Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id UAA26667 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 16 Jan 2002 20:58:45 GMT Message-Id: <5.1.0.14.0.20020116155248.02c41690@pop.cogeco.ca> X-Sender: hkhenson@pop.cogeco.ca X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 5.1 Date: Wed, 16 Jan 2002 15:55:56 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Keith Henson <hkhenson@cogeco.ca> Subject: Re: Has anybody read this book? In-Reply-To: <p04320400b86b81d5de4e@[192.168.2.3]> References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020116091527.02c45ec0@pop.cogeco.ca> <LAW2-F44UZxn6oZcohv00007b8b@hotmail.com> <LAW2-F44UZxn6oZcohv00007b8b@hotmail.com> <5.1.0.14.0.20020116091527.02c45ec0@pop.cogeco.ca> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 02:27 PM 16/01/02 -0500, "Francesca S. Alcorn" <unicorn@greenepa.net>
wrote:
>>Do this long enough, give it enough of an advantage, and you get genes
>>building a place in the brain to accept religious class memes. If you dig
>>about in the literature the location (temporal lobe) is known. Seizures
>>in this area are connected to extreme religious feelings and (for unknown
>>reasons) to "hypergraphia," writing incessantly.
>>
>>http://pub63.ezboard.com/ftheologyfortodayfrm14.showMessage?topicID=86.topic
>>
>>It's a patch, but evolution is like that, patch upon patch.
>>
>>Keith Henson
>
> Hi Keith,
>
>But in the Nova program I saw with Ramachandran, he includes two cases,
>one where there was damage to the temporal lobe, and the guy was unable to
>"recognize" his own parents - sure they looked like his parents, but they
>didn't elicit the emotional response, and so he began saying they indeed
>*weren't* his parents.
>
>The other guy had temporal lobe seizures which he experienced as deeply
>religious and spiritual in nature - *everything* that he looked at was
>meaningful, and deeply so.
>
>So it seems to me that the religious experience may arrive out of a
>meaning-attributing process, which may be part of a pre-verbal brain structure.
>
>Of course this is from seeing a show on TV, which I couldn't go back to
>and look up to be certain that he was relating the two cases in the same
>way I am, so I could be wrong. Now *he* is someone who should write a
>book about the religious impulse.
I don't have the reference to it at hand, but it is mentioned in
Gazzaniga's Social Brain book. There is a tiny temporal lobe area that if
it is burned out a person's religious *stability* is destroyed. I.e., such
people can change religions as often as underware.
Keith Henson
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