Abstract
This paper explores the role of psychedelics in the context of evolutionary brain development and the conceptual capacity for moral realism. Drawing on theories from evolutionary anthropology, neuroscience, and moral philosophy, the first part provides a brief overview of human evolution and brain expansion. From here, recent empirical data from the neurosciences is assessed on the effect psychedelics have on the brain, along with speculations on the role of psychedelics in our hominoid evolutionary history—specifically, the capacity for phenomenologically rich, conscious, subjective experiences that are incredibly vivid and real. This imaginative capacity for transcendence and disembodiment could enable the realization of new forms of abstract, absolute, and perfect concepts. The influence of epigenetic neurogenesis may have enabled our brain to expand and function as it does now, with its complex neural structures that facilitate conceptualization, visualization, association, and categorization, allowing for more advanced structures of vocalized noises, such as syntax and eventually, meaning. Finally, the concept of moral realism is analyzed within the framework of the theories outlined in the first part and demonstrates how it may have evolved. The claim is that psychedelic use and the psychedelic experience could have created this abstract moral concept, which would then be encoded in our collective consciousness over evolutionary time.
Keywords: human evolution, brain expansion, psychedelics, transcendence, abstract concepts, moral realism
Recommended Citation
Jas, E. (2026). Embodied Transcendence: Psychedelics and the Evolution of Moral Abstraction. Journal of Conscious Evolution, 22(1). https://digitalcommons.ciis.edu/cejournal/vol22/iss1/6
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