The Psilocybin Solution

natural intelligence throughout the contextual fabric of the Universe.

An Exquisite Unfolding Potential

That some form of highly organized carbon-based life was always poised to emerge out of the Universe is a remarkable fact that seems to be peculiarly downplayed by mainstream science. I once remarked on this immanent aspect of life to a university philosopher. “Look,” I said eagerly. “Here’s this nucleic acid stuff, which, when put together in precise digital strings, codes for precise strings of amino acids. And these cause precise proteins to form. And the proteins integrate to form fully functional organs more complex than computers. Why is that? From whence cometh this astonishingly inventive capacity of Nature, this remarkable computational precision? Why should Nature be endowed with such an inordinate amount of latent creative power?”

Well, this academic chap thought little of it, declaring that the things humans invent are just as much latent within “matter” as is life and that we do not marvel at that. At the time I was unable to come up with a rejoinder to his careless dismissal. Now, however, it seems clear that his university salary was undeserved in that moment, for most of our inventions are based on principles already expressed by natural intelligence. Airplanes were preceded by natural bird and insect flight. Our electrical telecommunication systems were preceded by the natural electrochemical communication occurring in nervous systems. Our solar energy technology was preceded by natural photosynthesis. Our sonar technology was preceded by natural echolocation in bats. Our nanotechnology mimics the nanotechnology first invented billions of years ago when life began. Our prototypical nuclear-fusion generators were preceded by natural stars. Our information-processing computers were preceded by natural information-processing systems of which the Universe is made. The list goes on. In fact, had Nature not provided us with the above examples, we might never have been prompted to develop our own technological equivalents (surely no one would ever have conceived of flying were it not for the tangible presence of birds or winged insects). Not only has natural intelligence in one form or another taught us all we know, but the evolutionary process is itself a manifestation of this intelligence at work. What we are witness to here on Earth is the unfolding genius of Nature. The evolution of life is no less than a wondrous promise woven into Nature and, over time, coordinated and delivered by Nature.

Are We Smarter Than Nature?

Despite the above reasoning, the notion that Nature represents a self-organizing intelligence working over immense time scales is an idea that, I am sure, many of us will probably find hard to swallow (unless swallowed with a dose of psilocybin mushrooms!). And yet to assert that evolution is not an intelligent process is to rate the process that allowed this assertion to arise to be less smart than we are. In other words, over the course of three and a half billion years the evolutionary process has managed to forge conscious human intelligence (the capacity of the human cortex) that is then able, if it so chooses, to deny that the evolutionary process is itself intelligent. Think about it. Can a nonintelligent process really yield profound intelligence? Can we expect a computer simulation of evolution to produce a smart virtual organism without first ensuring that the computer software is itself smartly designed? Or could one of Conway’s Life games have yielded a virtual computer able to exhibit artificial intelligence without having first been set up in an extremely intelligent way? Can we really explain all and everything without recourse to invoking intelligently configured contexts?

Clearly, the average neo-Darwinist alleges that the evolutionary process is not intelligent. Yet life is undeniably more complex, organized, integrated, and smart than we can possibly grasp. Indeed, science, especially biological and genetic science, is still coming to grips with the elaborate complexity of living systems. It seems that the more closely science examines life, the more ingenious life turns out to be, as if there is little that evolution cannot achieve. Evolution through natural selection undoubtedly happens, yet how we interpret the meaning of natural is not necessarily a foregone conclusion. To suggest that natural selection represents a manifestation of natural intelligence is merely a new way of evaluating the reality of evolution in the light of contextual considerations. No new supernatural mechanism is being invoked—rather we are reinterpreting and reappraising the facts at hand.

Have We Stolen Nature’s Glory?

Scientific discoveries, whether in biology, chemistry, neuropsychology, or physics, invariably point to the ingenuity of Nature. Every university science department in the world owes its existence to the smartness of Nature—a smartness that science merely reflects. Almost every scientific researcher, almost every doctoral student is sailing on a sea of sensible knowledge provided by Nature. Whether a geneticist marveling over replicating mile-long, compact strands of DNA, a botanist spellbound by bee-mimicking orchids, or an entomologist fascinated by fungus-cultivating ant colonies—all are caught up in the engineering finesse wrought by Nature over billions of years.

Similarly, almost every science book available owes its existence to Nature’s intelligent manipulations. Science is therefore to be understood as an attempt to mirror or reflect the intelligence of Nature in a worded form. And yet whatever facet of Nature we care to investigate, whether this be the intricate structure of a single cell, the elaborate grip of the Venus flytrap, or the delicate balancing mechanism of the inner ear, science is always committed to accounting for such phenomena as being no more than the end products of a natural but purposeless process, a process that just happens to be extremely constructive and that just happens to arise because the contextual laws of Nature just happen to allow interesting evolutionary events to unfold at some time and in some place. Things just tend to happen that way. And a lucky thing it is, too, for if Nature did not possess intelligible and sensible contextual qualities, then the scientists would be out of work and out of life.

However, it does not matter what science comes across in its pursuits, for no matter how smart some animal, plant, or biological process is, it can always be reduced to a “mere” aspect of natural selection, where natural means only “the way things tend to happen.” If we were to discover, say, some new plant that yielded a massive fruit out of which popped an organic flying machine complete with a steering wheel and a comfy seat, then two things would probably happen. First, scientists would immediately account for the machine in terms of “mere” natural selection by inferring that the fruit was a potentially advantageous adaptation. Second, the machines would be seized upon by people and exploited to the hilt without a second thought as to the nature of the process that led to them. In no time at all, both scientists and the lay community would be completely used to this useful new production of Nature. It would have become yet another “mere” incident of the natural world.

The imagined state of affairs above parodies the often-blithe attitude of the science community toward the nifty creative processes exhibited by Nature. All organisms, no matter how intricate, no matter how refined and sophisticated, no matter how well adapted, are “merely” the products of a blind process that just happens to produce smart and enduring structures over vast spans of time. Brains certainly convey intelligently driven processes, but not so Nature, we are told. Yet natural selection is itself a process, and since it is the most stunning and successful information-gaining process we know of, then it can justifiably be deemed an intelligent process.

Perhaps Nature should be awarded Nobel Prizes and not the scientists who discover Nature’s smart mechanisms and pathways. If a scientist begins a learned discussion about the double-helix structure of DNA and the genetic code, we might well be taken aback by his or her grasp of the subject matter. We would say that someone who understands the complexities of DNA is very intelligent and deserving perhaps of prestige, respect, and admiration. Yet he or she is in actuality merely reflecting the creative ingenuity of Nature. Thus, it is the discoveries of science that should be described with a liberal sprinkling of the popular adjective