Re: Gould on Engels on evolution

[zodiac@xxxxxxxxxxxx (zodiac)]

Thanks muchly, Tom.

Aside from the labor aspects of development... I find the most
titillating notion Engels makes in swift passing is this:

    In a race of apes that far surpassed all others in intelligence and
    adaptability, this predatory economy must have led to a continual
    increase in the number of plants used for food and the consumption
    of more and more edible parts of food plants.  In short, food
    became more and more varied, as did also the substances entering
    the body with it, substances that were the chemical premises for
    the transition to man.

"The chemical premises for the transition to man" -- I love it. It
certainly fits into the various loose "neurochemical/psychotropic social
evolutionary" theories that intrigued me (most) in my acid-shroom days.
Namely, that various stages of human development can be traced to the
uses of different mind altering chemicals. The delightfully
muddleheaded Tim Leary paints all kinds of allegorical scenarios about
the synthesis of human and plant/drug -- which moment of epiphanic
enlightenment, or transcendence, allows the human to temporally REMOVE
her "self" from the reality waters in which she swims.

Satori is another word for it.

I realize that Engels mainly discusses nutritional aspects, like the
spread of a meat diet... but Nature is loaded with Satori-inducing
substances. Without getting Lamarckian here, I've often wondered about
Darwin's "law of correlation of growth" applied to the drugs ingested
by different cultures... What unexpect developments result? What are
attributable to plant-drugs? etc.

Anyway, thanks for directing my attention here, Tom... It's a beautiful
little read.

Ken.



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