> In a message dated 97-07-17 09:49:57 EDT, you write:
> << The basic idea seems to be that psychotropic substances led to faster
> memetic evolution, which in turn led to exploration of different ways
> of interacting and seeing the world. His problem is to show
> that this actually took place.
> >>
> There is a picture a dancing person with mushrooms sprouting all over their
> body in the tassili plateau in northern africa dated (4000 BC? 6000?), so
> there were definatley cultures taking them near where primates evolved into
> humans.
A first step, but hardly any proof of his theory.
Another thought: it is known (I can cite some articles) that caffeine
drinkers perform better at memory tests, reaction tests and similar
cognitive stuff (taking confounding variables into account), and
nicotine seems to have other cognition enhancing effects. It is not
unreasonable to think that the introduction of coffee, tea and
tobacco into the western culture accelerated its growth in areas
where this kind of effects are useful (like technology).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension!
nv91-asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~nv91-asa/main.html
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y