Quest Magazine

The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain

The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain

by Terrence W. Deacon
New York: Norton, 1997, Hardback, 527 pages.

"Mommy, where did I come from?" Though later asked in mere sophisticated forms, that question of childhood is also a perennial question of our adulthood. We want to know where we, as individuals, as a social group, and as a species came from. Three recent books address the question of our origin as a species from three viewpoints: biological, ecological, and mental.

The biological origin of modern human beings has been accounted for by two theories. One holds that our earlier hominid ancestors spread over much of the world's surface and in various locations independently evolved into present-day humanity but that because of interbreeding, we have been becoming increasingly more alike. It is called the "multiregionalist" theory. The other holds that an earlier variety of the human genus evolved into our kind (Homo sapiens) in Africa and thence spread all over the globe, replacing other hominid species and that present-day differences among us are the result of evolutionary differentiation. It is called the "replacement" or more specifically the "Out of Africa" theory.

Recent analysis of the DNA or genetic code in human beings has shown that, although there are relatively great variations in DNA among groups of Africans, human beings outside of Africa are remarkably uniform, having only very slight variations among themselves and sharing their DNA pattern with some Africans. Since variation in the DNA is the result of mutations overtime, the most probable explanation of this surprising fact is that the human genus began in Africa, where it had a long evolutionary history and about 200,000 years ago developed into Homo sapiens, which later spread from Africa to the rest of the world. Such is the thesis of African Exodus, which dates the exodus from Africa about 100,000 years ago, allowing some 100,000 years in Africa for DNA diversification before the exodus began.

The book argues its thesis passionately and with revolutionary self-consciousness as a refutation of the multi-regionalist view, thereby refuting the romantic notion that science is a gradual, accumulative approach to ultimate truth. The book is also self-consciously a political statement, arguing against the thesis of The Bell Curve, by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, that intelligence is determined by race, with some races being genetically more intelligent than others. Science, far from being politically neutral, is often done in the service of some social agenda.

One of the interesting features of African Exodus is its emphasis on the unity of our contemporary human species. The differences among us are trivial; we are one people. African Exodus makes that point strongly with respect to our genetic inheritance.

Eco Homo basically supports the "Out of Africa" theory, although it presumes a slightly earlier beginning for the exodus of Homo sapiens "Africa is our ancestral homeland, and even today it still contains a stunning three-fifths to four-fifths of all human genetic diversity" (14). While agreeing with the date for the origin of Homo sapiens of 200,000 years ago, Eco Homo places the exodus earlier, between 130,000 and 175,000 years ago.

The characteristic feature of Eco Homo, however, is its attempt to connect the major stages of our biological evolution with changes in the eco logy: land formation, climate, weather patterns, flora and fauna distribution, and so on. It depicts human evolution, not as something independent of the rest of the planet, but as intimately connected with- influenced by and in more recent times increasingly influencing-the environment. Not only are we a unified species, but also we are unified and interdependent with the whole ecology of the planet.

Both books comment on, without explaining, a curious fact. About 20,000 years ago was one of those axial periods of human history when striking changes occur: "There is nothing in the paleontological record of the evolving human body that rivals the rapidity with which Homo sapiens began to evince advanced 'out-of-body' culture- cave art, music, burial of the dead, clothing, personal ornamentation, diverse tools, and so on....If one is drawn to dramatic 'hiccups' in the history of life on this planet, this certainly ranks near the top" (Eco Homo 217). In brief, human culture -our language, marriage and kinship systems, myths, magic, art, social mores and folkways, indeed everything from ethics to etiquette that obviously differentiates our behavior from that of nonhuman animals - began to appear at that time.

Eco Homo also stresses the remarkable fact of human behavior that we call "altruism" and relates it to that budding of culture 20,000 years ago. Altruistic behavior is evoked from the members of a cultural group "when two social conditions are met: There must be a vital need or threat to the group and there must be a strong sense of solidarity with in the group" (227). Altruism is thus a product of the evolution of cultural behavior and has survival value for the community. It has also, to be sure, its dark side: ethnic chauvinism and racism.

One of the great teachers of another axial period in human history, the Master Kung (or Confucius, as we usually call him), had a prescription for that undesirable side effect. He said that we begin with group solidarity within the family, but extend it progressively to the community, the state, the nation, and ultimately all humanity. The building of a world culture that synthesizes and transmutes local distinctions into a universal brotherhood of humanity is the cure for our social ills.

