Transcription
So today we start a series on the entirety of human history. We'll be going very fast and again, what's important is for you to understand the concepts. And so if there are ideas you don't understand, it's very important that you raise your hand, challenge me, and ask for clarification.
So we start off with the dawn of humanity. And, um, this is Charles Darwin. And arguably, he is the most influential thinker of the past 20 years. And the reason why is he wrote a book called *The Origin of Species*, and he presents to us the theory of evolution. And you all know the theory of evolution because they teach this to you in school, and it's embedded in our everyday lives.
And there are three main ideas to the theory of evolution. The first is that it was all accidental. So you have these genetic mutations, and the mutation that is best fitted to survive in the environment would win out. Okay? So it's all a random, accidental process. That's the first thing. Second thing is that it is materialistic, meaning everything that you can see is all that exists. And the third thing is it is emergent, meaning that things build on top of each other. It is a bottom-up process.
Now, the theory of evolution marked a turning point in in human history because before, um, European countries were Christian. And Christians believe that there was a divine God who created us. And as such, we were all equal before the eyes of God. Therefore, you cannot go and enslave other people. You cannot go and kill other people as well.
There were three main ideas to Christianity. Okay. Okay. The first idea is one omniscient and omnipresent God. The spirit, the Holy Spirit, is what infuses, uh, life. It's what gives meaning and purpose to life. And the world is a mystery. We have to hold faith. There are things that we cannot understand. God has a plan, but it is a mysterious plan. And so, we must, uh, be humble and serve the purpose of God. Okay?
And the theory of evolution destroys this conception of the universe and introduces a more materialistic one. So why did this happen? Well, it happened for three reasons. The main purp, the main reason is that we live in an in the 19th century when Darwinism came into being. Europeans were engaged in a process of imperialism. They were going around the world and conquering other people and colonizing other people and essentially committing genocide. So they needed a theory to explain why this was happening. And Darwin's theory of "survival of the fittest" was the most appropriate theory. And the idea is that the world is divided into races, and the white race is superior to everyone else. And therefore, the white race, um, has reason, has legitimacy in colonizing other people.
Um, and evolution would give rise to racism and eugenics. Okay. So before Darwinism, we didn't really have a concept of race because everyone was equal in the eyes of God. And now, with the rise of Darwinism, the world is divided according to race as well. Because of evolution theory, people started to believe in eugenics, which is the idea that stupid people, people who are not white, they should be sterilized because if we, if we let them live, they would just all they would do is dilute the genetic pool. Okay? And even today, guys, there are still many people who believe in racism and eugenics.
The thing about evolution that's very important is that it's a theology. Okay? What does that mean? It means that it's a theory of human progress about God. So even though evolution thinks that genetic mutation is an accident, the theology is that well, the strong survive, and that's what's right. Okay? So might makes right. So in many ways, evolution is a rejection of Christianity. So you would think that Christians would oppose Darwinism and evolutionary theory. But what was surprising is that when the book came out in 1859, only in 20 years, the theory of evolution would come to dominate the entire Western world. It became the dominant idea in schools, in universities, in the sciences. And even today, evolution is a dominant paradigm, meaning that you cannot question evolution. If you question evolution, it means you're crazy. Okay? But I'm crazy. So we're going to question evolution today. All right.
So, you've said this in school, all but evolution means we came from monkeys, apes, and then there were different species of humans, and eventually the best, our species, Homo sapiens, won out. Okay? So what evolution says is that we are just a monkey, guys. Okay? We're just a monkey. And what do monkeys do? Monkeys like to have sex. Monkeys like to eat. Monkeys like to fart. That's all we are. We're just monkeys. All right.
And this is the evolutionary tree of primates. But there are certain problems with this theory. Okay. The first problem is, if you look at evolutionary theory, what you should have is tremendous diversity as the species develops. But so why is it that we only have one human species? Okay? Why aren't there many different ones? Well, the argument is that, um, there are, there were many different species before, but we won out. Okay? Okay, that's fine.
But another problem is, why are we going all around the world? Okay? So all species of human beings like to migrate, but primates don't do that. Why is that? Humans like to migrate. And so the explanation often is, well, because of climate change, because of war, because humans are chasing game, okay, bison, and and and food. But then how do you explain these people? Okay? The, these are people who went to populate the Pacific islands, Micronesia. That's kind of weird. First of all, it's really dangerous to go out in the Pacific for months and months, right? Also, like, how do they know that there'll be islands waiting for them in the Pacific? So that's something that's very odd about human beings.
In fact, there are lots of things that are really odd about us that other animals don't do. For example, we're very religious. Okay? Okay. So, the Neanderthals are supposed to be before Homo sapiens. But as you can see, what we've discovered are these religious ritual sites, the Neanderthals, where the Neanderthals engage in religious ritual practice. That's kind of weird. What does religion have to do with survival? In fact, you can argue that religion is a waste of time. Why aren't they hunting? Why are they using so, so much resources and time in building these, uh, ritual sites? Okay.
Homo sapiens did cave paintings. And these cave paintings, I will show you later on. They're very, extremely elaborate. As you can see, it's very time-consuming, uh, to actually do these paintings. Also, these paintings are in caves, deep inside caves that's very cold and where there isn't much air. So it's kind of dangerous, actually, to be in these places. But we know that Homo sapiens spend a lot of time in these deep, wet caves drawing these paintings. That's not very utilitarian. Why would we, why would we do that? So that's a mystery. Okay.
