[ExI] Sublime messages and Goose Bumps

[Jef Allbright]

On 9/25/07, Anna Taylor <femmechakra at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> I meant the "awe" messages in philosophy.
>
> >As you say, the response is under control of the
> >autonomic nervous system, and is often experienced
> >without knowing the cause.
>
> Yes that's what I said but that's not what Goggle
> says. I was not understanding how the reaction of
> fight or flight might be used based on this example.

Anna, a key point (and this has profound application to much of what
passes for philosophical discussion on this list) is that ultimately,
systems do not act for "purpose", rather, their actions always only
express their functional nature.

If I understand correctly your question, you're seeking to understand
the functional connection between having a feeling of awe and
subsequent goosebumps.  This may seem mysterious because the feeling
of awe seems to be a "higher level" subjective experience in the mind,
while the goosebumps seem to be a "lower level" objective
manifestation of the fight or flight response built in to the hardware
by evolutionary processes.

While there probably isn't any complete and concise authoritative
account, it might be helpful for you to consider that the feeling of
awe is in fact a physical response of the "hardware" of your body.  In
terms of evolutionary psychology, we can easily understand that
feelings of awe, closely related to spiritual and religious feelings,
and closely related to feelings of personal significance and power
relative to that which is not self, can function to improve the
effectiveness (cooperation and cohesiveness) of social structures,
thus conferring a fitness advantage to members of the group.  Next,
consider that such feelings of awe and instinctive appreciation of
greater power must be functionally very closely related to feelings of
fear.  At this point you may see a likely functional relationship
leading from awe to the evolved fight or flight response and
piloerection.  Back to my initial key statement:  The body doesn't
connect a feeling of awe with an automatic fight or flight response
for any purpose; rather it acts in direct accordance with its evolved
nature in the context of its environment.

I apologize for the (typical) density of my writing, which would
benefit from expansion of the concepts along with examples, but I lack
the available time.  I can only hope that the sparse structure of this
account will be useful for guiding your own thinking.

- Jef