"We've evolved to be creationists"

[Pyrotex]

Like the original proposition here, this is a more hyperventilated way of saying "we don't like to die." ...

 

"I don't mind dying. I just don't want to be around when it happens."

--Woody Allen

[REASON]

....humans have an unconscious striving for immortality;

 

Humans are the only animal species that recognizes self existence and with this recognition comes the recognition of mortality. We cannot accept this sense of mortality and many of our actions are motivated by this anxiety. Ergo, there is a God and a heaven.

 

To me, these two statements are somewhat contradictory. I tend to agree more with the second statement. While humans have the same basic survival instinct as all other life, it is our conscious awareness of our mortality and our ability to contemplate its meaning that leads us to strive for immortality. Well, that is those of us who cannot accept, or fear our mortality.

 

Therefore, if the perception of a god or gods as the means to provide our immortality is a conscious thought process, it doesn't follow for me that this belief system is an evolutionary inevitability in humans or any other species in the universe that could achieve the ability of self awareness and contemplation.

 

Maybe there are other advanced species out there that have evolved with belief systems based pimarily on logic and reasoning....ergo Gene Roddenberry's Vulcans.

[Michaelangelica]

I rarely comment on religious debates as i feel it is mostly a waste of time as people have entrenched positions

My own entrenched position is athesist. Although I would love to believe in a "higher power" . I would then have that "saved" look. I could then also feel superior. (I'm going to heaven and you're not! nar nar!)

(I also believe that historically religion has mostly done more harm than good.)

 

But there is a strong desire among so many people to believe in a Higher Power"

Personally I feel it comes from domestic cow poo and interesting mushrooms and vines- but it does come from somewhere.

(For those not following the argument- you need the cow poo for the mushrooms also a bit of lightning helps).

 

So Why?

Is it hardwired?

Or are there a lot of stupid, gullible people out there?

 

But creationist? give me a break. Creationism flies in the face of all science and logic. The word is 5,000 years old. Dinosaurs were on Noha's ark?? Yanks will believe anything, even that Iraqis blew up New York and the Bin ladens live in Afghanistan.

 

If anything I am with Terry Pratchett "At first there was nothing and then it exploded" Hence our search for the "god" particle.

I can't understand why creationists insist on seeing The Bible as the ultimate truth when the (possible) reality is so much more wonderful, spectacular and tremendous and makes for a much more miraculous "god".

[coberst]

To me, these two statements are somewhat contradictory. I tend to agree more with the second statement. While humans have the same basic survival instinct as all other life, it is our conscious awareness of our mortality and our ability to contemplate its meaning that leads us to strive for immortality. Well, that is those of us who cannot accept, or fear our mortality.

 

Therefore, if the perception of a god or gods as the means to provide our immortality is a conscious thought process, it doesn't follow for me that this belief system is an evolutionary inevitability in humans or any other species in the universe that could achieve the ability of self awareness and contemplation.

 

Maybe there are other advanced species out there that have evolved with belief systems based pimarily on logic and reasoning....ergo Gene Roddenberry's Vulcans.

 

 

Humans are the only species to be self conscious. We dread death and repress that dread because we cannot live with a constant consciousness of our mortality.

 

How can we, the “man on the street”, Tom & Jane, gain an insight into the meaning of this dread of death? A dread so strong that we kill to prevent that death and that we are so dedicated to repressing that dread that many things we do is done in that behalf.

 

I suspect most of us have experienced the feeling we call ‘claustrophobia’. I have experienced that feeling and I am confident that I would do almost anything to stop that experience. I suspect that it was the dread of death that caused the inmates of the Nazi concentration camps to tolerate such terror as daily existence must have been for those imprisoned in those camps.

 

I suspect that dread of death is the reason that ‘water-boarding’ is such a popular form of torture. Torture is, I suspect, an effort to induce that same dread that we experience in a claustrophobic episode. I think that we might properly use the metaphor ‘dread of death is claustrophobia’ or perhaps ‘dread of death is water-boarding’.

 

Death is an abstract idea. It is an idea that grows and develops throughout our life. I am told that a child has no comprehension of death until the age of four or five.

 

Cognitive science informs us that an abstract idea is a product of past experiences combined by the imagination into one coherent package. Real experiences constantly mold and remodel this abstract idea unconscious to the self. Cognitive science also informs us that 95% of all thought is unconscious. Thought might be imagined to be somewhat like an iceberg with 95% of its substance below the surface of consciousness.

