From Atoms To Bits Culture, Collaboration and Global Sustainability

1
From Atoms To BitsCulture, Collaboration and
Global Sustainability
David Leevers, BA, MIET, www.vers.co.uk VERS
Associates, Virtual Environments for Real
Societies CDS, Clinic for Dissociative Studies,
London
Based on the presentation From a Psycho History
to a Sane Future, International
Psychohistorical Association, 27th Annual
Convention, New York, 3rd June 2004 Draft 16
18/3/10 This web adaptation of the presentation
has been continually amended in the light of
comments. Slides now discuss how culture
breakdown can lead to dissociation, how
collaboration breakdown can lead to schizophrenia
and how learning from these failures might help
us work towards a Sustainable Global Network
Society
Underlined words are active Web links
Most references and active links to references
have yet to be added. Some slides still to be
translated into intelligent layman language.
For best appearance print one slide per page
in PowerPoint, then set 4 pages per A4
sheet in the Print Properties window
2
Strapline

• To make useful predictions about the future we
  have to understand what went wrong in the past.
  This presentation started 5 years ago as an
  attempt to build an optimistic path towards
  global sustainability by drawing on the two
  unique strengths of humans
• - the symbolic thinking that has created
  substantial cultures
• the ability to collaborate in large groups
  against the other
• However the current message is more pessimistic
  and the world may have gone backwards in the
  last 5 years.
• There is still hope. We know more and more about
  how to increase collaboration and about how to
  switch the other from other communities to a
  common enemy
• Destruction of global heritage in general
• Global warming in particular

3
Index
INTRODUCTION CHILDHOOD IN RECORDED HISTORY SOCIAL
EVOLUTION - THE LOSERS EVOLUTION TO
HUMANITY FROM MAGIC AND RELIGION TO RATIONAL
SECULAR SOCIETY FROM CLOSED TO OPEN SOCIETY AN
OPEN BUT IMMATURE AND UNSTABLE SOCIETY? THE
SUSTAINABLE OPEN SOCIETY GLOBAL SUSTAINABILTY
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM SOCIAL SIMULATION
IMMATERIALISATION CONCLUSIONS
4
INTRODUCTION
5
Introduction 1
In the beginning was a universe of physical
materials. Then the information store of DNA
emerged and organised this material. Only then
could the word emerge symbolic thinking and
language allowed one species to collaborate as
well as compete and thus adapt rapidly through
generational transmission of behaviour rather
than through genetic change of instincts.
Adaptation was further accelerated with the
transmission of behaviour from peer to peer via
mass communication technologies. Social change
has increasingly been triggered by new
technologies firstly the material technologies
of boat, wheel and steam, later the information
technologies of printing, broadcasting and
Internet documents. Humans have now multiplied to
over-fill the earth and the global warming
consequences of material technologies are more
than cancelling out any further benefits.
Information technologies further exacerbate the
problem because they speed the dissemination of
material technologies and, through
centralisation, can amplify an unsustainable and
unethical polarisation between rich and poor.
The collaboration technologies of the
peer-to-peer two-way broadband multimedia
internet might be able to offer a way out.
6
Introduction 2
Collaboration technologies are not restricted by
distance, language or age group, and tend to
subvert traditional cultural barriers.
Collaboration technologies augment our social
capabilities and offer sustainable immaterial
alternatives to the western desires for ever
larger homes and ever more travel. The
collaboration technologies of instant global
media can speed up the culture changes necessary
to enjoy less travel and smaller homes because
peer to peer culture can change faster than
generational transmission from parent to
child If sustainable cultures can be introduced
fast enough it may be possible to prolong the
survival of humanity by decades or perhaps even
centuries.
7
Background

• A human life
• Years 0-4 Acquisition of the non-verbal cultural
  framework and the consensus reality of the
  attachment figures , usually immediate family -
  culture
• Years 4-8 Wider social interaction, learning how
  to - collaborate
• Years 8-80 Acting out the attachment and
  collaboration skills acquired earlier to learn
  about society as whole in adolescence and then to
  apply these skills in adulthood - global
  sustainability
• A deeper understanding of this lifetime process
  can be reached by exploring the extremes
• Infanticidal behaviour against the infant between
  0 and 4 that can to dissociation
• Neglect of the child, primarily between 4 and 8,
  that can lead to schizophrenia in later
  adulthood.
• What happens in years 8-80 when people are
  supported by the new collaboration technologies
  of the internet and multimedia communication?
• It is hoped this approach can transcend the
  cultural and parochial differences that delay the
  inevitable next stage sustainable lifestyles
  within a global perspective.

8
Summary 1 Technology
A Short History of Technology Before 1900
agricultural material technologies empowered
the body 20th century information technologies
empowered the mind 21st onwards collaboration
technologies empower society The
material technology and information technology
eras have taken the West - from tribal life
infanticidal, miserable and short
45 years, 7.5 years or 15 with some
form of disability - to western liberal
democracy 80 years, only 6 or 7.5 with some
form of disability. Homo sapiens emerged as
the most successful hunter-gatherer of the homo
genus because our enormous and highly connected
neocortex and our integrated mind allowed a
unique quality of collaboration and planning.
This prehensile neocortex more than makes up
for the weakness of our bodies. Unlike the
material and information technologies, the new
collaboration technologies of information and
communication have the potential to fully realise
our uniquely human moral and social capabilities
from homo sapiens sapiens to homo democraticus.

