Cogprints
Login | Create Account

On Evolution of God-Seeking Mind: An Inquiry Into Why Natural Selection Would Favor Imagination and Distortion of Sensory Experience

Montell, Conrad (2002) On Evolution of God-Seeking Mind: An Inquiry Into Why Natural Selection Would Favor Imagination and Distortion of Sensory Experience. [Journal (Paginated)]

Full text available as:

[img]
Preview
PDF - Requires a PDF viewer such as GSview, Xpdf or Adobe Acrobat Reader
112Kb

Abstract

The earliest known products of human imagination appear to express a primordial concern and struggle with thoughts of dying and of death and mortality. I argue that the structures and processes of imagination evolved in that struggle, in response to debilitating anxieties and fearful states that would accompany an incipient awareness of mortality. Imagination evolved to find that which would make the nascent apprehension of death more bearable, to engage in a search for alternative perceptions of death: a search that was beyond the capability of the external senses. I argue that imagination evolved as flight and fight adaptations in response to debilitating fears that paralleled an emerging foreknowledge of death. Imagination, and symbolic language to express its perceptions, would eventually lead to religious behavior and the development of cultural supports. Although highly speculative, my argument draws on recent brain studies, and on anthropology, psychology, and linguistics.

Item Type:Journal (Paginated)
Keywords:evolution, imagination, mortality, self-awareness, fear, religious behavior, language
Subjects:Philosophy > Philosophy of Mind
Psychology > Evolutionary Psychology
Psychology > Social Psychology
ID Code:2726
Deposited By:Montell, Conrad
Deposited On:27 Jan 2003
Last Modified:12 Sep 2007 17:46

References in Article

Select the SEEK icon to attempt to find the referenced article. If it does not appear to be in cogprints you will be forwarded to the paracite service. Poorly formated references will probably not work.

Becker, E. (1973) The denial of death. The Free Press: New York.

Becker, E. (1975) Escape from evil. The Free Press: New York.

Beres, D. (1960) Perception, imagination, and reality. The International Journal of Psycho﷓analysis. 41, 327-34.

Boone, J.L./Smith, E.A. (1998) Is it evolution yet? a critique of evolutionary archaeology. Current Anthropology 39: S141-73.

Bronowski, J. (1977) A sense of the future. The MIT Press: Cambridge MA.

Brown, N.O. (1959) Life against death: The psychological meaning of history. Vintage Books: New York.

Chaplin, J.P. (1985) Dictionary of psychology. Dell Publishing Co: New York.

d'Aquili, E.G./Newberg, A.B. (1998) The neuropsychological basis of religion, or why God won't go away. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 33:187-201.

Deacon, T.W. (1997) The symbolic species: The co-evolution of language and the brain. W.W. Norton & Company: New York.

Dennett, D.C. (1978) Brainstorms. Bradford Books: Cambridge, MA.

Dennett, D.C. (1995) Darwin's dangerous idea: Evolution and the meanings of life. Touchstone: New York.

Dobzhansky, T. (1967) The biology of ultimate concern. The New American Library: New York.

Dobzhansky, T. (1964) Heredity and the nature of man. The New American Library: New York.

Donald, M. (1991) Origins of the modern mind: Three stages in the evolution of culture and cognition. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.

Drever, J. (1964) A dictionary of psychology. Penguin Books: Baltimore.

Eccles, J.C. (1989) Evolution of the brain: Creation of the self. Routledge: London.

Einstein, A. (1954) Ideas and opinions. Crown Publishers: New York.

Flew, A. (1993) Atheistic humanism. Prometheus Books: Buffalo.

Fraser, J.T. (1988) Time: removing the degeneracies. In Blum, H.P./Kramer, Y./Richards, A.K./Richards, A.D. (eds) Fantasy, myth, and reality. International University Press: Madison, Conn, pp. 481-501.

Freud, S. (1950) Totem and taboo. W.W. Norton: New York.

Gibson, J.J. (1966) The senses considered as perceptual systems. Houghton Mifflin: Boston.

Goldstein, L./Connelly, M. (1998) "Teen-age poll finds support for tradition." The New York Times. April 30, p. 1.

Gould, S.J./Eldredge, N. (1993) Punctuated equilibrium comes of age. Nature. 366:223-7.

Hocart, A.M. (1954) Social origins. Watts & Company: London.

Holman, H.C./Harmon, W. (1992) A handbook to literature. Macmillan Publishing Company: New York.

Holmes, R. (1996) Homo religious and its brain: Reality, imagination, and the future of nature. Zygon: Journal of Religion and Science 31:441-55.

James, W. (1936) The varieties of religious experience. Random House: New York.

Jaynes, J. (1976) The origins of consciousness in the breakdown of the bicameral mind. Houghton Mifflin: Boston.

