A GENERATIVE ART
OF OUR OWN
EVOLUTIONARY TRANSMUTATION:
The Art of Harold Terry Lindahl
The Science of Stephen W. Porges
SUSANNAH HAYS
MFA MA Ph.D.
University of California at Berkeley
susannahhays.com
sunprint at earthlink.net
ABSTRACT
This paper seeks to influence the prolonged constitutional capacity to transform our species potential where humans no longer remain implacably bound by Jacksonian dissolutionpatterns of behavior.1 To do so, I present the science of Dr. Stephen W. Porges’ POLYVAGAL THEORY in conjunction with Harold Terry Lindahl’s GESTATION, HISTORY AND POTENTIAL OF HUMANKIND exhibition, which together express an emergence potential for realizing transdisciplinary, generative art perspectives. Since the intelligence embodied in humanconsciousness is obtained through brain-body connectivity, the bio-psycho-physiological processes described in Porges’and Lindahl’s work indicates how the “rupture between the organs of reflection and those of decision-making in society” may become reconciled. 2
1. INTRODUCTION
Today, the humanities are culturally and socially aware that much of contemporary scienceintersects the intuitive knowledge of ancient wisdom traditions. Due to this materialization of common ground, school curriculums around the globe are being pressured to move from metaphysical “training-wheel” explanations to embodied experiential practices. Since it is understood only the intentional engagement of bio-psycho-physiological energies liberatesomatic perfunctory habits, development of human consciousness depends first oninforming and then assisting, through daily practice, an intentional ‘work on one’s self’ through which predictable dissolution response patterns can learn to engage and develop our higher, more recently evolved, neocortical functioning.3
The vagus nerve, an integral structure in the phylogenetic shift in brain-bodycommunication, plays a central role in the reception and transmission of signals thatchemically and electrically regulate the autonomic nervous system. Otherwise known as thetenth cranial nerve, it is a bi-direction system that runs from the brain through the face andthorax to the abdomen—a conduit that nurtures higher normative levels of being.4 By teaching how this bio-feedback loop system engages with modes of inner, bio-psychophysiological adaptation processes, individuals can learn to nurture their latent psychic, neocortical potential and evolve beyond diabolical, somatic defense (survival) instincts.
2. Bringing 19th and 20th Century findings into 21st century action
I first came in touch with the Western esoteric principles of G. I. Gurdjieff in San Francisco, through architect and artist Harold Terry Lindahl in 1993.5 In 2009, with the aim of advancing 21st Century education pratices, he initiated the Intropy=Entropy Institute. With a similar objective, my doctoral work, completed at the University of California at Berkeleyin 2016, advanced Basarab Nicolescu’s Transdisciplinary Educational model (1996) with Stephen W. Porges’ Polyvagal Theory (1994) and Lindahl’s triptych paintings and Darwin, Einstein, Gurdjieff Ergodic Diagram (2011).6
TRIADIC ERGODIC CYCLE OF PHENOMENA (Lindahl, 2019)
FIG. 1 FUNDAMENTAL FORMATION-VIVIFICATION-TRANSPIRATION DIAGRAM Involutionary granularity feeds on the intropy generated from collisions. Evolutionary biology feeds on the intropy generated from the digestion of mineralsand atmosphere. Psyvolutionary Homo-hypnons feed on the intropy generated from the digestion of the impressions of their profligate emotional survival instinct.9
3. Rectifying the human predicament
As Porges’science provides a pragmatic guide as to how our moving-motor, thinking andemotional centers bi-directionally regulate autonomic functioning, Lindahl’s objective artvisually signifies the nature of our species morphogenetic, evolutionary potential within a complex, Systems View that includes our species cosmological purpose. Being Polyvagal informed, Pensive and Vigilant (Fig. 2) symbolizes how our social engagement system (“looking in” and “looking out”) assists regulation visceral states, which necessarily communicate brainstem source nuclei that ultimately allow emergent properties in higher brain areas and bodily feelings to process and adapt.10
Fig. 2 Pensive and Vigilant Two 9’ high by 5’ diameter aluminum core sculptures with eight 1" thick, 3-ply laminated glass wings and back-lit color plexiglass core symbolizing the relation between Sympathetic and Parasympathetic functions of the Autonomic Nervous System. H.T. Lindahl (2016)
In Pensive andVigilant the Sympathetic ephemeral glass wings, positioned relative to the Parasympathetic vivid core, are a leitmotif for the Autonomic Nervous System. As energypotentially enervates (expends) or innervates (vivifies) through the digestion of light, air, and food, our visceral organs support the ultimate transpiration of our experience of the biosphere to solar realms.
