Xref: utzoo alt.drugs:9776 alt.atheism:8273 alt.pagan:5732 sci.skeptic:9404 talk.religion.misc:36451 sci.bio:4528 sci.med:23412 Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!ucsd!sdcc6!sdbio2!cleland From: cleland@sdbio2.ucsd.edu (Thomas Cleland) Newsgroups: alt.drugs,alt.atheism,alt.pagan,sci.skeptic,talk.religion.misc,sci.bio,sci.med Subject: Re: Drugs as Origin of Religion Keywords: addiction drugs religion legalization Message-ID: <17210@sdcc6.ucsd.edu> Date: 5 Mar 91 08:57:56 GMT References: <1991Feb15.125244.25171@news.cs.indiana.edu> <1991Feb19.233028.19992@midway.uchicago.edu> <27C2AD16.24022@ics.uci.edu> Sender: news@sdcc6.ucsd.edu Reply-To: cleland@sdbio2.ucsd.edu (Thomas Cleland) Followup-To: alt.drugs Organization: University of California, San Diego Lines: 31 In article <27C2AD16.24022@ics.uci.edu> honig@ics.uci.edu (David Honig) writes: > >Its easy to understand what the circuits for, e.g., love, ie, >pair-bonding are for: humans take forever to raise, and its easier if >you have two helping. Many animals share these features. > >I've read that it was useful in smaller societies to have the ability to bond >to one's tribe and feel brotherhood; of course this has been exploited in >patriotism and is part of many modern religions. > >So, an interesting question is: Are states of religious awe and >ecstacy artifacts or have they been selected for? > Interesting, but not a biological question, alas. "Selecting for" and subjective mental states like "awe" and "ecstasy" are miles apart in the mechanisms of how we understand them. To relate the two meaningfully will occur after we solve the problem of the interface of genetics, neural communication, and cultural transmission as adaptive information processing and transmittal networks in their roles as structures for the maintenance of a self-regulating system. I fear that may be a while yet. Seriously, though, you can't talk about "selecting for" religious awe. The system is much more complex than that. >-- >David Honig Thom Cleland tcleland@ucsd.edu