Evolutionary Psychological Reasons for Religion

[Lullaby Chainer]

I've just uploaded an excellent segment of an excellent interview with the Dawk.

YouTube - 3QD interviews Richard Dawkins || The religion part

Please watch it, and discuss. I feel this is new material for these boards.

[Technosoul]

Quote by: Lullaby Chainer I've just uploaded an excellent segment of an excellent interview with the Dawk. YouTube - 3QD interviews Richard Dawkins || The religion part Please watch it, and discuss. I feel this is new material for these boards.

I noticed that my cats will automatically want to attack a object in motion, a object moving cross wise is most likely to cause that reaction, as compared to motion moving directly up and down.

The cats, which have a fairly high I Q as far as animals are concern, do not care so much about agents being in the moving object or not. They will run after a toy dangling on a string just as fast as a living mouse or bug.

But somehow most cats can determine if another creature is a physical threat or not. Their reasoning about machines is not, however.

I will continue later

[Thanatos]

Dawkins has it wrong. We're not born dualists.

A long, long time ago there were gods for everything everywhere on the planet. A god to make your crops grow, a god for rain and a god for thunder and a god to pull the sun about in the heavens. Gods of death, love, destruction and rainbows. Even rocks and tree had individual spirits that governed why the were the way they were. Dualism was irrelevant because people saw nothing but souls and it shows in the history.

We're almost a different species. Rather than growing up praying to trees and rocks we grow up in alien worlds of plastic and carpeting and machines. This is why my calculator can outpace me in math even though I have several million times its computational potential; my brain was intended to process a world of souls instead of numbers.

I think I know why autism is on the rise. Vaccines aren't to blame. We're just adapting to living in a world with fewer souls, trading in mirror neurons for an ever increasing ability to function in a mechanical world.

[ryanatau]

This was interesting. Who is the guy Dawkins is talking to?

One of the coolest things is thinking about how evolution affects human cognition. The optimist in me wants to believe that to a certain extent we have broken through our evolutionary roots and thus have theoretical understanding. However, it is very likely that our "theoretical knowledge" is just the miss use of our practical understanding and thus doomed to fail. The normative/noumenal world is illusory/unknowable. And understanding the phenomenal world and creating descriptive propositions are all we can hope for. But I'm fine with that!

[Piscean]

A long, long time ago there were gods for everything everywhere on the planet. A god to make your crops grow, a god for rain and a god for thunder and a god to pull the sun about in the heavens. Gods of death, love, destruction and rainbows. Even rocks and tree had individual spirits that governed why the were the way they were. Dualism was irrelevant because people saw nothing but souls and it shows in the history. We're almost a different species. Rather than growing up praying to trees and rocks we grow up in alien worlds of plastic and carpeting and machines. This is why my calculator can outpace me in math even though I have several million times its computational potential; my brain was intended to process a world of souls instead of numbers. I think I know why autism is on the rise. Vaccines aren't to blame. We're just adapting to living in a world with fewer souls, trading in mirror neurons for an ever increasing ability to function in a mechanical world.

I see a similar picture of human kind. Everything used to have meaning, life, purpose, the world around us was alive and we were a part of it. Now it's dead as is the awareness of most. We've traded purpose and life for pure function and production and in losing our connection with the earth and the spirits which govern in it, we've lost our way, as destroy the planet, (with our artificial replacement for everything alive) we destroy ourselves.Unless we manage to wipe ourselves and our technology and ways from the earth which seems likely to have happened in history before.

[Thanatos]

Quote by: Piscean I see a similar picture of human kind. Everything used to have meaning, life, purpose, the world around us was alive and we were a part of it. Now it's dead as is the awareness of most. We've traded purpose and life for pure function and production and in losing our connection with the earth and the spirits which govern in it, we've lost our way, as destroy the planet, (with our artificial replacement for everything alive) we destroy ourselves.Unless we manage to wipe ourselves and our technology and ways from the earth which seems likely to have happened in history before.

Nah, this is Earth's first time with a civilization at this level. In a million years alien archaeologists may show up and find fossilized disposable diapers and unopened bags of cheetoes. Our nuclear waste dumps will still be almost as active as the day they were built. Cities can burn or wash away, but buried garbage is forever.