Sensitive to afferent influences, characterized by an adaptive reactivity that is (1) dependenton the phylogeny of the neural circuits, that (2) interact with source nuclei in the brainstem and (3) regulate the striated muscles of the face and head, a horizontal ring, placed at the vertical golden mean between the osmotic divide of our somatic instincts, points to whereour human potential meets the obligatory “return” vibrations, which separate the fine from the coarse, as foretold in the Hermetic Emerald Tablet (Lindahl, 2019).11
4. Psyvolving Post-Simian Pre-Homo Sapiens through alchemical means
Lindahl’s art, suitably described as Generative Art, engages viewers in learning self-reflexiveprinciples. It sets in motion a thought-provoking expression where his objective aesthetic unquestionably aspires to our species universal anagogical ache—that is: our intrinsic wish to evolve toward a higher state of reconciled Being.
In his installation Gestation, History and Potential of Humankind, Lindahl provides a Phylogenetic Index (Fig. 3) that orients viewers toward Porges’ scientific basis. The Index clarifies the different functions of two medullary source nuclei of the vagus and themammalian modifications of our evolutionary heritage, a past that continues, by natural default, to provoke humans to live as defense machines.12
Herein lies the human generative challenge: to be self-consciously aware, while maintaininga feeling for the flux of sensations as we engage our largely infrequent reminders ofneocortical functioning. This (ego) treacherous evolutionary line between Post-Simian andPre-Homo sapiens is the tempering crucible where our lower (early) reptilian and mammalian brain structures may learn to, in Porges words, “repurpose their functioning.”13 Or, in Lindahl’s account, intentionally redistribute and “psyvolve” from mammalian somatic mental properties to our innate, latent psychic mental properties. (Lindahl, 2019).
Reptilian Paleo Mammalian Neo Mammalian Pre-Simian Post-Simian Pre-Homo Sapiens Homo Sapiens
Fig. 3 Phylogenetic Index indicating seven aspects of seven octaves. The potential for
conscience and reason to emerge is a refinement process unique to humans.
India ink on Arches watercolor paper (Lindahl 2018-2019).
Fig. 4 Gestation, History, and Potential of Humankind told in seven octaves of seven aspects: Seed, Native Virtue, Indulgent, Searching, School, Listening, and Psyvolving Man. 49 India ink 11.25”x15.5” plates (Lindahl, 2019).
5. A generative art of our own evolutionary transmutation
In his chapter Vagal Pathways: Portals to Compassion (2017), Porges proposes compassion is an emergent process dependent on one’s neurophysiological state. Consistent with this perspective, impartial conscience and objective reason cannot be investigated as a voluntary behavior or a psychological process independent of physiological states of being. This emphasis on shifting physiological state via vagal mechanisms to experience highernormative levels of attention and intention is consistent with the history of wisdom traditions—particularly Gurdjieff’s contemplative exercises—or what I refer to as thegenerative art of our own (individual by individual) evolutionary transmutation.14 15
As previously stated, the vagus is a cranial nerve that innervates all the visceral organs and provides the major bidirectional (motor and sensory) communication between the brain andthe body. A component of the parasympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, themediating function of the vagus is specifically to inhibit the reactivity of the sympathetic branch of the autonomic nervous system, developing a sensory pathway between the body and the brain. While Porges’ study emphasizes vagal-mediated states requiring an environment of compassion (where the feeling of safety enables feeling one’s own bodilyresponses at a given time, while acknowledging the bodily experiences of another), Lindahl’sart indicates further, that our latent, psyvolving potential, from gestation to Sapiens, attendsultimately, in a vital way, to the flux of elements in the cosmos.16
Fig. 4 One of twelve watercolor and India ink panels (8’ by 9’) symbolizing six interactive explanatory and predictive psyvolutionary stages of human evolution within cosmological processes that act to normalize the temperature differential between the sun and outer space. In the van of biospheric tempering, the psychocatalytical crux, which refines thought from minerals, sustains intropy/entropy invariance (Lindahl, 2019).
