Dr. Bruce Lipton feels that cooperation and sharing is the basis for our evolution, and that survival is dependent upon how well we share communication and process environmental information and data exchange. Jean Baptiste Lamarck, Darwin’s predecessor, suggested that evolution is the result of organisms acquiring and passing on environmentally induced adaptations necessary to sustain their survival in an ever-changing and dynamic world. The fossil records and current evidence show that the Malthusian-Darwin notion that the “law of the jungle” drives evolution has no solid scientific merit. Organisms have a profoundly strong intention and will to survive - continually adapting to stressful circumstances in real-time – and to becoming MORE AWARE!
About 750 million years ago, an evolutionary leap occurred when single eukaryotic cells began to form loose communities called colonies. This greatly enhanced the likelihood of survival. An increase in the number of single cells “in community” improved awareness of the environment. This lead to the formation of algae communities, slime colonies, fungus, molds, and lichen, etc., which became the very first multicellular Life on Earth. Initially there were tens, then hundreds, and eventually thousands of single cells forming single colonies. This evolutionary leap to multicellular life allowed socially interactive eukaryotic monocells to become a unified and cooperative ecosystems of millions, billions, and even trillions of cells. This eventually lead to the formation of lichen, jellyfish, and plants about 550-650 million years ago. Fungi and lichen were the first life forms existing on dry land, and paved the way for other plant species, which followed millions of years later - then followed millions of years later by amphibians and reptiles, which fed off the plants. Each life form set the stage for and supported the next level of a more evolved complexity of life.
The next evolutionary leap in the development of Life on Earth was when the multicellular plants and organisms began to direct “specialized functions”. This is known in the biological sciences as differentiation, which allowed for a distribution of the organisms’ workload. Differentiation lead to the development of specialized tissues and organs, which conserved a lot of energy, but also, greatly increased the organisms awareness of the environment, and created an ECOSYSTEM OF CELLS, a unified cooperative community (Dr. Lipton refers to us as, “Skin covered petri dishes).” Perception of the environment was then biologically relegated to the development of the nervous system, whose job it was to perceive and interpret the environment, and to coordinate and inform the activity of all the other cells (trillions of them) in this vast community of cells called “the body” or the “organism”.
Fish first appeared as a group known as vertebrates. At this time, there were plenty of plants and other forms that provided food, and created conditions that allowed fish to temporarily to come out of the water. In time, the Universal Intelligence, or the Creative Evolutionary Impulse, developed legs and lungs that provided them with the means to briefly leave the ocean and ponds to become amphibians. There were many types of plants and trees that had developed a means to reproduce and survive on land, but still needed a source of water to proliferate. Insects and reptiles learned to survive on land, and began to grow in numbers – living off of seeds and eating each other. Dinosaurs ruled the land!
100-250 Million years ago
Flowers appeared, which allowed for the appearance of bees, butterflies, birds, and other animals that eat nectar, seeds, nuts, and fruits, and carried pollen to other plants – creating better survival strategies for plants to live on land and successfully reproduce. New animals called mammals began to evolve. Mammals developed improvements in reproduction by carrying their young inside their bodies, increasing survivability of their offspring in a very dynamic world.
50 Million years ago to the Present
With the eventual demise of dinosaurs, mammals spread prolifically, and diversified upon the land. During this era Life evolved at an ever-increasing rate with a rapid development, size, capacity, and complexity of the frontal cortex of the brain. The nervous system and spinal columns shifted from horizontal to vertical with the appearance of primates and primitive humans; freeing the hands for the use of tools, improved environmental awareness, and the eventual ability to manipulate and invent more complex tools. This moved toward increased cognitive information processing and the capacity for improved communication via body language and speech. The early humans, homo erectus and Neanderthal, migrated throughout Africa, Asia, and Mesopotamia. Primitive humans finally gave way to the larger brained, modern homo sapiens approximately 100,000 to 250,000 years ago.
Over the last 50 -100,000 years, evolutionary progress in the growth, size, and development of the brain of contemporary humans has greatly advanced ever faster and faster (believe it or not). Modern humans are the end product of a chain of evolutionary life processes that generate increasingly broader and more complex intelligence and self-awareness.
The Three Evolutionary Brains
Nature has developed three evolutionary brains – the primitive, the emotional, and the thinking modules, which have advanced in three stages or layers, with each layer growing around and covering the previous one. These parts of the brain are sometimes referred to as the reptilian, mammalian, and neo-cortex, and have distinct divisions of function. As humans, we hold the entire course of evolutionary development within our single brain.
1. The reptilian brain (also called hind-brain, or the “R-Complex”) developed in dinosaurs, reptiles, snakes, and lizards about 200 million years ago. It is small and simple in nature, and functions to allow for rudimentary survival (some of the largest dinosaurs have been found to possess a brain the about the size of a walnut). The “R-Complex” is programmed with the basic instincts of feeding, fighting, and reproduction, and allows for the automatic functioning and repairing of the organs necessary for life – cardiovascular, digestion and elimination, immunity, etc. The reptilian brain is in control of basic, primitive survival.
2. The mammalian brain (also called the mid-brain) contains the upper spinal cord, and the cerebellar and limbic systems, which are responsible for coordinating movements, emotions, proprioception, and primitive thoughts. This outcropping of the reptilian brain occurred approximately 50 million years ago, and is the most densely packed area of neural tissue in the brain.
The limbic system is well connected to the functions of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve system, and coordinates emotional responses to the primitive functions of the lower brain. Survival instincts are given emotional qualities that provide for fight, flight, fright, healing, and/or reproductive responses and memories linked to the environment that insure for a continuation of the species. The parasympathetic nerve system reduces and calms the stress response, and is accountable for digestion, growth and repair, immunity, and orgasm, etc.
Structures within the midbrain include the:
Thalamus – which is connected to all areas of the brain and body, and acts as the “air traffic control”, coordinating many higher and lower functions of the nervous system.
Hypothalamus