My own hypothesis, hoping for your ideas and comments.
- Humans took psychoactive mushrooms in the stone-age
- Those shrooms jumpstarted our brains over years and years and gave us an edge over other species
- But it might have been too early for us, our brains are still hardwired like "us against the rest of the world", we lack several evolutionary steps
- That's why we keep killing everything, and that's why we still love all kinds of hocuspocus (religion, esoterics etc)
@Paradise7D That’s a strong hypnosis. Our stupid monkey brains would have loved psychedelics!
Unsure how much impact it would have had generationally however
@mrgnarchr @Paradise7D it's well documented that certain psychotropics and other compounds (Wellbutrin, SSRIs, etc) permanently change the chemical/physical structure of the brain. If it were the case that psychedelics conferred even a minor evolutionary advantage, it's possible that altered gametes that encoded those changes were propagated over generations. But since the changes were exogenous, I still find this explanation improbable.
@mrgnarchr @Paradise7D yes, the brain of an adolescent or adult is being directly altered by an external factor, not the genes. But if the genes of those whose brains were altered were more likely to be propagated, who's to say that the conferred advantages weren't the result of having genes that allowed the brain to be altered in a specifically advantageous way by psychedelics in the first place? It's a correlation conundrum!
@hallmarc @Paradise7D Hmmm that’s an interesting thought! Genetic predisposition to benefits of psychedelics could absolutely push evolutionary paths
@mrgnarchr @Paradise7D does smoking overwhelmingly cause lung cancer or does a genetic predisposition to develop lung cancer cause people to want to smoke?
@hallmarc @Paradise7D that one’s a bit more obvious because we know the motivation factors.
And rather wouldn’t it be a genetic predisposition to smoking that causes the potential for lung cancer?
@mrgnarchr @Paradise7D it's a bit tongue in cheek pointing out the perils of conflating correlation with causation. I highly recommend The Book of Why by Judea Pearl.
@hallmarc @Paradise7D I’ll add it to the list! Thanks!
@hallmarc @Paradise7D exogenous would mean outside of genetics?