A central question in both philosophy and the study of human history is the rise of consciousness — how does it happen, when does it happen, is it a discrete event, or a result of accretion over a long period of time.

BTW, I do like the idea of accretion of consciousness. If it doesn’t exist, maybe it should. I digress.

For me it seems the question of consciousness is inextricably entwined with language. I simply cannot imagine consciousness without words, the ability to think to oneself. I highlight that concept as it is both central to my endeavour, but also I think, is a good definition of consciousness. Consciousness expresses itself in and through language necessary to self-awareness.

People remember William Burroughs saying, “Language is a virus”, although what he really said was, “Language is a virus from outer space.”

Carl Jung says in one of his essays, he thinks it’s possible the mind is like a crystal radio that at a certain point of development can receive the language transmission — from outer space.

There’s a whole lot of language floating around out there, beyond the ozone, somewhere within the aether.

However, I am of the mind that consciousness begins when hominids add a regular diet of psychedelic mushrooms to their food. Further, it takes a psychedelic event to trigger consciousness.

I’ll resolve one other issue quickly, what of animal consciousness? The first psychedelic consciousness event not only triggers thought and language, it also triggers a zone of consciousness that nascently envelopes the world, and once that zone is triggered, that zone seeks to get into anything remotely capable of supporting consciousness.

Maybe we don’t need the psychedelic, all we need is a zone of consciousness that exists within and around our planet that actively seeks to enter into anything that will support consciousness. Which is better in terms of logic, specifically Occam’s razor.

But come on! You know you want to believe, along with me, language is invented by a bunch of proto-humans stoned out of their minds, suddenly trying to talk to each other — 

“Did you see that?”

“Hunh, what? Hey! You’re talking to me! What?”

“That, and that, and that, and that, and that! Look over there, look at that!!”

“Oh man, we need words for those things! Lots and lots and lots of words!!”

“What are words?!”
“I don’t know, but we need them!”

Probably the best party that happened in human history. Certainly, the most memorable.

Further to the above, I came across this interesting abstract:
“In this Review, we highlight preclinical research from the past 15 years showing that ketamine and psychedelic drugs can trigger the growth of dendritic spines in cortical pyramidal neurons. We compare the longitudinal effects of various psychoactive drugs on neuronal rewiring, and we highlight rapid onset and sustained time course as notable characteristics for putative rapid-acting antidepressant drugs. Furthermore, we consider gaps in the current understanding of drug-evoked in vivo structural plasticity. We also discuss the prospects of using synaptic remodelling to understand other antidepressant interventions, such as repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation. Finally, we conclude that structural neural plasticity can provide unique insights into the neurobiological actions of psychoactive drugs and antidepressant interventions.”

Structural neural plasticity evoked by rapid-acting antidepressant interventions
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41583-024-00876-0