The Ghost in the Machine (50 page)

 

 

Evidently man, or a certain breed of man, was biologically not equipped
to live in environments with iodine-poor water, or to cope with the
virus of smallpox, and the deadly micro-organisms of malaria or sleeping
sickness. If we reverse the situation, we find that some microbes are
equally ill-equipped for resisting other species of micro-organisms which
we call antibiotics. Now microbes seem to have an enormous mutation rate
(or some other method of hereditary adaptation), for, within a few years,
they have evolved new drug-resistant strains. We humans cannot perform
such evolutionary feats. But we can
simulate
major adaptive mutations
by adding iodine to the drinking water, or by putting drops into the
eyes of the newborn, to protect them from enemies against which our
natural defences are inadequate.

 

 

In recent years biologists have discovered that every animal species
which they studied -- from flower beetles through rabbits to baboons --
is equipped with instinctive behaviour-patterns which put a brake on
excessive breeding, and keep the population-density in a given territory
fairly constant, even when food is plentiful. When the density exceeds
a certain limit, crowding produces stress-symptoms which affect the
hormonal balance; rabbits and deer begin to die off from 'adrenal stress'
without any sign of epidemic disease; the females of rats stop caring
for their young, which perish, and abnormal sexual behaviour makes
its appearance. Thus the ecological equilibrium in a given area is
maintained not only by the relative distribution of animals, plants
and micro-organisms, of predators and prey, but also by a kind of
intra-specific feedback mechanism which adjusts the rate of breeding
so as to keep the population at a stable level. The population of a
given species in a given territory behaves in fact as a self-regulating
social holon, governed by the instinctive canons of 'keeping distance'
and maintaining average density.

 

 

But in this respect man is again unique -- except perhaps for the
suicidal lemmings. It seems almost as if in human populations the
ecological rule were reversed: the more crowded they are in slums,
ghettoes and poverty-stricken areas, the faster they breed. In the past,
the stabilising factor was not the type of feedback mechanism which
regulates the rate of breeding in animals, but the death-harvests of
war, pestilence and infant mortality. However, already in biblical days,
as we learn from the story of Onan, man compensated to some extent for
the absence of instinctive breeding-controls by voluntary birth-control
through coitus interruptus and other practices. Then, a century ago, when
Louis Pasteur initiated the 'take-off' of the population curve, Charles
Goodyear, rubber manufacturer and inventor (after whom the famous tyre
company is named) invented the first artificial contraceptives. The modern
methods of birth-control by intra-uterine coils and oral contraceptives
represent a much more radical tampering with Nature on a more vital
level. They interfere in a permanent (and yet by all indications
non-injurious) manner with the physiological processes governing the
oestrual cycle. Applied on a world-wide scale -- as they must be if
the impending catastrophe is to be prevented, they would amount to an
artificially simulated, adaptive mutation.

 

 

Our species became a biological freak when somewhere on the way it
lost the instinctual controls which in animals regulate the rate
of breeding. It can only survive by inventing methods which imitate
evolutionary mutation. We can no longer hope that Nature will provide
the corrective remedy. We must provide it ourselves.

 

 

 

Prometheus Unhinged

 

 

Mutatis mutandis
, can we invent a similar remedy for the
schizophysiology of our nervous system, for the paranoid streak in man
which made such an appalling mess of our history? And' not only of the
history of homo sapiens, but apparently of his near-human predecessors
as well. Let us go back to Lorenz:

 

Obviously instinctive behaviour mechanisms failed to cope with the
new circumstances which culture unavoidably produced even at its very
dawn. There is evidence that the first inventors of pebble tools, the
African Australopithecines, promptly used their new weapons to kill
not only game, but fellow members of their species as well. Peking
Man, the Prometheus who learned to preserve fire, used it to roast his
brothers: beside the first traces of the regular use of fire lie the
mutilated and roasted bones of Sinanthropus Pekinenis himself. [14]

 

The Promethean myth has acquired an ugly twist: the giant reaching out
to steal the lightning from the gods is insane. By all indications the
trouble started with the sudden mushrooming of the neocortex at a rate
'unprecedented in evolutionary history' (
p. 273
).
If we compress the whole history of life on earth, from its beginnings
some 2,000 million yean ago to the present, into a single day from
midnight to midnight, then the age of mammals would begin about 11 p.m.;
and the evolution from Pithecantropus (Java ape-man) to Homo sapiens
-- that is, the evolution of the human neocortex--would have taken
place in the last forty-five seconds. The growth of the cortex, too,
followed an exponential curve. Is it unreasonable to assume that at this
explosive rate of the brain's development, which so widely overshot its
mark, something may have gone wrong? More precisely, that the lines of
communication between the very old and the brand-new structures were
not developed sufficiently to guarantee their harmonious interplay,
the hierarchic co-ordination of instinct and intelligence. Remembering
the mistakes which occurred in the evolution of earlier versions of
nervous systems -- the arthropod brain choking its alimentary canal,
the marsupial brain without adequate connections between the right and
left hemispheres -- we cannot help suspecting that something similar
may have happened to us; and the combined evidence from neurophysiology,
psychopathology and human history seems to support this hypothesis.

