Psycho Active Plants and Civilization

This post exists as storage for future research. Feel free to explore the links below.

I'm exploring the idea that early pre-agrarian humans ritually consumed psychotropic plants, and this practice refined the human-animal mind and gave rise to primitive astronomical calendars which yeilded agriculture and, subsequently, civilization.

I can not vouch for the scientific validity of these writers, but I'm curious about what they have to say, so, as with anything, interpret these links with a grain of salt... so to say.


Round Head Period rockart

art prehistory

Libyan Desert rock Art

From prehistoric mushroom artifacts:

Since most of the works of rock art were, or were related to, initiation rites, or were part of religious practice and its context, the idea that these works should be associated with the use of hallucinogenic vegetals (as has already been put forward for some specific cases on the basis of ethnographic and ethnobotanical data) comes as no surprise. This use, where it arises, is historically associated with controlled rituals involving social groups of varying dimensions. It is perhaps not a chance occurrence that the areas where examples of rock art are to be found - areas in which it is most often asserted that the use of hallucinogens might have taken place, on the basis of the scenes represented or on the basis of the consideration that this practie might have served as a source of inspiration - are also the areas where the most famous examples are to be found in terms of imagination, mytholigical significance and polychromy.

cultigenic taxonomy

ethnobotany

kamakala

Anthropologist Richard Wrangham of Harvard University observed on many occasions that a large number of chimps walked as long as 20 minutes in search of Aspilia, a member of the sunflower family. The animals would then gulp down the leaves of this plant whole, even to the point of vomiting. It was later discovered that Aspilia is high in a red oil called thiarubrine-A which kills parasites, fungi and viruses. However more recently, biochemists, inspired by the chimps repeated use of the plant, began to test the properties of thiarubrine more seriously in the lab. They found to their surprise that thiarubrine-A killed cancer cells in solid tumors, such as those of the lungs and breast.

Maybe some of the mystery as to how early humans discovered medicinal plants is hereby revealed. For on further observation scientists have found that chimpanzees use at least 15 different species of medicinal plants, which supply the animals with a full range of potions and salves for a number of various ailments.

Scientists have also discovered however that it's not just chimpanzees that take advantage of Nature's pharmacopeia, but there are many other animal species that do as well. In fact there are so many different kinds of animals that use plants as medicine, a specialized branch of zoology has developed just to study this phenomena called "zoopharmacognosty".(1)

Within this specialized branch of study some very interesting discoveries have been made. One of these is the fact that animals use psychoactive plants to deliberately alter their consciousness. Ronald Siegel, a psychopharmacologist at UCLA's School of Medicine has spent most of his career studying drugs and their impact on animals. In 1979 he discovered a shard from an ancient ceramic bowl in the Peruvian Andes. A painting on the piece, shows two llamas eating from a branch of coca leaves. Two Indians are pointing to the llamas while they themselves conspicuously reach for the leaves with open mouths.

Major Types Of
Chemical Compounds
In Plants & Animals

Marijuana is native to central Asia, and the Chinese appear to have been the first to harvest the plant for its hemp fibers and medicinal uses. The psychoactive properties of marijuana were first exploited in India. The Indians classified Cannabis products into ganja, consisting of the potent female flowers and upper leaves, and hashish, the golden resin containing THC. The largest quantity of resin is produced by C. sativa ssp. indica, also known as C. indica. High quality hashish may contain up to 50% pure THC. The most potent and resinous plants are bushy, well-spaced female plants grown in warm, sunny climates without male plants. The term "sinsemilla" (sin: without) and (semilla: seed) refers to unpollinated, unfertilized female plants without seeds. Through the travels of Marco Polo, Napolean and British colonists, the virtues of marijuana as a fiber plant and psychoactive drug spread to Africa, Europe and the New World.

Marijuana has a number of therapeutic uses. For casual smoking and medical purposes, the gland-covered female flowers and floral bracts are commonly used, rather than the potent hashish. Marijuana reduces the nausea experienced by cancer patients undergoing radiation and chemotherapy. Since THC dilates bronchial vessels, it provides relief for asthma sufferers. It also relieves hypertension, and is effective in reducing pressure in the eyes of glaucoma patients. Although it is illegal to grow without special medical permits, it is the number one cash crop in some remote areas of the United States.

mushrooms

The oldest representations of hallucinogenic mushrooms in the world are in The Sahara Desert. They were produced 7000-9000 years ago.

