The Spirit in Human Evolution - Waldorf Research Institute

main organ systems such as hormone regulation, the endocrine system, respiration,
digestion, thermoregulatory processes, sleep and such reactions as blushing and
sweating. What all these systems have in common is that they present the brain with a
picture of the human world of the “interior.” Such systems have a deep evolutionary
history and can only be consciously influenced by long term training in self-control
through meditation, yoga and the like. The connections between desires, passions and
aversions and sensations arising through the sense organs is a hugely complex matter
which Steiner went some way to explaining in his uncompleted book Anthroposophy a
Fragment. 6
Complementing the view from the “interior,” a second complex within
the nervous system, the cortical-thalamus system, provides us with the rapid and
sophisticated motor coordination necessary for precision control of movement and
speech as well as the categorization of experience and higher-order activities such as
language and cognition. The thalamus plays a crucial role within the brain as a central
point of connection, particularly between sensory signals and cortical processes. The
limbic-brainstem system provides us with an in-built value system in the sense that it
predisposes the mind to pursue behavior that satisfies the organism’s needs. The cortical
system interacts with this older, more primal system and provides the individual with
the ability to adapt to present circumstances by acquiring knowledge, abilities and higher
faculties. Thus we can see an obvious correlation between the sentient body processes
and the limbic-brainstem system on the one hand, whilst on the other between the higher
soul faculties and the functions of the cortex of the brain. Modern neuroscience appears
to give some confirmation of Steiner’s distinction between sentient body and sentient
soul, a distinction crucial to the whole mind-matter debate.
Research into brain development also sheds light on further aspects of human
nature. As Dr. James Dyson put it, this research allows “the thought that inherent within
human physiology, a deeper form of unconscious wisdom may be at work, which in the
course of its encounter with sense impressions, contributes to the way in which concepts,
mental images, emotions and judgments are built up.” 7
Individual Brains
Given the epigenetic nature of the emergence of neural structures, each individual
responds in different ways to similar sensory input. It is an astonishing fact that the finer
brain structures are not genetically predetermined and no two brains are identical even
if the individuals are genetically identical because such structures are brought about
by the individual’s actual experience. As the brain grows and develops the neural
connections that form neural networks throughout the brain but especially in the cortex,
are reinforced when they correspond to an activity that the individual recognizes as
relevant, useful or appropriate. What selects these structures is an unconscious and
innate value system that reflects the emergent interest and intention of the child. Such
value systems are universal in nature but it is in their interaction with specific sense
impressions at unique moments in the individual’s life that makes them significant. So
vast is the number of possible neural connections and combinations that the neural basis
for infinite variation and of brain structures is given. The origin of these value systems
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6
Published in 1996 by Anthroposophic Press with an enlightening introduction by James Dyson, M.D.
7
Dyson, J.A., 1996, Introduction to Steiner’s Anthroposophy (a Fragment), Anthroposophic Press, p28.
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