On Evolution of God-Seeking Mind
This perception of one’s individual existence in
space and time as separate and in potential opposi-
tion to other human existence and the rest of nature
would become a driving force in the evolution of
the human animal (Bronowski 1977; Dobzhansky
1964; Langer 1982, 1972).
The beginnings of this new sense of identity may
have taken place about 200,000 years ago, when our
moribund Homo erectus ancestors, with brains al-
most as large as our own, appeared to be dying out
of boredom. What awareness and what thoughts,
beyond the dull archeological evidence, might such
brains have expressed? “Homo erectus appeared
about 1.5 million years ago, and survived until sev-
eral hundred thousand years ago... The brain was
enlarged, at first by about 20 percent, to 900 cc, but
eventually, in late Homo erectus, to 1,100 cc, or about
80 percent of modern human cranial capacity”
(Donald 1991, p112). Such a creature would be ca-
pable of considerable self-awareness, as well as glim-
merings of change and of time beyond the current
moment (Mithen 1996). Other primates may have
some semblance of self-awareness, but human self-
awareness, awareness of self in time, and the ability
to represent such awareness, seems qualitatively dif-
ferent (Donald 1991; Bronowski 1977; Lorenz
1977). Being able to step back from what is repre-
sented confers a freedom to thought processes. This
is crucial for the development of self concepts (Dea-
con 1997). Dobzhansky called this development “an
evolutionary novelty; the biological species from
which mankind descended had only rudiments of
self-awareness, or, perhaps, lacked it altogether”
(1967, p68). Preceding the development of human
awareness of time and self “there arose, it seems, the
need for a new, internally generated image, an exec-
utive agent to help coordinate action and thereby
provide flexible responses to the unpredictable be-
havior of food, friend, and foe” (Fraser 1988, p489).
Although this evolutionary process must have been
gradual, we can imagine that receptive ancestor
who, in bending down to drink from a still pond,
stops and gazes at herself, consciously moves her
head and hand, and becomes aware of her power to
do so. She then comes to recognize that beyond this
new-found self lies a larger world of other, no part of
which can she move without first grasping it. She
may also become aware of some change in herself.
Much of this precocious awareness is likely to die
with her. Some of it will be passed on. She will have
some communication ability that allows her to
struggle with and crudely express such awareness.
That awareness would also serve the human need
Fraser describes and this too might lead hominids
further in the direction of symbolic language (Dea-
con 1997).
There would be an iterative process involving self
awareness and language acquisition. If that process
begins with awareness of self, our receptive ancestor,
in achieving some glimmer of it, takes a precarious
step that will lead her children’s children (likely,
hundreds or thousands of generations later, but
quite rapidly in evolutionary terms) to nascent
awareness of mortality. “Self-awareness has, how-
ever, brought in its train somber companions—fear,
anxiety and death awareness” (Dobzhansky 1967,
p68). Undoubtedly, this awareness would also ad-
vance words and grammar of human language as the
way to express it, as a parallel development to the
earlier form of communication: calls and gestures
(Deacon 1997). Evolution is unevenly slow. Human
evolution seems marked by periods of “punctuated
equilibrium”, by certain speciation events that cause
dramatic changes (Gould/Eldredge 1993). There
might have been many such events and changes on
the road to humanhood. Imagination, and language
to express its products, would parallel those changes.
Although this analogy can take us only so far,
compare the awareness of mortality that would fol-
low an awareness of self to the awareness of cold
that would follow the most recent advance of ice.
With increasing awareness of cold (and a less pro-
tective outer surface than hominids had during the
previous ice age) would come discomfort, pain, and
eventually, some disability in hunting and in other
survival tasks. Initially, nothing need have been
done; individuals and tribes could suffer and sur-
vive. Nature would favor traits that increase the
body’s ability to withstand cold. At some point in
time, with increasing cold, the more successful
hominids would have gone through certain adapta-
tions of brain and behavior, would have developed
sufficient smartness and dexterity to fabricate pro-
tective covering from animal skins (Dobzhansky
1964). Now consider awareness of mortality. With
this too would come discomfort and pain of another
sort, and eventually, this might lead to some disabil-
ity: some apprehensive state of mind which might
reduce effectiveness in hunting and in other sur-
vival tasks. As with the cold, initially, nothing need
have been done; individuals and tribes could suffer
with their painful emotions and survive. Here too
natural selection would be at work, favoring traits
that might increase the brain’s ability to withstand
the painful emotions, and thus, potentially debili-
tating fear would be reduced and those individuals
Evolution and Cognition ∣ 8 ∣ 2002, Vol. 8, No. 1