Another in-dEPTh preparatory overview of ÆPT
My EAVASIVE [≅ evolved ambiadvantageously adaptive verbal....] ÆPT project has at times been a fun preoccupation, but it has always been addictively engaging.
The project came to involve efforts to understand or grasp what is going on that did eventually result in an explanatory platform/terminology that includes definitions of concEPTs that has contributed to a delightfully antiseptic humored and thoroughly defined 'ÆPT dogma'.
The ÆPT dogma (or motto) is one that seems (to me) well suited for facetious use as an essential promotional tool for a politically (and also fairly philanthropically) oriented outlook on mainly ourselves.
It does not matter that the prospect for successful such uses of this delightful dogma is as bleak as can be!
The "ÆPT tool" in question is the thoroughly defined subjectivity-snubbing concEPT of "Absolute Life Quality" or ALQ, for short.
ALQ might be used to shine some seldom shone light on what there is to be done (prophylactically or otherwise) in order to as widely as possible increase anthropic ALQ-wholesomeness (i.e. raise the overall degree of ALQ in humans; And, conversely, what can be done to decrease the prevalence of "ALQ holes" in human brains.
Of course, for this to occur the overall prevalence of ALQholistically taken political decisions and realpolitik must increase. That is, "atheistically enlightened political tweaks" should be guided by ÆPT ALQholism and implemented as widely and as thoroughly as practically possible.
ÆPT advises that ways to deal with/remove individual obstacles to implementations of ALQ-wholesomness increasing policies — should be as effective as possible yet also the least painful (for all concerned) possible. All needlessly limp methods are inEPT. ;-(
Human individuals/populations would benefit primarily from society-wide increases of ALQ but, as a flow-on effect, also populations of domesticated animals would have their average degree of Absolute Life Quality increased.
If this far fetched philanthropic (here not meant in any financial sense, and not just for a lack of funds) aim of ÆIMC — i.e. to put the concEPT of ALQ (one contrived and steeped in a spirit of antiseptic humor) to political use — cannot be realized then this concEPT might perhaps instead be used as an exquisitely polemic teaser. ;-}
What ÆPT is a flag for is:
1. A now largely in the past efforts to achieve a satisfying and by intent science-aligned grasp on mainly ourselves (from mainly an Evolutionary Psycho[physio]logy type perspective) and on Ultimate Reality (UR);
2. The atheistic enlightenment projecting textualized result of these efforts.
An important driver of ÆPT was, besides basic instinctive curiosity or inquisitiveness, a MAD-inspired motivation and aspiration.
However, my pursuit of an ÆPT take on things got its start as a very doggedly focused self-educational project by a rather sudden and self-shaming realization of how utterly ignorant an enthusiastic 'Primal Theory fan' I was, now decades ago.
More specifically, what I got deeply self-embarrassed about was how profoundly ignorant I was about how brains (especially my own) worked and could be expected to work.
After much relevant reading, learning, reflecting and recognizing, combined with repeated failures to formulate (conceptually cement) some along the way and earlier gleaned gelatinous insights using conventional concepts, the author of ÆPT eventually resorted to the following strategies:
1. acronym-building sem_antics (and other ÆPT-facilitating wordplay);
2. humor of two kinds, ÆPTly labeled "septic humor" and "antiseptic humor";
3. a by Werner Heisenberg as if heralded "Tolerance Principled" intellectual attitude for coping with naturally inevitable conceptual and cognitive dissonances (and deficits).
The earliest of the "earlier gleaned gelatinous insights" was a peak experience that involved a briefly sustained 'brain bath' in the whitest of light — a 'bath' during which the inner workings of the universe seemed to be revealed. The dimming mind’s eye afterglow of this experience left a not only completely vague but eventually also vexatious 'feeling of understanding' in its wake.
Anyhow, I facetiously claim — do without too much fear of shame — that the ÆPT project turned into an effectively philosophy terminating and in parts also enjoyably pert take on what is going on.
The facetiousness of this claim (and of aspects of how my atheistic enlightenment projecting thesis has been informally formulated) is to an important extent fueled by synaptically sequestered while partly also rerouted neural messages originally and potentially still destined to energize a primarily neurometabolically costly maladaptive distress-type response or ditto "actention".