Also, um, when we drew on caves, we figured out how to make it artistic. So we figured out that red ochre would give us red, yellow pigment on the caves. We also use charcoal to use black. Okay? So we were very creative. We were very resourceful. All right? So we know a lot about the Ice Age because, as you can imagine, during the Ice Age, things freeze over, so they can be easily preserved. And actually, for most of human history, uh, we were in the Ice Age period. Okay. And as you can see, during the Ice Age, the entire world was basically frozen over. So how did we survive? We survived by using the resources around us. Okay.
So this is a mammoth. And so they killed a mammoth and they turned the mammoth into a house. Okay? Now, the question is, how did they know how to do that? How did they figure it out? And we've been trying for a long time to figure this out. But my answer to you, and this is a theme that I will, uh, keep on emphasizing for the rest of the semester, is they just knew it. Okay?
So let's do a thought experiment. Let's just say that we, there's 10 of us, and I give you this wall, right? And I say to you, you cannot talk. You cannot communicate with each other. All I want you to do is draw a picture. Now, you would think that the picture would be disgustingly ugly. It would be incoherent. But if you actually do this experiment, something weird and wonderful would happen. Okay? There's 10 of you. You're not communicating. You don't have a plan. There's no draft. But one of you would draw something. Okay? And then the rest of you would see that something and then you would draw something else. Okay? So, for example, maybe you draw a sun, then you draw a tree, then that other person draws a mountain. Okay? It's almost like telepathy. And that's how we are. If you put humans in a group, they would know instantly how to work together. They would know how to share ideas together. And so that's the idea I want to present to you. All this stuff is all all this is because of intuition. Okay? No one said, "Hey, there's a mammoth. Let's go kill it for food and for housing and for clothing." But if you walk together and you saw a mammoth, you all of you together had the same thought: "Oh, that could be a source of food and clothing and shelter for us." And you all knew how to work together. That's the beauty of the human imagination and the human empathy. And that's something that back then they practiced a lot, but we've lost because of civilization. Okay? Does that make sense to you guys? All right.
Um, and as you can see, back then, humans were just very good at working together. No, there you didn't have need to have a boss to say, "Okay, you should go and hunt bison. You should go and you should make clothes. You should go and you should feed kids." Everyone knew exactly what to do, and you didn't have to communicate. But also, what's really interesting about this time period is the diversity of human organization. So, what I meant by that, what what I mean by that is that in different times of the year, in different locations, humans would form different organizations. So most of the time, maybe there'll be groups of like five to 10 would go and get food. Okay? But then you have some times of the year when you have these religious festivals where hundreds, possibly thousands, got together and you celebrated your God together. It was all intuitive. You didn't have communication, but they all knew at what time what organization would best fit them. If you didn't like the situation, guess what? You'd go somewhere else and start your own organization. Okay? So most of early human history, it's a very diverse, very dynamic, very creative period in our lives, even though we've forgotten about it. Okay.
And the third example of our creativity are these cave paintings that that were discovered, uh, recently, but which date back 30,000, 40,000 years. Okay. You can see how beautiful these paintings are. Whoever painted these paintings put a lot of care and devotion into them. Okay? It was, it's not just kids playing. It's adults who spent a long time purposefully ensuring that every detail is exact. Okay? Then the question then is, how do they do this? Because there's no paper, there's no planning. And again, I present to you the idea: the imagination. They dreamt this. They had a dream. They saw the picture in their heads and they went and drew this in a cave because they wanted to express themselves. They wanted to leave a legacy. They wanted to leave a memory. There's a calling in you to be creative and to be imaginative. Okay? All right.
So, and you can see there's a lot of diversity. Um, this is a story, right? Because you have these, uh, horses, but then you have these predators, lions. Okay? So this picture is telling a mythology. It's telling a story of how nature works. Okay? So people are observing nature, and what they see is a cycle of life and death, of destruction and renewal. We're all together. We're all unified. We're all one. It's balance and harmony. And that's why if you were to kill these animals, you also had to commemorate them. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay. Because this, this is a world of balance and harmony. If you kill these animals and you eat their food, you must thank them for the sacrifice by commemorating them. The same thing as later on, uh, when humans fight in battles, we build monuments to celebrate those, those who were fallen, right? Because we want to create balance and harmony in the world. We want to commemorate those who made our lives possible. Okay. So in this world, what matters are these animals because these animals are what gives humans food, um, and clothing. Okay. Okay.
You can see how beautiful these pictures are. Like, do you see how lifelike the animals are? Okay. So clearly, we humans had all this creative potential back then. All right. Okay. This is in Spain, at Altamira. This is a bison. And you can see the red ochre, how beautiful it is. Okay. Okay. And you can see how it's not meant to be realistic. It's meant to be surreal. It's meant almost to be a mythology. There's, there's, there's a story being told in these pictures. We don't know what the story is, but you can imagine that there's a story of life and death, destruction and renewal. Okay? And you can see the struggle of humanity to get food from nature, but also a willingness to celebrate those who have fallen. Um, and there's religious significance to everything these cave paintings. How do we know? Because this is clearly a shaman, right? What we call a "leper man." This dates back to 40,000 years in Germany. So we believe that in the early societies, the shamans were the leaders because they had the most wisdom, because they had a connection to the divine.