9
Summary 2 Collaboration
This evolutionary and historical perspective on
technology draws on the psychological
understanding of culture and value change
articulated in Chris Knights Blood Relations
and Lloyd deMauses History of Childhood.
Chris Knight identified how culture first emerged
and Lloyd deMause charts our progress from a
primate-like Infanticidal Mode culture in
tribal societies to the most humane Helping
Mode that is now emerging in prosperous western
countries. This slow but accelerating social
progress is difficult to recognise because it can
be hidden by the Geography of Childhood (the
enormous differences in childrearing in different
cultures) and obscured by the roughly 50 year
(two generation) cycle between war and peace,
economic progress and recession. The
ever-increasing understanding of the process of
culture transmission during childhood that has
come from large scale longitudinal studies is now
being captured in ever-improving social models.
These models are needed to identify and avoid
deleterious side-effects of the new collaboration
technologies and ensure we take full advantage of
their benefits. Because these technologies can
encourage socially responsible lifestyles they
can dramatically reduce energy and material
consumption and offer a credible route to global
sustainability, probably reached via a global
network society.
10
A Mental Health Warning

• The following material on the painful evolution
  of childhood and of humanity may be triggering.
  Dont read on if you find it difficult to accept
  -
• that we cannot turn away from the sufferings of
  those in other cultures
• that we, the human species, has already killed
  about 10 billion infants, usually girls, often
  through neglect, and killed 25 of the men in
  tribal cultures through violence in tribal
  cultures
• that our chosen leaders can now wipe out the
  planet by killing a far smaller number
• that our nearest neighbour in evolution, the
  bonobo, is the most hetero- and homosexually
  active higher animal
• that our collaboration abilities - empathy,
  communication, imagination, ability to
  anticipate pain - imply that language barriers
  inhibit collaboration. These abilities are most
  fruitfully manifested in a fair and equitable
  society
• that a holistic/systems perspective backed up by
  social simulation and modelling can identify a
  path to global coexistence rather than global
  annihilation but perhaps not how to get there?

11
The Super Ape
A particular set of circumstances allowed
prehumans to evolve extremely rapidly over the
last 6 million years into modern homo sapiens.
The raw material was remarkably unpromising the
chaos of chimpanzee teams compared with the
elegant team hunting of dolphins, wolves and
lions! The first step on the path to humanity
was honing fruit eating biped groups into big
game hunting teams.   Language enabled the
group to act as a team (one man one mastodon
bad 20 men one mastodon - good)   Tools were
required to allow the team of 20 physically
limited prehumans to act as if it was an
endlessly reconfigurable transformer superman,
red in tooth and claw. One sharpened flint was
equivalent to 10 claws, one thrown missile
equivalent to 10 bears fists, one well aimed
spear equivalent to 10 well sharpened canine
teeth and one cooked meal the equivalent of 10
hours endlessly chewing raw food.
12
The Human Revolution
Perhaps we can work out how to evolve to the
network society by learning how we got where we
are now - the last few million years. Prehuman
teams learnt more and more how to operate as a
superorganism. (premature birth/neoteny, the
heel, long legs loss of hair, cooking food,
hidden menstruation, clothes, tools, etc.) As
gains from operating as a team became greater
than those from natural selection of fit
individuals, genetic selection of instinctive
behaviour became a drawback rather than an
advantage and instinct parts of the human genome
started to deteriorate, especially in a small
group of prehumans in the rift valley. This gave
new flexibility and may have allowed them to
supersede similar hominims when the climate
changed about 75,000 years ago. Then they
proliferated to fill the planet - and the rest is
history! To work towards global sustainability we
need to understand 1, Evolution of homo
sapiens 2, Evolution of childhood 3, Evolution
of technology 4, Simulation of future social
evolution And finally 5, How to match
collaborative hunter-gatherer capabilities to a
10 billion humans one planet challenge
13
The Collaborating Team
The slow running and the poor eyesight of the 20
man superman could only be enhanced by
cheating by hunting for up to a week, at night
after the prey had fallen asleep, by hunting by
the light of the moon, i.e. in the quarter before
full moon when the evening sunlight needed for
preparation is immediately followed by enough
moonlight to hunt by.   The tribe could only
survive the other three quarters of the moons
cycle if the prey was big enough and the cooked
meat did not rot. The biggest game, the animals
that had earlier lost their competitive edge
because there were no bigger predators, were
actually the easier target for the 20 man
superman monster. Because big game evolve
slowly they could not adapt as fast as homo
collaboraticus expanded to reach their
territory, and they were eaten. The giant
wildebeest Megalotragus of the rift valley was
the first to go, then the mastodons of Siberia,
the giant kangaroos of Australia, the giant sloth
of South America, etc.  
14
The Lunar Cycle
Meat could only last a month if it was cooked. As
prehumans learnt to cook so the disgust instinct
was co-opted to protect them from raw rotting
meat. A side effect may have been to be repelled
by menstrual blood. Apes menstrual cycle was
already close to that of the moon. It did not
take much selective pressure for womens periods
to synchronise with each other and with the moon.
This synchronisation was then used to reinforce
the several day collaboration of the male hunting
team that was required to track and kill big
game. If synchronised, the females could augment
their old tool of rejecting the male when not
fertile with the new tool of disgust to encourage
men to go out hunting in the quarter before full
moon AND bring the food back. With the spear the
men could strike 20 times as effectively as a
lion or bear. By withholding sex during
menstruation the women could strike as
effectively as the men could strike. Thus
ensuring all the able bodied men joined the week
long hunt.   This lunar synchrony might have
taken the last million years. No one factor was
decisive but all the factors conspired to achieve
exceptionally rapid protohuman evolution. In 6
million years, prehuman DNA changed by many times
the change in bonobo and chimpanzee DNA. (to be
checked).
15
Detachment Theory
Given that the protohumans were already walking
on two feet when they diverged from apes the
problem of the narrow birth canal was already
raising its ugly head, i.e. the big brainy head
required for progress towards language made birth
more difficult. One solution was for females to
grow closer to the size of men, another was to
grow even wider hips but this slowed them down
and may have excluded them from the several day
big game hunt. A more effective solution was
neoteny - earlier childbirth. But such babies
could only survive if people other then the
mother were co-opted to care for them. Attachment
by grabbing the mothers fur had to be replaced
by attachment by results. Detaching the baby from
100 physical contact required the collaborative
power of language so that a gossip linked
attachment group could support the neonate baby,
firstly the grandmother then father and elder
siblings and eventually anyone in the tribal
group. Premature birth and the lunar timetable
provided the opposite of contraception.
Protohumans had babies almost twice as often as
other hominids 1, An opportunity for rapid
evolution with brain power as the primary
selection criterion, 2, BUT an opportunity for
rapid population growth after moving to new
territory.