The Symbolic Species looks at the nature and evolution of language and the human brain and finds in their co-development the key to our modern humanity: "The doorway into this virtual world [of uniquely human abstractions, impossibilities, and paradoxes] was opened to us alone by the evolution of language, because language is not merely a mode of communication, it is also the outward expression of an unusual mode of thought -symbolic representation....Biologically, we are just another ape. Mentally, we are a new phylum of organisms"(22-3).

"Symbolic" is being used here in a sense given to the term by Charles Sanders Peirce, who classified "signs" (things that stand for other things) into three types: "icons," which are pictures of what they stand for, such as portraits; "indexes," which are causally connected with the things they stand for, as the position of a weathervane stands for a direction of the wind; and "symbols," which stand for something by social convent ion, as a wedding ring stands for the marital agreement or the letter "c" stands for a particular sound in words (70-1). In fact, the Peircean symbol is really of two kinds. In one, a symbol is connected with what it stands for quite arbitrarily, as the letter "c'' is connected with the sound "cc." In the other, a symbol is connected with what it stands for metaphorically or analogically, as a wedding ring is connected with the marital agreement by its shape (being an endless circle), its material (being of precious metal), and so on. The analogical symbol is far richer than the arbitrary one, and is the basis of much distinctively human life.

The Symbolic Species also points out that ritual is intimately connected with language and other symbolic systems and thus with our essential humanity:

Early hominids were forced to learn a set of associations between signs and objects, repeat them over and over, and eventually unlearn the concrete association in favor of a more abstract one. This process had to be kept up until the complete system of combinatorial relationships between the symbols was discovered. What could have possibly provided comparable support for these needs in the first symbol-learning societies?

In a word, the answer is ritual. Indeed, ritual is still a central component of symbolic "education" in modern human societies, though we are seldom aware of its modern role because of the subtle way it is woven into the fabric of society. [402]

In brief that remarkable budding of culture and altruism 20,000 years ago was the effect of the efflorescence of language and ritual. Voluntary social cooperation and culture are not possible with out symbolic language, and neither is the kind of thinking that lets us create mental worlds, virtual realities of "might-have- been" and "let's-pretend." "The evolution of symbolic communication has not just changed the range of possible objects of consciousness, it has also changed the nature of consciousness itself." To be human is to think symbolically, to see a wedding ring, not just as a metal circle, but as a pledge of fidelity, commitment, and mutual support.

These three books, the work of established academic anthropologists, point each in their various ways to certain principles of the Wisdom Tradition. Those principles include human solidarity, the interdependence of humanity with our environment, the naturalness of altruistic behavior, the uniqueness of the human mind, and the centrality of symbol, metaphor, and analogy to our perception of the world. One of the great teachers of that Wisdom Tradition wrote, "Modern science is our best ally" (Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett 65/11). Although there is much in all three books that followers of the Tradition might take issue with, the affirmation of those principles justifies that statement.

-MORTON DILKES

Spring 1998

Cumulative Index to Lucifer, Volumes I-XX, Comp

Ted G, Davy
Edmonton, Alberta, T6E 5G4 Canada: Edmonton Theosophical Society, P O, Box 4587, 1997, Pp iv+224, Cloth.

Theosophy is both progressive and traditional. As modern Theosophy, its expression must be adapted to each generation so that its timeless truths can be communicated in current idiom; yet the writings of the first generation of modern Theosophists have a special claim on our attention as foundational.

The Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) Theosophical Society has long had a program of making available important early works. Their latest publication is a Cumulative Index to volumes 1-20 (September 1887 to August 1897) of Lucifer: A Theosophical Magazine, founded and edited during her lifetime by I--l. P. Blavatsky and afterwards by Annie Besant with the assistance during the last years of the magazine of CJ. R. S. Mead.

This index has been prepared by Ted G. Davy with the care and skill of all his work. Its publication in 1997 marks the one-hundredth anniversary of the end of the magazine, or at least the end of its publication under the tide Lucifer; the magazine continued under the title The Theosophical Review. This index is a splendid contribution to Theosophical scholarship and an invaluable aid for students of the early writings. The main index (pages 1-164) presents the contents of the ten years of Lucifer by authors' names, subjects, and keywords. There are helpful cross-references for both subjects (Phenomena: see Natural Phenomena, Psychic Phenomena, Occult Phenomena, Unexplained Phenomena) and authors' names, both pseudonyms ("Philanthropos" see Blavatsky, H. Po) and initialisms (A. see Glass, A. M.) when the authors can. be identified.