That is, I'm referring to a by any SH-imploring type threat conditioned-in state of neural signaling (spiking or action potentials) that if not kept sequestered (blocked) by "specific/synaptic hibernation" (SH) would in most but not all cases and lifetime settings be relayed as per 'instinctive default' toward giving rise to an acutely maladaptive distress-type "actention".
The neural messages in question are sent by long-term potentiated (LTP'd) sensory-motivational neurons at the core of implicit memories that were forged (conditioned-in) far most commonly by early on ended up under threats of SHI type.
An oversimplified general explanation of this "rerouting" is that it is a consequence of lifetime circumstances (absences and presence of opportunities and threats) that in combination with "neural plasticity" (neural sprouting within human Actention Selection Serving Systems) give rise to psychological and behavioral symptoms some of which are maladaptive and other that are adative.
The acronymic expression "SHI", which approximately stands for "Specific/synaptic Hibernation Imploring..." is also used for forming "SHI threats".
"SHI threats" is the product (or output) of a search for a way to relieve myself of being overly reliant on the tacky Freudian word "trauma".
This search for a decent and satisfying alternative eventually concluded successfully; but only after it came to involve a "septic humored" approach.
It ought to be obvious that the concEPT of SHI threats is an apt pointer to lifetime examples of circumstantial challenges that well deserve to be thought of as threats of this type (i.e as threats of "SHI-type").
Of the three concEPTs that I contrived to be expressible as septic humored acronyms none is as aptly (or deservedly) allusive as "SHI threats".
Another of these three concEPTs is the ÆPT alternative to "brain" (and even to "neural system"), namely ASSS. A maximally tight truncation of this concEPT is the "AS" found right in the middle of EAVASIVE.
The 3rd of these septic humored concEPTs is "RAT (or Reticular Activating Type) neurons". Even though "RAT neurons" completely fails as an aptly allusive looking acronym it does at least exemplify a mirth-inviting "septic" design and a brain science-aligned rationale.
ASSS stands for "actention selection serving system", while its most truncated version can stand for "actention selection" and/or "actention system".
Apropos which:
The concEPT of an individual and neural AS [i.e. an Actention {Selection Serving} System] can at a stretch be taken to have a broader meaning than both "brain" or "central nervous system".
It is far from inEPT to hold loosely on to the view that a mature enough human brain (an AS) is a central functural system made up of 3 parts (of 3 functural levels or "layers") each responsible for manifesting corresponding levels of behaviors and states of ConsciousnessT, depending on which of all an animal individual's different available neural "actention modules" are 'situationally selected' to be predominantly active.
When a certain behavior or preoccupation or state of Consciousness is temporarily predominant/produced by an ASSS (hence a correspondingly specific actention module can be understood to be distinctly more metabolically activate than all other potentially situation-selected actention modules — who during this time do as if 'unsuccessfully compete', cheered-on and/or booed by past as well as present environmental influence, for 'the prize' of becoming temporarily dominant and paid in the primary currency of neurometabolic resources.
With the exception of the most basic and vital actention modules of the innermost or lowest — and first to emerge in the phylogeny of fauna — "layer" (or level) of a complex enough neural animal' ASSS (am referring to neurons involved in maintaining our cardiac/vascular, pulmonary, and alimentary functions), all actention modules are in a fundamental physiological sense vitally dependent on actention modules 'below them' in an ASS highly enough evolved to contain a hierarchy of actention modules.
Any one behavior or preoccupation of a human or other neural animal correspond to a particular neurometabolically paid, from mainly muscular to mainly mental in character, and more or less sharply focused, "actention" (whether it may be roughly but aptly described as "mainly mental/cognitive", or "mainly emotional", or "mainly motional", in character.
Within a neural ASS [this spelling of the concEPT is also accEPTable] those actention modules that are adaptively and functionally incompatible do as if compete by means of mutual inhibition.
What these modules compete for is nothing more than the prize of manifesting as a predominantly metabolically paid and focused (temporarily so) actention module.
