SubJeff on 15/9/2013 at 09:34
Okay, I'll take a run at this.
I have a little theory. I call it the Overdrive Theory, just because it needs a name. Anyway, it goes like this:
Background: nothing and no one can ever truly give 100% effort. Almost no one ever gives 100% effort to anything because we're just made that way. A lioness that is trying to take down some large prey gives up if it becomes too hard, human beings impose hour limits to working weeks because we need some time off. More fundamentally animals have a capacity for laziness.
We are highly unlikely to ever really achieve our maximum possible effort.
Therefore our drives are set too high, on purpose, at a fundamental, evolutionary level. This is so we can actually get close to our goals because otherwise we'd fall short all the time. This is what is behind greed, of food and money, and why people in happy sexual relationships still look at other people or are tempted to cheat. Its just that our hunger, avarice, sexuality are all on Overdrive. Without it we'd be more likely to starve, not try to achieve anything, not pursue sexual partners. This is the basis of all temptations - its just built in.
This doesn't mean we have to give in to it of course, but when you recognise that you're feeling things because of programming it does make it a little bit easier to control yourself.
So - to awe and wonder.
I believe this fits into the same framework; appreciating the form and function, or beauty if you will, of something has clear survival advantages. Is this fruit ripe or rotten? Is this branch going to break as I climb along it? The extension is seeing something that has abundant advantages makes us feel good. We see a sunny beach with palm trees and it tells us all sorts of things - it's warm, it's fertile, there is fishing to be had. But this is also tied up in perceptions of scale and disadvantage and, as we're intellectual beings capable of analysis, the flipside works too. So a desert is hostile and foreboding and massively so; thus awesome.
The awe and wonder comes from Overdrive appreciation of beauty.
I also think that all of our emotions and senses are subject to Overdrive. There is no logical advantage to being capable of experiencing extreme pain. If your leg is ripped off why do you "need" to feel such pain? You know it's off, it hurts, you'll likely die soon from blood loss. What is the "purpose" of this final suffering? Pain is set on Overdrive. In the words of Chairman Sheng-ji Yang (Alpha Centauri): "Pain, even agony, is no more than information before the senses, data fed to the computer of the mind. The lesson is simple: you have received the information, now act on it. Take control of the input and you shall become master of the output."
This is how pain should work, logically. Or so one would think. But we need the Overdrive to drive the extreme aversion to injury, to bring about a drive for self preservation. Because this human existence experiment isn't over yet.
Sulphur on 15/9/2013 at 09:58
It's easy to see the patterns in things like our instinctual reaction to colours, where red means danger because it's the colour of blood, and green means all clear because it's the sign of growth and progress - in nature at least, wot.
But I've always wondered why glimpsing the scale of the universe in photos makes a thrill run down my spine. It's an almost instinctual reaction, divorced from conscious analysis until a half-second later. Why do we appreciate music when there's no real functional paradigm for it? Is music an anomaly that spun off from mating rhythms in our species' evolutionary past? Is it just another application of the pleasure principle? Where'd the need to gratify oneself beyond basic needs come from, anyway? Animals don't care if they've got cigarettes or not. Something short-circuited somewhere in the past, and we're the result of that. Where'd it happen, and when? That's part of what religion tries to explain, but I'd like to think we've outgrown the need to posit made-up stories in place of deeper understanding.
Robert4222 on 15/9/2013 at 10:24
Quote Posted by CCCToad
Yes.....somebody makes a stupid, religious argument that directly contradicts what said religion actually teaches and that's proof that all religion does is evil.
If you think that it's just the fault of "Religion" that takes away everything good I'd say think again.
Generally speaking, when you run into a problem with religion it is when the interests of the state and religion converge that you have a problem. When they are divergent the churches can be a valuable check on the nobility's excesses.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not blaming on religion itself nor I've ever said that it is "evil", but I can't stand it when people evocate it as a solid argument in debates or to justify something, by taking holy book's lines as absolute dogmas.