 

All animals have an instinctive drive to avoid death but humans add to this biological instinct a consciousness of self and a connection between mortality and the self that other animals do not have. This biological survival instinct to behind our fear of death but human’s biological fear is augmented by the way in which s/he perceives the world.

 

Humans create a world view filled with symbols and death is just one of them. We are anxious about many things and repression of the unconscious seems to be a primary manner in which we try to cope with these anxieties. Occasionally experiences shock our ability to repress our anxieties in such a manner that we cannot find the will or strength to continue this repression and such things as PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) occurs.

 

Norman Brown tells us that to comprehend Freud one must understand “repression”. “In the new Freudian perspective, the essence of society is repression of the individual, the essence of the individual is repression of the self.”

 

Freud discovered the importance of repression when he discovered the meaning of the “mad” symptoms of the mentally deranged, plus the meaning of dreams, and thirdly the everyday happenings regarded as slips of the tongue, errors, and random thoughts. He concludes that dreams, mental derangements, and common every day errors (Freudian slips) have meaningful causes that can be explained. Meaningful is the key word here.

 

Since these psychic phenomena are unconscious we must accept that we have motivation to action with a purpose for which we are unconscious (involuntary purposes). This inner nature of which we are completely unaware leads to Freud’s definition of psychoanalysis as “nothing more than the discovery of the unconscious in mental life.”

 

Freud discovered that sapiens have unconscious causes which are hidden from her because they are disowned and hidden by the conscious self. The dynamic relationship between the unconscious and conscious life is a constant battle and psychoanalysis is a science of this mental conflict.

 

The rejection of an idea which is one’s very own and remains so is repression. The essence of repression is in the fact that the individual refuses to recognize this reality of her very own nature. This nature becomes evident when it erupts into consciousness only in dreams or neurotic symptoms or by slips of the tongue.

 

The unconscious is illuminated only when it is being repressed by the conscious mind. It is a process of psychic conflict. “We obtain our theory of the unconscious from the theory of repression.” Freud’s hypothesis of the repressed unconscious results from the conclusion that it is common to all humans. This is a phenomenon of everyday life; neurosis is common to all humans.

 

Dreams are normal phenomena and being that the structure of dreams is common to neurotics and normal people the dream is also neurotic. “Between “normality” and “abnormality” there is no qualitative but only quantitative difference, based largely on the practical question of whether our neurosis is serious enough to incapacitate us for work…the doctrine of the universal neurosis of mankind is the psychoanalytical analogue of the theological doctrine of original sin.”

 

Quotes from “Life against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History” Norman O. Brown

 

“Man transcends all other life because he is, for the first time, life aware of itself. Man is in nature, subject to its dictates and accidents, yet he transcends nature because he lacks the unawareness which makes the animal a part of nature—as one with it.”

 

Wo/man is both body and soul. S/he is part of two worlds, each in conflict with the other. Fromm describes the essence of man as not being a given quality or substance but as being a “contradiction inherent in human existence”.

 

What can wo/man do to cope with the fright that accompanies consciousness of existence? How can wo/man find the harmony necessary to free her or him self from the torture of aloneness; thereby permitting her to find a unity with nature?

 

The answer Fromm seeks is not only a theoretical one, but one in which humans can live with in their thought and action--in their whole being. Any answer is better than no answer or no question. More is to be learned in error than in apathy and ignorance. All possible answers must “help man to overcome the sense of separateness and to gain a sense of union, of ones, of belonging.”

 

Fromm is not supplying us with the definition of the essence of man but he is saying that “what constitutes the essence is the question and the need for an answer; the various forms of human existence are not the essence, but they are the answers to the conflict which, in itself, is the essence.”

 

Conflict is the essential characteristic of humanness.

 

Regression to animal existence is one answer to the quest to transcend separateness. Wo/man can try to eliminate that which makes her human but also tortures her; s/he can discard reason and self-consciousness. What is noteworthy here is that if everybody does it, it ain’t fiction; anything everyone does is reality, even if it is a virtual reality. For most people, reason and reality is nothing more than public consensus. “One never ‘loses one’s mind’ when nobody else’s mind differs from one’s own.”