That is, of all physiologically non-fundamental actention modules that as if 'step up onto and more or less briefly (in any case temporarily) occupies The Winner's Podium', most do so partly by way of their inhibition of other, with them situationally competing', actention modules.
Actention modules that are functionally and adaptively incompatible with these "winners" are often not just quiescent (and thus merely potential competitors) but often simultaneously likewise 'cheered-on by the competition's audience'.
The word "audience" is of course a metaphor that refers to present and past personal, and also to impersonal past (yet still as if present by genetic or epigenetic or cultural inheritance) environmental factors.
Actention modules at the lowest level of our ASSS (the human central nervous system) do almost always "win" and typically do so with the highest (relative) frequency and regularity. They do because, at their most fundamental/physiologically life-maintaining level of operation, each of them don't have any (or almost any) competition.
Only a few actention modules exist at the lowest level of a brainy animal's ASSS.
The highest number actention modules are found at the highest level of an ASSS.
[If what an ASS refers to (or an AS or ASSS refers to, since since all 3 spellings are accEPTable) refers to is put to close enough scrutiny then the intermediate-length spelling of this not most and not least SEPTIC humored concEPT can be considered the most clearly apt spelling because so much of muscular and/or mental preoccupations (actentions) of us humans are either foolish or needlessly nasty in character, or both. Aspects of the ASS that produced ÆPT may not be an exception from this.]
It is fitting that the concEPT of an "ASSS" can be stretched to cover more than just all brains or central nervous systems (CNSs), because ÆPT is an elastic philosophical take on what is going on. That is, an AS (ASS opr ASSS) can 'at a stretch' also be used as a reference to sub-cellular functures that provide amoebic (single-celled) animal with their small repertoire of actentions.
As already mentioned: Of the 3 concEPTs that are possible to represent as SEPTIC humor exemplifying acronyms, "RAT neurons" is the only one that completely lacks appropriately allusive acronymic value.
However, "RAT-neurons" is a concEPTual ingredient of the ÆPT meaning and definition of consciousnessT.
[Of the 3 concEPTs that can be abbreviated to SEPTIC humored acronyms, "RAT neurons" is the least instinktively 💩 off-putting. 😄]
It should be fairly obvious that the concEPT most likely to be instinktively off-putting is the one whose purest acronymic notation is "SHIT".
Nonetheless, the concEPT is thoroughly warranted; It is an aptly allusive ÆPT acronym because of how well the kinds of circumstantial threats (for any reason ended up in predicaments or ordeals that cannot be survived or adaptively coped with by way of a distress-type response) deserve to be associated with what the acronymic surface of SHIT most readily tends to be associated with.
SHIT or SHI type (circumstantial) threats or "SH imploring threats" — importantly include the not in itself SEPTIC humored concEPT of "Specific/synaptic 'Hibernation' (expediently shortened to SH).
The word "hibernation" was ÆPTly hijacked and forced to lend its "h" to the only distinktly Sseptic humored while also seriously meant acronymic concEPT.
However, "hibernation" also serves as a pointer to a brain function that blocks the synaptic relay of excitatory sensory-motivational messages which would in most "post traumatic" lifetime settings (or ditto situations) otherwise be on their way to elicit a maladaptive distress-type response.
The choice of "hibernation" is also ÆPT (or apt) in that a response of "SH type" keeps the metabolism of both the by SH affected immediately postsynaptic neuron and the entire postsynaptic portion of a SHIT-specific actention module muted — i.e. significantly more muted than would be the case without the synaptic relay blocking "SH" function having been prompted and put to work by a circumstantial SH imploring threat.
[It may be too much to consider for some readers, but incurred CURSES (left behind by genuine SHI type threats) can later in life add weight to (or compound with) non-SHI-type circumstantial threats or in some cases even with instinctively non-threatening environmental sources or causes or sensory stimulation; Do so via a sufficiently large amount of shared sensory processing pathways. Thereby an accumulation of unnecessarily postponed responses, or 'non-genuine CURSES', can occur.]