I just don't understand why do we still have to involucrate religion in education and sociopolitical aspects or topics nowadays
Quote Posted by NuEffect
I'm not trying to "do" anything apart from point out that your last sentence was unnecessary.
You gave a perfectly good reply that fulfilled its purpose more than adequately. Why add the inflammatory statement?
.
Because dethtoll.
faetal on 15/9/2013 at 10:33
I'm not sure about the overdrive. Evolution has primed all organisms to obey equations where energy / work is expended to give the best outcome the most number of times. Being in overdrive would cause too much energy to be expended overall to be of much use I think. Giving up at a certain point is nature basically being programmed with the law of diminishing returns.
I think there are already theories established that hold that the reason we have the capacity to imbue things with meaning rather than just its attributes is consequence of having crucial tiers of theory of mind. Being aware of one's existence and the fact that other people and organisms have their own perception of their own existence and yours forces the brain to devise context. Our brains and reasoning apply ideas of causality to everything we experience. Add to this that we have the ability to create things like tools and generally force the environment to our hand generally, and it becomes obvious to extend that logic to ourselves and have the basic assumption (in the absence of alternatives) that we were created by something like us, but higher.
SubJeff on 15/9/2013 at 11:10
But I think that the overdrive is part of achieving the best outcome the most number of times.
faetal on 15/9/2013 at 12:38
If that were so, it would simply pervade ordinary behaviour and not require highly complex and special psychological loops to achieve. Occam's razor. If pushing to the limit gave the best outcome, it would simply be there to start with. The benefits of religion are various - easing of existential concerns plus giving the highest level of commonality to social groups to facilitate group bonding and community (though the latter is more a benefit of organised religion, rather than just religious thinking).
Vasquez on 15/9/2013 at 12:43
Quote Posted by NuEffect
But it's not random and chaotic - it all fits together and works like a charm.
I meant things like "Why do innocent children die in a tsunami". Obviously there are patterns behind a tsunami, but who happens to be in it's way and who doesn't, who dies in the killer wave and who gets badly injured but [seemingly] miraculously recovers to full health etc. - those things fall under "random" category. And that's the stuff people like to explain with superstition: "My mobile rang just as I was leaving for the beach, it was my good friend and we talked long enough for me to avoid the worst - it couldn't have been a coincidence!"
faetal on 15/9/2013 at 13:21
That's because we ignore all non-coincidences. No one specifically remembers the multitude of mundane events which don't connect to what they view as some change of fate.
Yakoob on 15/9/2013 at 15:22
Some interesting discussion here! I think it was Renz asking what the purpose of being awed is, what evolutionary advantage it gives etc. but frankly I think you're making the mistake of assuming there needs to be one.
As been said, evolution actually isn't "survival of the fittest" or "improving". Evolution is randomness. Pure, sheer, random mutations with each generation. There is no point there is no purpose, it's just a natural side effect of imperfect DNA copying, mixing of different dnas, and systems like our bodies just being so complex.
BUT it is then the environment, society, or even other random events that effectively "filter" out the less desirable random mutations, leaving more advantageous ones in - hence "survival of the fittest".
all the time, tho, some weird or illogical or even disadvantegous mutations still pass through the filter, like people born with defects, albinos, or gingers. For no other reason than the mutation was random but the set of circumstances just happened not to kill it off and over time the number of said mutations gets big enough they can effectively sustain their existence.
So before we ask what is the evolutionary advantage of religion or awe we should first ask if there even needs to be one. It could very well be a random trait that happened to survive in us.
faetal on 15/9/2013 at 16:23
It's not random Henke - that's the wrong way to look at it. Mutations aren't even random - in bacteria, there are entire genetic islands which are selected for to increase the incidence of mutation. So yeah, mutation is quasi-random, but selection is anything but. It very much is survival of the fittest, because mutations or genetic variations which confer a benefit may allow a species to gradually out-compete others. So it is right to figure out what the evolutionary purpose of something like awe is, because it is so integral to our species, that it is unlikely to be "junk function". There's always the possibility that it piggy-backed on some other highly useful gene, but since awe drives our behaviour to great degrees, it would be severely unlikely to just be random guff.
