Darwin's god

This article, "Darwin's God" talks about speculations about why a
religious proclivity might have evolved, or come about as a
by-product of other functional cognitive mechanisms (such as a
tendency to see cause and effect in events that occur together).
http://snipurl.com/1coe0

It came out last week in the NY Times, and it is still on-line.

Interesting reading.

FurPaw
--
My family values don't involve depleted uranium.

To reply, unleash the dog.

In article <_f-dnbABs_I1hWnYnZ2dnUVZ_sapnZ2d@comcast.com>,
furrealpawdog@gmail.com says...
> This article, "Darwin's God" talks about speculations about why a
> religious proclivity might have evolved, or come about as a
> by-product of other functional cognitive mechanisms (such as a
> tendency to see cause and effect in events that occur together).
> http://snipurl.com/1coe0
>
> It came out last week in the NY Times, and it is still on-line.
>
> Interesting reading.
>
> FurPaw
>


Yes, Furpaw, it is an interesting article. Two quotes:

"Are the nonbelievers right, and is religion at its core an empty
undertaking, a misdirection, a vestigial artifact of a primitive mind? Or
are the believers right, and does the fact that we have the mental
capacities for discerning God suggest that it was God who put them
there?"

"The drive to satisfy that yearning, according to both adaptationists and
byproduct theorists, might be an inevitable and eternal part of what
Atran calls the tragedy of human cognition."

The article is careful to point out the difference between researching
the belief in the existence of God, and questioning the existence of God.
But it seems to presuppose that people developed religion as opposed to
God having revealed Himself and then people "devolved" it.

I wonder if further comments would violate the Ban on Religion and
Politics? Or have we already gone too far?

--
Thoronwen
Vestigial: http://www.answersingenesis.org/docs/446.asp

Thoronwen wrote:

wonder if further comments would violate the Ban on Religion and
> Politics? Or have we already gone too far?

Sorry. I posted this to the wrong group. I tried to retract it
immediately, but that only works up to a point.

FurPaw

--
My family values don't involve depleted uranium.

To reply, unleash the dog.

FurPaw <furrealpawdog@gmail.com> wrote in news:_f-
dnbABs_I1hWnYnZ2dnUVZ_sapnZ2d@comcast.com:

> It came out last week in the NY Times, and it is still on-line.
>

It's a very long article (11 pages!), but well worth it. The idea that
schizophrenia and OCD have evolutionarily useful forms is fascinating.

Chak

--
No tyranny is so irksome as petty tyranny: the officious demands of
policemen, government clerks, and electromechanical gadgets.
--Edward Abbey

Chakolate <chakolateDeathToSpammers@gmail.com> wrote:
> FurPaw <furrealpawdog@gmail.com> wrote in news:_f-
> dnbABs_I1hWnYnZ2dnUVZ_sapnZ2d@comcast.com:

>> It came out last week in the NY Times, and it is still on-line.

> It's a very long article (11 pages!), but well worth it. The idea that
> schizophrenia and OCD have evolutionarily useful forms is fascinating.

Another take on schizophrenia, and more generally, on stuff like
voices in the head, is given by Julian Jaynes in "The Origin of
Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", which relates
it in a different way to religion, and also offers an interesting view
of the natural history of religion, e.g. why have miracles stopped
happening?

Very briefly, Jayne views modern self-consciousness as a useful
conjuring trick of the mind which human beings have developed, and
which, like another useful conjuring trick, language, we teach our
children. The trick is a byproduct of story telling, and involves
becoming able to people our minds with imaginary people with whom we
can have internal conversations, and developing this into a kind of
internal dialogue with ourselves in which we invent a version of
ourselves as a character in the biography of our lives which we
construct as a story we can tell.

Schizophrenia is a byproduct of the modern ubiquity of that conjuring
trick, and is what happens to those people who can't quite manage the
trick of doing all the requisite internalising. So schizophrenia
becomes like being unable to read without moving your lips.

It's interesting in that connection that being able to read without
moving your lips is now so commonplace it's expected, but in medieval
times it was so rare and inconceivably difficult that those who could
do were sometimes suspected of witchcraft. Jaynes thinks learning how
to "do" our modern self-consciousness took many hundreds of years, and
that we can actually discern how and when it happened by seeing the
byproducts of the various stages in the kind of stories we tell about
ourselves, our heroes, etc. at various stages in our history.

--
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

In article <55kjbvF254cfgU1@mid.individual.net>,
Chris Malcolm <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> Another take on schizophrenia, and more generally, on stuff like
> voices in the head, is given by Julian Jaynes in "The Origin of
> Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", which relates
> it in a different way to religion, and also offers an interesting view
> of the natural history of religion, e.g. why have miracles stopped
> happening?