Another, closely related, justification for the ÆPT violation of the lexical meaning of "hibernation" is that it is instructive to compare the concEPT of "SH imploring threats" with seasonally hot and dry as well as freezing ambient conditions that some animal lineages have evolved to cope with by instinctively preparing for/entering into a state of seasonal dormancy — i.e. coping by way of aestivation and hibernation, respectively.
SH is a concEPT that implies, does in common with what the words hibernation and aestivation conventionally refer to, a way of coping with threats in a metabolism-muting way; except that SH is a post-synaptic metabolism dampening response that most specifically possible precludes a distress-type actention from being paid to a some particular SHI threat (or a combination of SHI threats) and to correspondingly incurred CURSES; This while it concurrently permits many in parallel challenging environmental opportunities to be actively scanned for and paid exploitative actention to. In contrast, seasonal dormancy delays all such opportunity seeking/taking activity until a seasonally harsh ambient conditions have passed.
In other words, it is instructive to compare "threats of SHI (Specific/synaptic Hibernation Imploring) type" with how some populations of animals evolved (adapted under evolutionary pressure provided by a gradually changing climate) to seasonal changes that present protracted periods of very harsh climatic challenges — ambient conditions that they cope with not by migrating away but by enduring such conditions with help of seasonal dormancy (i.e. hibernation or aestivation).
The acronym-building approach behind some of the concEPTs has leveraged much levity that influenced the competition among adaptively and functionally incompatible actention modules in the ASSS of ÆPT's author in a ÆPT (philosophizing facilitating) way.
It is the largely unrealistic goal of (my own) ÆIMC (hence it is an aim that is hardly at all hopefully held on to) that the humorous and non-humorous sem_antics that facilitated the assembling of ÆPT will turn out to be a socially successful set of atheistic enlightenment promoting tactics.
That is, it is doubtful that this on the surface decEPTively silly strategy will work as well, and as fun, satisfying and facilitating for adEPT (or recEPTive) intercEPTees as it was for me when I produced the ÆPT philosophical overview of ourselves and of Ultimate Reality.
However, leaving aside the lack of any realistic hope for a widespread take up of ÆPT ideas, the septic humored concEPTs might influence the competition between some of the actention modules in the brain of potentially recEPTive (hence potentially valuable to my ÆIMC) perusers of ÆPT; And this influence just might affect such intercEPTees in a way that it causes potentially off-putting subconscious associations to potentially overly onerous implicit memories of no longer present circumstantial challenges of psychologically traumatizing type [i.e. CURSES in their ASSS, and SH imploring threats, respectively] to become disrupted by being 'quasi homeopathically inoculated against'.😜
In other words: The largely unrealistic and hopeless but nonetheless ÆPT idea is that "the potential actention of being put off" gets out-competed for long enough so that intercEPTed potential recruits to the 'ÆPT cause' (it is spelled out in the highlighted 'mission statement' right under the photo on the homepage of ÆIMC) are not prevented from swallowing and digesting ÆPT as a whole.
From the point of view (the privileged outlook offered at the Heady Office) of my ÆIMC, it is always unfortunate if potentially accEPTing intercEPTees for any reason are prevented from digesting and absorbing ÆPT. And it is most especially so in respect of any failure of folk to appreciate the delightful, in antiSEPTIC humor steeped (yet also delicately formulated and defined in excEPTional dEPTh), ÆPT dogma.
The kind of quasi-homeopathic kind of 'unclean' humor that got injected into ÆPT (mainly into the 3 septic humored concEPTs) exemplifies a humor with uncouth characteristics such that, had it not become counterbalanced by a few concEPTs conceived in a spirit of squeaky clean humor, it would have warranted describing ÆPT as containing an 'acerbically entertaining pedagogical terminology'.
Luckily, the injected "septic humor" did became counterbalanced by at least a couple of strong concEPTual exponents of "antiseptic humor".
By the way, as already implied, most of the more or less unprecedented concEPTs are essentially seriously meant examples of freshly applied evolutionary psycho[physio]logy type thinking.
All concEPTs can and should — in their author's experience and opinion (and all recEPTive intercEPTee are bound to eventually agree) — be seen as essentially conservative constructs that are 'comprehension complementing' [or in some cases even marginally corrective or at the very least recognition-enriching] in respect of relevant precooked/predigested comprehensions offered by related conventional concepts and accounts for what is going on.
