Someone's quirky list of improvements mother nature might consider when she's fiddling with that evolution dial for us humans...(isn't there something delicious about asking mother nature for a present to celebrate God's birthday?) At any rate, I need number 9 the most, but they all sound pretty intriguing.
Enjoy... ----------------------------------------"The question of where consciousness might go is an interesting one, though. What mystery gift might Mother Nature have in store for us? There is of course some debate about whether human beings have escaped from evolutionary pressures for the foreseeable future, either by controlling their own environment, or perhaps just by moving around so much that there are none of the isolated populations which seem to play an important part in speciation.
Since it’s nearly Christmas, I propose to address the issue on an entirely frivolous level and present a Christmas wish-list of my top ten favourite improvements to consciousness…
Coming in at number *10* is Distributed Processing. Why can’t we bud off a separate train of thought to deal with some subsidiary problem while we go on thinking about something else? We could have a whole tapestry of different threads separating and re-converging.
At number *9* I’d like an Indexed Memory. I don’t need anything complex here - just a date-based system will do, so that I can remember what happened at any specified time and date.
Number *8* is a Vivid Memory. I’d like to be able to run personal flashbacks the way people in films do, where you relive the events being recalled in realistic detail.
At *7*, I want Control of My Dreams. Not that I have terrible nightmares, you understand - I rarely recall any dreams at all. Some people apparently do have some control of some of their dreams, but I’d like to be able to script them completely. Purely for research purposes, of course. Well, partly for research purposes.
Number *6* is the ability to enter Altered States of Consciousness at will, without having to do any of that starving, meditating, or consumption of ayahuasca. If this is too much, I’d settle for a degree of control over my own endorphins.
At *5*, I’ve got (or rather, I haven’t yet got) Control of the Attention; the ability to concentrate on things, or indeed, ignore them.
Number *4* is Automation. There are many things I have to do laboriously in the forefront of my consciousness - calculations, writing routine letters, that sort of thing - which I wish I could delegate to unconscious functions which I’m sure are perfectly up to the job.
At *3*, I want, ahem, Control of My Emotions. I don’t actually want to be Mr Spock, but when someone treads on my foot I should like to be able stop being annoyed about it immediately instead of an hour and a half later.
Number *2* is Control of Unconscious Functions. I’d like to able to summon up placebo effects without being put through a confidence trick first; to stop the body’s exaggerated and unhelpful response to burns and some other injuries, and rev my own heart up a bit when I know it’s going to be needed but my unconscious mind doesn’t.
At number *1*, (since this is an intellectually oriented site), is Transparency, or Being Able To See How It Works. You cannot observe yourself in the process of composing your own thoughts, no matter how quickly you look over your shoulder. But wouldn’t it be good if you could?
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