Simon Powell - The Psilocybin Solution

It is apparent then that subjective information, when accessed through reading, hearing, smelling, tasting, seeing, or touching, comes to change the form of the receiving system substantiated in the receiver’s brain. If we imagine the brain’s neuronal system to be like clay, then as patterns of information impinge upon this clay, the shape of the clay is altered, and thus there has been a flow of information. The impact of the incoming flow of information leads to a gradual change in the form, or formal state, of the clay. The actual system that functions like clay is the neuronal system, or, to be more specific, the way in which billions of neurons are connected to one another. Indeed, learning, and by definition information access, is thought to be mediated through changes in neuronal connections. It is the overall network of connections that reflects the global form, or “shape,” of the neuronal system.

The dictionary definition of information helps us here too, for it tells us that information comes from the Latin word informare, which means “to give form to.” When information informs us, it alters the form, or pattern, of the informational system that is our mind. The mind is therefore an information-based system constantly re-forming itself (changing its pattern) through the accessing of information deriving from other kinds of information-based media, just as if it were clay being shaped by its environment.

For us, there is only information. Our minds are uniquely enduring patterns made of it. Information from other patterns, or systems, is continually being absorbed, integrated, and given out again. In this process, the form of the mind changes through alterations in the ways neurons are connected to one another. Consciousness emerges as a complex pattern of information whose form is constantly undergoing dynamic change due to the integration and accessing of other types of information through the senses. This is what I mean when I talk about the flow of information.

The case of the egg is somewhat different. When environmental conditions are conducive, the objective information in the DNA becomes active and is expressed through biochemical activity. DNA is seemingly “tuned” to operate when a specific environmental context surrounds it, just as our minds are tuned to our native language. The precise molecular details of DNA need not concern us here; rather, we need only grasp the general principle of how information actively flows out from DNA.

In our discussions of the egg, DNA represents “matter in a significant state” such that given a certain environment complex, organic activity will unfold. From a single fertilized egg cell an entire organism will develop because the information in the egg cell’s DNA becomes activated. The DNA causes particular amino acids to form, which then cause various proteins to form, and hence various organs are assembled. Morphogenesis, the growth in form of an organism, is thus the reading out of DNA information, the expression of the meaning inherent in DNA (incidentally, if an egg is eaten, then another form of its information is accessed; in this case its “nutritional information” is absorbed by the consumer).

DNA information is read out through biochemical processes, and the resulting change in the formal state of the overall system itself acts as a contextual environment that allows the growth, or information readout, to progress. We can view the immediate chemical environment of the DNA as being both on the receiving end of the information transfer and able to feed back on, and influence, the information being accessed from the DNA. The form of the DNA, its specific information-rich pattern, comes to govern the form of the developing cells within which the DNA is embedded. In turn, the form of the cells (that is, their relative distribution as they multiply) will determine the formal development of the organs within which the cells are embedded as well as determine further DNA translation. In this way, DNA information comes to flow outward and be expressed on a macroscopic scale.

There is a strong suggestion here that informational systems (that is, meaningful patterns of form embodied within different media) are embedded within one another as in a nested hierarchical continuum and that they are continually influencing one another’s form. This is rather dramatically illustrated in the fact that the reading out of DNA eventually leads to an organism moving about in the world at large. If some mutated DNA has fortunately produced some new advantageous behavior, then this eventually feeds back on the mutated DNA and favors its chances of being preserved. In a similar fashion, the form of the human genome is a direct consequence of the form of the environment in which our ancestors evolved. Thus, organisms and environment represent one continuous dynamic fluidic system. Informational systems, such as DNA, cells, organs, organisms, minds, and environments, are like the nested layers of an onion, intimately embedded within one another and able to inform (put form into) one another. All are interrelated states, systems, and patterns of information.

Since DNA is clearly a form of information, we can dispense with calling it “matter in a significant state.” DNA is information in the same way that words are information or a string of Morse code is information. Both DNA and words contain meaning, potential or otherwise, which can be read and which can inform. DNA is thus a biological informational language that is expressed through biological growth and biological activity. I would go further and suggest that this language-like informational process is not merely a metaphor for spoken and written language, but that DNA really is linguistic in nature with its own grammar and semantics, albeit of an organic kind. If the DNA is disorganized in any way, then this corresponds to faulty grammar, and the development of the organism will proceed in a defective way. Consider the disease sickle-cell anemia, in which red blood cells are misshapen (they are shaped like a sickle). It is caused by just one faulty microscopic link in the DNA, yet this single error is enough to produce the disease. The faulty DNA link can be viewed as a grammatical error that interferes with the meaningful expression of the DNA.

The language-like processes so far suggested lead us to another concept, that of a dialogue. If we envision a dialogue as a communicatory process in which information is transmitted, then subjective information like the written or spoken word flows according to a dialogue between the source of information and the recipient. Imagine someone talking on a phone with no one on the receiving end. No dialogue and hence no communication of information takes place because there is no one to provide a receptive context—no one is there to be informed. However, if someone does take the call, then the information from the sender comes to be absorbed by the recipient, that is, there is a definite information flow between psyches. The form of the neuronal “clay” of the receiver is altered by the patterns of information being conveyed through the phone. The subsequent dialogue might be a one-sided affair in which the receiver merely listens, or it might be two-sided, in which case both parties are involved in the information flow. In either case, the dialogue facilitates a flow of information that leads to a qualitative change in the informational state, or formal state, of the receiver’s mind.

If we now consider biological systems once more, a similar kind of informational dialogue takes place, this time between the organism (with its DNA) and the natural environment. Think of any plant as it grows. At the very tip of the plant, the leading edge of the growth process so to speak, there will be newly emerging cells. This unfolding growth will take place within the context of the natural conditions encountered, such as luminosity, temperature, humidity, gravitational force, and so on. A whole host of influential factors both inside and outside the plant will play an interactive role in shaping the form of the growing tissue. I suggest that this interactive process represents a kind of natural dialogue (as opposed to a dialogue in conventional spoken language) whereby information embodied in the plant comes to be provoked and stimulated into action by the immediate environment.