On Evolution of God-Seeking Mind
haps there were spirits (or demons even) who con-
trolled such life. We can sense the struggle with
such questions in the early expressions of art, the
search that would lead to a variety of “answers”,
some of which might also be terrifying. Spirits,
even demons, no matter how terrifying, would be
less terrifying than death itself (Hocart 1954). As
fire was used to ward off the leopard, spirits might
be used to ward off death, or to provide another life.
Those individuals or tribes armed with such protec-
tion against death might be more willing to take
the risks necessary for a successful hunt. The spirits
might indeed inspire individuals to hunt more cou-
rageously than before. Who in the five thousand
years of recorded history has been more courageous
in situations requiring courage than those inspired
by spirits or gods?
To look at a world beyond that which is sensed,
in “mythic modes”, requires that aspect of imagina-
tion which in literary theory is known as “suspen-
sion of disbelief”: a willingness to suppress doubt
(Donald 1991). Suspension of disbelief, I suggest, is
similar to an older use of imagination necessary in
order to reconfigure the world to accommodate spir-
its associated with the dead. The mere telling of sto-
ries would make long winter nights less monoto-
nous, but that would hardly drive natural selection
towards the adaptation of human imagination.
Homo erectus, quite likely, lived a million years in
such monotony, bored, perhaps, but genetically
successful. The storytelling would need to be driven
by matters of life and death. Donald shows life and
death mythic constructs to be among the oldest of
human inventions:
“Even in the most primitive human societies,
where technology has remained essentially un-
changed for tens of thousands of years, there are
always myths of creation and death and stories that
serve to encapsulate tribally held ideas of origin and
world structure... These uses were not late develop-
ments, after language had proven itself in concrete
practical applications; they were among the first”
(Donald 1991, p213).
In discussing the prime uses of language, Donald
adds: “Initially, it was used to construct conceptual
models of the human universe. Its function was ev-
idently tied to the development of integrative
thought—to the grand unifying synthesis of for-
merly disconnected, time-bound snippets of infor-
mation” (p215). To integrate and express life and
death thoughts requires that language we now as-
sociate with imagination and mind activity. Such
thought and such use of language would, I suggest,
from its beginning, intertwine with utilitarian com-
munication, and with the older form of calls and
gestures. Once in place, imaginative mind pro-
cesses would function alongside those of utilitarian
brain in human communication, along a contin-
uum from purely sensory expressions to those that
are inner directed and conceptual. We see such in
current communication, in a continuum from
work-related statements, questions and com-
mands, where accuracy is required, to those in reli-
gion and poetry, where ambiguity is acceptable and
even encouraged. Also intertwined with such ex-
pressions of thought in human communication are
certain “pseudo-symbolic structures. emotions,
feelings, desires. They are not symbols for thought,
but symptoms of the inner life, like tears and laugh-
ter, crooning, or profanity”, (Langer 1957, p83).
These structures too, I suggest, would evolve along-
side the emerging human mind, to express the fear,
the apprehension, and later, the joy and other good
feelings involved in the new search and discovery
process.
Consider that era in prehistoric time when aware-
ness of self and of death-of-self first emerged and
found expression. Before this time, the essential role
of language would be to communicate as accurately
as possible: danger and opportunity, sighting of a
predator, sounds of an antelope herd, where food
was to be found, when and how to secure it, who
should perform the various tasks involved. Plain,
concrete, unambiguous communication was needed
for success. The payoff was meat or plants that safely
could be eaten. With hunting-gathering of informa-
tion relating to the dead, with tasks related to spiri-
tual well-being, the role of language and pseudo-
symbolic structures would be to communicate these
thoughts and emotions: death-mitigating ideas and
fears, in such a way that belief systems could be built.
The payoff was an effective spirit or a god that could
be believed in.
Natural selection would favor individuals who
“successfully” came to terms with death: who used
their emerging minds to find ways of making death
bearable. Imagine that stage in evolution when
Homo sapiens first became aware of the frightening
mystery of non-accidental death, of fatal illness, of
an aging process toward certain death. Lacking
knowledge of disease, they might have feared that
death itself might be contagious (Langer 1957).
From their own terrible dreams they might have
looked at a dead comrade and wondered as Hamlet
wondered; “in that sleep of death what dreams may
come?”
Evolution and Cognition ∣ 16 ∣ 2002, Vol. 8, No. 1