Neurotransmitters: Emissaries of the Mind
by Mark Thomas
Staff Writer
LIKE FOREVER SUBJECTS: TO THE EDICTS OF OUR CHEMICAL MINDS
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” (Eleanor Roosevelt)
The voyages are nightly now. Though certain at times you’re lucid dreaming, inside a piece of subconscious theatre; at other times you’re there. An explorer of other worlds being shown the process of life and change.
By the Amirians, a race of interstellar travellers you’ve come to see as Guardians of the Galaxy. How they’re guiding evolving cultures. Changing them. Influencing capable candidates to steer their worlds away from their destructive tendencies.
Like galactic tutors imparting wisdom. Guiding change through worthy influencers.
Just sitting there after yet another nighttime journey, piecing together what Rania the Amirian tutor your subconscious conjured was trying to teach you, you begin scribbling in your bedside journal.
Eight months. The same theme. Progress and growth. Stagnation and decline. Technological worlds torn by racial hatred and violence. The never-ending struggle to dominate, viewing outsiders as a threat.
As an evolutionary psychologist, professor and advisor to the UN, you’re finding these nighttime journeys invaluable. To witness, not just read about or theorise the process of how this exclusion of other tribes – seeing them as rivals develops and becomes innate is pure enlightenment.
To frame and support theories you’ve presented is such a benefit. And to look deeper, especially at the beings on the more advanced worlds an idealistic fantasy.
There, where you were moments before you woke, did you observe such idyllic progress. Collaboration in the sciences, arts and education. Planetary organisations addressing environmental concerns, resource allocation and the deployment of new technologies.
International exploration – even in space with orbiting stations and thriving colonies on the system’s outer planets.
Yet, even there, nation states driven by violent factions were embroiled in destructive wars. Racial and ethnic strife within advanced societies that had known periods of progress away from the innateness of that tribal instinct - had regressed and were again engaged in aggressive conflict.
So tragic, the wasted time and effort by some – the less imaginative and less prosperous of mind.
CHEMICAL MESSENGERS: HOW OUR NEUROBIOLOGY CONTROLS US
“I can never decide whether my dreams are the result of my thoughts, or my thoughts are the result of my dreams.” (DH Lawrence)
Image by StockCake
Trying to make sense of tonight’s instalment, feeling more conflicted from seeing beings on a technologically advanced planet still plagued with bias and hatred, you make notes before climbing from bed – anxious to get to your computer and your proposal.
How odd these dream adventures - the source of your inspiration, have advanced your career and international status. And your recognition as an authority with your work now used in classrooms everywhere – and those in academia worldwide anxiously awaiting your next paper or book.
Margaret Mead once said: “War is only an invention, not a biological necessity.” And yet it’s been a fact of life on Earth since the beginning. First primitive tribes fighting with crude weapons – later technologically advancing nations but still tribal fighting with sophisticated devices – killing greater numbers with greater precision but with the same barbarity.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response,” wrote Viktor Frankl.And there’s something buried inside that quote. The key perhaps. A deeper understanding of the human mind.
True idealists like you believe change is inevitable. A natural evolutionary course. But after what you just witnessed on a highly advanced exoplanet halfway across the galaxy, you’re unconvinced.
Still fighting wars. Still building destructive weapons. Still seeing outsiders as a threat. And still with that same tribal instinct. Stimulus and response. Seemingly with even less behavioural control.
With the windows brightening, you close your journal and think. About your outline and proposal for a new intergovernmental panel to work on education with far-reaching governance over new technologies.
Which you’re suddenly convinced is the key.
The perspective you’re gaining from these dreams - seeing cultures at the pinnacle of their technological achievement, more possessed and angrier. With deeper divisions even and especially among the educated. There’s a disconnect, a clue. Something we’re missing. Something amiss.
“Fabulous, isn’t it?”
