Asceticism Religion And Biological Evolution

Author(s): Johannes Bronkhorst
Publisher: Johannes Bronkhorst

Page 20

412
JOHANNES BRONKHORST
Symbolic reference (as explained earlier) goes beyond iconic and indexical reference by creating a network of connections between the symbols themselves. To quote Deacon: "My imagistic and emotional experience in response to the episodes described in a novel is distinct from that of anyone else, though all readers will share a common symbolic understanding of them. The 'subjective distance' from what is represented confers a representational freedom to thought processes that is not afforded by the direct recall or imagining of experiences" (451). Deacon continues:
This is crucial for the development of self-consciousness, and for the sort of detachment from immediate arousal and compulsion that allows for self-control. Self-representation, in the context of representations of alternative pasts and futures, could not be attained without a means for symbolic representation. (451-452)
Consciousness of self in this way implicitly includes consciousness of other selves, and other consciousnesses can only be represented through the virtual reference created by symbols. The self that is the source of one's experience of intentionality, that self that is judged by itself as well as by others for its moral choices, the self that worries about its impending departure from the world, this self is a symbolic self. It is the final irony that it is the virtual, not actual, reference that symbols provide, which gives rise to this experience of self. This most undeniably real experience is a virtual reality.
In a curious way, this recapitulates an unshakeable intuition that has been ubiquitously expressed throughout the ages. This is the belief in a disembodied spirit or immortal 'pilgrim soul' that defines that part of a person that is not "of the body" and is not reducible to the stuff of the material world. In other words, the very process-the development of symbolic representation that gave rise to language (and the accompanying growth of the prefrontal part of the brain), also gave rise to certain notions, a certain kind of knowledge about the world, and in its train (or in its place) to a certain attitude, all of which express themselves in the phenomena studied in this paper. A number of these phenomena, especially the tendency to abstain from sexuality, are counter-productive from an evolutionary point of view. At first blush one might therefore expect that the universal behind it should have been selected against in the course of time. But this universal, we now know, does not stand alone. In fact, there is no gene (or collection of genes) that is exclusively responsible for this universal. Rather, this universal is an accompaniment of symbolic representation. There may
413
ASCETICISM, RELIGION, AND BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION
be no gene for symbolic representation either, but here the situation is somewhat more complicated. Symbolic representation and language, both cultural features, have co-evolved with the human brain, the evolution of the human brain being a genetic development. The ascetic instinct is therefore dependent upon symbolic representationperhaps inseparable from it. From an evolutionary point of view, then, symbolic representation has increased the chances of survival (and of procreation) of those capable of it through language; language gave its users a decided edge. At the same time, symbolic representation was a handicap, if perhaps a relatively small one, because it saddled those capable of it with certain attitudes, perhaps ideas, which would lead a small minority from among them to renounce sexuality, or to inflict damage to their own bodies.
Since we are talking about natural selection, which is a process that likely requires numerous "enerations to become effective, it is appropriate to point out that the number of individual sexual renunciants in pre-historic times may have been very small indeed, if there were any at all. The ascetic instinct may not, therefore, have exposed itself to selection pressure on this level until historic times, which-from an evolutionary point of view is very recent. However, we have proposed a link between certain initiatory practices to the ascetic instinct, some of which involve submitting to, or inflicting damage to, one's body (e.g., cutting of a finger, extracting a tooth, circumcision, etc.). There is no reason to doubt that such practices were current already in pre-historic times, and indeed, they may conceivably have been around long enough to become susceptible to selection pressures. However, if the argument presented in this paper is correct, the ascetic instinct could not be selected away separately, there being no genetic package involving it alone. The ascetic instinct may indeed have slightly reduced the survival chances of its bearers, but this slight reduction was more than offset by the increased survival chances connected to the use of language. For, as proposed in this paper, the ascetic instinct and language are inseparably connected they may even be two sides of the same coin.
7. Concluding remarks
It would be wildly optimistic to think that the preceding pages have finally solved "the problem of asceticism". They have, to be sure,