In other likewise 'author_iteratively biased' words:
Nearly all of the more or less novel notions that are expediently referred to as concEPTs are, if viewed from the perspective of an etymologist, pioneering terms or at least supplementary substitutes for (or, not to mince words, improved versions of) conventional concepts that concerns anthropic evolution/psychophysiology/thinking and behaving.
Sufficiently recEPTive intercEPTees will enjoy and appreciate ÆPT as being an astonishingly explanatory philosophical totality.
And, every 'ÆPT peruser' who is percEPTive, accEPTing, and able to fully absorb and ardently adopt (i.e. become atheistically devoted to) ÆPT, will be able to acquire an excEPTional philosophical traction on the most slippery (and most easily philosophically off-putting) facets of what is going on.
Although it is tempting to claim otherwise, the by far most fundamental 'method' through which ÆPT came about has been the method of almost arbitrary "Error Plagued Trying";
And so, while it might be too farfetched it is certainly not inEPT to think that this "Mother of all Methods" (UR's or the Multiverse’s only 'method') is what brought Charles Darwin to 'quasi plagiarize' it.😎
The period of our evolution (phylogeny) that ÆPT is mainly focused on is approximately stretching till now from when our ancestors started to look and move about as bipedal simians. And, the aspect of ourselves and our phylogeny that is the ÆPTly dealt with is certain relatively rarely reckoned with and accounted for facets of our phylogeny, psycho[physio]logy and behavior.
Only one concEPTual tool is directly applicable to politics (realpolitik); Namely the hard-nosed and subjectivity-snubbing ÆPT concept (and of course the ÆPT definition) of "maximal Absolute Life Quality".
However, an adEPT and fully sober person would not invest much hope in the extent to which this concEPT can impact politics.
This even though ALQ is used as the key ingredient of a most compelling and memorable (meant to be mirth-inspiring) antiseptic humored ÆPT dogma/motto.
Here is the (only decEPTively nothing more than delightfully jocular) ÆPT dogma/motto (shoutable slogan):
"ALQholism is the best ism!" [or, conversely, "ALQholists are the best -ists!"].
Without becoming fertilized with the ambitiously explanatory (possibly too temerarious?) ÆPT take on mainly the recent period of our phylogeny and on the corresponding period of our ontogeny into adulthood, most conventional and similarly focused analyses and descriptions of the origins of human behaviors will remain relatively anaemic, emaciated, positively tepidly thought about, and feebly philosophically fathomed.
Conversely, the same conventionally described and conceptualized results of Science may (just perhaps) become slightly less weakly impacting on realpolitik if the ÆPT take on what is going on were to be widely adopted.
In other words: Without the ÆPT grasping tools being allowed to supplement and optimize the focus of conventional Science-aligned interpretations of ourselves and human affairs, the anthropic aspect of what is going on may well continue to be grasped with relatively blunt and inflexible ordinary tools for thought (or they might continue to be lamely gained blind-sighted insight into with lingual lenses that were too sloppily cut and polished).
In yet other words: It is not inEPT to assume that 'the combination of origins behind how we behave' will remain infirmly understood as long as our efforts to understand near enough all evolutionary psycho{physio}logy type "truths" [=what is and was going on] continue to be based on merely a platform of ordinary (conventional) concepts.
It might even be said (so facetiously that it might provide an opportunity for inEPT intercEPTees to filter themselves out) that ÆPT reflects and promotes an understanding as if by a science-aligned [philosophical] 'FOOT'[-hold]. That is, a Foremost Overview Of Truth that easily peripherally accommodates the foremost approach to finding a mathematical (fundamental physics pertaining) TOE[-hold on what is going on].
Within ÆPT, the central concEPTs are closely related. In certain cases so much so that some of the concEPTs that were contrived to be written (and potentially pronounced) as acronyms are both semantically and logically intertwined.