ETERNALLY THE CHILD PLAYS: ACCEPTING WHAT WE ARE
“Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father.” (Roger von Oech)
Image by StockCake
You’re on the steps of the West Campus at the university with a fellow teacher heading into a meeting. The construction of the new School of Management across Claverton catches your eye. It’s bold – brilliant – modern with a fully glazed exterior of photovoltaic glass.
But it’s more than the construction – it’s the team of architects and engineers out front with plans – pointing – talking enthusiastically, animatedly like…
“…children. Still playing.”
You’re oddly fascinated. More than should be. You feel the same feel-good rush you’re certain they are while orchestrating their project. Your friend looks at you finding the childlike expression - your shared enthusiasm amusing.
“Considering a career change?”
“Tell me something Lis; what do you feel looking at that?”
She returns her eyes to the building – the construction crew above and the designers below. “It’s genius. The design is…”
“…Deeper.” You continue to stare with weird fascination. “Go deeper. Nothing intellectual.” You watch the crew high above pull a massive panel from a crane. “Purely biological.”
“I’m not sure what you’re… I mean… It makes me wish I were…”
“…an architect.” You spin to her. “You were going to say an architect.”
Curious about you and perhaps concerned, she nods. “Nothing new Joni. Some get a buzz from watching buildings go up, others get it from watching them explode. It’s…”
“…always been that way. I know. The buzz… Neurotransmitters. But… what if we could find our way inside and take control of that mechanism. Modify it. Short circuit it in those who….”
“…like behaviour modification?” She chuckles. “Like the Ludovico Treatment?”
Image by Warner Bros
You look her in the eyes, picturing Anthony Burgess’ Alex sitting in the theatre with his eyes pinned open being forced to watch horrible violence to Beethoven’s 9th symphony – having his lust for violence modified out of him.
“No… of course not.”
“Well… there’s good news.”
After a final look across the street, you head up the steps thinking how we’re all driven by brain chemistry. The surge – the reward – the buzz as Lis put it. Each of us finding a way to get it. And get more of it.
And how you’re not ready to give up on the current generation, when evidence points to behavioural development happening much earlier during childhood – and how we spend our lives as those same children playing the same games for the same reward.
Later and throughout the day, your mind is away wondering what’s happened that we seem more driven now by the lust for conflict and hate or inane stimulus to gain that reward.
When we were on the right track with people getting it from their careers or dreams of future careers as designers, builders, writers, musicians, creators – like the architects and engineers you just observed in grown-up clothes and lives - still playing.
TECHNOLOGY: FINDING A SOLUTION IN THE CAUSE
“The fog of information can drive out knowledge.” (Daniel J Boorstin)
Image by StockCake
Walking into the forum with others, you begin to feel it. The smooth warmth of the obelisk – glowing with its neural energy. A deep, satisfying, inexplicable warmth. A population modifying neurotechnology. Advanced beyond your recognition.
There’s no explaining what’s happening to you neurologically as you look at the surface and see visions of your childhood dream. The feelings of such immersive joy of working with children in a remote village.
Studious, mannered, smiling with bright eyes as they plod on with their pencils and markers – imagining – drawing – creating with still others working diligently through algebraic equations and geometric puzzles.
Moments pass. The euphoric feeling is filling you – saturating you.
You turn to look at the others in this square made tranquil by this pulsating cube – and can see them swimming in the same technologically manufactured neural state. Changing them. Modifying their urges – their desires – their visions of themselves in their life pursuits.
“A dream.” As you look around at the strange surroundings, it occurs to you. You’re again dreaming.
“You’re wondering if this is the answer to your quandary from earlier. On the steps with your colleague and throughout the day.”
You turn to Rania your Amirian tutor, who you know now is not being manufactured by your subconscious.
You’re the selected candidate for your world. By a race of advanced beings – truly charged with the governance of our galaxy. Watching over and guiding us. Passively and gently steering us like benevolent mentors.
“Is it?”