 

Regression to our animal form of instinctual behavior happens when we replace our lost animal instincts with our own fully developed symbolic instincts; we can then program our self to uncritically follow these culturally formed instincts without further consideration. We can then do like the elephant parade; we hold the tail of the one in front of us with our trunk and march in file without any other thoughts to disturb our tranquility.

 

Quotes from “The Heart of Man” by Erich Fromm

 

Consciousness of death is the primary repression. Freud recognized the curse early and dedicated his life toward exposing it. However, he missed the correct scientific fact that was the source of the curse; this being the repression upon which society is constructed.

 

Ernest Becker theorizes that Freud’s mistake is reveled in one key idea, which emerged in his later writings. “Death instinct” was introduced by Freud in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”. This theory was an attempt to patch up his libido theory, which he was very reluctant to reject. The death instinct was “a built in urge toward death as well as toward life”. He theorized that the death instinct was an instinctive urge to die, which was redirected outward into the desire to kill. Wo/man defeats this instinct by killing others.

 

Psychology has rejected Freud’s death instinct theory for a simpler one. Killing represents a symbolic solution that results from a fusion of animal anxiety with the death fear of the human animal. Otto Rank says “the death fear of the ego is lessoned by the killing, the sacrifice, of the other; through the death of the other, one buys oneself free from the penalty of dying, of being killed.”

 

Quotes from “The Denial of Death”; Pulitzer Prize winner for nonfiction by Ernest Becker.

 

In the 1970s a new body of empirical research began to introduce findings that questioned the traditional Anglo-American cognitive paradigm of AI (Artificial Intelligence), i.e. symbol manipulation.

 

This research indicates that the neurological structures associated with sensorimotor activity are mapped directly to the higher cortical brain structures to form the foundation for subjective conceptualization in the human brain. In other words, our abstract ideas are constructed with copies of sensorimotor neurological structures as a foundation. “It is the rule of thumb among cognitive scientists that unconscious thought is 95 percent of all thought—and that may be a serious underestimate.”

 

Categorization, the first level of abstraction from “Reality” is our first level of conceptualization and thus of knowing. Seeing is a process that includes categorization, we see something as an interaction between the seer and what is seen. “Seeing typically involves categorization.”

 

Our categories are what we consider to be real in the world: tree, rock, animal…Our concepts are what we use to structure our reasoning about these categories. Concepts are neural structures that are the fundamental means by which we reason about categories.

 

Human categories, the stuff of experience, are reasoned about in many different ways. These differing ways of reasoning, these different conceptualizations, are called prototypes and represent the second level of conceptualization

 

Typical-case prototype conceptualization modes are “used in drawing inferences about category members in the absence of any special contextual information. Ideal-case prototypes allow us to evaluate category members relative to some conceptual standard…Social stereotypes are used to make snap judgments…Salient exemplars (well-known examples) are used for making probability judgments…Reasoning with prototypes is, indeed, so common that it is inconceivable that we could function for long without them.”

 

When we conceptualize categories in this fashion we often envision them using spatial metaphors. Spatial relation metaphors form the heart of our ability to perceive, conceive, and to move about in space. We unconsciously form spatial relation contexts for entities: ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘about’, ‘across from’ some other entity are common relationships that make it possible for us to function in our normal manner.

 

When we perceive a black cat and do not wish to cross its path our imagination conceives container shapes such that we do not penetrate the container space occupied by the cat at some time in its journey. We function in space and the container schema is a normal means we have for reasoning about action in space. Such imaginings are not conscious but most of our perception and conception is an automatic unconscious force for functioning in the world.

 

Our manner of using language to explain experience provides us with an insight into our cognitive structuring process. Perceptual cues are mapped onto cognitive spaces wherein a representation of the experience is structured onto our spatial-relation contour. There is no direct connection between perception and language.

 

The claim of cognitive science is “that the very properties of concepts are created as a result of the way the brain and the body are structured and the way they function in interpersonal relations and in the physical world.”

 

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh” by Lakoff

[Tormod]

Humans are the only species to be self conscious.

 

I think this claim warrants some scientific evidence. The way it is stated makes it a tautology.

 

This book, for example, claims otherwise (but I can't fork out $140 to read it):

 

Self-Awareness in Animals and Humans - Cambridge University Press

[coberst]

I think this claim warrants some scientific evidence. The way it is stated makes it a tautology.

 

This book, for example, claims otherwise (but I can't fork out $140 to read it):

 

Self-Awareness in Animals and Humans - Cambridge University Press

 

 

I have never read any book or article that claims any animal other than humans are self-conscious. Self-awareness is not self-consciousness as I comprehend the two words.

