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<The fact that so many groups of people can have so many different ways of thinking implies to me that even if there is a common root-psyche in us we have some degree of control over it.>

I'm struggling to coherently express my thoughts here. One of the reasons why humans are different from most other animals (and we are, no value judgement intended), is that we adapt. The ability to adapt is genetically inherited. But the results of the adaptations are not. They are determined by the changes in environmental conditions that require adaptation in the first place. So when the environment alters (i.e. Ice ages ending etc.) humans can adapt their thinking about their behaviour in order to survive the altered environment. It doesn't happen quickly, and just as the illusion of gradual changes in the genome is losing suppport in favour of the idea that there are sudden quantum leaps every now and then, the idea that human behaviour patterns have evolved smoothly from animalistic lack of awareness, to a modern "Oooh aren't we the cleverest monkeys in the jungle"is, to my mind, tosh.
Instead, what we see the traces of when we consider human conciousness pre-history, is evidence of the same kind of unsmooth evolution.
The thing that lets us screw up our planet on such a grand scale is our ability to adapt our neuronal pathways to fit whichever environment we were brought up in. At a push we can change in our own lifetimes, but we won't always be too happy about it. The next generation however, whilst having more or less the same genetics as their parents, will consider ithe new conditions normal, becuase the genes that produce the human brain are such that they contain the capacity for plasticity. But the brain is not the mind, the map is not the territory etc... So we can't look just to objective evidence if we ever are to have a chance of understanding our place in the multiverse.

I guess what I'm trying to stumble towards here, is that what makes us a particularly strange species of primate, is that we can learn and adapt. Also, that we have learned that we can learn, and that we can alter our behaviour and adapt the environment as a result.

So, I'd say, there is a 'root psyche'. It's the hardwired parts of the brain that allow us to be flexible in response to our surroundings. And if there has been any major change since the last ice age, it's been that our environment has allowed us the leisure to realise that we do have some control over the way in which we behave. Hence the appearance of social norms, rituals, religions and taboos etc...

I have an irresistible urge to make light of this, but I won't do so too much, 'cos it's a bloody important subject. But I am aware that the above probably reads like irrelevant drivel.

You're all a bunch of freakin' headcases, and I love it!

My eternal respect to your synaptic firing patterns.

"The thing that lets us screw up our planet on such a grand scale is our ability to adapt our neuronal pathways to fit whichever environment we were brought up in."

To which I'd add the "I'm all right Jack/Jill" which cam make a shit environment and keep everyone adapting like crazy. Reason and forethought being the expense paid in exchange for being like Jack.

What selfish shellfish...hard on the outside, soft as shit inside, and trying to make a footprint in a diminishing world :-(

"It doesn't happen quickly,"

"At a push we can change in our own lifetimes"

"The next generation however, whilst having more or less the same genetics as their parents, will consider ithe new conditions normal"

A bit of self-contradiction there, but I hear what you're saying.

I'm never sure about "The map is not the territory" being used in this context. If you redraw a map the land doesn't change. Can the same be said about the mind?

Man doesn't need to evolve physically anymore because we can adapt mentally just as you have said. Is this a stage of transcendence? Have we now reached a stage where the physical attribute of our body are not as important as they are for animals. I would say so and perhaps it is this that separates us (likewise not shouting anything about being top monkey etc...)

Small questions with big answers. If we are fundamentally viscious and prone to conflict at an animal level, but are able to decide whether we fight or not and yet decide to fight knowing we are going to get a bloody nose, why do we do it? Is the animal really stronger than the new-improved-mental? Or is it now a mental state (greed or whatever) that drives us to fight rather than a more animal survival instinct? Or is this mental state of greed just 'survival instinct gone mad'?