Jones, S. (1997) The set within the skull. The New York Review of Books. 44 (17):13-16.

Koestler, A. (1964) The act of creation. Dell Publishing: New York.

Langer, S.K. (1957) Philosophy in a new key. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA.

Langer, S.K. (1967) Mind: An essay on human feeling (I). The Johns Hopkins University Press: Baltimore.

Langer, S.K. (1972) Mind: An essay on human feeling (II). The Johns Hopkins

University Press: Baltimore.

Langer, S.K. (1982) Mind: An essay on human feeling (III). The Johns Hopkins

University Press: Baltimore.

Langs, R. (1996) The evolution of the emotion-processing mind. Karnac Books: London.

Laughlin,C.D./Mcmanus,J./d'Aquili,E.G. (1990) Brain, symbol & experience: toward a neurophenomenology of human consciousness. Shambhala Publications: Boston.

Leyhausen, P. (1973) On the natural history of fear (1967), In Lorenz, K./ Leyhausen, P. (eds) Motivation of human and animal behavior: An ethological view. Van Nostrand Reinhold: New York, pp. 248﷓71.

Lorenz, K. (1973) Behind the mirror: A search for a natural history of human knowledge. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich: New York.

Martin, M. W. (1985) Self-deception and self-understanding. University Press of Kansas: Lawrence, KS.

Martin, M.W. (1997) Self-deceiving Intentions. Behavioral and brain sciences 20:122-123.

Metzger, W. (1974) Can the Subject Create His World? In Pick, H.L. Jr.(ed) Perception: Essays in honor of James J. Gibson. Cornell University Press: London. pp. 57-71.

Mithen, S. (1989) Evolutionary theory and post-processual archaeology. Antiquity 63, 483-94.

Mithen, S. (1996) The prehistory of the mind: The cognitive origins of art, religion and science. Thames and Hudson: London.

Malhotra, A.K. (1997) Sartre and Samkhya-Yoga on self. In: Allen, D. (ed) Culture and self. pp. 111-28. Westview Press: Boulder, CO.

Montell, C. (1999) Creative imagination: evolutionary theory's recalcitrant problem child. Psychological Inquiry. 10:342-343.

Montell, C. (2001) Speculations on a privileged state of cognitive dissonance. Journal for the theory of social behaviour. 31:119-137.

Parrinder, G. (1984) World religions from ancient history to the present. Facts On File Publications: New York.

Persinger, M.A. (1987) Neuropsychological bases of god beliefs. Praeger: New York.

Philippe, J. (1903) L'image mentale (evolution et dissolution). Alcan: Paris.

Pinker, S. (1997) How the Mind Works. W.W. Norton: New York.

Pyszczynski, T./Greenberg J./Solomon S. (1997) Why do we need what we need? A terror management perspective on the roots of human social motivation. Psychological inquiry. 8:1-20.

Ramachandran, V.S./Blakeslee, S. (1998) Phantoms in the brain: Probing the mysteries of the human mind. William Morrow: New York.

Rangell, L. (1988) Roots and Derivatives of Unconscious Fantasy. In: Blum, H.P./ Kramer, Y./Richards, A.K./Richards, A.D. (eds) Fantasy, myth, and reality. pp. 61-78. International University Press: Madison, Conn.

Searle, J. R. (1997) Consciousness & the philosophers. The New York Review of Books. 44 (4): 43-50.

Showalter, E. (1988) Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness, In: Lodge, D. (ed) Modern criticism and theory. pp. 330-53. Longman: London.

Smith, H. (1958) The religions of man. Harper & Row: New York.

Staddon, J.E.R./Zanutto, B.S. (1998) In praise of parsimony. In: Wynne, C.D.L./ Staddon, J.E.R. (eds) Models of action: Mechanisms for adaptive behavior. pp. 239-268. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, N.J.

Stephen, M. (1989) Self, the sacred other, and autonomous imagination. In: Herdt, G./ Stephen, M. (eds) The religious imagination in New Guinea. pp. 41-64 Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick.

Sulloway, F.J. (1998) Darwinian Virtues. The New York Review of Books. 45 (6): 34-40.

Vickio, C.J. (1994) Lost and found: finding value in life through imagining loss. Death studies. 18: 609-619.

Webster's New World College Dictionary. (1996) Simon & Schuster: New York.

Weigert, A. J. (1988) To be or not: Self and authenticity, identity and ambivalence. In: Lapsley, D.K./Power, F.C. (eds) Self, ego, and identity. pp. 263-81. Springer-Verlag: New York.

Metadata

Repository Staff Only: item control page

Cogprints is powered by EPrints 3 which is developed by the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. More information and software credits.