16
Neoteny is for Life, not just for Christmas
It was neoteny that really released the human
genie. No longer was the baby born with a
ready-made set of instincts and capabilities.
The capabilities it learnt from its inner circle
of carers when the baby ape is still inside the
womb included the unique culture of the tribe.
Thus transmission of behaviour by learning from
the previous generation is taking over from
transmission of instinct by DNA. Large fractions
of human DNA are becoming superfluous as
demonstrated by the comparison of human DNA with
that of other mammals.   In the wide range of two
legged hominins that occupied the rift valley
area in the last 6 million years there would have
been many alternatives to our big game hunting
forbears. Some would have gone for smaller game
and more frequent hunts and would not have been
under such extreme evolutionary pressure. Others
would have avoided the pressure by moving to more
fruit laden rain forests. But when the 75,000
years ago climate disaster hit only those who had
learned how a monthly hunting cycle survived. By
then they had acquired most human capabilities
early birth, huge neocortex, hairless body,
powerful language, cooking skills and complex
rituals. And when the climate improved again it
was they who expanded to fill - and now threaten
- the planet.
17
CHILDHOOD IN RECORDED HISTORY
18
Childrearing Defines Society, Not Vice Versa
The main problem is that the evolution of child
rearing has so far been a slow, uneven historical
process, depending greatly on increasing the
support given innovative mothers and their
hopeful daughters. Unfortunately, in a world
where our destructive technology has far outrun
our child-rearing progress, where a single
submarine can now carry a sufficient number of
nuclear warheads to destroy most of the world
with the push of a button - we do not have the
luxury of just waiting for child rearing to
evolve. If we do, we will certainly blow
ourselves up long before child abuse disappears
enough to make us want to disarm. What we need
now is some way for the more advanced
psychoclasses to teach child rearing to the less
evolved parents, a way to end child abuse and
neglect quickly enough to avoid the global
holocaust that is awaiting us. Lloyd
deMause (originator of Psychohistory) The
Emotional Life of Nations, p 431, 2002
I suggest that Collaboration Technologies might
offer a more neutral, less capitalist, less
colonial, way for the less evolved parents to
learn sustainable child rearing - the Helping
Mode defined below. The emerging global network
can disseminate such information much faster and
less offensively than generational transmission
from the more evolved psychoclasses. Can
dissemination of a new network assisted culture
be fast enough to prevent nuclear war holocaust,
or global warming holocaust, and thus ensure
long-term global sustainability?
19
The Death of Evolution and the Birth of History
Psychohistory is the study of the psychological
motivations of events since the magic moment when
Hagen takes over from Siegfried, when Lloyd
DeMause takes over from Chris Knight.
Psychohistory combines the insights of attachment
theory and psychoanalysis with the research
methodology of the social sciences to understand
the emotional origins of the social and political
behaviour of individuals, groups and nations,
past and present. Psychohistorical understanding
of history comes from areas that tend to be
ignored by conventional historians - parenting
practice and the level of child abuse. Equally,
sociobiological understanding of prehuman history
comes from areas ignored by conventional
anthropologist such as menstruation and the moon.
Psychotherapists in general now recognise that
wars and other destructive social behaviours can
be re-enactments of very early abuse and neglect.
Memories and flashbacks to early fears concerning
destructive parenting are often triggered by very
reasonable fears concerning the potential actions
of others. Particular successes have been in
identifying the brutality of all but recent
childrearing, the processes that led to the World
War II, and the acting out of his childhood
humiliations by President Bush. Alas
psychohistory is not popular with politicians,
religious leadersand any others who may well have
acquired power and influence through such acting
out.
20
Evolution of Childrearing Modes in Western Elites
Psychohistorians see the West as having evolved
from the Infanticidal Mode child-rearing seen
in other social animals (and in most tribal
societies) to the Helping Mode of the
privileged, prosperous and educated, but
resource-intensive and fragile, nuclear families
that now require the resources of 3 earths if
current western technology is extended to all 7
billion occupants. The Helping Mode culture
could spread rapidly to all children if the new
collaboration technologies were used to
introduce this culture to resource starved
and fragmented families, providing a safe and
nurturing environment for every child
everywhere. This spread of the Helping Mode
could be very fast because it takes full
advantage of new Collaboration Technologies
2000
Lloyd deMause 1975
21
Evolution of Childrearing Modes in the West