Also, what's really important is that music, okay? This instrument was really important to these, to these civilizations. Now, there's a lot of mystery as to how we first spoke. And as I said, actually, we don't really need to speak because we can all understand each other. So why do we speak? Because we want to sing. Okay? Does that make sense? Singing, creating music was a way to express ourselves in the same way as painting was. And music, once you add words, it becomes storytelling. And that's why we created language. Okay? Not for economic reasons, not in order to create a hierarchy, but for creative reasons, to celebrate our humanity together. And these pictures, as you can see, there are, um, religious elements. Okay. So you can see how there are two almost bird figures. And, um, back then, the bird signified mother earth. Okay? So the bird figure is very important. You can see almost like the bird figures are leading the animals, uh, herding the animals across.
So then ask yourself, why are they, why are these paintings appearing in caves? Well, for these people, they all believe that, um, nature was connected, right? And the spirit world and material world were connected together. So then the question then is, how does the spirit world connect with the material world? Well, through caves, right? Through portals, rivers, caves, mountaintops. And that's why these places were considered appropriate sites for religious ritual. Okay? And that's why you painted these pictures in caves because these caves, you, it's almost like you're summoning the spirit of these animals to return, right? You've killed these animals. How do you get them to return? By calling for them in these caves, right? Right.
So, as you can see, it's a complex but a complete mythology of how the world works. And for them, this was very real. Okay? And you can see how these shamans would actually turn themselves into these beasts in order to better communicate with them. Okay? Because these beasts, these animals, these bison, were the basis for all life on Earth. If you didn't have them, then you would die off. So you dressed up like them in order to better communicate with them in the spirit world, to draw them back. Okay? Okay.
So this is another religious depiction. All right. So these cave paintings, there's always three questions associated with these cave paintings. The first is, how are they painting caves? What are they painting? And where and why are they doing this? Okay. And I've, I've explained to you there is religious significance to what they're doing. They're trying to complete the cycle of life and death. If you kill an animal, you have to, you have to thank the animal. Okay? You do that by making a religious sacrifice. Okay? By, sorry, by making a religious ritual. Um, what are they painting? They're painting the story of life itself, right? They're trying to paint a picture of how life works. A cycle of death and life, destruction and renewal, and everything's connected together. The stars, the caves are portals into the spirit world, and that's why you celebrate them. Okay?
And, um, how are they painted in the caves? Um, they're painted together, and they're using, um, red ochre and charcoal. What's most important is that because these caves actually lack oxygen when they're painting, when they're painting these, uh, paintings, it's almost like they're in a trance state. Okay? Does that make sense? Because you don't have enough to, um, um, breathe. So it's almost like you're, you're, you're on the precipice, the edge of life and death. And it's almost as though you are actually communicating, communicating with the spirit world as you're doing this. So it's all divine inspiration, all divine intuition. Okay. So what they believe is that when they paint, they're channeling the power of the spirit world. It's not about us using our experience to paint. It's, we are channeling actually the divine when we do so. Okay. And the same thing when we sing or when we tell stories. We're not doing this out of our own will. We are, we are only a portal or a mechanism or channel for the divine to communicate with everyone else. Okay. So, does this make sense?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. All right. The other thing that's really interesting about these cave paintings is, um, we find symbols inside these cave paintings. So this is Genevieve von Petzinger, who is a Canadian archaeologist, and she spent decades going to different, uh, caves in Europe, and she cataloged all the different symbols. Okay? So these are not pictures, they're symbols. And as you can see, there's a lot of them. Okay? So why would they have these symbols? And also, what's interesting is, if you think about it, this is a writing system. In other words, they had the capacity to write, but they chose not to write. Why? Because if you think about it, in this world, writing is a corruption, right? When you speak, you're channeling the divine. So when you are writing something down, you're actually counterfeiting the divine. Okay? Also, remember that for them, what's stopping talking is really like singing, right? And you cannot capture music in the written form. So it's almost like a corruption of the song. Okay? And, and also for them, this is really important. All, everything is meant to be a communal experience. When you sing, when you talk, when you paint, we do it together. Okay? But you, when you write, it's a solitary experience. And that's why even though we humans from a very, um, like, right from the beginning, we had the capacity to write, we chose not to write. Okay? This is really important for us to understand. Writing was a conscious decision. It was not something, it was not a technology that was invented later on. We just chose not to do it because we thought it was a corruption of the natural world. Okay? All right. Does that make sense? Okay.
So this is a, um, these are all the geometric signs of, of Ice Age Europe. It's very similar to alchemy. Okay? Alchemy is trying to figure out the secrets of the universe. So the question then is, where do they get these signs? And the answer, of course, is it came to them in a dream, or they were inspired with these signs. Okay? This is a world of inspiration, of intuition, of imagination. It's not something that's deliberate. They don't plan this out and discuss it. It just comes to them, and when they draw it out, it makes sense to people. "Oh, I know what this means." Okay? All right.