As some indication of what can be found in this index, the entry for "Olcott, Henry .S. (1832-1907)" includes 145 references to him, followed by 21 entries for items written by him and several that he and HPB cosigned That is the pattern for persons: first references to them are indexed, then contributions authored by them.

The volume ends with several appendixes. One indexes book reviews first by the authors of the books and second by the book titles. The reviewers arc included in the main index. Another index lists the titles of journals and of pamphlets and book mentioned in the pages of Lucifer as having been received. A third appendix indexes by geographical locations and organizations Theosophical activities around the world, as reported in Lucifer.

This index is an invaluable guide to information about the history of the Society and the intellectual currents of early Theosophy. It also serves for fascinating browsing as, for example, one comes upon an article by the Anglo-Irish poet William Butler Yeats and a notice of his lecturing at the Dublin Lodge. All Theosophical students are deeply indebted to Ted Davy for preparing this index and to the Edmonton Theosophical Society for publishing it.

-John Algeo

January 1998

Healing from the Heart: A Leading Heart Surgeon Explores the Power of Complementary Medicine

Healing from the Heart

By Mehmet Oz, with Ron Arias and Lisa Oz
New York: Dutton (Penguin Putnam), 1998, Hardcover, xvi + 202 pages.

Healing from the Heart is a frank, sometimes unsettling foray into the world of modern medicine. Mehmet Oz, cardiothoracic surgeon and medical director of Columbia-Presbyterian's Complementary Care Center, weaves an intensely human story. Disease and dying, health and healing are all universal and deeply personal happenings. Healing is in part the story of Mehmet Oz, how the surgeon-scientist comes to bridge the healing ways of West and East. It is the drama of desperately ill heart patients, loved ones, and professional caregivers, who affirm the place and power of integrative medicine. Healing from the Heart is no less a universal story, the play of conflict and change in human affairs, both disturbing and reassuring. As doctor Dean Ornish notes, here is "a glimpse into what the future of medicine is likely to be-if we're lucky."

Conventional (allopathic) Western medicine is based on drugs, surgery, and high technology. Allopathic doctors are expert at treating life-threatening illnesses and managing symptoms of chronic disease. Patients typically expect their doctor to "fix" serious problems and to keep them symptom-free. Traditional, or "complementary" medicine, such as nutrition, acupuncture, yoga, massage, and self-hypnosis, aims at strengthening the whole person. Traditional therapists often require people to change their lifestyle and take responsibility for themselves. Though such therapies are increasingly used by people on their own, conventional doctors discount them as unproven. Mehmet Oz calls for a synthesis of the two approaches, a dual system that is "one universal healing endeavor." He demonstrates why this integration must happen now and how it can be done.

Healing from the Heart is a wake-up call for healthcare workers. It will be a powerful read for people dealing with heart disease. Mehmet Oz is a keen observer and vivid storyteller who tells about things he knows well. Here is the challenge of heart failure, the rigors of openheart surgery, the struggle for stability during recovery, failures to thrive despite superior technical support. His suffering patients compel Dr. Oz to search for therapies that empower them for self-healing.

Labrang: A Tibetan Buddhist Monastery at the Crossroads of Four Civilizations

Labrang: A Tibetan Buddhist Monastery at the Crossroads of Four Civilizations

By Paul Kocol Nietupski
With photographs from the Griebenow Archives. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1999, Paperback, 123 pages.

The monastery of Labrang Tashi Kyil, popularly known to Tibetans simply as Labrang, has played an important role in the history of Tibetan Buddhism and its spread throughout the Mongol and Chinese regions of the north and east of Tibet. Founded between 1709 and 1711 by Jamyang Shepa, a monk from Drepung Gomang Monastery and also an important disciple of the fifth Dalai Lama, it served as a bastion of Tibetan culture over the centuries to follow.