22
Comments on the Childrearing Modes
These modes start when the men in prehuman hunter
gatherer and trader groups start to apply the
leadership concepts of small family groups to
larger and larger human societies. The symmetry
of the 100 attachment between ape baby and
mother has already been broken but the mother and
family are effectively treating the child as an
object until child mortality drops to a level
where a multigenerational perspective brings
payback, then the child starts being treated more
and more as a human, a future adult, and less and
less as a comforter, an addiction. It is
extremely difficult and of doubtful value to
attempt to map these six modes on to non-western
cultures. Other cultures have been so interfered
with by the earlier western prototype and there
is so much that can be learnt by avoiding the
problems of the prototype! A three stage
evolution might prove more universal Beginning
Abandoning - it is not safe to care about
infants , and few will survive Middle
Intrusive the parents are recognising the
child as an investment End Helping
the child and parent are becoming equal members
of wider society
23
SOCIAL EVOLUTION - THE LOSERS
24
Tribal Life and Death
The early anthropologists fantasy of the noble
savage has been eroded by ever improving
observation of hunter-gatherer and tribal life.
An understanding of generational transmission in
early cultures is making sense of the increasing
evidence of the painful history of tribal
childhood, adult violence and ruthless trade. We
are no longer taken in by the public face of
tribes who are as intelligent and proud as
ourselves. The homicide rate of the peaceful
Kalahari bushmen is higher than in any US inner
city, Samoan teenagers demonstrated fantasy
storytelling skills when talking to Margaret
Mead, and the sea of happy young smiles in a
tribal village may show that both unhappiness and
old age quickly lead to death when modern
medicine is not available. Neglect and
isolation can leave children stuck in Abandoning,
Ambivalent or even Infanticidal Childhood Modes
and, given the psychological holding power of
tribal communities, isolation is likely to lead
to the implicit suicide of a death due to
violence or starvation than to a conventional
schizophrenic breakdown.
25
Ignorance and War
In social animals such as humans violence is
likely to occur when the trading of goods or
emotions fails due to lack of information about
the material or psychological capabilities of the
other. No wonder the peacock has the gentleness
of a thousand eyes. But when the animal is
human and the other is a nation the violence is
war. A primary benefit of the rapidly expanding
neocortex of pre-humans appears to have been an
increasing ability to engage in complex trades
no longer an eye for an eye but a tooth for an
eye, a flint for a meal, a marriage for a
dowry. Animals rarely fight to the death because
their fighting capabilities have evolved to be
totally visible the size of the peacocks
virtual antlers, the dexterity of the courtship
dance and the symmetry of the body. With language
and technology our power to deceive and damage
grew so much faster than the visibility of our
intentions and our weapons.
26
Information and Peace
It was not until material and information
technologies were superseded by the new
collaboration technologies that we could hope to
achieve comparable visibility of our intentions
and military strengths. We are already trusting
larger and larger numbers of other people clans,
then tribes, then nations, and now power blocks.
Absolute numbers of deaths from violence grow,
but percentages have dropped dramatically. New
studies in the 1990s indicated that the almost
universal 25 male death rate from violence in
tribal societies dropped to 3 in Germany across
the whole of the 20th century and to more like 1
in other Western countries. A violent death in
25 of men is equivalent to one violent death
every 180 man-years. Although a rare event it is
still enough to ensure a lifetime of fear. This
dramatic reduction in violent death rates is
consistent with the fact that collaboration
technologies, unlike earlier material and
information technologies, encourage greater
understanding of the relative capabilities and
absolute intentions of those around us. We are
now approaching global visibility of capabilities
and intentions.
27
A Contemporary Window on Tribal Extremes
Everyone is different. Not every family has been
able to progress through the 7 modes of childhood
in the last few hundred years. Very small numbers
of western families remain stuck in the
Infanticidal Mode. In a modern society this mode
can take the form of ritual abuse witchcraft
and the secret sadistic cult fetishes of blood
and body fluids. The effects of abuse starting
at birth, before the brain has fully integrated,
include trauma and dissociation. It may be easier
for therapists than anthropologists to understand
these effects because, in general, they spend
many more years with their subjects. Universal
schooling has been an important part of progress
to the more advanced childrearing modes,
particularly the move to the Socialising Mode
with universal schooling in the West from the
late 1800s onwards. The cloak of family secrecy
is hard to maintain when children go to school
and so the number of Infanticidal Mode ritual
abuse families steadily decreases. More recently
mobile telephones and the Internet are lifting
further veils of secrecy from what goes on in
abusive families. However many of the 3 billion
people living on less than 2 per day are trapped
in the Infanticidal or Abandoning Modes. Such a
childhood can lead to dissociation (psychic
separation of mind and body) and, in extreme
cases, DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder
(previously known as Multiple Personality
Disorder).
28
DID Infanticidal Mode Is Still Relevant
DID reduces and contains the experience of pain
when both love and torture are experienced from
the same attachment figures, usually parents,
grandparents and elder siblings. DID is most
easily acquired before the modules of the
unfinished infant brain integrate into a single
personality. The infant can survive pain if it
can be confined to just one personality. A mother
who is 10 times less abusive than the father can
be equally as damaging because she is with the
infant 10 times as much. As childrearing
improves the alters become weaker. But at times
of war and fear of death the anger and fear
encapsulated in Lloyd deMauses Killer Goddess
Alter and Killer Mommy Alter can overwhelm
rational decision making, particularly in war
leaders. Understanding the extreme of
dissociation can help define the scope and limits
of the human mind and its pathologies in
individuals, in groups and in society as a
whole. Such an understanding is essential if
models of mind and society are to be accurate
enough to ensure that society is not destroyed by
the accidental side-effects of accelerating
culture changes (e.g. ADHD a result of babies and
infants watching too much hyperactive TV)
29
Ritual Abuse Research in the UK, 1

• A study of court evidence was used by
  government to
• claim that Satanic Abuse did not exist in
  the UK.
• This was achieved by defining Satanic Abuse to
  be unsubstantiated abuse,
• Ritual Abuse to be abuse
  proven in court.
• This denial of Satanic abuse was helped by the
  fact that ritual material is removed from court
  evidence to avoid traumatising juries.
• 1994 In response to protests from professionals,
  the UK Department of Health, DoH, funded a one
  year study of 51 survivors of ritual abuse no
  government response.
• Only bullet points from the study can be
  published.
• No survivors had recovered memories
• No survivors belonged to evangelical churches
• No survivors suffered from Munchausen Syndrome
• A major problem in this study was that the
  survivors traumatised professionals when they
  described their expreiences e.g. a Christian
  therapist hearing a victim say We are honest
  because we use real blood and real bodies, not
  bread and wine, the fake flesh and blood of the
  Christian mass

30
Ritual Abuse Research in the UK, 2

• 14 of the 51 cases in the 1993 study were deemed
  suitable for police investigation. However the
  only case brought to court did not include
  satanist ritual elements. This raises the
  following issues
• Police have no training in dissociation and
  abuse.
• Those who successfully investigate are ridiculed
  and sidelined, not promoted
• Although the survivors experiences were
  consistent and credible
• they were often expressed in childlike terms by
  DID child alters
• and thus would not have convinced a jury who did
  not understand DID
• Sadistic paedophiles add ritual elements to
  confuse the children and so to protect
  themselves from prosecution humans have
  evolved to love
• The police see their role as making middle class
  citizens feel safe in the here and now, not
  reducing the very traumas of deprived children
  that lead to crime, often directed at the middle
  classes, in subsequent adulthood
• The Justice System assumes crime is rational,
  not social
• a lone rational neocortex, not an
  amygdala of emotional drives embedded in a social
  network

