Cognitive science tells us that one hundred billion neurons connected by one trillion synapes, given the flexible combinatorial majesty of the recursive, modular programming of the mind, can account for every image and thought process, including all dream states, that are represented in the mind. The portfolio making that case has begun to bulge noticeably in recent decades as the reductionists earn their pay.
But to my mind the uncanny universality of the theme present in the story you relate tells us something astounding about the material world, something resistant to reductionism. What is it? Why are these archetypes so powerful across all cultures? Is it really a mere evolutionary mechanism?
There is a leak between the material and the non-material, somewhere under QM and near the bottom of Mandelbrots fractals. Spirit does not "exist" in the sense the hardcore materialists expect, but it connects us nonetheless to a beyond, and touches our mind in dreams.
If it is, then one wonders what purpose this "evolutionary mechanism" would serve. Why do all cultures of all times "select" for this archetype? You wrote:
There is a leak between the material and the non-material, somewhere under QM and near the bottom of Mandelbrots fractals. Spirit does not "exist" in the sense the hardcore materialists expect, but it connects us nonetheless to a beyond, and touches our mind in dreams.
I think that is a much more rational expectation than natural selection. Thank you so much for writing, beckett, and for your kind words.