The idea that the use of hallucinogens should be a source of inspiration for some forms of prehistoric rock art is not a new one. After a brief examination of instances of such art, this article intends to focus its attention on a group of rock paintings in the Sahara Desert, the works of pre-neolithic Early Gatherers, in which mushrooms effigies are represented repeatedly.

The polychromic scenes of harvest, adoration and the offering of mushrooms, and large masked gods covered with mushrooms, not to mention other significant details, lead us to suppose we are dealing with an ancient hallucinogenic mushroom cult.

What is remarkable about these ethnomycological works, produced 7,000 - 9,000 years ago, is that they could indeed reflect the most ancient human culture as yet documented in which the ritual use of hallucinogenic mushrooms is explicitly represented.

Many cultures portray Amanita muscaria as the archetypal mushroom. Although some Vedic scholars disagree with his interpretation. Aristotle, Plato, and Sophocles all participated in religious ceremonies at Eleusis where an unusual temple honored Demeter, the Goddess of Earth.

the brainy encyclopedia

Hallucinogenic drugs are among the oldest drugs used by humankind, as hallucinogens naturally occur in mushrooms, cacti, and various other plants. Whether the use of hallucinogens is encouraged, unregulated, regulated, or prohibited, and whether hallucinogens are used for recreational, medicinal, or spiritual purposes, varies from culture to culture and nation to nation. Hallucinogen use is relatively rare in most current societies. In most countries of the world, common hallucinogens are illegal and their possession is considered a crime (as of 2004.) Rarely, an exception will be made for religious purposes. For example, in the United States, possession of peyote cactus is illegal for most purposes, but the cactus is legally grown and used for religious rituals among various Southwestern Native American tribes.

In human culture hallucinogens have historically most commonly been used in the setting of religious or shamanic rituals. In this context they are more precisely referred to as entheogens. Evidence exists for the use of entheogens in prehistoric times, as well as in numerous ancient cultures, including the Ancient Egyptian, Mycenaean, Ancient Greek, Vedic, Maya, Inca and Aztec cultures. The rise of Buddhism, Christianity and Islam caused a decline of entheogen use in its area from the Middle Ages onwards, with practitioners of entheogenic drug use in Western Europe accused of associating with the Devil, especially since the Great Witch Hunt of the Early Modern Age. Nevertheless, some (mainly tribal) cultures have survived this (ongoing) assault and still practise entheogen use. In others, non-religious hallucinogen use, while not exactly encouraged, is tolerated and not seen as uncommon. Present-day, historical and mythological aspects of entheogens are discussed in the entry entheogen.

other links

plants and people

archeological evidence

holistic path

hallucinogenic antiquity

tree of knowledge

religion and drugs

shroomery forums

stoned ape theory

Out of Africa:
one
two
three
four

Early Culture:

ancient calendars



I found these links by typing "prehistoric psychedelic plant use" in google. These are just a few of the MANY links I found.

Hmmm. Maybe there is something to this theory...

Afterall, what would inspire an animal to look up at the night sky and see not just stars, but patterns, cycles, gods, and meaning?

Something else to consider:

mindfire

ABE: Now you speak of what is called in the native tradition "teacher plants." You speak of psilocybin, for instance, as being informative and educative, and you appear to see it as being involved in getting the "naked ape" to a higher level of consciousness. Can you talk about that?

TERENCE M: Yes. This is what Food of the Gods explores in great detail, the notion being that what orthodox anthropology and human evolutionary theory have overlooked (in trying to account for the emergence of human beings out of the animal substrate) is the impact of our switch from a fruitatarian and highly specialized diet to an omnivorous diet at the very moment that we were ceasing to be arboreal and were beginning to become binocular, bipedal animals of the African grassland. And psilocybin would have been present in those environments, because psilocybin mushrooms of many species have a preference for the dung of ungulate animals. Now those mushrooms would surely have been tested for their food value at the same time that many other potentially mutagenic compounds in foods were being exposed to the human genome. The interesting thing about psilocybin is that at very low doses it increases visual acuity, and to my mind this would tip the evolutionary scales in a situation of natural selection towards selection of those individuals and their families that were admitting this exotic item into their diet. They would be better hunters and consequently better able to supply food to their children, and raise them to reproductive maturity. At slightly higher dose levels, psilocybin, like many central nervous system stimulators, causes arousal and an energizing of the organism. Well, in highly sexed creatures like primates, this inevitably ends in sexual activity. So that's a second factor imparted by the psilocybin that would tend to force the outbreeding of the non‑psilocybin portion of the population. Finally, and most significantly, at the level of a truly boundary­ dissolving intoxication, the psilocybin causes spontaneous outbursts of glossolalia (speaking in tongues). This may have to do with the elaboration of language. It creates a flood of hallucinagenic imagery, which may become the models for inspired members of the community to carve or paint or tattoo, or whatever. So, in other words, psilocybin looks to me like the chemical catalyst of the leap out of high primate organization and into human organization. And the way in which it achieves this effect is by dissolving dominance hierarchies; specifically it dissolves the construct in the personality that as moderns we call "the ego.”

