Prometheus Rising is a quirky but illuminating book, tying together diverse threads from psychoanalysis, mysticism, religious history, neuroscience, sociology, and (questionable) quantum physics. It is an exploration of consciousness and subjective reality – the power of the human brain.
The book starts by presenting a simple model for the brain: a computer that can run several different types of programs. Genetics determine the “operating system”, but at certain stages of our development, we are vulnerable to imprints – programs that modify the circuits in our brain and thus constrain the other programs (conditioning, learning) that we can run in later life. For example, the first experience a newborn has with their mother is a strong determinant of their future anxiety/self-confidence; an adolescent’s experiences during puberty shape their sexual preferences as an adult.
Wilson (henceforth RAW) explores these ideas through the lens of Timothy O’Leary’s Eight-circuit model of consciousness. The first four circuits are closely analogous to the psychoanalytical work of Freud and Jung: the bio-survival circuit that codes for “advance vs retreat”, the emotional-territorial circuit that codes for socially dominant/submissive behaviour, the time-binding semantic circuit represents the rational mind, and the socio-sexual circuit encodes our morality.
This part of the book is deeply insightful: personally, it represents a big leap forward in the vocabulary I can use to understand why I’m the way I am, and why other people are the way they are – perhaps I have previously been too hasty to write off psychoanalysis as garbage. RAW also tugs on some interesting speculative threads about the role of these circuits in society, for example, how politicians tap into circuits I and II (e.g. Trump creating an “us vs them” emotional-territorial circuit II trigger) to subvert the rational circuit III. He playfully explores the links between these psychoanalytical ideas and various aspects of mysticism and religion; in particular, there is some lucid commentary of Finnegan’s Wake, which had previously been beyond incomprehensible to me.
The subsequent chapters, discussing circuits V-VIII, become very weird: according to RAW, the neurogenetic circuit VI would allow our brain to read into our DNA to understand our genetic history and tap into “previous lives”; the non-local quantum circuit VIII can supposedly connect us with the quantum foam of the universe, allowing for extra-sensory perception, astral projections etc. I’m really trying to keep an open mind, but most of this part of the book seems to be highly **speculative bordering on complete garbage, based on several misreadings of ideas from quantum physics like Bell’s theorem. My view is that the brain is indeed an exceedingly complicated structure whose limits we haven’t reached (let alone explored), yet those limits do exist and are constrained by biology, chemistry and physics. Some of circuit V-VIII capabilities do seem plausible: there is growing evidence that breathing techniques and certain yoga practices can materially improve health outcomes (see the Huberman Lab podcast), supporting RAW’s description of the neurosomatic circuit V. The chapter on metaprogramming (circuit VII) was especially interesting to me: the ultimate expression of neural plasticity and self-awareness should be our ability to actively change our circuits.
But for all the “genius” of the book, RAW’s arguments often depend on more or less factual claims which are often suspect, like the quantum physics example alluded to above. With a hat tip to Gell-Mann amnesia, I should probably assume that the same is true of his psychoanalysis. Another thing: almost all of RAWs predictions are very wrong: commercial life extension by 1998, widespread genetic editing in humans by 2004, large scale space colonisation by 2028.
Yet at the end of the day, it matters little to me whether RAW is right or wrong – the book stretched my mind in a way that the n+1th book on “rational decision-making” simply couldn’t, giving me a new framework to understand the world. Prometheus Rising is about deep introspection – not purely the rationalist kind where we try to understand our cognitive biases and improve our rational decision-making, but rather a meta-introspection wherein we seek to analyse why we are rationalists or moralists or security-seeking in the first place. RAW’s criticisms of rationalism were thought-provoking and incisive: for instance, “rationalist” scientists historically have a very poor track record of accepting new paradigms (Kuhn). As Max Planck said, “science progresses funeral by funeral”.
Rationalism is just another such group art-work, a little less tolerant than most, a little more useful to technologists than any other, a little stupid when it can no longer transcend the last paradigm it has created.
Some may bristle at the idea that our brains can be modelled as computers running programs, and that we are slaves to our imprints and instincts. But when the computer reaches a level of sophistication wherein it can understand its own program, and further still, modify the program – then it can unleash the full power of the flame of Prometheus.
The revolutionaries of any decade will become the reactionaries of the next decade, if they do not change their nervous system, because the world around them is changing.