchesium," http://taxa.soken.ac.jp/WWW/PDB/Images/Ciliophora/Carchesium
/index.html, February 1999.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></DIV>
<DIV id=edn2 style="mso-element: endnote">
<P class=MsoEndnoteText
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 12pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify; mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: 0in"><A
title="" style="mso-endnote-id: edn2"
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#_ednref2" name=_edn2><SPAN
class=MsoEndnoteReference><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt"><SPAN
style="mso-special-character: footnote">[ii]</SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></A><SPAN
class=MsoEndnoteReference><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt">.</SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt">.
The spirochetic legacy would prove vital to the elaboration of nervous system
components, eventually contributing to neurons, balance sensors, and the rods
and cones of eyes. (Lynn Margulis.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN><I>Symbiosis in Cell Evolution: Microbial Communities in the Archean and
Proterozoic Eons, Second Edition</I>: 233, 260; Lynn Margulis and Michael F.
Dolan. "Swimming Against the Current." <I>The Sciences</I>, January/February
1997: 20-25..)</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></DIV>
<DIV id=edn3 style="mso-element: endnote">
<P class=MsoEndnoteText
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 12pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify; mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: 0in"><A
title="" style="mso-endnote-id: edn3"
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#_ednref3" name=_edn3><SPAN
class=MsoEndnoteReference><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt"><SPAN
style="mso-special-character: footnote">[iii]</SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></A><SPAN
class=MsoEndnoteReference><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt">.</SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt">.
Niles Eldredge. <I>The Pattern of Evolution</I>. New York: W.H. Freeman, 1998:
38; Graham Bell. "Model Metaorganism": 248.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></DIV>
<DIV id=edn4 style="mso-element: endnote">
<P class=MsoEndnoteText
style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; LINE-HEIGHT: 12pt; TEXT-ALIGN: justify; mso-hyphenate: none; tab-stops: 0in"><A
title="" style="mso-endnote-id: edn4"
href="aoldb://mail/write/template.htm#_ednref4" name=_edn4><SPAN
class=MsoEndnoteReference><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt"><SPAN
style="mso-special-character: footnote">[iv]</SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></A><SPAN
class=MsoEndnoteReference><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; VERTICAL-ALIGN: baseline; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt">.</SPAN></SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'News Gothic MT'; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt">.
Taken together, the following articles sketch an intriguing prehistory of the
nervous system.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Among other things,
they indicate that we inherited the progenitors of our neurotransmitters from
bacteria and the basics of our brain from multicellular creatures as primitive
as planarians: J.C. Venter, U. di Porzio, D.A. Robinson, S.M. Shreeve, J. Lai,
A.R. Kerlavage, S.P. Fracek Jr, K.U. Lentes, C.M. Fraser. "Evolution of
neurotransmitter receptor systems." <I>Progress in Neurobiology</I>, 30:2-3
1988: 105-69; H.B. Sarnat, M.G. Netsky. "The brain of the planarian as the
ancestor of the human brain." <SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><I>Canadian Journal of Neurological
Sciences</I>, November 1985: 296-302.</SPAN><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; LETTER-SPACING: -0.15pt"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P></DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 4/26/2005 7:48:57 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
andrewsa@newpaltz.edu writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>
<DIV>
<DIV>I love this, too, Lynn! It fits so perfectly with my experience and
with some of what I know...</DIV>
<DIV>Telling and writing stories (the story) <EM>can</EM>
be healing to those suffering the symptoms of PTSD </DIV>
<DIV>(and other forms of mental unease) and the stories can also
be useful to the group...</DIV>
<DIV>For the person suffering, the 'new knowledge' eventually gets
incorporated and the new way of being eventually </DIV>
<DIV>happens, but perhaps it all happens sooner (and relief sooner, too) if
the sufferer's experience </DIV>
<DIV>is encoded in the group's system/collective knowledge/culture. Hence yet
another reason, <EM>maybe</EM>, </DIV>
<DIV>why some intensely creative writers have such burning desire to be
read by 'the group'. The validation closes the
circuit... </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Also, no question that an 'unprepared brain' with a </DIV>
<DIV>particular neurochem profile deals with shock and terror and stress
less well </DIV>
<DIV>than a prepared one....And aside from meditation, exercise, a happy,
meaningful life </DIV>
<DIV>with good relationships and not too many economic worries,
etc. (things that help keep brain </DIV>
<DIV>prepared for major stressors), having the collective wisdom of the group,
i.e., stories/narratives </DIV>
<DIV>which take many forms, e.g., gossip, fiction, news, etc., can
also help prepare...</DIV>
<DIV>all the best!</DIV>
<DIV>Alice</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>PS I'm afraid I was not quite able to articulate what I was
getting at, but I'm sending anyway...</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>----- Original Message ----- </DIV></DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=mailto:ljohnson@solution-consulting.com
href="mailto:ljohnson@solution-consulting.com">Lynn D. Johnson, Ph.D.</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A
title=mailto:paleopsych@paleopsych.org
href="mailto:paleopsych@paleopsych.org">The new improved paleopsych list</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Monday, April 25, 2005 9:23
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [Paleopsych] What's the
survival value of post traumaticstressdisorder?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV>As usual, Alice is a great resource. A further view: Who is
most / least disabled by PTSD?<BR> - preparation reduces
PTSD. Special Forces troops in Viet Nam were exposed to worse violence (like
when the Cong cut off arms of children the SF medics vaccinated) than grunts
but had almost no PTSD. It was because of the extensive training, compared
with 16 weeks of Basic / AIT. <BR> - story telling: Edna
Foa found that repeatedly telling the story reduced PTSD in rape victims.