ABE: Let me just backtrack a little bit, because you've just covered a lot of territory. You suggest that psilocybin increases sexual arousal. At some point in the evolution of primates their sexuality became freed from the menstrual cycle. And animals, as you know, only breed at specific times, because they're only in heat at specific times. I'm wondering if something like psilocybin could have been the cause of creating what we would think of as " transcendental sexuality" in the sense that it transcends purely nature­ based rhythms?

TERENCE M: Well, what it does is it tends to dissolve boundaries, and all primates, including very primitive primates right back into the squirrel monkeys, have what are called male‑dominant hierarchies, in which females are strictly controlled by powerful males and assigned to them. I think what the exposure to psilocybin in the diet did was that it temporarily intervened in this tendency to form male‑dominance hierarchies, and instead it was a catalyst for community, for group mindedness, for a more relativistic attitude towards ownership and possession of females, and it did this by promoting orgy, meaning group sexual activity. You know, the nearest relatives to the human line alive in the world today are the pygmy chimpanzees, and their sexual behaviors can barely be reported in a family publication. They are almost entirely bisexual, constantly sexually active in groups and apart, breaking and making pair bondings very readily, and I think that this must have happened over a long period of time. The protohominids, the psilocybin mushrooms, and the ungulate cattle were probably in association with each other for upwards of two to three million years, and it was a relationship of increasing closeness and attraction which ends finally about fifteen to twenty thousand years ago with the domestication of these ungulate animals and the establishment of the paleolithic religion of the Great Horned Goddess. I argue in my book, Food of the Gods, a kind of paradisiacal, quasi‑symbiotic dynamic was involved there on the grasslands of the Sahara in the wake of the last glaciation. And what destroyed this was simply further climatological drying when the Sahara became a desert and we begin to get the institutions which we can recognize.

ABE: You talk about the relationship of psilocybin to the evolution of art. We know that totem societies go back an awful long way, and that totemism is, as Claude Livi‑Strauss pointed out, a sensibility, a culture form, and also an art form. Everywhere these kinds of substances were used we run across cave paintings, petroglyphs, that kind of thing. Do you think that psilocybin was responsible for that, too?

TERENCE M: Well, it has the quality of somehow empowering cognitive activity. It empowers poetics, dance, artistic productions in the form of carving and painting. It seems to somehow stimulate the organism to self‑reflection in combination with self‑expression. And so, yes, I would argue the evidence for the little scenario on the Saharan grasslands that I just laid out for you are these magnificent rock carvings in the Tassili Plateau region of southern Algeria, and they are not greatly different and certainly no less in quality than the rock work at Lascaux in France.

ABE: Something very significant happened to human consciousness in a very short period of evolutionary time.

TERENCE M: It's a great puzzle for evolutionary biology how it is that in a two‑million‑year period the human brain effectively doubled in size. There are evolutionary biologists ‑ Lumsden being one example‑who call this the most rapid transformation of a major animal organ in the entire fossil record, and it happened to us. Short of the intercession of God Almighty, theories have been thin indeed, and yet this goes to the existential core of what it is to be human. We stand apart from the general order of nature. I mean, you can talk about dolphin speech and honey bee dances, etc., but that's a long way from Milton. Science, in its rush to exorcise the paranormal, the occult, the inexplicable, has brushed over the major piece of evidence for something highly unusual going on, on this planet ‑ ourselves.

more McKenna

DIALOGUES I - Subjective Realities

I've taken the liberty to publish excerpts from a philosophical conversation I had with other members of Understanding Politics.

