# Were early humans mystics or rationalists? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 11, 2018, 12:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209 "2018-04-11T12:29:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209/21 "2018-04-11T18:49:33Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > Yet, IIRC, when a media personality made such an observation recently, she felt it necessary to express an apology. I’m curious to know who that media personality was. Piling on: I don’t know about Jesus but Mohammed had his first revelation while spending time praying in a cave. It’s likely that he combined sensory deprivation (being in a cave), fasting and meditation/prayer, all of which can contribute to hallucinations and psychotic episodes, especially if you start with someone who has a propensity for them. It doesn’t need to be full-blown schizophrenia, just a milder, subclinical form of it which can be accentuated by tools and techniques. As for earlier forms of religion, as Colibri said, early religion often meant shamanism. Many forms of shamanism use psychedelics. If people took peyote or magic mushrooms 50 000 years ago, I can see how they would have come to believe that they had access to a spirit world\*. Even today, you have people who come back from their trips convinced that they visited some alternate world or dimension. This comes back to my earlier note about how it can be difficult, cognitively and emotionally, to realize that part of what you perceive comes from your own mind rather than the external world. A more mundane example about ghosts which comes back to your OP: It’s common enough for (non-schizophrenic) mourning people to hear or see dead people as brief hallucinations. If you don’t realize/accept that it’s an artifact of your mind, the next best explanation (and a very comforting one) is that your departed loved ones aren’t really dead because ghosts exist. \*In a way, they did have access to a spirit world, if you understand “spirit world” to mean consciousness and its depths. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209/22 "2018-04-11T19:31:48Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > I’m curious to know who that media personality was. Someone named Joy Behar on The View, made a comment about Pence’s purported belief that he somehow or another hears from Jesus as suggestive of mental illness. Not clear exactly what she said, or what Pence said about his relation with Jesus. Will acknowledge that it was likely a cheap shot. But I also think IF someone claims they see/hear supernatural things, that is generally not a sign of mental stability/good contact w/ reality. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209/23 "2018-04-11T19:49:11Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > I’m curious to know who that media personality was. [Joy Behar](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2018/03/13/vice-president-pence-is-right-joy-behar-publicly-apologizes-for-mocking-christianity/). ETA: I see that the answer came before I refreshed the page. But to expand, what she said was: “It’s one thing to talk to Jesus. It’s another thing when Jesus talks to you. That’s called mental illness, if I’m not correct, hearing voices.” ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209/24 "2018-04-11T20:03:57Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > No, not really. The earliest cave art is from Indonesia and is paintings of hands and deer-pigs. The earliest cave art in Europe is from the Upper Paleolithic and is almost exclusively animal figures. There are a couple of abstracts and a human vulva with legs that some theorize could be ritualistic or shamanistic in nature, but it’s really impossible to say. The Upper Paleolithic is really the first evidence we have of any type of ritualistic beliefs. The Lower Paleolithic has zero evidence of any belief in the supernatural and the Middle Paleolithic has no evidence other than the fact that implements were occasionally buried with the deceased. Ok then. Evidence of supernatural beliefs goes very far back and is found in some very old art. > [@](#): > > Ascribing religious or ritualistic beliefs to them is simply conjecture and smells to me of attempting to create some sort of Progressivist timeline on the world that may or may not exist. They may have had shamanistic beliefs. They may have believed in gods or a single God. I strongly disagree. Given the universality of spiritual and animistic beliefs in modern traditional societies, and the prevalence of evidence in later archaeological contexts, the most parsimonious position is that early peoples had such spiritual beliefs of some kind, and were not rationalistic. We may not be able to know whether they had specific beliefs in shamanism, or a particular kind of gods, but that they had some kind of spiritual beliefs is almost certain. The question is not what kind of spiritual beliefs they had, but whether they were rationalists or not. > [@](#): > > They may have thought that things were what they were and needed no explanation. They may have been performing experiments to understand the world or they might have never pondered their place in the universe. It’s all conjecture. Nonsense. Can you provide an example of any traditional human society anywhere for which this is or was true? You are basically describing a non-human psychology. All human societies that we know of seek some explanation of why things are the way they are and of our place in the universe. While today we “perform experiments to understand the world,” that’s a comparatively recent development. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209/25 "2018-04-11T20:25:05Z")
Here’s where I’ll disagree with you. Applying what people in the 21st century whether primitive or not believe to what people in 100 thousand BC believe is inherently poor science. People in the 21st century did not exist in isolation and their beliefs are the results of thousands of years of interactions with other groups. Simply because they are hunter-gatherers does not mean that they somehow stopped evolving as cultures back during Neanderthal times and present us a picture of a world before time. As for experimentation, of course I can give you examples. The Adamanese were a primitive group that used various herbal medicines to great effect. Where do you think these came from? Barring a supernatural being coming down from the sky and telling them, they likely came from observation of cause and effect over time in differing doses and for differing ailments. Most technology is experimental in nature. They observe a phenomenon, they attempt to duplicate it with various success until they succeed. ---
