We tend to think of moral values as hard truth, and sometimes even divine. But are they? Religions like Buddhism or Confucianism does not need god to be moral. Acceptance of a creator is not a prerequisite for existence of morality. Moreover, morality is not just a gift given to humans. It exists in other warm blooded creatures too.
Before 270 million years ago all animals were cold blooded. There is an hypotheses that warm bloodedness evolved as a protection against fungal infection. Fungus could not survive the high body temperature. It also had an added advantage. The warm-blooded animals could be active in winters as well as in the night when the sun was hidden. But this came at a cost.
Keeping the body warm needed ten times more food. This was a tremendous evolutionary pressure. That’s when mammals evolved. They produced less number of children and the young newborns were immature. The kids needed their parents to survive. Love became more meaningful than just desires as it connected individuals emotionally. Since mammalian kids takes some time to develop, evolution rewired the pain and pleasure sensors of our brain to include not just us but also our family and friends.
Morality and empathy comes dominantly from the mammalian brain. It ensured that the vulnerable babies of mammals survived, and so did the species. When the age of reptiles ended with the meteoric impact and volcanism, the earth became a breeding ground for fungus. According to Casadevall this gave mammals a distinctive advantage over the reptiles that managed to survive the catastrophe. The fungus-killing warm blood kickstarted the age of mammals.
Emotions and moral values reached its zenith with the birth of Homo Sapiens. The neocortex of primates strengthened their cognitive abilities. It also made them symbol centric. Our life became guided by stories. [Read about the POWER OF STORIES]
Thus, in a way the root cause of all our moral values, including religion, is fungus.
REF#1. The theory that pathogens led to the evolution of warm blooded animals is quite popular. You will find many papers on this.https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228411-700-killer-fungi-made-us-hot-blooded/#.UeTeVY0wd8E2. You will also find a lot of articles on mammalian brain and emotionshttps://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/toward-a-general-psychobiological-theory-of-emotions/B09ABA6E2B1333EFFBD687253617E6983 Fungal proliferation at KT boundaryhttps://science.sciencemag.org/content/303/5663/1489https://journals.plos.org/plospathogens/article?id=10.1371/journal.ppat.10028084 Evolution of morality and religion- Dawkins and Harari
Subhrashis AdhikariAuthor: 5 Questions of the Inquisitive Apeswww.subhrashis.com
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