The Chinese occupation of Tibet in the 1950s and the ensuing assault on Tibetan culture saw the closure of Labrang (which was turned into a prison camp for high lamas). However, the wave of liberalization that sweet through China in 1979 led to the reopening of its doors. Today it is once again an active spiritual center serving the peoples of this remote and exotic corner of the world.

After his death, the founder of Labrang, Jamyang Shepa, became known as the first Jamyang Shepa, for a young child was identified as his reincarnation and installed in Labrang, a tradition that has continued until today. The second Jamyang Shepa was one of the seventh Dalai Lama's most important disciples and dharma heirs.

Part of the importance of Labrang lay in its location in Amdo, Tibet's enormous northeastern province, which was once more than two million square miles in size. The monastery served as a spiritual liaison for Lhasa with the Mongols to the north and the Manchus to the east--both of whom were devout followers of Tibetan Buddhism. Children from these two regions, as well as from Han China, came to Labrang for training, and over the generations a steady stream of translations of Tibet's ancient scriptures into Mongolian, Manchurian, and Chinese flowed forth from the pens of the monastery's great scholars.

With the rise of Manchuria to rulership of all China, Labrang became the Manchu Emperor's window onto the lands to the west. Moreover, Labrang lay on the Silk Route and was surrounded by Chinese Turkestan, so its links to the Muslim world were also significant.

Between 1922 and 1949 the Griebenow family lived in Labrang as Christian missionaries. They extensively photographed the monastery and its activities, thus creating perhaps the only extant record of traditional life in the Labrang area to survive the Chinese Cultural Revolution. Marion Griebenow returned to his native Minnesota with the photographs that the family had amassed during their two and a half decades at Labrang. Eventually those photographs were donated to Tibet House in New York, thus ensuring their preservation.

The compiler and author of this extraordinary book, Paul Nietupski of John Carroll University, Cleveland, dedicated several years to pouring over the letters and other documents left in the Griebenow estate, as well as to researching the history of Labrang. His publication of the Griebenow photographs, together with his excellent documentation of them, provides a wonderful introduction to this exquisite monastery, as well as to its people and environs.

-GLENN H. MULLIN

September/October 1999

Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary: A Translation and Study of Jigme Lingpa's Dancing Moon in the Water and Dakki’s Grand Secret-Talk

Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary

By Janet Gyatso
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998. Hardback, xxiv + 360 pages.

Tibet could count its gross national product as the number of great mystics it has produced. One of the foremost among these in recent centuries was Jigme Lingpa, who lived from 1730 to 1798. This remarkable man transformed the spiritual and intellectual landscape of central Asia.

Jigme Lingpa belonged to a category of Tibetan lama known as terton, or "treasure revealer." Tibetan literature speaks of treasures of body, speech, and mind. The "treasure" in this case is a sacred scripture.

The terton phenomenon has played an important role in the development of Tibetan Buddhism, at least in the Bon and Nyingma schools. Both the fifth and thirteenth Dalai Lamas were treasure revealers, a result of their affiliation with Nyingma lineages. According to tradition, the Indian tantric master Padma Sambhava buried many of his "speech treasures" in the mind streams of his disciples, to be recollected and transcribed by them in future lives when the times were ripe.

Jigme Lingpa was a treasure revealer in the Nyingma tradition. During his career he brought forth hundreds of scriptures, most notably the Longchen Nyingtig, or Heart Drop of the Great Expanse, which today serves as the main pillar of Nyingma spiritual practice. Jigme Lingpa received most of his treasures in a meditation, dream, or trance state. Usually the medium of the transmission was a dakini, or mystical female.

In Apparitions of the Self, Janet Gyatso has translated the two autobiographies of Jigme Lingpa found in his collected works: Dancing Moon in the Water and Dakki's Grand Secret-Talk. These are highly esoteric "secret autobiographies" and, although beautiful in language, are difficult of access for the novice. They describe the visions and mystical revelations Jigme Lingpa experienced during his early life, which inspired him to dedicate himself to meditation, teaching, and writing. Fortunately the translator provides more than two hundred pages of commentary and analysis, thus rendering the texts more comprehensible to readers.

The treasure tradition has produced some of Tibet's most inspired literature. Janet Gyatso has performed a remarkable service by making available to an international audience the story of one of Tibet's great sources of this exotic genre. Her book is academic, and thus is not light reading. However, for those with patience and stamina, it yields a rich perspective on spiritual life that both enlightens and entertains.