31
Clinic for Dissociative Studies, CDS DID
Therapy, 1998 onwards

• CDS was set up to honour therapy commitments made
  to victims contributing to the Department of
  Health study, and to support new referrals. Few
  other clinics were prepared to take the victims
  when the study ended because they traumatised
  therapists.
• Over 400 ritual abuse survivors have been
  assessed.
• Long term therapy has been provided for 40 of
  these over the last 15 years.
• Like all belief systems, family cults are
  multi-generational expressions of attachment
  processes. Most victims come to the clinic for
  help in early adulthood after they have left the
  parental home. Such victims have improved and
  recovered after several years therapy. Those who
  were unable to escape the cults found it harder.
• Men with DID usually end up in prison rather than
  in therapy, allowing them to pass their anger and
  values on to other less damaged prisoners.
• Current understanding is sensitively conveyed in
  the 2004 BBC drama May 33rd by Guy Hibbert

32
Evidence of Abuse is Leaking Out
Obviously cult children are afraid to talk. Some
clients who disclosed abuse received punishment
rapes, and far worse, after talking. Some have
been tricked into believing they have
participated in murder. In many cases they
subsequently withdraw evidence out of fear of and
attachment to parents, or because an alter loyal
to the cult comes out. Perpetrators control
victims via their mobiles, but mobiles can now be
tracked. Cult members use the web and evidence
does leak out into public areas. Direct records
of sadomasochistic rituals in BDSM clubs and
paedophile activities are now appearing on the
internet. Only if one assumes no BDSM club
member is a paedophile and no paedophile enjoys
torturing can one believe that ritual abuse of
children does not exist! Many people have a need
to record what excites them, and this need has
helped to convict many paedophiles. However a
start to finish record of a specifically satanic
ritual, including abortion, infanticide or murder
does not appear to have become public yet.
Because military torturers have better
brainwashing technology and are more socially
acceptable they may well be recorded first! Three
cheers for Abu Ghraib.
33
Dynamics of DID
Many of the late abortions and early infanticides
carried out in cult ceremonies appear to be
genuine - the need for moon/menstruation rituals,
the purifying power of innocent blood. 97 of
those with DID can remember a history of
childhood trauma and abuse. The level of DID in
prostitutes is about 100 times higher than in the
general population indicating the extent to which
child abuse underlies prostitution. Parenting
that prevent the early childrearing modes that
lead to the need for prostitutes in later life
may be enough to prevent the abusive side of
prostitution. A child alter in an anorexic
womans body can be as good as the real thing to
less discriminating paedophile customers. But
creating a dissociative sex and torture slave can
be a risky investment because one of the alters
may become suicidal. Abusers implant loyal alters
that come out if the victim attempts suicide. If
the victim starts to talk or becomes old and
muddled the cult can remove the protective alters
- with expected consequences Some anthropologists
try to prevent the modern world changing tribal
cultures based on DID behaviours such as speaking
in voices and bloody and torturous initiation
ceremonies.
34
Hippocampus shrinks with the Stress and Abuse
that lead to Dissociative Disorders
Ehling, Nijenhuis Krikke, 2002
Hippocampus at the centre of the brain handles
memory processes. NB London taxi drivers have
large hippocampuses, conversely, abused children
try to suppress memories!
35
Hippocampus Expands during Recovery
Hippocampus volume decreases by 25 with
DID increases after recovery from DID Left
side 9, Right Side 18 Parahippocampus
volume decreases by 19-20 with DID increases
after recovery from DID 6
Ehling, Nijenhuis Krikke, 2002
An increasing number of brain differences between
DID and average brains, not all of which can be
expected to return to normal after therapy.
New memory tests that use word lists measure
interference between the memories of different
alters and cannot be faked. They show complete
separation of narrative memory, but only in
patients with full DID.
Professor John Morton, UCL, unpublished, 2004
36
Ritual Abuse and Attachment Theory
The baby and infant 0-4 years need consistent,
caring and supportive one-way attachment
relationships to a small number of people. If
the carer appears to or actually has several
contradictory personalities or then the babys
brain adopts this culture by splitting into two
or more personalities, (just as a babys brain
develops to reflect the deep religious and moral
aspects of any culture). Part of the reward for
this splitting is being able to confine pain to
seldom used personalities.
37
Psychosis and Collaboration Theory
The older child, from 4 to about 8, needs to
internalise the nature of wider society by
interacting with the family and friends -
sharing, obligations fairness, games, body
language.
38
Schizophrenia Abandoning and Ambivalent Modes
Still Relevant
Families with abandoning and ambivalent modes as
demonstrated in their collaboration style can,
in a modern society, turn the child towards a
path to eventual breakdown and schizophrenia. Thr
ee dysfunctional family cultures in which this
process is stultified, UCLA project, Goldstein
1987 EE, Expressed Emotion if EE is high in
parents then the probability of an already
troubled child becoming broad spectrum
Schizophrenic rises from 6 to 73 AS, Affective
Style if AS ios negative, i.e. criticism,
intrusiveness and guilt induction
then the above probability rises from 4 to 56
Extreme Negative Affective Style can
lead to Infanticidal Attachment CD,
Communication Deviance a shared failure to
communicate in the child's family. If high then
above probability rises from 9 to 50
39
DID or Schizophrenia?
The preschizophrenic child is brought up in an
incomplete culture of distorted and inadequate
communication. As with the DID child there are
substantial and measurable brain changes.
Survival is such a family culture comes from not
thinking too much. DID Hippocampus shrinks
because communication between different parts of
the brain is painful and is avoided Schizophrenia
thinning sensory cortex and overall shrinkage,
perhaps through lack of use because the model of
society acquired from family is out of step with
the outside world of the teenager and adult.
Higher level thinking is painful and is avoided.
Thus the last area to develop, the Dorsolateral
Prefrontal Cortex that handles executive
functions, is small.
40
The Preschizophrenic Quiet Years in the high
Expressed Emotion, the negative Affective Style
and the Communication Deviance family
Between 4 and 8 the child in such a family
handles the conflict between society and family
by cutting off. A cascade of knock-on effects,
