[AltruisticGap]

Also Iain Mc Gilchrist's "The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World".

https://twitter.com/divided_brain

Initially I thought the article would be about that: how our brain shaped our thinking, and then our literature, culture. I think it's a lot more interesting to ask how our brains shaped our thinking, and then everything we created from literature to culture, to society..

From history books and movies we have this idea that humans were much like us.. but I begin to think in fact, it's almost as if humanity was an entirely different species, almost alien to the way we see ourselves today. I think in many ways they must have been much more reactive and automatic in their behaviour, and if you could travel back in time you would feel like you are amongst complete lunatics and it would be very frightening.

[EamonnMR]

That's the impression I got from the theory, but I really don't buy it. I have yet to read a piece of ancient literature that didn't feel like it was written by a modern human. Gilgamesh, brought up earlier, is a great example.

[slfnflctd]

> they must have been much more reactive and automatic in their behaviour, and if you could travel back in time you would feel like you are amongst complete lunatics and it would be very frightening

This is exactly how I feel when I visit certain extremely religious relatives. They have a 'spiritual' explanation for almost every last tiny detail of their ongoing daily experience. Sometimes I think a few of the more fringe groups of this sort are actively enabling unmedicated schizophrenics.