A prominent and rather in-depth example of this entwined etymology is that:
The self-explanatory concEPT "actention" figures in the concEPT of "Actention {Selection Serving} Systems" that is maximally abbreviated to the "AS" that is placed right in the middle of the most integrative of all concEPTs (of all those meant to be expressed as more or less aptly allusive acronyms), namely "EAVASIVE" .
EAVASIVE is a with extreme pragmatism tailored concEPT, the meaning of which is (only very approximately): Our uniquely human, exceptionally potent and very elaborately manifest evolved adaptive neuroticism.
Moreover, the first "A" of EAVASIVE (an almost excessively pragmatic "tool for ÆPT thought") represents the perhaps most heuristic of the insight-cementing concEPTs. Namely, the concEPT of mutations that have been "ambiadvantageous".
Ambiadvantageous[ly/ness] is an expediently pieced together portmanteau word that is meant to point to the synergism of an ÆPTly defined subset of all lifetime challenges in the phylogeny of fauna and hence, here most importantly, of us folk.
This ÆPT heuristic (and ÆPT subset) is of course one referring to that synergistically interacting lifetime challenges played a role as a corresponding subset of an 'evolutionary pressure totality' that brought us about.
In slightly different words, EAVASIVE implies a subset of evolutionary pressures that as a result of their synergy 'naturally prioritized' EAVASIVE (~ ambiadvantageously adaptive) outcomes of a bio-evolutionary patterning through "natural selection" (i.e. Charles Darwin's famous heuristic or 'super principle').
If we look at ourselves through the collection of all 'evolutionary psychology type' concEPTual lenses, then only inEPTitude protects against seeing ourselves as the by far most elaborately and potently EAVASIVE animal on this (and quite possibly on any) planet.
To use conventional concepts when attempting to describe and efficiently grasp the same aspects of ourselves (including the same origins of our behaviors) that EAVASIVE implies would only result in a descriptive statement identical to, or very closely resembling, the following:
"We humans are the by far most potently adapted to cope neurotically species in the phylogeny of fauna, on this planet".
Such a conventionally worded description reflects a relatively insight-deficient, rather derogatory and definitely not quite ÆPT understanding of ourselves.
EAVASIVE does of course also imply a corresponding, ÆPTly understandable (hence not strange), "attractor" in animal evolution (and in any biospheres sufficiently similar to ours).
What EAVASIVE pertains to, as far as mutations go, is that (it is ÆPT to think that) a relatively few momentous pleiotropic tweaks of DNA occurred in the period of our phylogeny that ÆPT is focused on.
One such scientifically identified mutation, in the so called FoxP2 segment of our genome, happened in the course of the sexual reproduction of a rodent-like ancestor of ours, about 70 million years ago.
One relevant functional aspect of this mutation is revealed when its ontogenetic (developmental) expression is experimentally blocked in mice because in its absence mice pups are unable to use voice calls to encourage their mother to "actend" to their needs.
The reason why the 'FOXP2 paragraph of the genetic recipe for human language functions became identified was, aside from the availability of necessary DNA-analysis technology, due to an unfortunate heritable mutation that (because of homozygosity as a consequence of inbreeding) caused members of an English family of Pakistani migrants severe language-related disabilities.
Anyhow, mutations since our ancestors 'chatted' with their fellow extended family members in chimp-like ways have conferred new or extra powerful ambiadvantageously adaptive traits — from an ÆPT perspective mainly but not only language-function related traits.
As far as such (i.e. "ambiadvantageous") mutations have increased our ancestors' language-related capacity to cope in respect of lifetime opportunities and threats, they all are implicitly referred to (aptly, allusively and compactly so) with the ÆPTly characterizing concept of EAVASIVE — that we humans are the by far most elaborately and potently EAVASIVE animal on the planet.
However, it is not to be forgotten that a crucial lack of 'bad lifetime luck' prevented these 'EAVASIVEness enhancing' mutations from failing to become lineage-lengthening. For example, no predator ate those of our ancestors who pioneered an extra EAVASIVEness-enabling mutation before they reached puberty.
Moreover, "luck had it" that these pioneers possessed an extra prowess to take the opportunity to procreate and that they typically did so profusely and that their immediate generations of off-spring did on the whole continue to express these mutations in ways that had "selective sweep" causing consequences.