<BR><BR>So PTSD may be nature's way of telling us we aren't preparing
ourselves and we aren't telling / listening to the story. Imagine a village
in africa. To the beat of a drum, a hunter is telling his
story:<BR> Hunter: Then as I approached the antelope, I
saw a lion!<BR> Villagers in unison: Boom-chucka, boom
chucka boom chucka<BR> Hunter: The lion
leaped!<BR> V: Boom chucka!<BR> H: It
missed me but it got Steve!<BR> V: Aaargh!<BR><BR>The
youth are prepared (hunting is dangerous, lions are about) and by sharing,
in perhaps a ritualistic way, he masters the trauma.<BR><BR>My dad, late in
life, told his story of being a flight engineer on a B-17 over Europe. While
he told the story (as my mother wrote it down) he cried for two days. It
puzzled him. "It's been 40 years, it shouldn't still bother me" but after
that he was as relaxed and peaceful as I had ever seen him. The storytelling
had a ritual quality (tell your story and I will write it down for the kids)
and he found some mastery.<BR><BR>Lynn<BR><BR><BR>Alice Andrews wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE cite=mid004901c54994$6f7a7150$6501a8c0@callastudios
type="cite"><META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2627" name=GENERATOR>
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<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Howard, I really love this!
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>I </FONT><FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3>had some alternative--or actually,
additional thoughts--not ones I necessarily want to champion, but
nonetheless I feel like sharing: Perhaps PTSD is adaptive for the
individual and ultimately the group. A young hunter is out on the savannah
and his brother/kin is savagely destroyed by lions, say. He might
experience all sorts of emotions in response to witnessing this, perhaps
the symptoms of PTSD. The emotions (as par Randy Nesse et al.) guide his
behavior--i.e. staying at 'camp' not going on hunts, ruminating over and
over the scene, etc etc. The symptoms like memory loss are
maybe just "mind-spandrels." </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>The hippocampus goes into
obsessive overdrive on the old memories at the expense of new ones.
The hippocampus is still "carrying" the event. So...maybe the memory loss
just represents a reorganization of the brain. A traumatic event, of
course, can be life-altering. It takes a lot of brain power/energy to
restructure neuronal morphology. People literally change after such
events. Something new is being learned very quickly: a whole new way
of being. "Don't charge at lions. Don't trust men from the
neighboring tribe. Don't wear bones when hunting." <FONT
size=4>*</FONT> For such a thing to happen, the hippocampus can't be
bothered with forming new memories. So the symptoms are the means to, and
also the signs of, those changes. There's no doubt that a person suffering
from the symptoms of PTSD would have garnered support, fear, and elicited
a whole host of behavioral responses--as today. And that indeed an
individual with the symptoms of PTSD would have been a
marker--a reminding factor. Members of the group's
physiology wouldn't have gone thrrough such dramatic and intense
changes like the individual, but they (and their physiology to some
degree) would be influenced in some fashion, surely.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Another thought. I don't actually
know the statistics or have any data on this stuff, I can only speak from
impressionistic observation and experience. But it seems to me that people
who suffer with the symptoms of PTSD eventually stop suffering.