loss of friends, loss of social abilities,
retreat into self, fantasy world diverges more
and more from reality. The child is failing to
learn how to negotiate the even greater changes
that will occur when they leave school. Strong
correlation between this type of child and
subsequent schizophrenia. Increasingly cut off
from the outside, the child fills the sensory
vacuum by continuing the infants world of
imagination. Children who were sexually or
physically abused suffer verbal hallucinations
based on the words and voice of the abuser.
Social delusions are more likely in those from
dysfunctional families. How to identify
schizophrenic risk? That which does not kill us
makes us stronger.
41
PsychohistoryFrom Attachment Theory to
Collaboration Theory
Attachment theory emerged from studying the
relationships with the immediate carers of the
very young. It gave rise to specific hypotheses
that could be tested in the strange situations
experiments. For this reason it was accepted.
It has not helped in understanding the far more
complex two-way give and take that lies at the
heart of mature multiway human relationships.
Our primary survival strategy as an ape that is
far weaker and more vulnerable than any other is
the ability to collaborate rather than compete
within our own species. The competitive
advantage of a species with a brain that can
handle theory of mind and symbolic communication
compensates for its excessive size and energy
consumption (2 of body weight 20 of energy
consumption) The dynamics of collaboration in
groups are extremely complex and have not been
substantially explored in psychology and
psychiatry. Only when the nature of
communication was profoundly changed by
multimedia technologies was its nature recognised
and explored. Ethnographers working with
engineers in this field were not held back by
psychiatrists rejection of family
influences. It was Del Ray, a MIT Media Lab
professor, not a psychiatrist, who was the first
to document every moment of the first three years
of a child's life.
42
Collaboration TheoryFuture Experimental
Evaluation
There is still virtually no record and analysis
of long term collaborative communications in
small groups. The most complete data covers the
text chat records of internet discussions but
these conversations are emotionally impoverished
compared with multisensory real life
communication in families with children. New
technologies such as Alex Pentlands Sociometer
are at last capturing the nature of unconscious
communication and predicting how people will
behave in different complex social
situations Longtitudinal studies are already
showing that Expressed Emotion, Affective Style
and Communication Deviance in childhood show that
these are the dominant factors in determining
later schizophrenia and other psychoses. Early
nonritual physical and sexual abuse is also
significant. Early ritual abuse produces high
functioning DID individuals who are strong enough
to avoid schizophrenic in spite of the
dysfunctional communication in their families.
Genetic propensities appear to be a minor
contributor and, estimating from recent family
studies (excluding early faulty twins studies),
would indicate that at least 20 genes are
involved, none of which are decisive.
43
Collaboration Theory Escalation into Psychosis
These results would also show that so called
psychosis is not loss of touch with reality but
emergence of a personal reality, a belief
system that starts off from the familys
dysfunctional reality and then, because it is
rejected by peers and mentors, isolates the
individual. With lack of social stimulation the
sensory input and executive function parts of the
cortex start to atrophy. The increasing loss of
complex and challenging sensory input from social
interactions can cause an escalating landslide
into isolation. The hungry brain searches for
stimulation and grasps what were originally minor
links from the motor to the sensory parts of the
brain (normally used for dreaming and rehearsal
processes). As these links replace the links to
sensory inputs they become confused with external
reality. The victim becomes well aware that it
is inappropriate to talk about reality (they
often assume everyone has such hallucinations but
do not talk about them). Finally there is a life
event trauma that is so out of step with their
reality that they have to talk. Others realise
they are odd, there is breakdown and then
sectioning. If their brain is scanned it is far
too late in the atrophying process so Tim Crow
and others carelessly assume the brain shrinkage
is genetic not environmental.
44
Test Case Afro-Caribbean Schizophrenia
Afrocarribeans in UK are about 10 times more
likely to suffer from Schizophrenia than
average. In the Carribean they are only 2.5 times
more vulnerable. This is consistent with the
higher level of schizophrenia in other
impoverished groups. Many desperate and devious
attempts have been made to explain this away
within the genetic paradigm. Ignoring the issue
was the most widespread. For instance only one
out of 500 studies of schizophrenia looked at the
contribution from economic class. A
Collaboration theory model explanation could
be 1, The culture of their attachment figures
is Christian and western (unlike that of Arab
and Asian immigrants) 2, Thus only when at
school, from about 5 onwards, do they meet
racial prejudice in their immediate
collaborating social network 3, They make the
mistake of interpreting prejudice as Negative
Affective Style and Communication Deviance in
their peer group and shut down to avoid
perpetual subtle low level humiliation 4, The
landslide into isolation starts
45
Preschizophrenia Sexual and Physical Abuse
60 of boys diagnosed as schizophrenic before the
age of 18 have been sexually abused 80-85 of
schizophrenic patients have suffered childhood
abuse compared with 26 for panic disorder,
30 for anxiety disorder 42 for depressive
disorder, Friedman 2002
Identical Twins The primeval myth of the 50
cross correlation between identical twins reared
apart.Used to justify the genetic thinking that
peaked 20 years ago This cross correlation drops
to 22 in good modern studies - easily
explained by shared family culture, Joseph 2004
46
EVOLUTION TO HUMANITY
47
Mental Liberation
Evolution is a mathematical theorem under
conditions which apply to living things 1,
Replication each generation is a copy of the
previous generation 2, Variation the new
generation differs slightly from the previous
one 3, Survival more of some types of
variation survive than others Humans are the
only species on earth in which variation in the
genes has been augmented by substantial variation
in culture. Symbolic thinking and language are
the tools that enable one generation to convey
variation in lifestyle or culture to the
next. DNA based transmission of body and
behaviour has been augmented by generational
transmission of culture. Mental Liberation
through atrophy of superfluous instincts
48
Traditional Intelligence