They (our ancestors) did so (i.e. expressed these ambiadvantageous mutations) at first within their extended family group setting through "social sexual selection" — i.e. all facets of how a competition between sexual rivals can be won.
This aspect of natural selection was as soon as possible (when the new extra EAVASIVE phenotype were expressed by all members of a thus evolved family group creating lineage ancestral to us) followed by a fairly "domino effect like" spread of the with extra EAVASIVEness enhanced geno/phenotype at the expense of murderously raided and bride-stolen from neighboring family groups — the members of which were of course hominines who did not carry and express the then latest 'extra EAVASIVEness endowing' mutation.
Yes, there are more romantic, more cozy to contemplate, ways that an ambiadvantageous mutation (one which intrinsically paved the way to our modern human brand of adaptive EAVASIVEness) could have spread as far and wide as it has. However, it is anathema to ÆPT (and to ÆIMC) to not focus on this usually automatically ignored or greatly under-estimated aspect of our recent phylogeny; Namely, that our murderously tribal instinct obviously played a prominent role in how thee are now only genetic traces left (and no actual living tribes) of the most likely so called "archaic" humans.
Populations of these humans, who may well have been no less intelligent than our (main) ancestors, went extinct as recently as ~28K years ago (in case of the lineage of humans referred to as "Neanderthals".
RAT Neurons and Consciousness(T)
Almost all concEPTs that were largely deliberately contrived to be expressible as acronyms are more or less appropriately or deservedly allusive. The only not 'toilet humor oriented' of those that are ÆPTly characterized as examples of SEPTIC humored is "RAT neurons".
RAT neurons are neurons whose most general functional contribution is of "reticular activating type".
The notion of "RAT neurons" in our brains is ÆPTly meant to be juxtaposed and contrasted with S-type neurons (with a "specific type" of functionality).
S-type neurons typically have axonal projections that are relatively precise (compared with RAT neurons' typically diffuse projections); Also, they propagate their action potentials at a higher speed than RAT neurons, and they typically fire in a "phasic" manner (in short burst with little or no build-up of their firing-frequency) in difference to RAT neurons who fire tonically in a relatively sustained manner with a gradually building firing-frequency.
So, in other and fewer words, RAT neurons fulfill their functional role by having diffuse axonal projections that propagate action potentials relatively tardily, and start and finish their firing inertly — i.e. in a "winding up" and "winding down" manner.
The ÆPT significance of this most general categorization of brain functions is that without the RAT functions we could not pay anything but fleeting actentions — if that — and the qualities and levels of consciousnessT that we subjectively know exist would not exist.
In other words:
What would not take place without RAT neurons are the particular patterns of neurometabolic and neuroelectric (that is, not all patterns of neural activity) that correlate with subjectively experienced temporal states animal individuals with a sufficiently complex neural ASSS — or, more precisely, states that as far as we know can only emerge in "brain-spacetime".
However, consciousnessT does not necessarily emerge just in central neural systems that evolved into the same general ASSS functure organising direction as the lineges lengthened from the vertebrate ancestors that we have in common with all other species of vertebrates; This since cephalopods have very different ASSSs and are showing themselves to be very intelligent and sensitive and capable of extremely refined responses to different and changing circumstances they end up and find themselves in.
To mark that the ÆPT meaning of the word "consciousness" is meant to be more realistic and respectful of the capabilities of the ASSS of non-human animals than how the word is usually more meagerly meant conventionally, I have tagged it with a T at the end of it — making it look exactly like "consciousnessT".
[ConsciousnessT is of course also ÆPTly meant to be understood in alignment with relevant and here not humorous 'SEPTIC' features=scientifically established pointers to important characteristics of how the ASSS of both human and other animals operate and develop.]
The meaning of "consciousnessT" includes patterns of chiefly neural activity that can occur or emerge or "come on line" in 'the 3 classic' gross neuroanatomical layers of neural actention selection serving systems — a near enough identical notion was championed by the neuroscientist Paul MacLean and is referred to as "the triune brain".