Here is a conversation for your consideration (edited):

Frodo:
Numbers describe reality. This is their purpose.

sourmonkey:
sure, and money describes power as its purpose, and god describes meaning as its purpose. Of course, all of these symbols (including the numbers) are inventions of the human psyche. Their value is also determined by the human psyche (as in no dog understands Pi). The numbers we use are subjective in value, therefore, our reality as defined by our understanding of symbols is likewise subjective.

In REALITY, numbers approximate reality. There purpose is only determined by our minds.

You only believe what you want to believe, Frodo.

Frodo:
And what kind of fool thinks volcanos and earthquakes are the result of man's activity? Oh right.... A liberal fool (sorry for the redundancy).

sourmonkey:
You're in left field, er, right field Frodo. I never implied this. Why did you interpret this?

What kind of fool thinks the terrorists "hate freedom"?
What kind of fool thinks mercury levels are safe at some level?
What kind of fool thinks Americans are the center of existence?
What kind of fool thinks climate change is not happening?
What kind of fool thinks human society WON'T be affected by climate change?

SimonJester:
What kind of person bases his attacks on a thesis of an entirely subjective reality and expects us to take him seriously when he attempts to rely on the same subjective numbers to prove his points? Indeed, why should we believe that climate change is happening at all?
Tell me SourMonkey – is that air you’re breathing?

sourmonkey:
thank you for asking.

Do I really need to answer your question?

Okay.

1- because our "reality" IS subjective, i.e. DEFINED AND MEASURED BY OUR HUMAN MINDS. I know this really isn't fair... you can't really win an argument here because to deny this is to prove my thesis true. Just accept it and take the next step into the reality of a relativistic universe.

2- not only is CLIMATE CHANGE a reality, but universal entropy, the motivating force behind climate change, is undeniable.

So, within a subjective reality, how do you prove climate change is occuring? How do I know I'm breathing air? How can you KNOW anything?

Oh, like ALL things governing human existence, it's all in the DEFINITIONS (which are subjective, as explained above).

Need I go on? I can, and will, but perhaps you "thinking" people already know where this is going....

How far do you want to go to define your reality?

Interestingly, whenever I ask this (above) question, no one answers it.

SimonJester:
I don’t see how you’re going to uncover some grand truths about the world without accepting some basic assumptions about the way it works. Two and one will always be three, no matter what you call them.

sourmonkey:
Good. Premise One is established.

Premise Two involves cognitive ability, and this is where things get sticky.

You see, One and Two and Three, regardless of the nature of the symbols, only exist because a mind exists to perceive them.

SimonJester:
There's an old riddle, "If a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear, does it still make a sound?" (or of course the feminist variant, "If a man speaks in the woods and no one's around to hear, is he still wrong?". Your reasoning falls along these lines. The answer (to the former...) is of course, "yes". Assuming the universe is something real, "Two" does exist, even without it's conception, just as planets existed long before there were minds to percieve them.

sourmonkey: Sure. I'll give you the "planets" thing... although try thinking about "planets" without using the word "planets"... or ANY word (or mathematical symbol) for that matter. if you can do that, then you might have an idea of how the universe functions without human consciousness.

Personally, I'm still working on it...

"Two", well, that's a different story. No symbols exist outside of the mind of the conceptualizer, therefore, "two" doesn't exist outside of the human mind.

My point in this silly little exercise is that we should be more mindful concerning the nature of our reality, and we should apply this to our understanding of human society and human social relationships. Until we at least recognize these subjective trends, we will always have war, and as we continue to build the unimaginably destructive tools of war, we only ignorantly threaten the very miracle which gives the universe meaning.

SimonJester:
Sure, numbers are conceptual tools, much the same way that the word “planet” is a conceptual tool. So we share at least some common reference point in this conversation. What does this mean?

We base our perceptions of the world using words and concepts that are certainly subjective. Yet if everyone understands “two” and “planet” in exactly the same way, and they do so because the existence of both is implicit in their definition, then how subjective is the reality upon which they are based? You could not use these tools – the decimal numbering system for instance – to prove that “Two” and “one” is “four” without changing the meaning of the word “four”, "one", or "two" – that is, without making our subjective conceptions conform to the real world. This must be done in order to have any useful view of the world – subjective cognitive perception must conform to some underlying structure (reality) in order to be of any utility whatsoever.

Reality exists, whether we think it does or not.

sourmonkey:
I'm not denying the existence of reality, I'm just saying that the nature of OUR reality is subjective.

