Blogs

AR is asking us to explore the potential of conscious sociality. To what extent is it possible to show up more mindfully? Lately, as i experience different kinds of AR practice, and the spectrum of AR facilitation capacity, i find much to reflect on the idea of reciprocation.

In biology, one of the hallmarks of mammals is the behavioral trait called reciprocal altruism. The term means that we can act in ways that deliberately promote the needs of others (such behavior being not typical of pre-mammalian species). But that this 'care' is carried out conditionally, on the expectation of it being reciprocated at some point in the future. And that these behaviors are most often found among kinship circles.

This is interesting to me because Porges talks a lot about reciprocation as being a core part of coregulation and nervous system regulation in general. And that this behavior is relatively new. Some examples: if you look me in the eye, but i do not, your nervous system responds with some minor level of alert. If we are having a conversation, and i monopolize the time speaking about myself, without in turn offering my gift of listening, again the others nervous system will start to raise red flags.

The relevant insights from AR, might be: turn taking and timing structures, leaning into listening, reflection, and honor self and other among others. (As a side note, and on a more personal level, i've been noticing lately how at times during practice where reciprocation is out of balance, or where there isn't an opportunity for me to be heard, how it seems to rapidly bring to the surface of my emotional body the pain of those past times when i was not heard.)

But my inquiry here relates more to the sheer size of the evolutionary project that is sociality.

Throughout evolutionary history, sociality seems like it partially evolved several times more or less independently. Early examples include the schooling behavior of fish. Then there is the eusocial behavior of species such as ants and bees, where highly genetically related individuals function as a kind of super organism. Later as both mammals and birds evolved from reptiles, we see the deliberate care of infants. Again behavior not seen earlier.

Whats interesting about higher mammals in particular, and not just because its tempting to anthropomorphize, is the collision of consciousness with sociality.

Prior to mammals 200mya, reciprocal altruism did not exist (btw the eusocial spp arrived 100mya). Reptiles, along with the entire vertebrate tree, with which we share an electrically signaled regulation system (ANS), as well as the much older invertebrates that we still share a shockingly similar chemically signaled regulation system (serotonin/dopamine) such as crustaceans, molluscs, insects etc, more or less the entire Cambrian explosion of life 500mya present with an agenda of survival and reproduction based on the unit of the individual.

But not us. We seek not the survival of the individual, but instead the survival of the family and family bloodline. This is what Dunbar's grandmother hypothesis is about. So we could say that this is more of a reflexive sociality, than it is a conscious sociality. Thus, I think it's fair to say that human sociality is currently, focused on, if not confined to, kinship circles, and that appears to be an actual limitation of our present biological hardware.

That makes me curious how far along we actually are on this hypothetical journey towards a more universal or conscious sociality? On one hand, mammals are 200my old already, which is an untrivial chunk of history. But, looking closer at it, we see that only the last 50my of that have we had peer to peer based sociality (cf infant caregiver). On the other hand if we consider the much longer frame offered by integral theory, then while we have come an incredibly long way from the single celled organisms of 4000mya, if we are to evolve beyond the notion of reciprocal altrusim towards something resembling true altrusim, beyond care that is limited to kin level/in-group social structures, to that which is international, interspecies and planetary in scale, then we have a wee bit of a ways to go! Makes you feel kind of small right?