Awakenings - The Stoned Ape Hypothesis Reconsidered - IntroductionDoes anyone take McKenna's “stoned ape theory” seriously?
Perplexity AI replies: Summary of the Theory
Terence McKenna's "Stoned Ape Theory" proposes that the consumption of psychedelic mushrooms (specifically psilocybin) by early hominins was a key factor in the rapid expansion of the human brain and the emergence of language, culture, and higher consciousness.Awakenings II — Scientific speculation: a worthwhile pursuit, even if the mainstream deems it "wild"
It may not at first glance seem one of the more pressing issues of our troubled times, but the theme posed in Awakenings is surely one that can be researched, and conclusions drawn. A demonstrated awakening, or trigger event for the proto-human species, would bring some flesh and bones to the many traditions and myths about mankind's origins and genesis. After all, mythologies are not mere trivial screenplays to ancient B-movies, but a human universal rooted in collective human psychology.
Awakenings III — Perceiving the hidden in plain sight
In order to understand how psychoactive use might have played an essential role in human evolution, a complete revision of the theory of how psychedelics actually work is necessary.
Awakenings IV — The McEnroe Enigma
What is the psychedelic experience ?
What are the effects psychedelic drugs ?
Do psychedelic chemicals cause psychedelic experience ?
Why are psychedelic effects so unpredictable ?Awakenings V — Brains doing their thing
A paradigm suppresses innovation, it can even insulate the community from those socially important problems that are not reducible to the puzzle form typical of normal science, because they cannot be stated in terms of the conceptual and instrumental tools the paradigm supplies. — Thomas Kuhn
The perception of Salient Events is an attentional mechanism by which organisms learn and survive; those organisms can focus their limited perceptual and cognitive resources on the pertinent (that is, salient) subset of the sensory data available to them.
Awakenings VII - Coming Soon
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