SimonJester:
"Yet if everyone understands “two” and “planet” in exactly the same way, and they do so because the existence of both is implicit in their definition..."

sourmonkey:
yes, implicit in their definition. the symbols that we use to define the meaning of our reality can be refined per observation and agreement, hence, "fact", but the truth is there are elements to our universe that we have no understanding of (so far...). We're still constructing a vocabulary of symbols to define these events. Look at string theory. Any shmoe from the street could listen to what string theorists speak about and determine that it is utter nonsense simply because, so far, there aren't any "real world" application for hyper dimensional symbols. However, as our technology advances, we develope the means to apply "string theory" to social function.

Another example. Humans perceive only a narrow band of sound and light frequencies. We build our initial understanding of the world within these limitations, but the exercise of technology reveals that radio, microwave, and gamma frequencies are a very "real" part of our universe, and we use symbols to build devices which manipulate these universal functions. Our brains are hardwired to initailly perceive only a limited bandwith, but by extension of our super primate minds we construct methods to see beyond the limitations of our physical existence.

my point is that our understanding of the universe is evolving. in the paradigm of quantum physics every event can be represented by a wave function has well as a corpuscle of matter. this wave/particle duality represents a paradox created ONLY by our observing minds. if the observer stops observing, the paradox resolves, and the universe exists pre cognitively in its natural state... physics is still trying to figure out what that is.

and numbers, well, we MUST agree on their value, otherwise science wouldn't exist, and we'd still be living in caves thinking the stars above our heads are our ancestors.

So, reality is subjective.

this isn't to say reality doesn't exist, nor is it suggesting that our cultural symbols have no real value... it just means that these values are limited by our own understanding, and this is always evolving

SimonJester:
Come on SourMonkey! How can you throw out a bomb like that without clarifying? How should a “Realist” with no background or knowledge of “Subjectivist” theory be expected to interpret that statement? Are you implying there’s more than one reality (ok it’s possible, but so what)? Are you saying that reality doesn’t matter because we can shape it as we see fit?
Or are you saying something more reasonable, as the rest of your post suggests – that Reality exists, that our perception of it is limited by our current understanding, that because we do not have a full understanding we are prone to errors in judgment that impact our view of the world, that people with different knowledge bases and experiences will inherently have different – subjective – views of reality without changing the nature of reality itself.

I’ve noticed that very few Liberals are willing to engage in any debate about Global Warming. This has given me – and probably other conservatives – the impression that they simply take it on Faith and do not actually care to understand the science. I’ve made this clear in many posts on the subject – including the one that prompted him to respond. His response basically boiled down to “There is no debate – all scientists agree” – repeat as necessary. Taking into account my perception of reality, what does his response do to change my perspective of Liberals? Now, what if I attempt to look at this from a Liberal standpoint? Given that I am not a Liberal, this is a challenge. But I did glean something. Liberals believe it so whole-heartedly that debate is not even a realistic consideration for them. Because I question the theory (sorry, “Fact”), I am delusional and cannot be reasoned with – so why bother?

sourmonkey:
just be mindful that all values projected within a "Realist" perspective are arbitrary, and that significance is determined according to the bias of the "Realist" observer.

How else can I say it? How about homgeneity? Everything "out there" is basically another version of "here" but with random entropic differences. The Milky Way galaxy is just another version of those collective forces which create the Andromeda Galaxy. Our solar system is just another version of a solar system in Andromeda. My human mind is just another version of your human mind. My observations, and therefore, my perspective, are another version of yours. There are over six billion "other versions" of the human mind on this planet. "Subjectivist Theory" (if that's what you want to call it) means that 1- the universe exists, but how it exists is determined by those living in it. For example, my cat has no human concept of what the stars, or the sun, or the moon function as. She might not even recognize their existence.

SimonJester:
"Are you implying there’s more than one reality (ok it’s possible, but so what)?"

sourmonkey:
YES! First of all, the only REALITY is the present. It's now.... NOW.... Now... ..... ..... .... now...... ... .... ... now... .... .... ? ... ... now...

Where is all that reality going? The only thing that truly exists is the present moment as it zips through TIME (... and what really is THAT?)

Everything else is displacement in thought, i.e. analysis, memory and prediction.

This is true for every "mind", and therefore in a world with over six billion minds (and climbing), civilization is a miracle. Cultural and moral relativism define cognitive functions (relativily speaking). So, in short, YES, there is more than one REALITY. Try counting them... just for fun.

