The Genesis of Mind and Spirit

Abstract

Spiritual life is made possible by the evolution of a human neuropsychology that requires social interdependence for its development. Extensive neuroplasticity requires experiential shaping throughout life. The evolution of frontal cortex hypertrophy suggests that much of this shaping is produced by a socially constructed virtual reality, extending beyond immediate experience. Prefrontal colonization makes possible the social scaffolding of neuroregulation, including the emotional attachments necessary for moral life. Cognitive independence from immediate environments enables symbioses with external memory systems, producing novel forms of socially constituted experience and making possible the transformative effect of religious systems upon individual biologies and psychologies.It is the present contention that human spirituality is a product of the very processes of human evolution that make the social construction of human culture, human meaning, and individual psychology possible, and even necessary. Evolutionarily adaptive characteristics of human neuropsychology require that we live in a social world, making the construction of personhood nearly inevitable and making a spiritual life possible. Our species is likely to have evolutionarily benefited by the extended childhood and

Spirituality in Nursing and Health-Related Literature

“…Thus, holism involves understanding that an individual is a unitary whole in mutual process with their external and internal environments. There is a growing body of neuroscientific, biochemical, and psychosocial research supporting physiological, mental, emotional, and social evidence suggesting that spirituality plays a critical role in human health, healing, and well-being (Boehnlein, 2000;Chirban, 1992;Cohen & Koenig, 2003;Fallot, 1998;Fenwick, 2001Fenwick, , 2005Kurup & Kurup, 2003;McCain, 2005;Plante & Sherman, 2001;Powell, Shahabi, & Thoresen, 2003;Puchalski, 2001;Seaward, 2000;Teske, 1996Teske, , 2001Yates, 2004).…”

From Embodied to Extended Cognition

“…Our neuroplasticity requires shaping over a lifetime, socially scaffolding our neuroregulation, including emotional attachments and dynamics. The evolutionary hypertrophy of our prefrontal cortex leads to a colonization of brain function making possible the social construction of virtual realities, novel forms of socially constituted experience, and the transforming effects of mythic, ideological, and religious systems (Teske ).…”

Shamanism as the Original Neurotheology

“…The community orientation of shamanic practices has important social, psychological, and psychophysiological effects. Humans' evolutionary adaptive characteristics produced a neuropsychology that required adaptation to a social world that inevitably produced the construction of personhood and made spirituality possible (Teske 2001). The human capacity for emotional selfmoderation through social internalization is based in the symbiotic caregiver-child relations that derive from the mammalian attachment dynamics that provide the basis for emotional life.…”