 let's read it human cognition page 46 of fool of the gods by Terence McKenna the search for the original tree of knowledge quote all the unique characteristics and preoccupations of human beings can be summed up under the heading of cognitive activities dance philosophy painting poetry sport meditation erotic fantasy politics and so esoteric self intoxication we are truly homo sapiens the thinking animal our acts are all a product of the dimensions that is uniquely ours the dimensions of cognitive activity of thought and emotion memory and anticipation of psyche from observing the ayahuasca from observing the ayahuasca using people of the upper Amazon it became very clear to me that shamanism is often intuitively guided group decision-making the shamans decide when the group should move or hunt or make war human cognition is an adjective risk at an adaptive response that is profoundly flexible in the way it allows us to manage what in other species or genetically programmed behaviors we alone live in an environment that is conditioned not only by the biological and physical constraints to which all species are subject but also by symbols and language our human environment is conditioned by meaning and meaning lies in the collective mind of the group symbols and language allow us to act in it in a dimension that is supernatural outside the ordinary activities of other forms of organic life we can actualize our cultural assumptions alter and shape the natural world in the pursuit of I ideological ends and according to the internal model of the world that our symbols have empowered us to create we do this through the elaboration of ever more effective and hence ever more destructive artifacts and technologies which we feel compelled to use symbols allow us to store information outside the physical brain this creates for us a relationship to the past very different from that of our animal companions finally we must add to any analysis of the human picture the notion of self-directed modification of activity we are able to modify our behavior patterns based on a symbolic analysis of past events in other words through history through our ability to store and recover information as images and written records we have created a human environment as much conditioned by symbols and languages as by biological environmental factors