It is also ÆPT to keep at the back of one's mind the fact that conscioussnessT arises as particular patterns in individual 'brainspacetimes' that are all built (evolved) and underpinned by the 'quantum weird' subatomic aspects of our universe (and of Ultimate Reality).
The 3 gross (or approximate) "levels", "layers" or "lines" of brain functure are useful notions:
The notion of "1st line consciousnessT corresponds to the earliest to have evolved or lowest of the layers of neural ASSSs — very roughly considered 1st line consciousness is exemplified by/a capability of e.g. fish, frogs and primitive lizzards;
The notion of "2nd line" consciousnessT is a approximately the kind of conscioussnessT that primitive mammals and possibly also all some birds are capable of;
"3rd line" consciousnessT evolved out of the first two and involves imagined non verbal as well as lingual (not least importantly human language function dependent) representations of, and ways to avoid or otherwise deal with lifetime threats, and ways to seek and exploit lifetime opportunities.
A specific, predominantly switched on, neural circuitry that constitutes a particular content and intensity of a consciousT state [or to paraphrase a famous pioneering brain scientist: a particular temporarily 'weaved enchanted (neuroelectric) loom'] is in most (or still perhaps in all) cases and instances not possible to precisely define.
However, this fact does not preclude the ÆPT conclusion that every different behavior or preoccupation of ours can aptly be thought to correspond to a structurally different "actention module".
A particular consciousT state arises (more or less regularly or irregularly and always to some extent temporarily) in complete correspondence with the firing of particular assembly (circuitry) of excitatory neurons and their commensurately increased metabolic activity.
When a particular state of consciousnessT arises it always does so in context of (and always preceded by) a 'quasi competition' by mutual inhibition among actention modules that by ontogeny are largely not weighted equally; And these inequalities are primarily a legacy of evolutionary patterning tended to by a combination of both constructive and destructive naturally selective evolutionary pressures.
ConsciousnessT can emerge in brainspacetime at different levels, with different contents, and be more or less focused or intense.
E.g. it may emerge at the first or lowest 'somatosensory level (e.g. an inflammatory response, hunger or thirst), a feelings such e.g. joy or fear can emerge at the 2nd/limbic system level, or a cognitive/3rd level of consciousnessT can emerge as "paid actentions" with contents dependent on language or language-related functions (also including preoccupations pertaining to "the Arts").
A specific content of consciousnessT (=an actention) might consist of (for example) all the neuromuscular and perceptual and other non-intellectual activities (e.g. feelings) of a kid who is trying to ride a bicycle for the first time or of all the neural circuits involved in a person who is merely sitting and thinking about how to solve a mathematical equation or a crossword-puzzle or is trying to win a game of chess; Another, different, content of contsciousnessT will be present in the brainspacetime of someone sitting around a camp-fire telling a story; someone out hunting, or someone acutely attempting to avoid falling prey; Etcetera, etcetera....
An actention (or conscious activity) can have a particular quality (or qualia) such as a distressful, 'neutral' (unemotional or detached) or eustressful quality; And, it can consist of certain so colour, taste, scent or sound — i.e. different kinds of perceptions (perceived contents) depending on the physical properties of what is being neurally represented or modeled by a neural actention selection serving system (e.g. a human brain).
Some (neural) actention modules (that 'compete' in brainspacetime) may never get a chance to be anything but in an 'abiding' state (never more than just 'a potentially fully and predominantly activated' module) until the death of the individual (whose ASS it is).
[A neural individual's death is ÆPTly defined as the total and irretrievable disintegration of its actention selection serving system or ASSS for short, unless a more truncating abbreviation is preferred.]
The 1st and lowest level of consciousnessT in the ASSS of an animal is the earliest to individually develop and come "on line"; And it is also the first to have emerged in the phylogeny of fauna.
The 2nd level of consciousnessT involve (corresponds to) more functionally complex (more highly evolved) neural patterns of activity manifesting as our (and other animal’s) feelings — much of which are represented by various kinds of overt emotional responses.
The 3rd level of consciousnessT corresponds to cognitive representations of what we sense (level one) and feel (level 2). This level of consciousnessT exists with or without our possibly unique (or at least uniquely potent) capacity for symbolic language.