** The changes finally get wired--so they're no longer signposts for
the group in that way...Though the group will have experienced the person
in that state for a while and have their new state as reminding factor,
too. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Anyway, to answer question:
tremendous survival value for individual and group if the symptoms lead to
're-education' and changes in personality, behavioral response, etc etc.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><STRONG><FONT
size=4>*</FONT></STRONG>Magical thinking and OCD are related to these
things and also were quite adaptive.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>** Meds, of course, are very
helpful...but I imagine that the change that mother nature has programmed
the suffering person to go through doesn't actually happen with meds. And,
I actually have no particular feeling on whether one way is better or
worse..I don't have a romantic view that suffering through the symtoms of
PTSD in today's world could be all that beneficial to the individual. I
would look at it on a case-by-case basis, I suppose. (I generally take the
view that people (unless they pose a threat in some way to self or
others) need to experience such emotions for a tiny little while without
meds--even PTSD. (I suffered with such symptoms (and then some!) for
about 4-5 years without meds, btw. Not something I would advise everyone
to do!!!)</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>More to think about and to write,
but have to run! </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>All best, </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Alice</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(0,0,0) 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; font-stretch: normal; font-size-adjust: none">-----
Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: rgb(228,228,228) 0% 50%; FONT: 10pt arial; font-stretch: normal; font-size-adjust: none; moz-background-clip: initial; moz-background-inline-policy: initial; moz-background-origin: initial"><B>From:</B>
<A title=mailto:HowlBloom@aol.com
href="mailto:HowlBloom@aol.com">HowlBloom@aol.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; font-stretch: normal; font-size-adjust: none"><B>To:</B>
<A title=mailto:paleopsych@paleopsych.org
href="mailto:paleopsych@paleopsych.org">paleopsych@paleopsych.org</A>
</DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; font-stretch: normal; font-size-adjust: none"><B>Sent:</B>
Monday, April 25, 2005 5:00 AM</DIV>
<DIV
style="FONT: 10pt arial; font-stretch: normal; font-size-adjust: none"><B>Subject:</B>
[Paleopsych] What's the survival value of post traumatic
stressdisorder?</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT face=Arial color=#000000 size=2>
<DIV>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">If you have PTSD (post
traumatic stress disorder), your hippocampus works poorly and you have a
lot of trouble storing new memories.<SPAN> </SPAN>It’s your old
memories that prevail, the memories of the horrid experience that
produced your trauma to begin with.<SPAN> </SPAN>Is this fixation
with a danger in the past helpful to your personal survival? Or is it
helpful to something else—to the survival of society?<SPAN>
</SPAN>If you suffer from PTSD, does your brain and body inflict that
suffering every day to turn you into a signboard--a walking warning of
danger to the rest of us?</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><O:P></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Ted Coons proposes that
us old folks lose our ability to remember recent events but still hang
on to memories of our distant past for a reason.<SPAN> </SPAN>Not
a reason that helps us aging elders,<SPAN> </SPAN>but a reason
that helps the collective mind, the mass intellect of
society.<SPAN> </SPAN>We elders, Ted thinks, are storage jugs
keeping antique memories alive not for the sake of our personal
survival, but for the sake of the younger folks who’ve had no
opportunity to experience or remember the days when we elders were young
and vigorous.<SPAN> </SPAN>Those youngsters have had no chance to
remember the problems and solutions of our childhoods way back when, the
problems and solutions of an earlier generation or two or three.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><O:P></O:P></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt">Can PTSD victims serve a
similar function, as danger markers for those of us who’ve never
experienced the horrors that the past-obsessed and present-challenged
PTSD patients<SPAN> </SPAN>remember far, far better than they’d
like?<SPAN> </SPAN>Are they walking warning signs to the rest of
us?<SPAN> </SPAN>Are they, like all of us, disposable modules in
the mass learning machine of culture, in the parallel distributed
intelligence of the collective brain?</P></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 size=2 family="SANSSERIF"
ptsize="10">----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>Author of The Lucifer
Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History and Global
Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st
Century<BR>Visiting Scholar-Graduate Psychology Department, New York
University; Core Faculty Member, The Graduate Institute<BR><A
class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated title=http://www.howardbloom.net/
href="http://www.howardbloom.net/">www.howardbloom.net</A><BR><A
class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated title=http://www.bigbangtango.net/
href="http://www.bigbangtango.net/">www.bigbangtango.net</A><BR>Founder:
International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic of
Evolution Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder:
The Big Bang Tango Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences,
American Association for the Advancement of Science, American
Psychological Society, Academy of Political Science, Human Behavior and
Evolution Society, International Society for Human Ethology; advisory
board member: Youthactivism.org; executive editor -- New Paradigm book
series.<BR>For information on The International Paleopsychology Project,
see: <A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated title=http://www.paleopsych.org/
href="http://www.paleopsych.org/">www.paleopsych.org</A><BR>for two
chapters from <BR>The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into
the Forces of History, see <A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated
title=http://www.howardbloom.net/lucifer
href="http://www.howardbloom.net/lucifer">www.howardbloom.net/lucifer</A><BR>For
information on Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big
Bang to the 21st Century, see <A class=moz-txt-link-abbreviated
title=http://www.howardbloom.net/
href="http://www.howardbloom.net/">www.howardbloom.net</A><BR></FONT></DIV></FONT>
<P></P>
<HR>
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<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10">----------<BR>Howard Bloom<BR>Author of The Lucifer Principle: A
Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History and Global Brain: The Evolution
of Mass Mind From The Big Bang to the 21st Century<BR>Visiting Scholar-Graduate
Psychology Department, New York University; Core Faculty Member, The Graduate
Institute<BR>www.howardbloom.net<BR>www.bigbangtango.net<BR>Founder:
International Paleopsychology Project; founding board member: Epic of Evolution
Society; founding board member, The Darwin Project; founder: The Big Bang Tango
Media Lab; member: New York Academy of Sciences, American Association for the
Advancement of Science, American Psychological Society, Academy of Political
Science, Human Behavior and Evolution Society, International Society for Human
Ethology; advisory board member: Youthactivism.org; executive editor -- New
Paradigm book series.<BR>For information on The International Paleopsychology
Project, see: www.paleopsych.org<BR>for two chapters from <BR>The Lucifer
Principle: A Scientific Expedition Into the Forces of History, see
www.howardbloom.net/lucifer<BR>For information on Global Brain: The Evolution of
Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century, see
www.howardbloom.net<BR></FONT></DIV></FONT></BODY></HTML>