In The Human Story (Faber and Faber, £12.99) Robin Dunbar quotes Bob Marley’s Redemption Song – “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery/None but ourselves can free our minds…” – as he takes us in search of how we got to be the way we are.
I like, for example, his notion of religion: there is no “god spot” in the brain, rather an “ability to self-induce an endorphin surge”, reflecting the pleasure we share in belongingness. He presents it as an enforcer of collective views, and the notion of deities as proof of the human capability for “fourth-order intentionality” (you think that I perceive that you believe that I think…)…