Grammatical speech greatly reduced our need for
the enormous photographic memory found in closely
related apes. This freed up a large fraction of
the cortex at a time when it was growing for
other reasons. At the same time prehumans were
becoming increasingly specialised - the right
brain continuing the parallel sensory and motor
activities while the left side developed identity
and consciousness and the new skill of language.
The recent technology of writing has taken us to
yet another level of abstraction by taking over
parts of the brain that were previously used to
the vast network of pathways in a traditional
hunter gatherer territory. It is wrong to
underestimate traditional tribal skills but it is
wrong to overestimate their effectiveness.
Modern humans can be in awe at the level of
skill in traditional areas medicinal herbs for
healing, horses for transport, even darkness to
support the television of the mind in the imagery
evoked by storytellers. These skills are not
belittled when new technologies carry out the
same tasks in different more efficient ways. The
car and plane are more sustainable than the horse
(for equal distances travelled). Modern medicines
are more effective for physical ailments and
modern psychotherapy for psychological ones.
However there can always be cracks in the modern
concrete, for instance the arbitrary division
between physical and mental illness that has
trampled over the traditional healers
integration of the two.
49
Neoteny and the Integrated Mind
Problem solving in advanced social animals is
very context dependent. Without the integrating
and abstracting power of a large prefrontal
neocortex and symbolic language they find it
difficult to transfer experience from one type of
situation to another.The flexible integrated
mind of humans appears to have started emerging
about 2 million years ago. Its evolution appears
to have been rapid because it required little
more, genetically, than a progressive neoteny in
which our adult ancestors became more like infant
apes mental flexibility, playful, fragile
bodies. The neoteny process also included being
born when the human brain is exceptionally
undeveloped (yet is still so large that the
narrow hips required for upright walking cause
more mothers and babies to die in childbirth than
in other apes).At the development stage when
the structure of the ape brain is being defined
by the secure and boring womb, the human brain is
already being influenced by the social and
cultural activities of the immediate family
50
Lamarkian Evolution of Culture?
A brain tuned to social interaction rather than
immediate problem solving may have to be far more
integrated than that of our nearest relatives,
the apes. Advanced consciousness may well be a
side effect of this integration. It is of course
unexplainable because we cannot step outside it
to observe it. All we can do is be aware of our
own consciousness and , perhaps, that of
others? If the mother is alternately loving and
sadistic, e.g. suffering from Dissociative
Identity Disorder, integration and empathy are
hindered and the child reverts to the
hypervigilant and dissociative behaviour of prey
species such as antelope. Brain scans have shown
that they are dissociative - one part of the
brain sleeps while another watches for predators.
In the case of infanticidal humans the predator
is the parent - but they are usually consuming
the child's feelings, not the childs
flesh. Occasionally a parent captures a glimpse
of a slightly better life, and this aspiration
can be passed on as a new element in the culture
of their children. Thus generation by
generation advance through the childrearing
modes may be a form of Lamarckian evolution
the child acquires the aspirations of the parent
51
The Prehensile NeocortexPrehensile ability to
grasp any thing (or any concept)
Recent prehuman evolution has prolonged childhood
characteristics into adulthood. As we have become
physically weaker our increasingly childlike
adult selves need the protection of increasingly
large social groups (one man v one lion - bad,
100 men v one lion - good). In addition to the
above neoteny there was evolutionary pressure to
enlarge the neocortex to handle the social
complexity of large groups. This rapid evolution
has left a few loose endsBack pain result of
insufficient skeletal evolution since standing on
hind legsTrauma from physical pain
side-effects of the expanded neocortex include
advanced consciousness and the integrated mind
that brings with it the ever-present memory of
past pain.Existential pain the cries and
prayers of those infant mammals that do survive
to adulthood were answered by their very much
larger parents. A side effect of retaining a
neotenous childlike brain may be the religious
instinct - adults still need the support of a
relatively large and powerful parent
1, God the parent, 2,
God the tribal ancestor,
3, God the humanity ancestor, 4, God the
universe ancestor
52
The Psychohistory/Attachment Perspective on
Childhood Abuse
In a 1994 study it was found that every member of
a sample of 164 learning disabled patients that
required psychotherapy at a London clinic had
early trauma but their behaviour was seen as
part of their learning disability. The earliest
trauma comes from realising that society wishes
they were dead. Child patients acted out earlier
sexual abuse as inappropriate sexual behaviour
more socially aware adults acted it out in
violence. None of them had an illness as such,
just their response to earlier experiences.
Valerie Sinason, unpublished PhD thesis,
2004.
Non-disabled children are not so carefully
monitored. There are increasing indications that
a substantial fraction of mental illness is a
result of childhood events that were not seen as
abusive at the time (and may only have a
deleterious effect on the most vulnerable
children). Large scale longitudinal studies are
giving results but take about 20 years. Reviewing
the extensive home videos of the childhoods that
started to be recorded about 20 years ago may
give quicker results. What might be
possible if there was a digital record of all
childhoods?Perhaps all unintentional childhood
traumas could be diagnosed or even avoided?
53
Increasing Visibility, Reducing Abuse
The peaceful Kalahari bushmen have a higher
homicide rate than Western inner cities. They
appear peaceful because they only know about
murders in their own small group. They cannot
avoid pain and suffering, and so learn to
dissociate from it. The more advanced
child-rearing modes inhibit such dissociation.
Without dissociation people cannot stand much
physical pain and so try to reduce the suffering
of others Improving media and mass
communications give an impression that abuse and
murder are rising. Fortunately this leads to
social responses that do in fact reduce the level
of violence. This virtuous circle or runaway
morality drives advance through the childrearing
modes Unfortunately geographic or physical
dissociation, everything from gated communities