So, uh, let's summarize. Okay? Why are the symbols in art? Well, because there are certain abstractions, certain concepts you cannot draw out, right? So, for example, energy is a very important concept. Life force, cycle, repetition. Well, then you have to use symbols in order to express, uh, these ideas if you want to tell the story. Okay? Second is, you are trying to visualize the language of the spirit world. Okay? So the spirit world is talking to you, but they come to you in images. So you use the symbols in order to express what, what, what they're talking about. Um, and when you draw the symbols on a stone, you're making the stone divine and sacred, right? You're storing a memory inside the stone. Maybe something wonderful happened here. Maybe you gave birth to a child here, right? Then you commemorate the stone with a symbol. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay.
So, why you're doing this is, well, first of all, you're trying to bring beauty to the world. That's, that's why we're, we humans were created, right? To make this world a more beautiful place, a more imaginative place, to celebrate the divine. Um, we're showing God, or the spirit world, or the underlying soul of reality. Okay? We're trying to figure out how the spirit world works inside our reality. The third reason is we're trying to tell a story about who we are. Okay? We're trying to combine our imagination together to create society, to create belonging, to create community. Okay? Okay. Does that make sense?
>> Yeah.
>> So,
>> Sorry.
>> So, you said about humans trying to connect with the divine spirits, right? So, do they come?
>> Okay. Sorry. Sorry. Let me clarify. Okay.
>> This is really important. We're not trying to connect with the divine spirit. Why? Because divine spirit is all around us.
>> We, we coexist with the divine.
>> Okay? Everything, everything around us is divine. But what, what we're trying to do is we're trying to be in harmony with the divine.
>> Okay.
>> Okay. Do you understand?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. Because, because in this world, there's no separation between the material and the spiritual. It's all one world together. The spiritual is all around us. But there are certain things that we do in order to reconcile our existence with the spirit world. For example, we kill an animal. We need to commemorate the animal through paintings and through songs. Okay. Does that make sense?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. Does that answer your question?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay. Good. Okay. All right. And we even today, we still do this. Okay. So, so let's see examples. This is graffiti. Okay. Street art. But you can see what's happening where, uh, this is Spain, and you can see how beautiful this is. Okay. It's the same concept as the cave paintings, where we're trying to give meaning to our community. We're trying to tell a story of who we are, where we came from, and where we're going. Okay. And it's, and it's designed to, um, build a common imagination. Okay? No different from the cave paintings. We still do this today. And this is another example. And you can see different communities might have different focus. But you can see how the painting, what it does is it unifies the imagination of the people. Okay. So for this community, what matters is the family. Okay. So the matriarch, the mother, is the cornerstone of this community, and that's what you do with this painting. Okay? You can see how beautiful these buildings have become because of the paintings. So that's what art does. Art gives purpose, meaning to our world. All right. Okay.
So, some really important concepts I need you guys to understand. Okay. And we'll go over this as the semester progresses. And these concepts are going to be counterintuitive for us. Okay? But the first concept I want you to understand is preliterate people. Okay? People who could not read and write. They were more intuitive. They were more imaginative. And they were more empathic. Okay? Meaning I can know your emotions right away. I don't have to ask you anything. I don't, I don't have to ask you how you're feeling today. I know exactly how you're feeling right away. Okay. All right.
So we can see this. This is Inuit art. Okay. So this is art, um, by native people. So even in communities of today that have held to this tradition, you can see how they perceive the world, right? They perceive the world as unified. The gods are with us. In fact, everything we do is a celebration of the gods. So our house is our temple. Okay? The temple is not a place you go and, and, um, celebrate the gods. You celebrate the gods in your house. If you, if you have enough faith to turn your house into a temple, okay? So this is Inuit art. Okay? And if you go to like many native communities, communities that maintain the traditions of the Ice Age, they're all like this. Okay? In their perception. But the problem is, they cannot communicate it using modern language. So we just think they're stupid. Okay? They can't write essays. They can't give speeches. And so therefore, we, we think they're stupid. But they're not stupid. It's just that they're focusing their energies on empathy, on imagination, on intuition. All right.
So let's give examples of empathy in action. And this is, this is true for the entire world. Okay? So once there was a horse in America that could do math. All right? So the horse would go on stage, and then the trainer would ask the horse a question like, "What's 2 plus 2?" And the horse would be like, "neigh, neigh, neigh, neigh." And it would be like, "Oh, the horse can do math." Okay? So the horse cannot do math. Okay? I'm telling you right now, the horse cannot do math. So what the, what, what the horse is doing, you think about it, is the horse is reading the room, right? Because the people who pay the money to go into the theater, watch the horse do math, obviously believe the horse can do math. Okay? So what happens is when the trainer says to the horse, "What's 2 plus 2?" The horse is neighing. And the horse is watching everyone. Okay? And as the, as the horse comes to the answer, the horse sees that the people are like, really excited. Okay? Their eyes are bulging, their breathing is faster because people are anticipating, right? The horse is, "Oh, now I know the answer." Okay? This is empathy. Animals can do it. We can do it as well. It's actually our superpower. Okay? Does that make sense? Right.