SimonJester:
"Are you saying that reality doesn’t matter because we can shape it as we see fit?"

sourmonkey:
No, I'm saying we tend to threaten or destroy what DOES matter because we shape reality as we see fit.

What DOES matter is this perpetual cycle called life on Earth and all the universal factors which maintain environmental stability favoring the existence of modern human civilization. Historically, war tends to stagnate things, and in the nuclear age, our ideological "short comings" ony threaten what we believe to be the universes most significant miracle.

We DO change the nature of reality. Technological civilization is the SYNTHETIC CREATION of the human mind. All the numbers and symbols which provide energy to the economy are synthetic creations of the human mind. The computer that I type into and my home encasing it are synthetic creations of the human mind. They have a ROOT in the physical, molecular universe but their existence is induced by the human creative mind.

What started as a dream became reality. Architecture an art, government and economy, science and airtravel. Hell, we even went to the moon, and sent robots to Mars.

In my interpretations of science, I find enough evidence to take it on faith that the earth HAS ALWAYS CHANGED, is currently changing, and will continue to change. I find enough evidence to take it on faith that our precious human civilization depends on environmental stability. The limitations of our perspective prevent us from accurately forecasting the weather, never mind predict the consequences of climate change. I think we should take precautions, if only because our natural resources are diminishings despite population increases. Combine this with our love of war and ideological absolutism, and our prospects for a prosperous near future are dim.

SimonJester:
Hmmm… Fun stuff Sourmonkey, fun stuff. You’re losing me. If our goal is to understand reality, then it must adhere to some fixed rules – rules that do not change based on what you or I think they might be. Eons ago, people believed that there were no fixed rules, that no discernable patterns existed, that we owed our existence to the whims of the gods. We have since amassed enough evidence to demonstrate that patterns do indeed exist, and that certain rules will always apply, everywhere. It seems likely we will continue finding such evidence. You mentioned String Theory earlier – what is that, if not an attempt to determine the rules of a static reality at the most basic level?
Making pots and pans, carving out weapons, painting on walls, erecting temples and towers, manufacturing cars and computers, constructing virtual worlds – we take advantage of these regular patterns to do all these miraculous things – but we do not change reality in any fundamental way by doing so.

sourmonkey:
"No, I'm saying we tend to threaten or destroy what DOES matter because we shape reality as we see fit."

SimonJester:
There are two problems with this. First, you’re making a subjective morality judgment – “what matters”. What matters to whom, and more importantly – why? Why is “what matters” to you more important than “what matters” to me? Second, it is known that the world changes constantly. You and I even agree on this much. Life has survived earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles, hundreds of thousands of years of bombardments by comets and asteroids and meteors, world wide floods, tidal waves, world wide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, and recurring ice ages. Life has survived all that, but it won’t survive humanity? Do you really have the conceit to believe we’re that powerful yet?

If our goal is to understand reality, then it must adhere to some fixed rules – rules that do not change based on what you or I think they might be.

sourmonkey:
Rules, like the speed of light, the force of gravity, or the orbit of electrons about a nucleus? These change too, but this is beside the point.

SimonJester:
"Eons ago, people believed that there were no fixed rules, that no discernable patterns existed, that we owed our existence to the whims of the gods"

sourmonkey:
These people recognized astronomical patterns, which probably gave them the ability to settle into society, create crops and gods, and lay down the law.

Still, this is beside the point.

Ah, so here's the problem. It's a problem of definition. for example:

SimonJester:
"...but we do not change reality in any fundamental way by doing so."

sourmonkey:
how do you define reality? how do you define it in a fundamental way?

All of the things you listed were created by the human mind. How is it that we don't change reality? All of the things you listed were synthesized by human hands. How is it that we don't change reality? All of the things you listed affect the lives of the humans that interact with them. The invention of the internal combustion engine transformed the human family, the human environment, and the human community in ways we're still trying to comprehend. Don't get me wrong here, I'm not denying the raw physics of the universe, which is what I think you're missing me on. All I'm saying is that we are still learning. Our theories are evolving. Our understanding of the universe and the significance of our life on Earth is also evolving. Change is everpresent, and there is so much more to learn.

The human reality is subjective. There, like that better?

I'll conclude this chapter by asking you, good reader, "how do YOU define reality?"