 

 

The neurophysiological evidence indicates, as we have seen, a dissonance
between the reactions of ncocortex and limbic system. Instead of
functioning as integral parts in a hierarchic order, they lead a kind of
agonised coexistence. To revert to an earlier metaphor: the rider has
never gained complete control of the horse, and the horse asserts its
whims in the most objectionable ways. We have also seen that the horse
-- the limbic system -- has direct access to the emotion-generating,
viscerally orientated centres in the hypothalamus; but the rider has no
direct access to them. Moreover, the stirrups and reins by which the rider
is meant to control the horse are inadequate. To quote MacLean once more:
'On the basis of neuronographic studies there appear to be no extensive
associational
connections between the limbic and the neocortex.'*
There is no anatomical evidence for the intricate 'loops within loops'
of feedbacks, of the delicate interplay of excitation and inhibition,
which characterises the nervous system in general. 'Both horse and
man are very much alive to one another and to their environment, yet
communication between them is limited. Both derive information and act
upon it in a different way. [15]

 

* The article continues: 'This would indicate that the two depend
almost entirely on vertical, rather than horizontal, lines of
communication. The so-called diffuse projection system of the
diencephalon offers one such possible relating system, but the
evidence in this regard is still conflicting. There is ample
justification, however, for assuming another system of connections
through the reticular system of the midbrain. This part of the
brain, which has been shown by Magoun and others to be essential
to a state of wakefulness, has been found electrophysiologically
to bear a reciprocal relationship to both the limbic and the neo-
cortex. In addition there is anatomical and electrophysiological
evidence that the central gray, which lies as a core within this
reticulum and which plays a dynamogenous role in emotion, is related
to the archicortex.' [15]  This is what one means by 'inadequate'
co-ordination.

 

Here, then, is the anatomical substratum of the 'divided house of faith
and reason' whose tenants are condemned to live in a state of 'controlled
schizophrenia' -- as the atomic spy Klaus Fuchs described it.

 

 

To go on preaching sweet reason to an inherently unreasonable species is,
as history shows, a fairly hopeless enterprise. Biological evolution
has let us down; we can only hope to survive if we develop techniques
which supplant it by inducing the necessary changes in human nature. We
may be able to prevent the demotic apocalypse by interfering with
woman's oestrous cycle. We cannot cure our paranoic disposition by
putting additional wiring circuits into our brains. But we may be able
to achieve a cure, or at least a significant improvement, by directing
research into the required channels.

 

 

 

Mutating into the Future

 

 

In 1961 the University of California San Francisco Medical Center
organised a symposium on "Control of the Mind." At the first session,
Professor Holger Hydén of Goeteborg University made headlines
in the San Francisco press, although the title of his highly technical
paper -- 'Biochemical Aspects of Brain Activity' -- was hardly designed
to appeal to the popular press. Hydén is one of the leading
authorities in that field.* The passage which created the sensation is
quoted below (the reference to me is explained by the fact that I was
a participant of the symposium):

 

In considering the problem of control of the mind, the data give
rise to the following question: would it be possible to change
the fundamentals of emotion by inducing molecular changes in the
biologically active substances in the brain? The RNA, in particular,
is the main target for such a speculation, since a molecular change
of the RNA may lead to a change in the proteins being formed. **  One
may phrase the question in different words to modify the emphasis:
do the experimental data presented here provide means to modify
the mental state by specifically induced chemical changes? Results
pointing in that direction have been obtained; this work was carried
out using a substance called tricyano-aminopropene.
. . . The application of a substance changing the rate of
production and composition of RNA and provoking enzyme changes
in the functional units of the central nervous system has both
negative and positive aspects. There is now evidence that the
administration of tricyano-aminopropene is followed by an increased
suggestibility in man. This being the case, a defined change of such
a functionally important substance as the RNA in the brain could
be used for conditioning. The author is not referring specifically
to tricyano-aminopropene, but to any substance inducing changes
of biologically important molecules in the neurons and the glia
and affecting the mental state in a negative direction. It is not
dilficult to imagine the possible uses to which a government in
a police-controlled state could put this substance. For a time
they would subject the population to hard conditions. Suddenly
the hardship would be removed, and at the same time, the substance
would be added to the tap water and the mass-communications media
turned on. This method would be much cheaper, and would create
more intriguing possibilities, than to let Ivanov treat Rubashov
individually for a long time, as Koestler described in his book. On
the other hand, a counter-measure against the effect of a substance
such as tricyano-aminopropene is not difficult to imagine either. [16]
* The model of the neuron on the jacket of this volume is by Hydén.
** Ribosenucleic acid, a key substance in the genetic apparatus.

 

Leaving technical details aside, the implications are clear. Like any
other human science, biochemistry can serve the powers of light or of
darkness. Its dangers are terrifying; but we are now concerned with its
beneficial possibilities. Let me quote another pertinent passage from
Dean Saunders, of the San Francisco Medical School, at the "Control of
the Mind" symposium:

 

The great technological skill and ingenuity of the modern chemist has
provided the medical scientist and the physician with an abundant
array of new chemical compounds of varying and diverse structure
which influence the central nervous system to distort, accelerate,
or depress the mental state and behavioural characteristics of
the individual. The conference emphasised that many of these
chemical agents possess a highly selective action on particular
and discrete parts of the nervous system -- so much so as to
permit from an examination of their actions in man and animals an
arrangement in order and rank. Those chemical agents thus offer,
by a consideration of the relationships between chemical structure
and biological action, the possibility of providing a vast array
of drugs influencing the specific activity of the brain. Indeed,
since such agents may either potentiate or attenuate one another,
exhibit overlap in their actions, and demonstrate polarity in their
effects on the brain, the very strong possibility is suggested of a
full spectrum of chemical agents which can be used for the control
of the mind in the majority of its activities.

 

. . . Here at our disposal, to be used wisely or unwisely, is an
increasing array of agents that manipulate human beings. . . .
It is now possible to act directly on the individual to modify his
behaviour instead of, as in the past, indirectly through modification
of the environment. This, then, constitutes a part of what Aldous
Huxley has called 'The Final Revolution'. . . . [17]