She looks out over the vast metropolis on a planet warmed by twin stars. “They, like you, at some point in their history advanced. Pushed forward with their technology creating their own irrelevance. Seeing speed and efficiency, economic gain as the optimum goal. Overlooking the main, critical feature of them.”
“Biology… What drives them and makes them human.”
“Yes.”
You turn back and look at them – all standing there – recovering what they gave away through ignorance – moving forward and undoing or restructuring them, but with even newer technology.
It’s captivating and saturating and stimulating. And suddenly, with a clarity you’ve never felt, you turn back to the obelisk for one final surge of something incomprehensible and intoxicating.
ACCEPTING YOUR PLACE: AMBASSADOR OF OUR FUTURE
“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.” (Chinese proverb)
Image by StockCake
You open your eyes. Your room is gently lit with morning just beginning to filter in. You look at Rania, sitting there. Sophisticated – elegant. But also, kind and warm.
“Is there a chance for us? Have we reached that same point in our evolution?”
She looks at you. “We don’t have all the answers. For them, a further technological advance to restore what they’d traded away seemed the only path. No longer with that biological reward from fulfilment in their careers and crafts, they plunged into hatred and violence to satisfy that need.”
“But, for us…?”
“We’ve given you everything we can, Joni. Everything you need. What you do with it, with your growing influence will be up to you.”
“But… you’ll be back.”
“Yes. To monitor your progress – and ideally, enjoy seeing your success.”
You remained in bed long after she’d left you thinking – imagining, aware your dream excursions – your mentoring had come to an end. And you would now use what you’ve learned to complete your world plan.
But what plan? And even with your increased influence, how could you change the course of a world?
During the last eight months you’d been granted unthinkable wisdom. Observed growing cultures -others in decline. Technologically advanced civilisations reaching out into space but still tearing themselves apart.
And on the more primitive worlds, you saw the same. A segment of the population driven by personal advance – dreams of creation, building, growing intellectually – gaining that biological reward with visions of their future successes. And others driven by hate and a desire to destroy.
But is that the answer for your world?
Have we reached that same critical point and are now relegated to a further technological advance to recover what we surrendered in the name of efficiency? Gave to machines that dutifully accepted our relevance and our childhood dreams?
And allowed us to fill that desire with hate and greed and superficial rewards.
And it’s now, with your training over, you understand your position, why you were selected, and how you’ll complete and deliver your plan.
“It’s simple biology.”
THE BEAUTY IN US: IMAGINATION AND CURIOSITY
“There is grandeur in this view of life, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved.” (Charles Darwin)
Image by StockCake
You’re facing the full UN committee – confident but also insecure. Daring but also fearful like the child you once were. But now embracing that part of you. Understanding it. Relishing in it. For you know you’ll use that child-like enthusiasm to be authentic and hopefully persuasive.
Passion – Dreams. Imagination and curiosity. The true beauty within us. Our neurobiological messengers. The emissaries of our minds. That six-million-year experiment. Our evolutionary journey – a work in progress.
“What child will ever dream of an architecture career when that career entails telling a machine to produce plans for a building based on the client’s specifications for usable floor space and style – fitting a specified budget – filling a corner lot in some specified city?
“What child now, in our time gets that wonderful biological surge from visions of sitting at a computer coding? Teaching a machine to be creative so she won’t have to be? Or from sitting at home on a Universal Basic Income anaesthetising herself with video entertainment, social media and gadgets.
“Eloi. We’re racing in some dire pursuit of becoming the Eloi HG Wells gave us in his Time Machine. And we need to be smarter. And look long-term at everything we develop and deploy - accepting who and what we are – because we have the capacity to do better. And be better.”
Standing there, watching them absorb your final remarks after delivering your comprehensive education and technology oversight plan, you wait, wondering if in Rania’s eyes, you did well with what she’s given you.
A lifetime of education in eight months of visiting worlds.
And while collecting your notes, you smile and feel a warm surge… when the entire assembly stands and fills the hall with applause.
Mark Thomas (TE Mark)
