Chance Music - SlideShare

Hello everyone, first time using reddit! :)
You can feel free to point any error in my speech, maybe im taking wrong information in consideration. Just be open minded to my idea! :D
I've been really interested in anthropology. One aspect of our history that blows my mind is the Cognitive Revolution. The Late Upper Paleolithic Model, or Upper Paleolithic Revolution, refers to the idea that, though anatomically modern humans first appear around 150,000 years ago, they were not cognitively or behaviorally "modern" until around 50,000 years ago. Thats the reason it was a "revolution": suddenly, ~50.000 years ago, there was a boom in inovation in tools, culture, language, art, hunting, etc and that also led to Homo Sapiens spread from Africa to the hole planet. As I've read on the book "Sapiens: a brief story of mankind", science knows very little about what led to the revolution, and one of the most accepted theorys is that it was due to a few, but crucial, gene mutations that shaped our brains to make Homo Sapiens behave as we do today (advanced language, music, dance, rituals, effective cooperation even in large groups, abstract thinking, etc). For me, it really feels weird to think that a few gene mutation is what was missing in Homo Sapiens brains (that was going through a long evolution process since the beggining of the Homo genre (completly animal-like conscious being) to us nowadays (animals with language and culture) ). to behave modernly.
Many people like to compare our brains to computers, and thats what im going to do. Every animal have its brain (computer). It's evident that humans are animals with a very unique brain. Lets say its a computer with many and many specific pieces and processors interconnected in a real complex way that make humans do all this increadible things other animals cant. Lets point cognitive revolution happened 50.000 years ago. Thats to say that, 51.000 years ago, sapiens computers was really really different than 50.000 years ago. Maybe it was lacking just one cable to connect important parts and make the computer work its new increadible features? And then the gene mutations happened, this cable was birth and humans started thinking and doing things such as shamanism and rituals? I cant buy this idea. Before cognitive revolution, our brain was much more like is today than it was like other animal's brain, but our behaviour not. A very little change in brain to a big different change in behaviour.
I think evolution took thousands of years to make a human with a brain capable of behave modernly, this brain was "ready" when Homo Sapiens arrived and evoluted a little bit (Homo Sapiens arived 200.000 years ago, but they were anatomically modern some thousands of years later - before the cognitive revolution) and then something else (maybe something at a conscious level not at a gene level) had to happen to trigger the change in consciousness of this animal.
For a long time, even before the arising of the Homo genre, earth was fulled with many psychoative plants. Psilocybe mushrooms (aka magic mushrooms) are found naturally all over the planet, and its a very unique drug: it arises from the floor ready to use- pick them, eat, and you'll have a super profund sensorial experience. No cooking, smoking or preparation needed. There are another psychedelic mushrooms found naturally, and also many plants and cacti with this properties. Nature has a hole catallogue of "nature occuring LSD's" growing worldwide. From now on i'll just talk about psilocybe mushrooms because of its unique properties i've listed. (they're everywhere and ready to use).
Im sure many animals have accidentaly ingested these mushroooms. Probably a hungry bear (just an example) once eated some of them, tripped balls for hours, got confused and if the trip didnt make him vulnerable to dangers and death, after some time it continued its bear life. I'm sure this happened many times with many animals.
Now i'm talking about a specific animal that accidentally induced a mushroom trip because was hungry: an Homo Sapiens. An animal with a very unique brain, that evolution took some million years to develop after our split from other primates. A brain really like ours nowadays. But at that time, this animal wasnt much different from other animals.
My point is that... Maybe, Homo Sapiens were the first animals in this planet to understand the Psychedelic experience. Isn't curious all theese natural occuring psychedelic plants? Isn't weird why does the psychedelic experience exists? Maybe we will never find an evolutive advantage for the production of psilocybin in these mushrooms, and maybe it is not just an compound that leads to a funny and aleatory reaction when ingested. Maybe these substances were there just waiting to trigger an evolution in consciousness in a animal of this planet. After cognitive revolution, human started, dancing, making music with instruments, rituals, and had the shaman (an expert in altered states of consciousness - including those induced by psychedelic plants) as the center figure).
Imagine some pre cognitive revolution Homo Sapiens hungry searching for food in the Savana. They find magic mushrooms, eat them and after some minutes they start tripping balls. Man, they're humans just like you and they've ate many magic mushrooms, you know what will happen - probably one of the most profund drug-induced experiences possible). Many shamanic culutres says that psychedelics leads to a contact with the divine - its instinctive for the human to feel what we call "divine" with these substances. One of the Sapiens hallucinates a increadible psychedelic face on a tree, and since this animal can make some different things (tools, fire and proto-language),it is capable of taking a sharp tool and dig the psychedelic face in the tree. The other sapiens, tripping balls, see's the psychedelic face drawn in the tree and recognize it as the same sort of thing as the hallucinations the mushrooms are inducing on them. Everybody's recognize the uniqueness of this art, and all of them starts "believing in that god". Now, on a conscious level, an evolution is triggered in these Sapiens. Later, they eat the mushrooms again, same thing happen and now they are going to praise to the gods that are appering in more complex ways. They start repeat drumming, they paint more psychedelic faces on the woods. Now, there's something different in the agenda of an earth animal: Psychedelic rituals. Finally, its understood why earth has mushrooms everywhere.
My english sucks and im not good on sharing my ideas. But I think this long text is enough for you all to understand my idea!
I know Terrence McKenna has the stoned ape theory, that shares the ideia that Psilocybe mushrooms had a great role in the human consciousness evolution. But this theory talks more about the use of mushrooms in early periods of human evolution, not specific during the cognitive revolution.
Mushrooms are also known to be one of the most profund psychedelic in terms of changes in identity and stuff during the trip. It's induced ego death is really powerfull and unique, maybe it has some relation in terms of changing an animal consciousness to a consciousness with a stronger identity (the raise of the ego) and capable of understanding music, art, geometry and stuff.
What do you think about all this stuff?
Thanks for the attention!!