Nutrition
A recurring theme in ancestral mythology suggests a time when our sense of self was vastly different from today's experience, almost unimaginable. It describes a divine, interconnected self with extraordinary perception being replaced by a disconnected, deluded, and limited one - traits we now associate with humanity.
If this mythological account accurately reflects our origins and descent into delusion, how could such an extraordinary shift occur? One possibility involves the emergence of a neural mechanism creating a new configuration, featuring unique structures and complex neurochemical processes that enabled advanced perceptual traits. However, if this mechanism were unstable, it might reverse, eroding these traits over time.
While modern thought assumes such changes would be genetically locked and stable, evidence supports a scenario where a well-documented process drives radical neural changes without altering DNA. This same mechanism is prone to failure, leading to a gradual loss of neural complexity, shrinkage, and diminished perception.
To navigate this complex topic, we must sift through extensive data spanning biology to physics, mapping our current state and potential directions. Existing evidence suggests we are severely impaired, akin to patients with advanced dementia, unable to recognize our condition or true nature. This catastrophic failure is reflected in our collective behavior, neurological studies, and ancient myths.
The challenge lies not in the evidence but in overcoming our psychological defenses against recognizing our delusion. As we explore basic biology, the path seems solid though less familiar, while at the intersection of physics, it becomes more speculative yet intriguing. Our limited perception, highlighted by neurological evidence, explains why interconnectedness feels elusive (leading to reductionism).
Our cultural fascination with zombie narratives may reflect a subconscious awareness of being driven by primitive forces, behaving robotically while believing ourselves advanced. Despite this, minimal "treatment" can reveal profound glimpses of our true potential, exposing our current state as a self-inflicted nightmare. This perspective might explain why we've become production robots and consumption machines, defending meaningless hierarchies while ignoring growing evidence of our untapped capabilities.
There is already a general misconception that the post symbiotic neurological condition is primarily about a detrimental change in our ancestral diet and simply restoring that diet will effect a complete solution.
If only it were that simple and of course if it were then our ancestors, being in better perceptual and cognitive shape than us, would have figured out such a simple solution a long time ago.
Unfortunately, while the initiating cause can be described simplistically as dietary it is more accurate to talk about a sudden separation from our deeply integrated and vastly more biochemically complex symbiotic host after millions of years of co-evolution.
The resulting chain reaction and cascade of detrimental impacts from such a catastrophic separation mean that restoring our ancestral diet is potentially problematic and in our current state requires a sound knowledge of nutrition. Also and importantly, even fully restoring our symbiotic diet does not on its own resolve the complex of symptoms including the developmental failure in our new brain. It is also unhelpful to simply talk about 'diet' as it typically brings up a lot of cognitive dissonance and fails to address the unique and complex relationship our ancestral diet embodied.
When these relationships break down it is less about simply changing diet and more about initiating a major reversion of complex and integrated co-evolving systems some of which were integral to the assimilation of our highly specialised 'diet' of swollen ovaries. Specifically, the increasingly specialised neuro-assimilation system that emerged as part of the symbiotic process has atrophied and is now far from functional. While we retain a typical frugivorous anatomy and physical digestive system our neural system has in part reverted and is now closer to our insectivorous ancestral past. That reversion process has significantly impacted our neural gut axis and how it operates, in other words, we are no longer symbiotically specialised frugivores. In addition, our gut flora bears almost no resemblance to that of a forest-dwelling symbiont, the rich symbiotic micro-flora acquired over many millions of years that was an important and integral part of our neuro-assimilation system has mostly been lost. On top of that our basic gut integrity is typically in poor shape due to post symbiotic 'diets' that increasingly bear no molecular relationship to our symbiotic past and in more recent times no relationship to biology at all. Also as a result of our neural atrophication and the culture it manifests we are typically much more stressed than we can easily recognise and that impacts our gut integrity and functionality.
Recent research has elevated our gut from that of a composting tube of sorts into that of a highly complex neural system in its own right so it needs to be treated accordingly. While there is likely to be a spectrum of symptoms and severity between individuals, these are just some of the factors that need to be addressed in a coordinated way when developing integrated treatments to begin reversing the reversion process.