Second example is telepathy. So in America right now, there's a very popular podcast called *The Telepathy Tapes*. You might have seen it. You may, you may have heard of it. Okay? The idea is that kids with autism are able to read the minds of their parents. Guys, I'm telling you right now, kids, the autistic kids cannot do that. They do something else. Okay? So let me tell you a story of how they do this. In China, there's also a, a similar case where a mother in the countryside. Okay? So she's not educated. She has no money, but her son is autistic. It's an autistic boy, doesn't really speak, can't make eye contact. Okay? Lots of issues. Can I go to school? So, one day, the mother contacts CCTV, the national broadcaster, says, "Hey, my son can read my mind." And, you know, these are TV people. She's like, "Okay, this will make a good documentary." So they fly all the way down to this village, this poor village, and the mother is, you know, doesn't speak great Chinese. So they have to film this process. Okay?
So what happens is the boy is put into a room by himself. And then the mother is given a number, okay? Like maybe five. Then the mother goes and asks the boy, "Please read my mind." And the, and the boy says, "You saw the number five." And it's pretty amazing. And of course, it's not really believable. So this documentary team spent days and days figuring out what happened. Okay? Finally brought on, they brought in artificial intelligence, AI. What the AI, AI figured out is it's the pitch of the voice that gives the answer. Okay? So now they're saying, "Read my mind. Read my mind." Okay? And the difference in the pitch, there's a different number in that pitch. But the problem is, it's so subtle that only the boy can hear the difference in pitch. We humans, ordinary humans, cannot hear the difference. And so the documentary crew confronted her and says, "Listen, we, the AI, artificial intelligence system tells us that what you're doing is you're cheating. You are, uh, using pitch to give signals to your son. Is that true?" And the mother is like, "Yes, I'm sorry. Yes, it's all a lie. We're poor. My son is autistic. I want my boy to go to school. I want my boy to get professional help." And that's why we devised this scheme in order to trick you. So we can get some television coverage, and then maybe we can get some donations. Maybe some people will help us. Okay? And that's why we did the scheme. And so that's it. But think about this. Think how amazing it is that the two together were able to devise a scheme, right? Think of how amazing it is that they were able to devise a scheme that was so creative that it tricked people. Only an artificial intelligence system could figure the system out. Okay? They, so this mother is not educated, but she loves her son, and she wants the best for her son. So she figured out what her son's special ability is: pitch. She's able to hear different sounds and devise a scheme to make full use of the son's ability. Okay? So that tells us the power of the human imagination if we truly love someone. Okay? So they created a hidden emotional language together, which again is amazing, and it's, it's something that, that you will see when two people actually love each other, they will create their own language that, that only they can understand.
Like in the last example, is some cooperative painting, right? So we discussed this where if I put 10 of you in a room and I give you a blank wall and I ask you to draw the pictures, you're going to create are going to pretty be going to be pretty amazing. Okay? You're not allowed to speak. You're not allowed to cooperate. You're not allowed to plan it ahead. But I guarantee you when the two, 10 of you get together and you start drawing together, you will draw a great picture. And the reason why is not because you want to draw a great picture. It's because you all want to help each other. You don't want to let each other down. Okay? Because of cooperation, because of empathy, you want to be at your very best. You want to be at your creative best. That's the secret to creativity. Okay? When you're able to find a purpose and meaning in other people, your creative potential will be fully released. Does that make sense? Okay. All right.
Um, so back to the horse example. If you ride a horse, one thing that you will learn over time is the horse can read your mind. Okay? And so this is a polo game. And if you watch a polo game, it's pretty amazing because you're not, you can't speak to the horse, right? But the horse will know exactly instantaneously what you want to do. If you want to turn right, the horse knows. Turn right. Even before you think the thought, the horse will know. Okay? And this is why throughout human history, warriors on horseback were the greatest warriors. They were invincible. Why? Because what happened was basically the men had four legs. Okay? Because, because in these, uh, nomadic societies where people fought on horseback, they were born on horses and they were riding horses since they were early, or since they were young. And so they developed this emotional connection with the horse. So the horse knows exactly what you think even before you think it. Okay? And there are lots of examples like this. If you have a dog, you know that dogs have telepathy, right? So you go away for a week, and then, and when you come back, the dog is waiting for you at the door. Then the dog knows you're coming back. That's the emotional connection. That's telepathy. Okay. So telepathy exists, but it's an emotional connection. There's no way that I can actually read your mind, but I know how you feel even at long distances. Okay? Does that make sense? All right.
Um, another important fact about human beings that is not really understood is we are obsessed with being creative and expressing ourselves. That's who we are. Okay? We are the imagination personified, manifested, made tangible, made visceral. Okay? We are imagination itself. Our imagination is resilient and will always find a way to shine. Okay? So you may know of people who lose, uh, sense, right? So if you can't see, your hearing improves. Or these people are deaf, okay? So they can't hear, but then are able to see much stronger, okay? And they use sign language to communicate. And one thing that I've noticed in China is that when I go to restaurants now, and then there'll be groups of deaf people communicating with with each other. They're always happier. In fact, they're the happiest people you will ever meet in China. And it's not because they're doing sign language. It's because deaf people have a deeper emotional intelligence. And so when, when they're together, they're communicating emotionally, and that brings tremendous joy and comfort to them. Okay? Does that make sense? All right.