 

I think that human comprehension is hierarchical. Comprehension might usefully be thought of as like a pyramid with awareness at the base followed by consciousness. Knowing follows consciousness and understanding, which follows knowing, is at the pinnacle of the pyramid.

 

We are aware of many more things than we are conscious of. Consciousness is awareness with the focus of the attention of the conscious self (ego?). An example might be when we drive an automobile with our mind only aware of driving until we see a patrol car setting at the side of the road, which brings our consciousness back to our driving activity.

 

We are also conscious of many more things than we have knowledge of. Likewise we know much more than we understand. I think that understanding happens rarely and is a rare confluence of emotion and intellection. It is an experience that Carl Sagan is said to have commented “understanding is a kind of ecstasy”.

 

I have read articles about chimps being able to recognize that the image in the mirror is them and not some other object. As I comprehend this matter the fact that the chimp recognizes its image in the mirror is different in kind from the human consciousness of the self.

[Pyrotex]

I have never read any book or article that claims any animal other than humans are self-conscious. Self-awareness is not self-consciousness as I comprehend the two words....

Self-awareness: "Wow! That's an image of ME in that mirror!"

 

Self-conciousness: "Wow! If that's an image of ME in that mirror, then who is THIS over here that is thinking, 'wow! that's an image of me in that mirror!'?"

 

:)

[REASON]

It really get's interesting Pyro when you say to yourself, "Wow! Who's that standing next to me?" when no one else is really there.

 

Maybe it's God.

 

 

Coberst,

 

You make some valid points and I appreciate the extent to which you've gone to express them. But they seem to be primarily psychological concepts. I would agree that the human psyche has evolved as we have gained more knowledge and become more philosophical. Maybe what you are trying to convey is that, as it has gone with our species, supernaturalism has been entwined with our rational thought processes from early on and been a factor in our cognitive development. I feel this is self evident.

 

But how has this affected our biological evolution? Are you suggesting that the natural evolution of a brain toward higher learning and self consciousness is likely to lead to belief in the supernatural? Granted, based on the high percentage of humans that do believe as such, you could make such an argument. But where does that leave atheism? Are atheists just another example of diversity in nature....an evolutionary experiment? A mutation? Is rational thinking and reason destined to become extinct in the face of the enormous competitive force of supernaturalistic, faithful thinking?

 

Let us pray, for the sake of humanity, that it is not. ;)

[Kayra]

Hi folks, long time no see.

 

I consider myself to be an Agnostic Quantum Deist. 15 years ago I would have said I was Atheist, until the morning of my first child’s birth. With the cord wrapped around her neck when she was born, and the long struggle to get her breathing on her own, I found myself praying she would live if only for my wife’s sake.

Quite an astounding shock to myself, and one that caused me no end of concern for many years afterward. There is no proclaiming I have "Found the light", just some insight into my position on all this.

 

An evolutionary trait we all share is that from childhood until mid teens, authoritative figures (parents, village elders, anyone older, Etc) can bypass our own mental filters on what is true or not and directly influence our understanding of the world around us. If our parent says "Do not go near that water, there are crocodiles in there" we have evolved a mechanism that ensure we "Believe" the statement coming from that authority figure without having to prove it is true. A very powerful survival mechanism important to any species born with minimal survival instincts and mostly learned responses.

 

Later on this "Bypass" feature has less and less influence as we begin to compare what we "know" (through direct experience or inference) to what we are told. Remember though that some of what we “Know” was told to us. The influence of an authority figure, while diminished, never really goes away completely.

 

I believe that with this "Hook" that allows someone to bypass mental safeguards, it is inevitable that this evolutionary necessity would eventually be used by man to control others. Limits on this control are set by evolution itself. Those too greatly or sparingly influenced would be less likely to survive.

 

Awareness of our own mortality does generate considerable angst, especially when you do not have a mental model to apply to what happens when you die. (an inevitable direction a mind will take once a species develops the ability to project into the future and empathize with others.)

 

With knowledge of our "Hook" and a claim to know the "Answers", any inventive individual can gain a measure of control over others in his group. Religion is born, again and again.

 

I believe this last step is inevitable in any society of humans and is a side effect of a required evolutionary trait. I do not believe we evolved to be creationists, merely naïve children with a propensity to not want to admit to ourselves that our view of the world might be wrong.

