I got a comment a few weeks ago about Psychedelics and the way they can cross the blood brain barrier, as well as alcohol. The comment says certain Psychedelics also cross the blood brain barrier.
We are chimpanzees with this little computer cortex attached to the chimp brain, that allows us to do a few more tricks most of the time babysitting the chimp brain to keep it happy. And that chimp brains dorman seems to be very open to letting in the mind altering substances. Evolution knows what it’s doing, right? I think that this is from a book, I can’t remember the name of the book, but it’s that kind of theory that a lot of the stuff that we’ve got going on is because of the chimp brain, and I’m not, it’s a good analogy. And to be honest with you, I prefer the true brain analogy.
So this is the oldest part of your brain, is a lizard brain, that’s the one that is responsible for all the subconscious stuff, you breathe in your survival mechanisms, then you’ve got on top of that the mammalian brain, which developed next, which is responsible for your emotions. And then you’ve got the human brain, the neocortex. And it’s not even the newer of the human brain, it’s the part that fits over the mammalian brain. And that’s the newest part of our brain. That’s the thinking, the decision making all that kind of stuff. And the thing is that chimps also have a neocortex as well, it’s just not as advanced as us.
It’s what makes simians the most exceptionally intelligent, of all the races on the planet, right? So, you know, it’s, I think it’s the plasticity really, that differentiates us. It’s the plasticity of the brain, which means learning from your environment, adapting things from your environment, that’s what we do the best as human beings, over our monkey cousins, but you can see the same, a lot of the same behavior, there’s a video on YouTube, where you’ll see monkeys, being able to solve puzzles a lot quicker than human beings can do. So there’s certain things that they can do that we can’t do. And it’s because they’ve just taken a different evolutionary track. And I suppose there’s a different way of looking at things as well that we’ve evolved to a certain to a certain level within ourselves. And that because we’ve evolved is sort of this, you’ve got an opportunity cost within that. And also, we’ve blocked out certain things. So you’ve evolved certain talents, but because you’ve evolved certain talents, you block out certain other talents. And when you say that evolution knows what it’s doing, right?
Evolution is a process, it’s not a conscious force. So there is no knowing, there is a development as you’re going through, as we’re evolving. It’s just a development that goes on, evolution makes a lot of mistakes, as well as successes. And we always look at evolution as being survival of the fittest. And that’s basically what it comes down to, it’s what we do to survive, or how the species has survived up until this time. And there’s a lot of stuff that is wrong. I mean, you know, we can look at our own human bodies and think, “Well, you know, that could have been designed a little bit better.”
One of the ones that I was reading recently was the voice box of the giraffe. And the giraffes grew, evolved, when they started evolving. First, their head was closer to their body, and their voice box, because they’ve evolved over time, their voice box is 10 centimeters from their brain. But the nerve that controls the voice box, goes from the brain, and it goes down four meters, all the way down the giraffe’s neck down around the heart, and then back up again to the voice box. So a 10 centimeter connection is actually gone around this convoluted way. It’s gone to 4 meters. And I’m not sure if that’s for me, as I suppose I presume that’s for me, if they’re in back as long but the point is, does all this matter at the end of the day, does it matter that we’ve evolved a certain way?ย
When you look at things, evolution matters in the sense that we are where we are. We are who we are, because we’ve evolved into this place that we’re at right now. Right? But the race itself, the human race is not affected by a single individual, right? So no single individual is going to affect how evolution happens. I mean, maybe in evolutionary terms, one individual does, you know? If it’s a particularly procreative individual, you know, who goes out and spreads there see the lot, then maybe that does affect but in general, you’re not going to get one individual effect in a race. And it’s the same thing that you are not affected by what everyone else does in your life, you’re not affected by what everyone else in the race does, you are affected by what you do. So the question is alcohol right for you, is any drug right for you? Are psychedelics right for you? It doesn’t matter what happens in your brain. This is the damage that can be caused, because alcohol passes through the blood brain barrier, to say that we’re controlled by evolution. I think, for me, myself, I am controlled by myself, I’m controlled by my thoughts, I’m controlled by my actions. And anything out of that, anything outside of that, when I say to myself, my brain is set up for these connections, I don’t think your brain is set up for a natural high, you know, you’ve got the chemicals in your brain, which are alcohol, and none of the other drugs would make a difference, if your brain wasn’t already set up that way. But it’s because you get the natural drugs, or when you put a drug into inside your body, when you put heroin inside your body, when you put alcohol inside your body, it’s hijacking the same systems that provide you with this natural buzz in the first place.
But I love the fact that we come from monkeys, I love the fact that you can look at a monkey and you can see our shared heritage. But it’s not just because that is our past, but because that also shows us what we can become in the future, but I love being a human being I like the skin that I’m in, you know,ย I think evolution gives you your start in brain, when you’re born, you’re born with a brain, you’re born with a certain amount of natural inclinations. And it’s on that, that you build the behavior. You know, it’s not the surroundings, it’s not the fact that you have these things, but it’s what you do with them that counts, I think anything that takes you outside of that is just an excuse.
I don’t think we have a monkey brain, we’ve got a human brain, which is different. It’s a much more advanced model of the monkey brain. And I think, having that neocortex, having that advanced neocortex that we haveย allows you to control the mammalian part of your brain, maybe not the lizard part of your brain, but that’s a good thing as well, it’s a good thing that you can’t control, certain parts of your security system, for instance, what keeps you alive. But, you know, having that control over your thoughts and your actions, when people start talking about the monkey brain, and they can’t control this aspect of themselves, I think it’s an excuse, you know? It’s an excuse that people use to excuse the behavior and to say to themselves, “Well, I can’t really help this, I can’t really help that”, you control your brain, as I say, if you want to take drugs, then take drugs, you know, it’s your body is your life, you should be able to do what you want. And you shouldn’t have to make excuses. You know, we make excuses, because, you know, this is the society that we’re living in.
I drank alcohol for over 30 years, and it caused me a lot of problems. Because of that I could have taken any other drug. We’re looking reading a lot lately on dependence. And one of the focuses that scientists have is the dependence on alcohol. And I think it’s a completely wrong direction that they’re taking, I think they should be focusing on the behavior. So a person will stay out drinking alcohol because of whatever certain amounts of peer pressure in their lives, but eventually, they will go on to drinking alcohol as a reaction to life. And it’s the behaviors that keep you drinking alcohol that caused the dependence. It’s not the alcohol that causes dependence. You know, alcohol gives you a certain amount of tolerance. And alcohol is a tool that you use as a means to an end. So when you’re actually drinking alcohol, it’s a reaction to what you’re doing in life. And because you see these two things, you see alcohol as a tool, you see alcohol as a tool that you can use very quickly to sort of numb yourself and to get yourself away from thinking about things. It becomes a tool that is more and more and more and more prevalent and more easier to use, you know, it’s so that’s the way I think about things.
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