On Evolution of God-Seeking Mind
Donald 1991; Lorenz 1977; Mithen 1996; Pinker
1997). Consider certain quantitative and qualitative
differences in the animal world. The difference be-
tween the brain of a fruit fly and that of a chimpan-
zee can be viewed as quantitative: the chimp has
much more and much better of the same kind of
brain material. In contrast, the difference between
the brain of a chimpanzee and that of a human must
be viewed as qualitative: beyond the measure of
DNA, as seen in differences in behavior and cogni-
tion, we have some qualitatively different material,
which other primates do not have (Bronowski 1977,
Donald 1991, Lorenz 1977, Mithen 1996). “It is as
if all life evolved to a certain point, and then, in
ourselves turned at a right angle and simply ex-
ploded in a different direction” (Jaynes 1976, p9).
The extraordinary gap in mental performance be-
tween humans and the rest of the animal world has
defied efforts to bridge it with plausible explanation.
Lorenz refers to a great gulf produced by “a creative
flash”, a “fundamental revolution of all life brought
about by the coming into existence of the human
mind” (1977, p167), “utterly impenetrable to the
human understanding” (p169). Part of that “funda-
mental revolution” can be understood, I suggest, by
looking at a new kind of self-preservation behavior
stemming from a threat to life that only humans
have perceived.
All animals behave to survive and reproduce, and
all require sensory equipment in order to gain accu-
rate information from the environment. Indeed, in
this kind of behavior, we are just like other primates.
However, there is also “and not by bread alone be-
havior” to account for: unique behavior and a
unique problem. Humans have had an awareness of
a non-specific threat to life, and humans have
evolved with equipment and behavior in order to
cope with that perceived threat. At some evolution-
ary stage, proto-humans began to be aware of self
and other, of time past, and of approaching time be-
yond the given moment. As a consequence, they
eventually became aware of their mortality (a still
evolving awareness), and suffered the throes of that
awareness as well as that of death itself (Becker 1973;
Brown 1959; Langs 1996; Langer 1982, 1972, 1967;
Pyszczynski/Greenberg/Solomon 1997). Other ani-
mals, whose awareness is imprisoned in present time
(Bronowski 1977), merely suffer the throes of death.
Animals have developed brains; humans have devel-
oped additional equipment and the ability to com-
municate symbolically (Deacon 1997; Donald
1991). I argue that some part of that equipment and
that linguistic behavior developed in response to the
stimulus of potentially debilitating fear brought on
by an evolving awareness of mortality. Rather than
an adaptation (what reproductive benefit is there in
this awareness?), it may have been an inevitable con-
sequence of a certain level of brain complexity. Once
in place it would lead to new human behavior. “The
function of the brain is to produce behavior. The
function of behavior is to promote the Darwinian
fitness of the behaver” (Staddon/Zanutto 1998,
p242). What is true for the animal brain should also
be true for that additional equipment known as the
human mind.
Dennett, shifting the mind-brain problem by re-
ferring to “animal minds”, discusses the “huge dif-
ference between our minds and the minds of other
species... We are also the only species with language”
(Dennett 1995, p371). Why only us? He answers by
posing another question: “What varieties of thought
require language?” (p371). One such variety of
thought, I suggest, is religious in nature. Dennett
proposes a design structure for the ascendance of hu-
man mind which he calls “the Tower of Generate-
and-Test” (p373). Here again, why would only hu-
man minds climb to the top of such a structure? Den-
nett suggests the advent of tool use, but does not
address the question of why only humans so used
tools. He speaks of a device for lifting the brain to
human heights: “the crane to end all cranes: an ex-
plorer that does have foresight, that can see beyond
the immediate neighborhood of options” (p379).
Again, the question as to what need led only human
brains to look “beyond the immediate neighbor-
hood of options?” is unanswered. Dennett disagrees
with those who refer to human “mysteries” such as
free will: human puzzlement that cannot be solved.
My thesis suggests at least a partial answer to the
question of human uniqueness and a solution to one
of the mysteries: the development of religious be-
havior. Whether we call it mind or brain, the human
intellect-imagination system evolved to engage in
behavior that cannot simply be described in terms
of physical survival. Part of this “and not by bread
alone” behavior is religious in nature. “As every crea-
ture and even every living tissue responds to stress
with heightened activity, so the mind meets the
challenge its own evolution has created by a radical
deepening of religious feeling and dawning of reli-
gious ideas” (Langer 1982, p110).
My thesis does not address the complexity of
needs served by organized religion, the moral as-
pects of religious activity, or other aspects of the
ubiquitous mind. The focus is not on whether reli-
gious behavior is adaptive in the modern world.
Evolution and Cognition ∣ 2 ∣ 2002, Vol. 8, No. 1