Let's give another example. This is a great composer, one of the greatest composers in human history, Beethoven. His music is startling. Okay? His music is extremely famous. Problem is, he was deaf. That's kind of strange. How is it possible for you to be deaf at the same time compose some of the world's greatest music? The answer is he saw the music. Okay? The music came to him in dreams, and he was able to see the picture. Okay? Because what is music? Music is vibrations, right? So, [Music] but they're like vibrations. They're waves, right? So you can actually see for yourself a movie of vibrations. And the more symmetrical these vibrations are, the more beautiful the music is. Does that make sense? So because he saw the music, he was able to create music that was unique in human history. Others hear the music, but he saw the, uh, music, and it turned into a movie. Okay? Of movement. All right.
This is John Milton. He wrote *Paradise Lost*. Problem is, he wrote it while he was blind. Okay? How did he do that? Because he heard the songs. Okay? He turned *Paradise Lost* into a musical, into music. So he actually didn't need to speak it out. He just heard it out. Okay? So he had, um, secretaries who wrote out whatever he sang out. And that's why when you read *Paradise Lost*, it's actually like music. It's beautiful. One of the most, it's probably the most beautiful poetry ever composed in the English language. So you can see how resilient the human imagination is. If you want to express yourself, you'll find a way. Okay? It's all about will. Do you really want to express yourself? Because if you do, you'll always find a way. Okay? All right.
So, this is another lesson that you will learn this semester. We are socialized into mundanity. Our true selves are divine. Okay? You're normal. You're boring. You're not talented because you believe what others tell you. Okay? Society does not want talented people. Society does not want interesting people. Society just wants robots and slaves. So schools, companies, organizations socialize you into mundanity. Okay? Into nothingness. But if you look at your true self, it is divine. And I'll give you examples of this.
Um, a lot of people have Alzheimer's. So what literally happens is they're losing their minds. And this is, um, a self-portrait of an artist who documented himself losing his mind. So when he was first diagnosed, he drew a picture of himself. Okay? And then a year later, he drew another picture of himself, and on and on and on. As you can see, by this time, he's completely lost his sense of being. Okay? So you can use this picture as a metaphor for Alzheimer's, and, and you can see for yourself what it means to lose your mind. But there's another way to understand this picture, which is what's really happening is that the artist, he's shedding his artifice. He's shedding his clothing and revealing his true self. Okay? What Alzheimer's is, is losing your socialization because you're losing your ability to speak. You're losing your ability to verbalize your ideas. You're losing your ability to communicate with others. And what, what's left behind are three things. First is your spiritual desires. So, a lot of people with Alzheimer's, for, for whatever reason, they go to church suddenly, okay? They're not religious. Maybe they, maybe they grew up in an atheist household. They don't have any association with religion, but once they develop Alzheimer's, they have this spiritual desire to go to church and pray. It's really amazing. Okay? That's number one. Number two is they love to sing. Okay? They don't talk, but they sing. The third thing is they draw. Okay? This is a painting by an Alzheimer's patient. Okay? Not great, but guess what, guys? He did this when he was like eight years old, and he never painted before. Okay? That's pretty amazing. Never painted before. But the moment he had Alzheimer's, his true divine self opened up, and he wanted to express himself. Okay?
So, what they say about Alzheimer's is, you hear voices, you see things that aren't there. It's a hallucination. But guess what, guys? I told you this. During the Ice Age era, we all did this. We all believed that we were, we coexisted with ghosts, with spirits, with fairies. Okay? And this was true throughout most of human history. So even though yes, medically speaking, psychologically speaking, these people with Alzheimer's, they are hearing voices, but then the reason why is the voices were always there. We just forgot about it because we're socialized to forget about the different forces, the different voices that exist along, along us. Okay?
This is a person who used psychedelics. Okay? She's like, she's an artist, but she's using psychedelics. And the thing about psychedelics is it's almost similar to, um, having Alzheimer's, where you shed away your socialization. You almost enter a spiritual realm. Okay? As you can see, this is a picture of a cat. What she's doing is she's drawing a cat that's the divine cat. Okay? She's seeing the energy field of the cat. She's seeing the memory. She's seeing the aspirations. She's seeing the intuition, the imagination of the cat, and embedding it into the artwork. This is another person on psychedelics. What's interesting is there's no time and space in art in this art. So it becomes almost incomprehensible to us. Okay? Why is there a helicopter? What's a cat? Okay? Well, that's how we truly are. Okay? We don't have a concept of space and time. We see things as they are. And, and this picture shows you that. And we can see how the pictures are. It's a heightened reality. Okay? Much more vibrant colors. Okay. Another psychedelic painting. Okay. As you can see, no concept of time and space. Okay? It's all just one unity of things.
Vincent van Gogh, okay, the greatest painter who's ever lived. His paintings are utterly unique in human history. This is *Starry Night*. Um, and this is *Sunflowers*. Okay? But you can see how he has shed away his socialization. He doesn't care what this, how this is communicated to other people. All it cares about is the picture itself. Okay? So it glows with life. All right?