 

Probably a lot of holes in this view, I look forward to exploring them with you good folk :hihi:

 

P.S.: My daughter pulled through just fine, and is a beautiful you girl quickly becoming a beautiful young woman.

[coberst]

kayra

 

Humans have an extraordinarily long period in which the young are cared for by the parents. During this period, especially during the first five or six years of life, we are heavily “programmed” with personality and character traits plus a worldview.

 

Humans have a dual nature; we are animal plus an additional factor. For the sake of discussion I will just call this other factor our spiritual nature.

 

Our animal nature got us to the point of becoming a new species upon which our spiritual nature came into focus. Our animal nature gave us instincts by which we survived but our spiritual nature gave us self-consciousness with a big brain that was able to create a world of meaning that became more important to our survival than our animal instincts.

 

We are primarily driven by the artificial world of symbolic meaning as a result of our spiritual nature. We have created a world of meaning upon which we perform our game of life. A great inertia is created during our 20 years of dependency. This inertia has determined our unconscious foundation upon which we now stand as adults unable to act as independent self-critical and world-critical individuals capable to creating meaning beyond what the strongest members of society hand down to us.

[Michaelangelica]

New Dimensions

 

You might be intersted in listening to the two latest programmes in this site

They will only be there for 2-3 weeks.

[aquamarinegreen]

I believe religion has evolved as a way of explaining why we are here, giving us a "purpose", and comforting us in bereavement or fear. Thats not to say its the truth of the matter but I guess there will always be a need for it. As for the soul, this is a convincing illusion of an inner self, due to circuitry within the brain. How can we know we are the only animals which have such self awareness?

[Zythryn]

Self-awareness: "Wow! That's an image of ME in that mirror!"

 

Self-conciousness: "Wow! If that's an image of ME in that mirror, then who is THIS over here that is thinking, 'wow! that's an image of me in that mirror!'?"

 

[Off topic humor]Alternately:

Self-conciousness: "Wow! If that's an image of ME in that mirror, do the jeans I am wearing make me look fat?!?"

[we now return you to your regularly scheduled thread]

[Turtle]

...But how has this affected our biological evolution? Are you suggesting that the natural evolution of a brain toward higher learning and self consciousness is likely to lead to belief in the supernatural? Granted, based on the high percentage of humans that do believe as such, you could make such an argument. But where does that leave atheism? Are atheists just another example of diversity in nature....an evolutionary experiment? A mutation? Is rational thinking and reason destined to become extinct in the face of the enormous competitive force of supernaturalistic, faithful thinking?

 

Let us pray, for the sake of humanity, that it is not. B)

 

:D Forgive me-oh Lord-for replying to a question not directed at me. I don't think the idea of evolutionary spiritual belief is deserving of any such imperitives such as 'likely', or 'destined', etcetera. It happened this way and we just have to deal with it.

 

Think of the 'spiritualism' as many other human traits such as music ability. On one extreme we have musical savants and the other end the tone deaf. In spiritualism we have one extreme of prophets and the other of atheists. Were people 'likely' to evolve music ability? Silly questions.

 

Yes, we are in danger of the 'supernaturalistic, faithful thinking' stomping out reason & rationality, if by no other evidence than folks try it regularly. I'll spare you the litany of offending religions and their purveyors; pick your poison. ;)

[coberst]

Turtle

 

I think that you have suggested a useful example. We humans have certain abilities or propensities that just simply exist without any obvious evolutionary purpose. Such things as abstract art, music, and perhaps a yearning for the supernatural are all behaviors that give us notice of these accidental aspects of our nature. Probability would suggest that we have a great number of these accidental ‘engravings’ on the unconscious part of our brain.

[aquamarinegreen]

Musical ability is a fascinating one - I think it has evolved as a by-product of being able / needing to hear sounds - when something is struck it gives its own resonant sound which is composed of particular frequencies and their overtones - our musical scale forms naturally from any one note plus its overtones.

[Michaelangelica]

You might find the programmes at this site of interest

 

New Dimensions - 12August2007 - Evolutionary spirituality: bridging the spectrum of belief

 

Evolutionary spirituality: bridging the spectrum of belief

 

Can evolutionary science and religious faith ultimately find common ground? And moreover, is it possible that evolution might not only be reconciled with religion, but in fact become the very foundation of a rich, new spiritual vision?