Perhaps I was too harsh: if they were slightly less ecologically destructive or never built cities outside of zones that have since been glaciated I suppose it works. Perhaps there's an Atlantean garbage dump somewhere on the bottom of the ocean just full of fossilized automobiles. Still, there has never been something quite like modern times.

[Technosoul]

In the interview they used the word agent to discribe the "stuff" that living things have, and that material objects do not have. What really is an "agent"? Is it a soul, a spirit, a secret agent man called God? A rose by any other name is still a rose.

Now if that system that causes life is composed of organized chemicals, energy, and some degree of consciousness, then what is the difference between chemicals or energy that is in a rock and those found in a animal or plant? Only the arrangement and design? And what is the agent of that change?

I see little difference in calling the idenity of life an agent or a spirit, or soul. Because they cannot show me with phsyical evidence where that agent is located at in the human body.

And just what in particular do they feel that our natural perceptions have created an illusion about? Which religious concept is being imagined because we must distingish food from everything else in the landscape?

A snake might determine food by temperature readings and it uses it's toungh to sense that. Most animals do not see colors as their landscape is percieved in shades of black and white only, some animals use their nose to sniff out food and even to know a boy from a girl animal. And their whole potential theory is based on hunting and not gathering food ( like eating grass or seeds, etc.) So can they draw a connection between hunting and some religious belief? What about fishing with nets, that might come closer to what might fit their anolgies.

To bad I was not interviewing both of those men.

None the less that short interview sample really did not give their idea much chance for elaborations or back-up foundations, and so I cannot condem it as-is. It was at least different, and a springboard for more thought.
Which is good in that sense.

[Technosoul]

Quote by: Thanatos Nah, this is Earth's first time with a civilization at this level. In a million years alien archaeologists may show up and find fossilized disposable diapers and unopened bags of cheetoes. Our nuclear waste dumps will still be almost as active as the day they were built. Cities can burn or wash away, but buried garbage is forever. Perhaps I was too harsh: if they were slightly less ecologically destructive or never built cities outside of zones that have since been glaciated I suppose it works. Perhaps there's an Atlantean garbage dump somewhere on the bottom of the ocean just full of fossilized automobiles. Still, there has never been something quite like modern times.

Perhaps evidence of a Atlantean culture is now frozen under the ice at the South Pole, as that land was once fairly dry with no ice caps. Perhaps the human race did not start off in Africa and then walk over to South America via the northern passage, perhaps it started off at the South Pole and forced by climate change to move north towards warmer areas, moving up through Africa and South America, where they ended up constructing new cities in Sumer and Eqypt and China and likewise in South America and into Mexico. (pyramids at both places).

Plus we have this to contend with...

Japan's Ancient Underwater "Pyramid" Mystifies Scholars

[rez]

Quote by: Thanatos Dawkins has it wrong. We're not born dualists. A long, long time ago there were gods for everything everywhere on the planet. A god to make your crops grow, a god for rain and a god for thunder and a god to pull the sun about in the heavens. Gods of death, love, destruction and rainbows. Even rocks and tree had individual spirits that governed why the were the way they were. Dualism was irrelevant because people saw nothing but souls and it shows in the history.

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.

We're almost a different species. Rather than growing up praying to trees and rocks we grow up in alien worlds of plastic and carpeting and machines. This is why my calculator can outpace me in math even though I have several million times its computational potential; my brain was intended to process a world of souls instead of numbers.

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.

[rez]

Quote by: Piscean I see a similar picture of human kind. Everything used to have meaning, life, purpose, the world around us was alive and we were a part of it. Now it's dead as is the awareness of most. We've traded purpose and life for pure function and production and in losing our connection with the earth and the spirits which govern in it, we've lost our way, as destroy the planet, (with our artificial replacement for everything alive) we destroy ourselves.Unless we manage to wipe ourselves and our technology and ways from the earth which seems likely to have happened in history before.

This is sort of what I mean about supernaturalists and their very bad philosophy skills.

If you knew certain things, you wouldn't think the way you do.

Humans create their own meaning, life, and purpose. The universe does not provide us with a set of instructions written out for us.