Socialized Vertebrate Essence Individual Conscience Being
Fig. 5 CHEMISTRY DIAGRAM: Organic life obtains by means of the ingestion/digestiverefinement of substances on a scale of vibrations from iron to oxygen to reason.(involutionary=iron, evolutionary=thought, psyvolutionary=reason). Human life is fueled bythe digestion of minerals, air and the senses. These three foods are processed by three sets ofintestines, the small, the alveolar and the cerebrum. As these foods enter beings, digestiveprocesses separate the fine nutrients from coarse materials. From minerals and air, the bodymanufactures the substances able to reproduce itself (SOCIALIZED VERTEBRATE) and then ‘die.’The food of the senses is registered but the organs for their digestion are dormant—latent potential. The practice of first conscious shock initiates the digestion of the finer particles of the air and the sense impressions and manufactures within the vertebrate anESSENCE INDIVIDUAL. The practice of second conscious shock fully awakens the digestion of the finer nutrients of the sense impressions and from an essence individual manufactures thesubstance, COHERENT CONSCIENCE. And from impressions of coherent conscience, the substance COHERENT REASON. These finer substances ‘die’ in their own time. (Lindahl, 2011).17
5. Human potential
As the seven octaves symbolize in Fig. 4, humans are a phenomenon of nature whosepysvolutionary potential is both immanent and imminent (Lindahl, 2019). Having studied Gurdjieff’s food diagrams, Lindahl’s art illustrates in three stages how food, air, and impressions of the world of sunlight are automatically refined to the information-processing vibration rate for somatic self-reproduction. But for the digestion of impressions to occur, apotential exists through an additional intentional effort. Energy must vibrate at a rate sufficient to reproduce its somatic host and, by extension, conduct the vibrations necessaryto refine somatic emotions and thought to the ergodic fulfillment vibration rate of impartialconscience and objective reason, as indicated in Fig. 1.
6. Conclusion
For the 21st Century, this paper outlines how an evolutionary, phylogenetic, axiomaticunderstanding can prepare a more self-evident approach to the evolution of consciousness. By transforming our values, always different in action, individual by individual, humans carry the ability to shift what is a universally true, predictable default system. It is the hope of the author, the artist and scientist, whose work I have cited, this project of generative art assists the broad and complex challenges that Integral educators around the globe areseeking to transform. We might now restructure our schools in the direction Jennifer Gidley, President of the World Futures Studies Federation (UNESCO andUNpartner) asks in her bookPostformal Education: A Philosophy for Complex Futures (2016): “If higher-order, more complex forms of cognition do exist, how can we better educate children and young people so that more mature forms of reasoning appear at the appropriate life stages?”18Since instinctual aspirations of science, art and sacred traditions are presently transitioning throughparasympathetic dynamics (from the predominance of our primitive instincts to civilizing“return” dynamics), humans, must develop the necessary bio-psycho-physiological skills so autonomic nervous system functioning may locate the source of finer vibrational energiesthat would evolve coherent conscience from emotional associative patterns and cogentreason from desultory thought (Porges,1994; Lindahl, 2017; Hays, 2016; Gidley, 2016).
To serve humanity and the cosmos, this guidance prepares our way.
Under the Co-direction of Celestino Soddu and Enrica Colabella this paper was presented at the 22nd Generative Art Conference, at the National Etruscan Museum, December 21, 2019, Rome Italy and subsequently published by Generative Art Science and Technology Journal Domus Argenia Center, Sardinia Italy in June 2020.
Author Bio with collaborators:
SUSANNAH HAYS MFA, MA, Ph.D. is a fine art photographer and educator whose philosophical approach to image-making contributes to her understanding of the human predicament. By way of Nature’s Discourse: A Co-Evolutionary Systems Approach to Art andEnvironmental Design (University California at Berkeley, 2016) and Nature’s Discourse: Transdisciplinarity and Vagus Nerve Function (ATLAS, 2018), she joined Dr. Porges at CapeCod Institute in August 2019 to discuss the biological and moral imperative for Humanityprograms to instill the necessary curricula to responsibly transform our somaticallypressured autonomic nervous system, so that our higher, more recently evolved neo-corticalpsychic energies may refine and adapt our latent (largely dormant) human potential.
