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Posted: 14 Oct 2014

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E. O. Wilon

E. O. Wilon
hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/10/14/human-existence-wilson

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eowilsonfoundation.org/e-o-wilson-s-life-on-earth
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
Excerpt from “Everybody’s Story - Wishing Up to the Epic of Evolution - Author: Loyal Rue. Introduction by E.O.Wilson

Foreword ~ E. O. Wilson

Homo sapiens can justly be called the mythopoeic ( relating to the making of myths; causing, producing, or giving rise to myths) species. Human beings must have an epic, a sublime account of how the world was created and how humanity came to be part of it. The brain’s architecture automatically makes up stories, and the mind it creates is a theater of competing scenarios. The brain is not confined, animal-like, to instant sensory impressions followed by rough association of these impressions with past reward and punishment. Instead, it searches continuously backward across time to re-create past events, real and imaginary, and forward to invent future scenarios. Stories that are pleasing to reason and emotion outcompete other less so. Replacing them, they serve thereafter as maps of future action. During this process the self, the central protagonist of the scenarios, is perceived within the present-moment scenario as having reached a decision.

The primal instinct of the narrative, of continuous scenario invention, is what makes the human brain superior in performance. In dreams we construct stories of unconstrained fantasy. In gossip we evaluate others with tales of their exploits and foibles. And in religious myths we repeat the epics that ennoble our lives, our tribe, and our species. ~ ix
2 years ago. Edited 2 years ago.

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