So let's summarize the concepts that we've learned. Okay? So you've been brainwashed into thinking certain ideas about who we are. They're not true. The first myth is, we humans are driven by material desires. Okay? So why do we want, uh, so what do we want? We want a lot of money. Okay? Okay. We want to pass on our genes. We want to marry a lot of beautiful women who are young, and so they can give us a lot of, a lot of babies because we want to pass on our genes. Okay? And we want to maintain our status. All we care about is power. Okay? Fundamentally, we, we, humans are fundamentally imagination, and we care about three things. The first is, we want to express our religion through art, music, and rituals. We want to know where we came from, why we're here, where we're going. Okay? That's who we really are. That's, that's the first thing. Second thing is, we are diverse and want to differentiate ourselves. Okay? We want to stand out. We want to be different. We want, we want to be creative. The third thing is, we are curious and want to explore. And that's what explains why we go everywhere. Okay? This has been true throughout human history. We may not have documents saying that we were traveling, but we were traveling because there's always some of us who want to go and see a new world, even though it may not exist. That's who we are fundamentally. So don't believe people when they say, "Okay, you just care about money. You just care about power. You just care about sex." That's not who we are. We, what we are are fundamentally religious, spiritual beings that want to create and to love and to connect. Okay? That's the first myth.
Second myth is, the most natural unit is a family, and men want to protect their property, which includes women. So you maybe you've been taught that, okay, men are in charge, and women are just, uh, animals to breed babies. Okay? That's not true for most of human history. It was women who had control of their bodies. Women could choose who to sleep with and how many men to sleep with. And they often chose to sleep with everyone. Why? Because sleeping with other men, first of all, women enjoy it. Okay? But second of all, it allows women to create social cohesion. So for most of human history, early civilizations, women were the core and center of all societies. And the third thing is, there's actually a strategy in sleeping with many different men because now everyone is responsible for raising a child. Does that make sense? If I, if I'm this father and I know exactly who my children are, then I'm going to protect my children and, and discard everyone else. Okay? But if no one knows who the fathers are, everyone is responsible for caring for, for taking care of every single child, and that's the best strategy that they can have. Okay? Because that ensures that every child becomes, um, successful. Okay? Does that make sense? Okay. So the second myth that we will discuss later on.
Third myth, humans follow the iron rule of nature, survival of the fittest. Okay? That's, that's taught by Darwin. That's what evolution is. But that's wrong. Okay? Throughout most of human history, humans cared for each other. We were compassionate, empathetic, right? We believe that every creature has divinity, and those who are weakest have the most divinity. That's why when we kill an animal, we still thank the animal because we're all part of the same life cycle. All right.
Number four, humans have gotten smarter over the centuries. Civilization is far superior to primitive cultures. Again, this is wrong. Okay? The truth is that with the development of civilization, the human imagination has decreased. Our brains can be supercomputers if we allow them to be. But if people are more creative, which means they have, they have better memories than we do. Okay? They're able to recall more stuff. They're able to store more information. They're more sensitive, more sensitive perception. They have more empathy. Okay? They know exactly how you're feeling, why you're feeling it, and how to make you feel better. And, uh, greater emotional resilience. Okay? So they're much more mature than we are.
Number five, we evolved from apes. The truth is that we are uniquely imaginative, and we can choose our own evolution. Don't believe we're apes. Okay? If you believe you're an ape, then you're an ape. Okay? If you're an ape, then you like to go beat people up and like have sex with, with like a lot of women. Okay? But we're not apes. We're imaginative first and foremost. And as such, we have control over our lives, and something that you have to, like, learn for yourself. All right.
So let me give an example of this to conclude the class. Um, this is Roma 2, and we discovered him 10,000 years ago, um, in a burial site. Okay? This is an Ice Age burial site. He's a dwarf, guys. Okay? He's a dwarf. You can see how small he is. He's a dwarf. And you would think that dwarfs don't really contribute to the community. So maybe, you know, he's born. It's clear he's, he's, um, uh, deformed. So just kill the guy, okay? Because he's not going to have a great life anyway. Instead, what we found is, first of all, he lived to a pretty old age, and he was buried with, um, jewelry. He was buried.
elaborately. And you only do that for people you really prize. That's kind of strange, right? The people who we think that are most worthless dwarfs that actually don't do anything, they actually thought was divine and deserved an extremely elaborate ritualized funeral. Why?
Okay, so this is a book, um, that's done everything by David Grabber and David Wangro. Great book. Okay, so what they say is this. When archaeologists undertake balance appraisals of hunter-gatherer burials from the Paleolithic, they find high frequencies of health-related disabilities, but also surprising high levels of care until the time of death and beyond. Since some of these funerals were remarkably lavish, this is an amazing idea to think about. But if you were deformed, if you were ill, they didn't throw you out. They spent a lot of time to take care of you. Even though from their perspective, it was a waste of time and energy because you're going to die anyway. So why would they, why would they do that?
Well, there are three possibilities. Okay. The first possibility is it's really about maintaining cosmic balance and harmony. Everything is a cycle. Meaning what? Meaning we're all part of God. And if you suffer, then we have to make you better because we're all part of God together. Okay. So the concepts are unity of all, as above so below. Set a good example to others. Okay. So that's the first possibility.