Huh? Who says they have?

Priscilla

Priscilla H. Ballou <vze23t8n@verizon.net> wrote:
> In article <55kjbvF254cfgU1@mid.individual.net>,
> Chris Malcolm <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

>> Another take on schizophrenia, and more generally, on stuff like
>> voices in the head, is given by Julian Jaynes in "The Origin of
>> Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", which relates
>> it in a different way to religion, and also offers an interesting view
>> of the natural history of religion, e.g. why have miracles stopped
>> happening?

> Huh? Who says they have?

Well, for a start, every single minister and religious studies teacher
of my youth clearly felt we children needed some explanation of why
the kinds of miracles reported in the bible weren't being reported in
our current newspapers,

--
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

"Chris Malcolm" <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:55mgqiF24tdqrU1@mid.individual.net...
> Priscilla H. Ballou <vze23t8n@verizon.net> wrote:
> > In article <55kjbvF254cfgU1@mid.individual.net>,
> > Chris Malcolm <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> >> Another take on schizophrenia, and more generally, on stuff like
> >> voices in the head, is given by Julian Jaynes in "The Origin of
> >> Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", which relates
> >> it in a different way to religion, and also offers an interesting view
> >> of the natural history of religion, e.g. why have miracles stopped
> >> happening?
>
> > Huh? Who says they have?
>
> Well, for a start, every single minister and religious studies teacher
> of my youth clearly felt we children needed some explanation of why
> the kinds of miracles reported in the bible weren't being reported in
> our current newspapers,
----------------
And presumably the explanation centered on the difference between "miracles"
and "the kinds of miracles reported in the bible?"

Eva

In article <55mgqiF24tdqrU1@mid.individual.net>,
Chris Malcolm <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

> Priscilla H. Ballou <vze23t8n@verizon.net> wrote:
> > In article <55kjbvF254cfgU1@mid.individual.net>,
> > Chris Malcolm <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> >> Another take on schizophrenia, and more generally, on stuff like
> >> voices in the head, is given by Julian Jaynes in "The Origin of
> >> Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", which relates
> >> it in a different way to religion, and also offers an interesting view
> >> of the natural history of religion, e.g. why have miracles stopped
> >> happening?
>
> > Huh? Who says they have?
>
> Well, for a start, every single minister and religious studies teacher
> of my youth clearly felt we children needed some explanation of why
> the kinds of miracles reported in the bible weren't being reported in
> our current newspapers,

I wonder if the things they labeled as "miracles" would have been
reported in newspapers in their day, adjusting "newspapers" for cultural
and time difference.

Priscilla

"Priscilla Ballou" <vze23t8n@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:vze23t8n-1BE46F.12505413032007@individual.net...
> In article <55mgqiF24tdqrU1@mid.individual.net>,
> Chris Malcolm <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>
> > Priscilla H. Ballou <vze23t8n@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > In article <55kjbvF254cfgU1@mid.individual.net>,
> > > Chris Malcolm <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> > >> Another take on schizophrenia, and more generally, on stuff like
> > >> voices in the head, is given by Julian Jaynes in "The Origin of
> > >> Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", which relates
> > >> it in a different way to religion, and also offers an interesting
view
> > >> of the natural history of religion, e.g. why have miracles stopped
> > >> happening?
> >
> > > Huh? Who says they have?
> >
> > Well, for a start, every single minister and religious studies teacher
> > of my youth clearly felt we children needed some explanation of why
> > the kinds of miracles reported in the bible weren't being reported in
> > our current newspapers,
>
> I wonder if the things they labeled as "miracles" would have been
> reported in newspapers in their day, adjusting "newspapers" for cultural
> and time difference.
----------------
RED SEA PARTS! SLAVES WALK RIGHT THROUGH IT!

But first, a word from our sponsor.

Eva

Priscilla Ballou <vze23t8n@verizon.net> wrote:
> In article <55mgqiF24tdqrU1@mid.individual.net>,
> Chris Malcolm <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote:

>> Priscilla H. Ballou <vze23t8n@verizon.net> wrote:
>> > In article <55kjbvF254cfgU1@mid.individual.net>,
>> > Chris Malcolm <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>> >> Another take on schizophrenia, and more generally, on stuff like
>> >> voices in the head, is given by Julian Jaynes in "The Origin of
>> >> Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", which relates
>> >> it in a different way to religion, and also offers an interesting view
>> >> of the natural history of religion, e.g. why have miracles stopped
>> >> happening?
>>
>> > Huh? Who says they have?
>>
>> Well, for a start, every single minister and religious studies teacher
>> of my youth clearly felt we children needed some explanation of why
>> the kinds of miracles reported in the bible weren't being reported in
>> our current newspapers,

> I wonder if the things they labeled as "miracles" would have been
> reported in newspapers in their day, adjusting "newspapers" for cultural
> and time difference.