Life evolved through pure function just like everything else in this universe has. Everything is built upon everything. The universe is a giant complex evolving machine. The most organic natural substance within this universe is built like a modern day machine.

To continue living on this earth, an organism must avoid the many obstacles that it faces. Pollution is an obstacle that we must face, and I have no doubts that humans will solve it.


Souls never existed on this earth. They were imagined up by primitive minds to answer the very first questiona conscious beings started asking.

[Thanatos]

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.

[Lullaby Chainer]

Quote by: ryanatau This was interesting. Who is the guy Dawkins is talking to?

The only name I can find is Abbas, which doesn't really help much.

Quote by: ryanatau One of the coolest things is thinking about how evolution affects human cognition. The optimist in me wants to believe that to a certain extent we have broken through our evolutionary roots and thus have theoretical understanding.

We have. Condoms are proof of that.

Quote by: Technosoul In the interview they used the word agent to discribe the "stuff" that living things have, and that material objects do not have.

Living things are also material objects.

What really is an "agent"? Is it a soul, a spirit, a secret agent man called God? A rose by any other name is still a rose.

A rose does not have a lot of "agency". What they meant by agency is an organism's ability to respond to it's environment not like non-living objects would. A cheetah has agency because it can change directions while running without external forces pushing it that way.

I see little difference in calling the idenity of life an agent or a spirit, or soul. Because they cannot show me with phsyical evidence where that agent is located at in the human body.

The brain is where the agency originates. In plants (in terms of growing towards sunlight) I'd say it originates from chemical functions organized in ways you'd never find organized in a rock.

And just what in particular do they feel that our natural perceptions have created an illusion about? Which religious concept is being imagined because we must distingish food from everything else in the landscape?

It's about "overlooking agency" being more dangerous than a false positive. In other words, thinking something with agency is an inanimate object is far more dangerous than thinking an inanimate object is something with agency. This is a HIGHLY possible evolutionary trait as it has Darwinian advantage.

[Technosoul]

Quote by: Lullaby Chainer The only name I can find is Abbas, which doesn't really help much. We have. Condoms are proof of that. Living things are also material objects. A rose does not have a lot of "agency". What they meant by agency is an organism's ability to respond to it's environment not like non-living objects would. A cheetah has agency because it can change directions while running without external forces pushing it that way. The brain is where the agency originates. In plants (in terms of growing towards sunlight) I'd say it originates from chemical functions organized in ways you'd never find organized in a rock. It's about "overlooking agency" being more dangerous than a false positive. In other words, thinking something with agency is an inanimate object is far more dangerous than thinking an inanimate object is something with agency. This is a HIGHLY possible evolutionary trait as it has Darwinian advantage.

First you said that agency is free will, one the part of a cat to change directions while running with free will. Then you said that in a plant that same agency is when a plant is influenced by the sun to grow in that direction. A contradiction in meanings for the same word, as I see it.


If a rock came at me I might duck even if it could not think about attacking me like a bear might do, so how can determining the difference between a rock and a living thing give you any advatage? The idea expressed in that clip on U tube is okay if you stay within a very tiny framework but once the frame is expanded the idea will degenerate.

I cannot see just how Darwinian advantage would be the cause of someone believing in an unseen thing such as God or some supersition.
As you suggested. Are you suggesting that people respond to metaphyscial envrionment or being like we responded to the physical environment? Is U Tube suggesting that we learned how to respond to the metaphysical dimension in a certain way because that is how we learned to respond to the physical world to find food or to avoid becoming food for another creature?

Or, is the U Tube anology another way to discribe the Eve and the Serpent story as related in the Bible. Deception being misstaken for the real thing?

Deception is an important Darwinian advantage in nature and it represents security for those being preyed upon, and also so for the hunter, such as the alligator that pretends to be just another log in the river, waiting for food to come down for a drink of water.

I do not see how that interview which lasted only a short time could relate anything in it's totality and therefore cannot prove or disprove anything nor can it represent a good explaination for why people attend church on a Sunday morning. Can a sand pebble explain a mountain?

No.

[Lullaby Chainer]

Quote by: Technosoul First you said that agency is free will, one the part of a cat to change directions while running with free will. Then you said that in a plant that same agency is when a plant is influenced by the sun to grow in that direction. A contradiction in meanings for the same word, as I see it.