STEPHEN W. PORGES Ph.D. is Distinguished University Scientist at the Kinsey Institute, Indiana University and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina. He is a neuroscientist working at the intersection of behavioral, clinical and bioengineering strategies. His investigations of the evolution and expression of human autonomicpsychophysiology has become a wellspring advancing the theories and practices of multipledisciplines and human service fields of practice. Since 1994, when Dr. Porges announced thebasic concepts, POLYVAGAL THEORY has been adopted and used productively in a wide array of psychological and somatic clinical practices. The theory is bringing alive the profound significance of our evolutionary neural organization in daily psychological and relational processes.
HAROLD TERRY LINDAHL now in his late eighties, was in his day, a modernist Architect, inthe Frank Lloyd Wright tradition of Organic Architecture. Having studied the geometric baseof art and architecture at the University of Oklahoma in the 1950s with Bruce Goff, hepursued his “Light-Color-Space-Form” watercolor studies in 2008 and developed The Gestation, History, and Potential of Humanity as recently as 2018. Fascinated withgeometric order and metamorphic form-generation through systematic variations andmodulations, his black and white studies became color-filled triptychs influenced by the cosmology of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, the Greek-Armenian philosopher and esotericteacher and his teacher Lord Pentland, in New York and San Francisco from the late 1960s to the 1980s.
REFERENCES
1 Porges, Stephen W. (2011) The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological Foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation, pages 161-162, 166.
2 See Basarab Nicolescu, et. al., for Transdisciplinary Moral Charter online link:
http://ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/moral_project.php
3 To heal the split between theory of knowledge and embodied phenomenologicalexperience an individual pursues the engagement of physical sensori-motor experiences where mind-body cognition emerges from a phylogenetic/ontological matrix,such as the cognitive and functional effects of meditation on body-brain circuits or vagal exercises such as vocalization and breathing exercises.
4 See Hays, Susannah: “Nature’s Discourse: Transdisciplinarity and Vagus Nerve Functioning” (ATLAS journal, 2018).
5 George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (1866-1949), was an influential early 20th century Russian Philosopher, Scientist and composer of Armenian/Greek descent. John Pentland, appointedby Gurdjieff to lead ‘the work’in North America, was Lindahl’s teacher.
6 See Hays, Susannah (2016) “Nature as Discourse: A Co-Evolutionary Systems Approach to Art and Environmental Design” © University of California Berkeley.
7 See H.T. Lindahl, (2017) The Harmonics of Unity: Endogenous Semiotics of the Vagus Pineal Gyre, Trioctave Editions San Francisco.
8 Gidley, Jennifer (2016), Postformal Education: A Philosophy for Complex Futures, p.2.
9 Diagram is from page 5 of H.T. Lindahl’s Program Initiative published by The Intropy = Entropy Institute in San Francisco, CA 2019. Lindahl’s Ergodic diagrams have gonethrough numerous reiterations starting with Einstein, Darwin, Gurdjieff triad in 2011.
10 Porges, Stephen W., The Polyvagal Theory: New insights into adaptive reactions of the autonomic nervous system; 2009.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3108032/
11 In Lindahl’s Harmonics of Unity expository treatise, he relates the alchemical knowledge of ancient gnostic wisdom traditions with contemporary science.
12 See Porges, Stephen W., July 1995 “Orienting in a defensive world: Mammalian modifications of our evolutionary heritage. A Polyvagal Theory”
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1995.tb01213.x
13 Porges, Stephen W. (August 7, 2019) unpublished recorded conversation with Susannah Hays at Cape Cod Institute Eastham, Massachusetts, p.3.
14 Porges, Stephen W. (2017) Chapter 15: Vagal Pathways: Portals to Compassion,The Oxford Handbook of Compassion Science. Oxford University Press p.189-202.
15 Azize, Joseph, (2020) Gurdjieff: Mysticism, Contemplation, and Exercises Oxford University Press, New York, NY.
16 G. I. Gurdjeff’s philosophy is a Micro-Macro cosmology. See Russian Geochemist Vladimir
Verdansky (1863-1945) wrote about the deep connections between life on Earth and the
Biosphere and the profound implications for all of life as a cosmic phenomenon.
17 See Selz, Dr. Peter and H.T. Lindahl in conversation with Susannah Hays, Berkeley
California, April 12 & 25, 2011, page 16. Chemistry diagrams are hand-drawn by
Lindahl, after Gurdjieff (for further explanation, see Ouspensky, P.D. In Search of the
Miraculous, Fragments of an Unknown Teaching, Chapter 9).
18 Gidley, Jennifer (2016), Postformal Education: A Philosophy for Complex Futures, p.2.
Bibliography
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