I don't want to drift into a discussion of the varieties of Christian
religion here. Returning to the idea of the evolutionary history of
schizophrenia and Jaynes' ideas, he noted that in our earliest stories
we do not find the hero ever engaging in the kind of narrative
introspection typified by Shakespeares' Hamlet. Instead, at moments of
crisis and critical decision our hero is typically visited by a god or
or other supernatural agent who gives him advice.

If someone today described that kind of thing we would call it "voices
in the head" and a psychiatrist would scribble "schizophrenia?" on his
jotter. Historians and literary critics have assumed that these
ancient descriptions of gods speaking to our hero at moments of crisis
was a literary device standing in for introspection. Jaynes'
suggestion is that they weren't, i.e. that in very long ago times most
people naturally did have "voices" in the head which behaved like
that, and which they concluded were variously the voices of gods,
angels, demons, dead ancestors, and so on.

The disappearance of these voices in the head, so Jaynes suggests, was
gradual and was most easily seen in the way religions changed. At
first gods spoke to everyone at any time. Later it only happened when
you got into a special ritual state, which involved fasting and
drugs. The religious orders were custodians of the nevessary rituals.
Later only specially trained people could do this, such as the priests
and oracles. Later on only a very few visionaries and specially gifted
people could do it, and the priests had to content themselves with
interpreting the visions and voices of those few.

And so on.

The reason for the gradual disappearance of these voices in the head
was the development of the skills of modern self-consciousness.

It's hard today to hear spirits or god talking to you without being
locked up. Jaynes suggested that today the "gift" consists of not
quite being able the mental tricks of the modern kind of
self-consciousness.

Being a sceptical scientific sort of person I'd be tempted to think
that that explained away voices in the head as, at least in modern
man, purely delusional, were it not for the fact that voices in the
head which sometimes tell us things we couldn't otherwise have known
runs in my family.

--
Chris Malcolm cam@infirmatics.ed.ac.uk DoD #205
IPAB, Informatics, JCMB, King's Buildings, Edinburgh, EH9 3JZ, UK
[http://www.dai.ed.ac.uk/homes/cam/]

In article <xTIJh.8117$vb.6034@trndny04>,
"Eva" <EvaDStructionNOT@NOTverizon.net> wrote:

> "Priscilla Ballou" <vze23t8n@verizon.net> wrote in message
> news:vze23t8n-1BE46F.12505413032007@individual.net...
> > In article <55mgqiF24tdqrU1@mid.individual.net>,
> > Chris Malcolm <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> >
> > > Priscilla H. Ballou <vze23t8n@verizon.net> wrote:
> > > > In article <55kjbvF254cfgU1@mid.individual.net>,
> > > > Chris Malcolm <cam@holyrood.ed.ac.uk> wrote:
> > >
> > > >> Another take on schizophrenia, and more generally, on stuff like
> > > >> voices in the head, is given by Julian Jaynes in "The Origin of
> > > >> Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind", which relates
> > > >> it in a different way to religion, and also offers an interesting
> view
> > > >> of the natural history of religion, e.g. why have miracles stopped
> > > >> happening?
> > >
> > > > Huh? Who says they have?
> > >
> > > Well, for a start, every single minister and religious studies teacher
> > > of my youth clearly felt we children needed some explanation of why
> > > the kinds of miracles reported in the bible weren't being reported in
> > > our current newspapers,
> >
> > I wonder if the things they labeled as "miracles" would have been
> > reported in newspapers in their day, adjusting "newspapers" for cultural
> > and time difference.
> ----------------
> RED SEA PARTS! SLAVES WALK RIGHT THROUGH IT!
>
> But first, a word from our sponsor.

LOL! I suspect the pharaoh might invoke executive privilege and silence
the press. It was just a bunch of slaves, after all, and who wants to
hear about a disgraceful defeat for the party in power? The blogs are
still being dug out of caves in the region.

Priscilla

FurPaw <furrealpawdog@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thoronwen wrote:
>
> wonder if further comments would violate the Ban on Religion and
> > Politics? Or have we already gone too far?
>
> Sorry. I posted this to the wrong group. I tried to retract it
> immediately, but that only works up to a point.

Well, I'm glad you posted it here. A very interesting read! I know that
peoples all over the planet have a concept of a (unseen) deity, and this
article attempted to explain why.

--
Keera in Norway * Think big. Shrink to fit.
http://home.online.no/~kafox/