Re: Religion and the death spiral of the moth

Entertained by my own EIMC wrote:

"dkomo" <dkomo871@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:ej2cq7$1bqv$1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

whitesickle@xxxxxxx wrote:

<snip>

By the way, using the term "unintended consequence" is just casual
language and is not intended to imply that evolution can have
intentions, lol. I say this to ward off any wagging fingers that may be
attracted this way, to admonish or to instruct the ignorant.


Never mind the movements of my fingers - the righteous whole of me was
starting to writhe.


I guess I'm asking if you think religion can be "useful" and

if so whether it constitutes adaptationism.

I think it is an evolutionary by-product that gradually came under
selection. Daniel Dennett suggests two reasons why:

1. Religion fosters "team spirit" and group cohesiveness. Those groups
with better religions outcompeted those with poorer ones.

2. Belief in a personal diety is a self-help tool. People who think God
is helping them can overcome problems better and achieve more than the
poor schmucks who don't believe in God.


It is essential that one believes in one's personal dietist (or personal
trainer) but it is
not *in any shape or form* an 'essential prerequisite' to believe in a
deity.


I tend to agree. Believing is the central thing, whether it's God, or
the Force, or personal myths (title of a book -- You'll See It When You
Believe It). Believing you can do something, or that there is something
or someone out there helping you can take a person a long way.

However, having a god on your side is one of the most effective help
tools around, if you can truly believe in such an entity.

However it is essential prerequisite to an EPT (as opposed to inEPT)
understanding of
What Is going on that when one does not fully appreciate a COMPLEMENTARY
(though rather explicitly encompassing), science-aligned, and explanatory,
philosophical take
(on What Is going on) one does not hypocritically dismiss it as being *just*
a
"Just so story".


The problem here is verification. It is a "just so" story unless it can
be verified. There's too much theorizing and not enough evidence
gathering in evolutionary biology. And the problem is even worse in the
social sciences.

I suppose almost anything biological that cannot be described in terms of
detailed chemical reactions and repeatedly observed or replicated in
laboratories,
or anything that is not somehow quantifieable by a (safely abstract)
algebraic mathematical model,
qualifies it for being labeled with this - often superciliously and
hypocritically used - turn of phrase. ;-)


Empirical verification is the main thing. Whatever your favorite
"just-so" story is (for example that giraffes have long necks so they
can eat the leaves from tall trees), it remains "just" that unless you
can verify it.


In terms of the structure

of our minds we still are "adapted". Again, it gets back to the rift
between cultural evolution and biological evolution. As a response of
learning and science "we've" realized there is no such thing as a
personal God..these are anthropormic. But the vast majority of people
believe in a personal God...I would say that its biological...this need
for religion. Or I'll say it was definitely founded when language
developed. This belief in religion may have even applied to ancestral
cavemen who didn't have the power of language...just grunts.I think
biology applies to the entire organism both the brain and the mind. I
can't prove it and I don't have any proof but I think somehow religion
was a biological adaptation.

Then you think religion is a direct adaptation, and not a spandrel,
by-product, or side-effect of other human mind processes?

This will sound arrogant but I think

religion equates with lack of complexity of the brain/mind.

Or religion is a misfiring in an otherwise complex and productive
mind/brain. Our minds are like a powerful sports car that can deliver
terrific performance, but also produces a lot of noise and exhaust gases.


Okey thinking (from both debaters)!

However, you (two), like almost everybody else, don't use the available
opportunity
to 'enter into the equation' that specific (in contrast to general)
consciousness and behavior freezing (blocking) functions
have been *MASSIVELY naturally selected FOR*, roughly throughout the
phylogeny of fauna (and thereof, of course of foremost importance to us, of
folk :-)].

This is a function that is, in part, a result of the emergence of the genes
and neural functures that allows our human languages;


Supernatural beliefs are a result of a "miscategorization" in our normal
cognitive labeling processes. We have a powerful mechanism for
categorizing the people we encounter in our day to day lives because we
are such a social species. This mechanism is so ubiquitous that we
simply see people-type beings out there that don't exist -- witches,
ghosts, angels, trolls, fairies, animals that think and talk, and, of
course, gods of all kinds. This is how religion gets started. In order
to transmit these beliefs, yes, language is needed. Language is needed
to build up a fully-fleshed religion with priests and intricate rituals
from the base of supernatural entities our overactive and errant minds
create.

One to me interesting (and insight inspiring or instructive) "side-effect"
of which, is the phenomenon of hypnosis.
In the case of hypnosis it should be easy to spot some of the
adaptive/functional "*ambi*-advantageousness" of the genes in question.

"Ambi" (a concEPTual add-on) addresses, specifically, the (within the
relevant part of the bio-evolutionary patterning process) naturally
inevitable "confluences/coincidences/overlappings of "opportunity type
pressures" [i.e., any relevant primarily environment-exploiting adaptive
advantages to be gained (given sufficiently well adapted new
genophenotypes)] and lifetime challenges/selective pressures of SHITS
(stressors or situations or sorces of stimulation that 'deserve' to be
defined in depth and to be *this awfully* labeled) that if survived
normally become 'converted' to "CURSES" (a correlated type of imprints on
brain cells - imprints that are insidiously dynamic and/or "subconsciously"
co-motivating).


Couldn't follow the rest of this.

<Snipped: some paragraphs about a definitely AEVASIVE, but fascinating
nontheless, speculation %-} {my GRIN)>

Cheers,
P



--dkomo@xxxxxxxx





.

Relevant Pages