I think that prion disease was kuru.

thanks for the clarification. It makes a lot of sense. It also opens the door to Aquinas' first proof, a handy 'backdoor' into the I.D.

Do you think that a way out of a Zeno-like Paradox of the mind is the hominid fossil record? The fossil record implies that humans and apes became less distinguishable as we go back in time. Projecting backward to the proto-primate and it's ancestor I think we can safely assume that whatever attributes of mind we define as human became simpler as the encasing structures become more primitive. Therefore, mind attenuates with phylogeny? I guess that only makes sense if we assume that mind and brain have some dependent correspondence.