Slimy, Yet Satisfying

The insula was great at its old job. But it doesn't belong in the board room.

Indulging in socially forbidden activities, rebellion, is the key to shutting up the insula.

There have been many stories that follow this pattern.

Jim is in society.

Society says don't eat/do/play with X, because it will result in consequences.

Jim gets curious about X.

Society ostracizes Jim.

Jim eats/does/plays with X, and doesn't experience consequences.

Jim uses X to save society. Society thanks Jim and embraces X.

Progress is stifled by overabundant disgust.

Doing the thing you were taught to find reprehensible is the key to salvation. You realize you are not as corruptible as previously supposed. You know from experience that the imposed rules were wrong. This calls into question external authority, and fosters trust of internal authority.

The Lion King demonstrates this in a cute way. Simba is afraid to eat bugs. But Pumba and Timon finally sell him on the idea. He rebels against his culturally programmed disgust for insect cuisine, and surprised, concurs with his buddies. "Slimy, yet satisfying."

Last thought. I've shared this before. Jesus was born of Mary. Jesus means 'Jehovah's Salvation'.  Mary means 'Rebellion'.

Salvation is born of Rebellion.

Disgust is conquered by indulgence.

Judgement is dispersed by participation. 

Simba's bugs, Luke in the tauntaun carcass, Andy Dufresne (Shawshank Redemption) "who crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side",  the kid from Slumdog Millionaire in the outhouse looking for the photo to be autographed, the Good Samaritan helping the wounded man, God coming to earth and being born in a manger full of pooping animals, and so on and so on.

That which disgusts you may be holding up a beacon. Walk in that direction. (unless having sex with kids disgusts you, let's keep that one. Thanks insula!)

The insula is underqualified

I have noticed a motif in storytelling. Salvation comes from participation in revulsion.

Humans have had the disgust centers of the brain (insula) co-opted for social use. We can be disgusted by rotten milk and racism. Same mechanism. Rotten milk is called disgusting. Rotten behavior is called evil.

This disgust mechanism evolved to protect four-legged ground-sniffers from eating harmful substances. Disgust kills curiosity, which is invaluable for survival when you live with your nose in the dirt. Humans went bipedal, raising our sniffers off the ground. The insula was taken away from food inspection and promoted to HR. But he brought with him the black-and-white fight-or-flight approach from his fester-detection days to something much more subtle. I repeat, the insula went from quality control to human resources.

There is a weakness built into the insula: acquired taste. Even this hard-nosed judge can be swayed by consistent exposure. A person's first time tasting beer or wine is usually met with sourpuss and scoffing noises. But consistent exposure lets the body know that it is not the poison it smells to be. Too much and you may have to lay off the wine for a while.

This part of the brain meant to save us from edible poisons, like I said, is now also in charge of detecting social poisons. What would the acquired taste phenomenon look like when governing morality? We would call that being jaded, desensitized. Something like crime becomes a way of life. This is how WWI soldiers could casually take target practice on dead soldiers' faces. The initial moral revulsion to killing someone gave way to the acquired taste for dead soldier target practice.

Perhaps, when dealing with human interaction, it may be a worthwhile pursuit to find a more solid foundation on which to build a moral system. The insula is a mechanism designed to kill curiosity, hijack the body's defenses, and eventually fade with consistent exposure, giving way to the tolerance and even enjoyment of the formerly disgusting activity. A sandy foundation erodes with exposure to the elements. I seek bedrock.

Jesus is your body and blood

I've noticed something recently. The stories humans enjoy the most have a layer of allegory that resonates with our biology. Something as popular as Guardians of the Galaxy has within it a deep and consistent allegory for battling cancer, with each of the characters representing one aspect of an individual. The Divergent series sits neatly over the processes that produce stem cells, in the marrow of the bones.

I think the christ story has stuck around because it is an allegory for our bodies, our flesh. Our bodies take the punishment for mistakes made with our minds. 33 years old, we have 33 vertebrae. Christ is the body and the blood. Skin protects us from all sorts of infection, and when that is breached, the immune system kicks in. But we look in the mirror and say "eww" to the part of us that is working day and night to keep us alive.

Faith in Christ is a misfiring of metaphor. Those feelings of gratitude might better serve us if directed toward our own bodies.

I get silly with this idea. I am an atheist, but I put on the christian rock station and listen to the lyrics as if my mind was singing them to my body. Surprisingly relevant and poetic.

Language is only 200,000 years old. Our biology is 1,000,000,000 years old. Which do you think would take the shape of the other? Language sits on top of our biology like a greasy sheen on a marble sculpture. It shouldn't surprise us that it takes that shape. (don't worry. I'll come back and edit this.)