No, I didn't say agency is free will. Don't put words in my mouth to better suit your argument.

THIS is what I said..

"What they meant by agency is an organism's ability to respond to it's environment not like non-living objects would."

Both a cheetah changing directions while running and a plant growing towards sunlight is an example of this. No contradiction when you don't distort what I say.

Quote by: Technosoul If a rock came at me I might duck even if it could not think about attacking me like a bear might do, so how can determining the difference between a rock and a living thing give you any advatage?

Obviously in that one limited instance it may or may not. But have you forgotten all the examples in the video? If you're a gazelle and you can't distinguish between inanimate objects and lion, then you're fucked. How do you not see an advantage?

Quote by: Technosoul I cannot see just how Darwinian advantage would be the cause of someone believing in an unseen thing such as God or some supersition. As you suggested. Are you suggesting that people respond to metaphyscial envrionment or being like we responded to the physical environment? Is U Tube suggesting that we learned how to respond to the metaphysical dimension in a certain way because that is how we learned to respond to the physical world to find food or to avoid becoming food for another creature?

What metaphysical "dimension"?

Quote by: Technosoul Or, is the U Tube anology another way to discribe the Eve and the Serpent story as related in the Bible. Deception being misstaken for the real thing?

No. Their speculative discussion about evolutionary psychology in the real world has nothing to do with Eve and the snake.

[Technosoul]

I still think that changing direction is relative to free will and a flower does not have that advantage.

I already got a MODERATOR WARNING notice for using the f.. word and so I cannot repsond to your 2nd line in your statement. I do not want to risk another warning notice.

A metaphysical dimension is what they were talking about as a religious fantasy, which they claim has evolved out of a primitive abilty to know the difference between things with agents and things with no agents.

Your last remark is based on an "out of context" line in my remarks. I said they are trying to discribe the same idea. If a snake can look like a limb of a tree then that disception would fool an animal or bird, as they would see the snake as just part of the tree, not as a dangerous snake. It would look like a tree agent and not as an animal agent which can move by free will to bite you when you reach for that apple.

Aha. So being dishonest is a Darwinian Advantage for survival, and being truthful about your self is not a Darwinian Advantage. So to survive we must evolve better ways of deception according to the tree snake.

Eve and Adam failed to learn that good enough when they tried to look like a fig leaf because God saw them trying to hide in the bush like the snake hid in the tree and so they did not dodge the threat from their number one preditor.

Therefore based on my biblical interpretation the real meaning of the living agent of the word is well hid and it looks like the tree of knowledge, but that secret agent which is the true meaning is the limb of life and eternal survival, to be as wise as the serpent.

By evolutionary progress to become like the gods we would blend into that metaphysical reality and become the agents of total domination over the physical world, which now represents a threat to us on many fronts.
No longer fearing the gods of wrath or the dangers of the natual world. Assuming the cloke of fantasy as a an illusion of being something else, the free spirit that moves like the wind in unseen ways. the king with invisable clothing. If you can see me you can attack me, or run away form me, but if I am an illusionary deception then you cannot capture me or escape from me. Can you see my soul spirit or just the rock that I stand upon?

The interview was an attempt to explain why people believe in some religious concept that they think is a fantasy, but you see, in the real world deceptions do not exsist because a scientist would spot the snake in the tree and not be fooled, because they have become like the gods who know the difference between snakes and tree limbs (most of the time). Therefore the deception that God is some sort of supernatural threat or provider ( living by every word that comes form the mouth of God) is, in their opinon, the purpose or the final product of evolution because they are no longer fooled by such supersition pretending to be the truth.

But the problem with that is this, animals and plants never encounted that biblical novelty as part of the real world. Only humans have encountered that novelty.

And so it is acturally the scientists (philosophers) who are reacting to that novelty (aka religion) and not animal or plant agents. So we cannot link that situation which involves only human beings with anything happening as part of the evolution of other animals, nor plants for that matter. Unless you can prove that animals and plants have a simular superstition to evolve out of or if it is possible for them to evolve into an idea about something concidered to be metaphysical to improve their rate of survival.