Quote:
Quote by: rez  Millions of years ago, people explained things. Because of their lack of knowledge they used ideas such as "souls" to explain events. For instance, it was the god of rain that made it rain -- they didn't know about clouds and how water accumulates inside them.
Rez,
Your brain was intended to sense and interpret matter. The way you interpret that matter depends on whether that interpretation is right or wrong. Usually when it is wrong it doesn't work and when it is right it does work. So praying to the rain god to rain does not work. Speaking words does not have anything to do with the atmosphere and the atmosphere doesn't listen to the words. Understanding the atmosphere and making predictions based on the knowledge gained from such an understanding does. |
My point was empirical, but I can put it into evolutionary terms. If you're a hunter-gatherer you don't really need to know why anything does what it does. Just hide in a cave when the thunder god is in a bad mood and all will be well. Rationality is relatively useless if you are starting with no intellectual base to build upon while an empirical theory of angry deities who punish those who break the rules works just fine.
Which mode of thought is superior? We're discussing this via computers from the safety of our air-conditioned homes and I bet all of us ate a lunch produced through mechanized farming. I think its pretty self-evident. Going back to hunting and gathering and animism is out of the question. We'll adapt. Being able to comprehend the emotions of others and being able to think rationally are not mutually exclusive. Different brain regions even!
Technosoul,
Look harder. The shortest possible summary I can provide is that we are adaptive computers based on patterns of interconnection between neurons. For comparison, this is approximately the same level of oversimplification as describing Earth as a ball of rock with some slime on it. You get the idea, but more research is in order.