Re: Mysticism
Reply #22 –
It happened, at least, 100,000 years ago.
Your evidence for this is…what?
Adding sound to movies would be like putting lipstick on the Venus de Milo - Mary Pickford.
Or arms, Mary?
People often have peculiar and quite visceral reactions to new ideas. I can readily understand your being unconvinced by a mere gloss of Jaynes' thesis. But saying Bullshit, followed by "Never heard such an imbecility" hardly qualifies as a rebuttal to his arguments.
It must be the proposed origin of god-talk that offends you, and makes you so unreceptive to what, after all, is an empirical question.
(BTW: I think you misunderstand that proposed origin story's import…)
As I said above (to James, mind you!) — While I have no great taste for mystical "explanation," the history of Man's various belief systems requires more explanation than "primitive" guesses or psychopathology. No?
If you prefer an actual God, you still have to explain the great variety of extent and long-gone beliefs, and haphazard attitudes to many of them…
Or maybe not: You might just ignore what aggravates you. All Just So stories are not created equal!