to refusal to visit the starving villages and
Dickensian sweat shops of the third world,
undermines attempts to make globalisation tfair
and humane. Only when some progress has been made
can society face how bad things were in the past,
for instance 1970s - UK government stated
there were ony 300 cases of incest in UK 1990s
Acceptance that there are about 10 million
survivors of incest in UK 1990s There is no
Satanic abuse in UK UK Health Minister 2000s
about 2000 survivors of Satanist abuse have
contacted professionals in UK.
54
The Golden Age?
Longing for a misremembered childhood If
only the 6 ft high adult could be cared for by a
12 foot god in the same way that the 3 ft child
was cared for by a 6 ft parent
55
The Unconscious Mind - The Moral Instinct
Blind Sight, there can be unconscious visual
awareness if the visual cortex is damaged. Visual
information is routed through the early brain,
bypassing the conscious mind. Blind Morality
(Moral Instinct) uses early unconscious
reciprocal altruism brain structures that evolved
as a form of fitness for a very social species
that has a big brain but a fragile body.
Excessive respect for the logical conscious mind
by leaders of society may explain a reluctance to
accept the emotional roots of Blind Morality.
Hence the many academic muddles over the concept
of freewill, the conflict between the existence
of evil and an all powerful, all good God, and
the inevitable but forbidden question Who
created God. The Global Sustainability
Conundrum How can a global society based on
new and rapidly changing technology trust a
moral instinct that evolved for survival in small
hunter-gatherer groups?
56
The 6th Sense Brain as a Prediction Machine
Perhaps we do not show enough respect for our 6th
sense - the unconscious social and moral
instincts that evolved for survival as a very
social animal. Perhaps clairvoyants and healers
have given the 6th sense a bad name amongst the
rationalists and reductionists? Clairvoyants and
healers have often had an abusive childhood. The
resulting hyperawareness and dissociation
effectively strengthens the ability to
unconsciously sense other peoples feelings and
drives. In most people this sense has been
overwhelmed by the single track logic and
language of the integrated conscious rational
mind. For half a billion years neural networks
have helped animals to survive by learning past
patterns and recognising them when repeated
Pavlov, etc. These networks evolved into brains
under three levels of evolutionary pressure
1, Recognising repeating patterns in the
Environment of Evolutionary Adaptation 2,
Predator-prey feedback, each species learning the
behaviour patterns of the other 3,
Within-species feedback between competing
neighbouring groups in social animals. This is
faster than predator-prey feedback because the
more successful genes can spread to all groups of
the same species. Related to sexual selection and
culminates in the Machiavellian or social brain.
57
The Social Brain and the Outcast
The average size of a social group in a species
of ape is roughly proportional to the
neocortex/brain volume ratio (Robin Dunbar).
Extrapolation shows the maximum trust group for
humans is about 150, up from about 50 for
chimpanzees.This matches the size of tribes and
the maximum size of small organisations. Above
this size trust weakens and rules are required.
Trust is primarily built in apes by grooming, in
humans by gossip. In a tribal group the same 150
person social group is shared by every member.
Side-effect it is safe to classify outsiders as
sub-human and dispensable.Technology increases
the openness of society (wheel, then paper, then
printing, railways, the telephone, then
airplanes, now Internet) and thus increases the
uniqueness of each persons 150 person social
group. Tyranny becomes impossible, everyone is
connected to everyone else and my enemy might be
my friends friend (6 degrees of
separation).The telephone, perhaps the most
powerful collaboration technology ever invented,
encourages democratic values and appears to
discourage war.
There has never been a war between two
countries each with more than 1
telephone per 20 people. (Only 1 telephone per
30 people in Iraq - they nearly made it!)
58
FROM MAGIC AND RELIGION TO RATIONAL SECULAR
SOCIETY
59
From Artificial Intelligence to Society of Minds
Early AI researchers tried to implement the mind
half of the Cartesian body-mind duality and
failed. Recent research, starting with
evolutionary thinking and Society of Mind by
Marvin Minsky in the early 1970s, is
increasingly successful. Animal brains comprise
fairly separate problem-solving modules. Even in
social animals the modules have limited
interconnections. The human neocortex grew
enormously through rapid social/sexual selection
in an evolutionary race between competing social
groups. (The DID brain has partially reverted to
the modular structure). This growth included the
long distance pyramidal neurons that are related
to our substantial working memory and integrated
consciousness. Perhaps the global mind now needs
its own pyramidal neurons - the long distance
optical fibre cables now girdling the earth. The
efficiency of language freed up much of the
neocortex for imagination and increasing ability
to forecast the future - including awareness of
death. We can now forecast the physical world
with incredible accuracy. However, to survive on
an increasingly crowded planet, we need to
forecast the behaviour of our society of minds
better than before. This will require learning
from our history as well as from the new research
areas of Artificial Life, Social Robotics and
Social Simulation
60
New Technology gt New Culture?
Useful technologies stimulate the emergence
of new cultures, e.g. Writing and Wheel, 3500
BC stability of written concepts and mobility of
physical location eventually led to the concept
of a universal non-localised non-tribal
God Industrial Machinery, 1800 the first
metaphor for mental power and complexity - the
mind-body duality of Descartes and the tidy world
of the enlightenment Computer Languages, 1950s
helped to escape behaviourist thinking, Chomsky
etc. - but treated the mind as logical machine,
not a collaborating organism Society of Mind,
1970s superseded early reductionist Artificial
Intelligence, 1975 - showed a mind includes
emotion as well as thought, helped understanding
of DID and dissociation as a dysfunctional
society inside the head, 1985 on. Artificial
Life, 1990s integrated approach to mind and
body, acceptance of the body therapies,
indicated how both thinking and emotions are
mediated by the body, Rodney Brookes et
al. Artifical Society, 2000s Social Robotics,
statistical evidence poised to supersede
ideology, evidence-based social change
guided by social simulation
61
The New Magic from Desire via Fantasy to Reality
New science is developed into new technology if
it can turn old fantasy into new reality
Desire, expressed as Fantasy, is superseded
by Reality e.g.
Healing miracles
superseded by medicine, Happines