Second possibility is because this is a pre-literate society, people have a stronger sense of empathy and morality. So they didn't want to see others suffer. Okay. And the third possibility is they appreciate diversity and difference in a way we don't anymore. Okay. Our entire school system is designed as "survive the fittest." If you can't do math, goodbye, you're worthless. If you can't get 100 on a test, goodbye, you're worthless. Okay? But back then, they saw difference and diversity as gifts from God. Right? So, if you're a dwarf, it meant you had something special to offer. If you're strong, yeah, you can go hunt animals and you can protect the family. But if you're a dwarf, it meant that you might have something else to offer. And if we just celebrate you as someone who has something special to offer, then you can offer it to us. Okay? And often what they could do is well, they could probably seen better. They could probably tell better stories. They had more wisdom. They had more intuition. The connection with the divine. Okay? That's true even today where the best storytellers, the best musicians often those who are marginalized from society, those who are strangers, who are those who are outsiders, those who society persecutes. They probably have greater imagination, greater intuition, greater empathy. And today we don't celebrate these things. But back then, they did celebrate those things. So if you are different, if you're deformed, if you were ill, they saw you as blessed rather than cursed. And that's what we've forgotten today. Okay. All right. So that's it. This is just an introduction into the entirety of human history. Okay. We're going to go pretty fast. Any questions?
Yeah. >> So would you say that because you made the examples using, um, let's say, Alzheimer's, autistic people. So would you say that people with, um, cognitive disability in the like modern age are like closer to the divine, where like we're returning to the divine by abandoning our cognitive, so-called, like, um, you know, the logic and everything that the civilization is? Would you say that makes us closer, would bring us closer to the divine?
>> Yeah, good question. Okay. Yeah. So, um, first of all, we're all connected to the divine. But we just choose to forget we're connected to the divine. Okay? Why? Because society, mass society, needs you to be obedient, needs you to be a machine, needs you to work, to be obedient. Okay? So, so the entire point of school is to separate you from the divine. Why? Because at an early age, you're removed from your parents. Okay? And in school, you're taught all sorts of like really strange knowledge, like 1 plus 1 equals 2. Like, what? Who cares? 1 plus 1 equals 2. Okay. But you're taught this is what matters. Um, and before, we would just let kids run around in nature and learn resilience, learn courage, learn creativity. Okay. So the entire point of society is to brainwash you or remove you from the divine. But there are certain members of society who can't be, um, removed from the divine because we don't want them, right? So kids who are autistic, uh, kids with disabilities, kids who are just different. Okay. Once you discard them, they actually return to the divine. Does that make sense?
>> Yeah. So is it, like, for example, a lot of people develop cognitive disabilities after a lot of, um, like you said, being put into schools, being, uh, kind of, um, limited by the civilization? Would you say that in that circumstance, by developing or being given a cognitive disability, we're actually reconnecting with the divine?
>> Okay. Yeah. Okay. So let's clarify. Okay. So in China, in the United States, everywhere in the world, we're seeing a massive surge in mental illnesses, right? So depression, eating disorders, um, suicidal tendencies, um, >> anxiety, >> anxiety, fear. Okay. So, so I mean, like, it's just an explosion these past 20 years, especially with the advent of mobile phones, social media, the internet. Okay. So kids' lives suck. Okay. So why are kids so miserable? And the answer is that when you're born, you have an automatic connection with the divine. Okay. So, and as you lose this connection, you grow more and more confused, which leads to anxiety and doubt. And over time, if this confusion is not addressed properly, then it will lead to depression. Okay. So another simple way of saying, another simple way of saying this is we crave human connection. We crave, um, knowledge of the divine. We crave purpose and meaning in our lives. But the social media system has created this fake system in which we're in prison. Our imagination is imprisoned in pursuing activities that absolutely have no purpose. Right? So on social media, all you care about is likes. How do I get my friends to like me? Like me, like me. Okay. So you do sort of silly things, like, I don't know, post pictures of you dancing in Hawaii or whatever, even though it gives you no meaning. Okay. So what's happening is before we cared about what makes us happy, and now we care about what we think would make other people happy. Okay. And that's not who we are. Okay. Once you lose that connection to the divine, then you can only get lost. So if you deny your intuition, if you deny your emotions, then you'll just become more and more miserable. Okay. Does that make sense? Okay.
>> Uh, like the strong empathy that you just mentioned, I thought that I'm curious where the strong empathy comes from because I usually thought that our empathy is shaped by the socialization and social norms by the society.
>> Yeah, actually that's a really good question. Okay. So empathy just means our connections with others. Okay. And this is something we are born with. So a mother is born with an emotional connection with a child, right? And a child has an emotional connection with a mother. And over time, as this connection grows, their empathy develops, and this empathy almost becomes telepathic. So that even if the child is in school and the child is bullied, the mother is doing is washing her clothes. She's like, you know, I don't feel right. Maybe I should call the teacher and ask how my child is doing. Okay. Okay. So that's what empathy is. Empathy just means a natural emotional connection that we're all born with. But it's entirely possible, um, and we know this from our society, to break that connection by setting the child off to school, by having a child online too much, by having a child watch television too much. Okay? Severing, breaking that emotional connection. And once the emotional connection is broken, remember empathy, we crave empathy. We crave emotions more than we crave food. So it's as though we're becoming zombies almost, right? If you don't have empathy, you don't feel connected with other people. It's as though you become a zombie. You don't have any, you don't have any direction. You don't have any purpose. You don't have any meaning in life anymore. And that's what leads to tremendous depression. Okay? Does that make sense? So we are not socialized into empathy. We are socialized out of empathy. We're born into empathy. Okay. All right. Great questions. Okay. Any more questions? Okay. Great guys. So, I will see you next time. All right. We'll continue this next time. Okay. So, I'm just introducing these concepts, but we'll expand them and use more examples and learn more about human history from this framework. All right. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.