Re: Hallucinogens Spawn the Great Filter (was Dinas...
QueeneMUSE@aol.com
Wed, 27 Nov 1996 18:15:16 -0500
IAN: The use of hallucinogenic agents is observed to be
central to almost all primitive "religious" organization.
However much we might like to trash religion, I don't
think any objective observer could honestly dispute its
central formative role in, and expression of, the evolu-
tion of human intelligence from pre-human conditions.
The same goes for "rock paintings."
IAN:
>How many nonhumans have religions? How many nonhumans
paint coherent images? None that I'm aware of. As you
concede that hallucinogens may have promoted their aris-
ing, it seems that you must also concede that the hallu-
cinogenic theory of the arising of human intelligence,
specifically of those feature that mark its arising,
correlates strongly with the physical evidence.
>
Good point! ...you may be onto something here.
[I was making a joke (have you ever tried to talk to someone on acid and
have an intelligent conversation?) But then, I know, I always forget....you
have to put a smiley face or we wont know its not 100% seriousity...]
I don't know if prehistoric man ate acid, I dont really care ; - )
But in essence (with or without mushrooms) you are talking about something
quite important, more specifically *patterns and visualizations* and a keen
observation about the intelligence of humans - being that (primarily) through
the vision part of the brain, we have developed pattern recognitions that
other species do not.
How this will shape up in the debate about and developement of cognitive
science and intelligence research I am not qualified to say.
But it is certain that our eyes and mind and imagination (mind's eye) all
work together in a very different and cohesive way to make us what one would
call "sentient".