**Author:** ![Filbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/filbert/32/3433_2.png) [@Filbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Filbert)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209/26 "2018-04-11T20:44:53Z")
I’d question the whole concept of separating of mystic and rational that far back. 10,000 years ago, concluding, for example, that disease is caused by invisible angry spirits would be just as rational as claiming that it could be caused by tiny tiny invisible things. Now it’d be mystic nonsense, but not if there was no other explanation that fit observation. After all, if people back then were as prone to hearing voices and strange dreams as modern humans, Occam’s sharpened flint would likely point prehistoric humans towards the existence of spirits, and attributing unexplained things to them would be perfectly rational. ---
**Author:** ![senoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dbc845/32.png) [@senoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/senoy)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209/27 "2018-04-11T20:51:35Z")
> [@Filbert](#): > > I’d question the whole concept of separating of mystic and rational that far back. 10,000 years ago, concluding, for example, that disease is caused by invisible angry spirits would be just as rational as claiming that it could be caused by tiny tiny invisible things. Now it’d be mystic nonsense, but not if there was no other explanation that fit observation. > > After all, if people back then were as prone to hearing voices and strange dreams as modern humans, Occam’s sharpened flint would likely point prehistoric humans towards the existence of spirits, and attributing unexplained things to them would be perfectly rational. You don’t even have to go that far back. As I said above, Plato was a pretty rational guy, but believed in transcendent concepts. His rationalism actually led him to those concepts. To be honest, there’s nothing inherently irrational about believing some transcendent concepts today, it just depends which presuppositions you start with. Physicalism does not have a monopoly on reason or else every philosopher would be a physicalist. I would even go so far as to contend that physicalism is a posteriori which by its nature is less rational than a priori statements. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2018, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209/28 "2018-04-11T22:30:12Z")
> [@senoy](#): > > Here’s where I’ll disagree with you. Applying what people in the 21st century whether primitive or not believe to what people in 100 thousand BC believe is inherently poor science. People in the 21st century did not exist in isolation and their beliefs are the results of thousands of years of interactions with other groups. Simply because they are hunter-gatherers does not mean that they somehow stopped evolving as cultures back during Neanderthal times and present us a picture of a world before time. In other words, you can’t provide any example of a human society that didn’t seek spiritual explanations for the world.😉 > [@](#): > > As for experimentation, of course I can give you examples. The Adamanese were a primitive group that used various herbal medicines to great effect. Where do you think these came from? Barring a supernatural being coming down from the sky and telling them, they likely came from observation of cause and effect over time in differing doses and for differing ailments. Most technology is experimental in nature. They observe a phenomenon, they attempt to duplicate it with various success until they succeed. Not really. Primitive peoples certainly would have experimented with natural products. However, some of these treatments are effective, and some are not, but many of the latter continue to be used anyway (e.g. the use of animal talismans). And the explanations they seek for the ones that are effective are not rational ones but spiritual ones. Cures and treatments are carried out by shamans and mystical healers, and are based on communication with the spirit world. Much of the benefit of such traditional medicine is due to the placebo effect. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209/29 "2018-04-13T01:40:43Z")
Considering the Neanderthal buried their dead and seemed to have carried out some fashion of burial ritual, i would say we have been doing it for a long long time. ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209/30 "2018-04-13T02:04:48Z")
> [@Dinsdale](#): > > I have difficulty understanding exactly what percentage of modern folk hold what kind of beliefs I am constantly surprised how many seemingly rational scientifically-minded people still ascribe a “spirituality” to parts of their life. That alone suggests to me that humans have always clung to the mystical for even the simplest of mysteries. Also, they ate a lot of mushrooms back then. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209/31 "2018-04-13T02:22:28Z")
> [@Weisshund](#): > > Considering the Neanderthal buried their dead and seemed to have carried out some fashion of burial ritual, i would say we have been doing it for a long long time. Rituals may suggest religion; burial doesn’t need to suggest anything more than not wanting a corpse lying around looking disturbing, attracting predators, and stinking up the place. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2018, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209/32 "2018-04-13T20:47:46Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > I don’t know about Jesus but Mohammed had his first revelation while spending time praying in a cave. It’s likely that he combined sensory deprivation (being in a cave), fasting and meditation/prayer, all of which can contribute to hallucinations and psychotic episodes, especially if you start with someone who has a propensity for them. It doesn’t need to be full-blown schizophrenia, just a milder, subclinical form of it which can be accentuated by tools and techniques. Jesus started His ministry with a forty day fast in the wilderness as well. Matthew 4:1-11 and Luke 4:1-13. Vision quests are common in many cultures, especially native American ones. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-early-humans-mystics-or-rationalists/812209.md?page=1)