Can Evolution explain this? (Re: The biological evolution of religious belief)

What about the various "cave" species that have lost sight? I remember there is one and maybe more than one blind cave fish, and there might be some other creatures that lost sight.lfen

I loved that book. It was such a cross discpline tour de force full of insight but I have no idea how it could be falsified let alone proved. Still Jaynes thinking was brilliant and fascinating. If others were interested it would be great to see a thread devoted to it.I recall understanding him to say that the gods were the way initial consciousness experienced thinking coming from the other brain hemisphere before a self image emerged that could be a reference for taking action in the world. He brilliantly explained the Illiad and prophecy.lfen

Hey, PinkRemember that thread you started some months back asking if there was something unique to Homo Sap?Whadda ya think of this assertion? Does religion meet your criteria?lfen

Yeah, that is what I thought but the details were all very hazy.btw Have you ever taken a blind walk or spent time "blind"? It's amazing how the other senses become sensitive or begin to feed data.
I remember stopping and I reaching out to touch a wall and then figuring out I had sensed it was there because the quality of sounds had changed due to some reflection from the wall.I'm guessing that if other senses get more processer space with the loss of eyes, senses that have survival value in total darkness then that is the advantageous mutation that is needed?lfen

Jaynes looked at the experiences of contemporary schizophrenics hearing voices and saw in them a socially unsupported survival of bicameral brained homo sapiens. I don't know what the current state of neuroscience is on what areas of the brain or brain function are involved in schizophrenic auditory hallucinations.The book was very speculative. It's been several decades since I read it. I recommend it simply to enjoy Jaynes brilliance. I don't know how much attention it received from experts, I suspect too little.btw When I was a boy I had a pet cow spider I named Elsi, and a pet golden garden spider named Beauty. When Beauty's egg sac hatched I tried selling her babies door to door thinking the neighbor ladies with their gardens would want a big beautiful web with a golden garden spider sitting in the middle of it guarding their gardens from insect predators. Needless to say I was quite mistaken and quickly disillusioned by all the looks of fear, and loathing directed at Beauty's lovely little baby spiders. When I worked with pre school children we frequently read BE NICE TO SPIDERS. Hopefully more and more people understand the role of spiders in the ecology.lfen

Provocative but extremely terse. How late is late? Could you give a brief outline of your theory of the development of religion? Do you think Homo Erectus was religious? Neanderthal? early Sapiens?I think the experience of dreaming about deceased persons of significance to the dreamer would suggest that they lived on and the burials with objects would indicate that some notion of an after life was anticipated. So what do you imagine religion was like before the idea of an afterlife?I don't know about H.erectus, but I think Neanderthal and Sapiens were religious and believed in an afterlife of some sort relating to the dream world and burial.I think language and an ego (a self referential abstract model of the human organism/brain)are necessary for religion.lfen