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Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history

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Re: Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history

#51

Post by karmelapple »

msamwald wrote: post #32
didgeoridoo wrote: post #4

Quickly scanned through the references and didn’t see one interesting perspective: Julian Jaynes’ theory of the “breakdown of the bicameral mind” in response to increasing societal complexity. His idea is that the voices of “gods” in premodern societies were literal command hallucinations experienced by members of these societies, in the place of having self-identified conscious thought. In a way, he argues, premoder…

The hypothesis is completely implausible, and it is quite irritating that it keeps popping up in discussions in the 'hacker' sphere. There is simply no way that bicameralism would be the dominant phenotype only a few thousand years ago, and be completely absent in any present-day population, anywhere. We would still see it in isolated populations.

Can you give some additional content behind your claim that this is implausible?

Re: Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history

#52

Post by AnimalMuppet »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #24
classicsnoot wrote: post #19

I haven't read the paper yet, but the headline/summary keeps getting bandied about reddit, imgur, facebook, and twitter. The implication seems to be that because complex society formed without complex religion(s), said religions are superfluous and maybe even unnecessary or deleterious to said society. I may be reading the implication incorrectly. If I am not, then I'm quite puzzled by this line of inference. If comp…

You're moving the argument too far. As complex societies developed without a moralizing god, religion is not necessary for morality. You can't use this to then say religion is unnecessary, as nobody has said morality is the only reason for religion. Even today, many religious people will say that atheists are incapable of having morals. This is evidence showing that claim is ridiculous, not an attack on religion.

Atheists can certainly act morally, and many do. But I would say that atheists don't have a basis for having morals.

dictionary.com says that morals have to do with "right conduct". But in atheism, there is nothing with the authority to give you a definition of "right". There's nothing absolute in the way that, say, the Christian God is absolute, except the universe, and the universe doesn't tell you what right conduct is. (I mean, there are the laws of physics, but that doesn't really help.)

So the atheist usually takes something non-absolute and makes it an absolute - society, or the human race, say. The choice is probably whatever corresponds most closely to the atheist's innate sense of moral right and wrong. And that gives that particular atheist a basis for morals within their own thinking. But "I chose this standard because it matches my sense of what's right, and then I think my conduct is right if it matches the standard" is, essentially, "I do what I decide is right". It's something weaker than what I think of as morals.

Re: Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history

#53

Post by conskdkdo »

sajid wrote: post #47
conskdkdo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find interesting about this hypothesis is that consciousness is just a stream of thoughts which we do not control. Like whenever you think something it just arrives to your mind. Often we experience thought as spoken words in our mind but we don't know where they come from. They come from the subconscious but we are not aware of that part of ourselves. In dreams we have information expressed to us from the sub…

Nash said "the same way", not the "the same voice": “the ideas I had about supernatural beings came to me the same way that my mathematical ideas did. So I took them seriously.” - Sylvia Nasar, "A Beautiful Mind"

Thanks. Fair enough, but he did say "they came". And if you think about it he does not specify "the way". I remember that he heard voices. Because he said that to get cured he just stop listening to the voice or voices.

Re: Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history

#54

Post by sonnyblarney »

leftyted wrote: post #48
sonnyblarney wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the OP's point is crudely valid. Greek gods basically wanted you to pray and appease them, more or less. Jesus and the Buddha wanted you to be a fundamentally better person, moreover, they were themselves enshrined in a metaphysical spirituality. I always found it odd that Greek philosophers spoke of 'spirit' and 'soul' but that seemed for them to be a completely separate domain from Zeus et. al. Here's chapt…

> I think the OP's point is crudely valid. Greek gods basically wanted you to pray and appease them, more or less. Jesus and the Buddha wanted you to be a fundamentally better person, moreover, they were themselves enshrined in a metaphysical spirituality. "Being a better person" means different things in different moral frameworks. Plato fought in wars. Jesus didn't. We don't live under a moral framework where "dyin…

I don't think anyone is suggesting that Greek mythology is absent any kind of moral impetus.

But the Greek Gods seem fairly petty, jealous, vain etc..

Their description in the Ilyad puts them as 'superhumans' more than anything, there is definitely no overarching metaphysical appeal to either morality, or towards stoic search for meaning of life etc.. It's like they're just the superhuman overlords humans have to deal with.

Re: Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history

#55

Post by MR4D »

msamwald wrote: post #32
didgeoridoo wrote: post #4

Quickly scanned through the references and didn’t see one interesting perspective: Julian Jaynes’ theory of the “breakdown of the bicameral mind” in response to increasing societal complexity. His idea is that the voices of “gods” in premodern societies were literal command hallucinations experienced by members of these societies, in the place of having self-identified conscious thought. In a way, he argues, premoder…

The hypothesis is completely implausible, and it is quite irritating that it keeps popping up in discussions in the 'hacker' sphere. There is simply no way that bicameralism would be the dominant phenotype only a few thousand years ago, and be completely absent in any present-day population, anywhere. We would still see it in isolated populations.

> "completely implausible " > "There is simply no way "

You're rather confident of yourself there. What if it were viral?

For comparison, we don't see any new cases of smallpox anywhere and that's only a few decades after eradication. [0]

If we can eradicate traces of smallpox, then I don't see why traces of bicameralism couldn't also be erased.

[0] - https://www.cdc.gov/smallpox/history/history.html

Re: Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history

#56

Post by MockObject »

FakeComments wrote: post #29
MockObject wrote: post #21

> “Our results suggest that collective identities are more important to facilitate cooperation in societies than religious beliefs,” says Harvey Whitehouse. Then it's pretty awkward that the West is engaged in a long program to critique and dismantle its collective identity.

[flagged]

All the silent downvotes. The deconstruction of Western identity has borrowed Fight Club's first rule.

Re: Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history

#57

Post by MR4D »

thatoneuser wrote: post #5
didgeoridoo wrote: post #4

Quickly scanned through the references and didn’t see one interesting perspective: Julian Jaynes’ theory of the “breakdown of the bicameral mind” in response to increasing societal complexity. His idea is that the voices of “gods” in premodern societies were literal command hallucinations experienced by members of these societies, in the place of having self-identified conscious thought. In a way, he argues, premoder…

So basically while the conscious mind was evolving, people originally took that mind to be an external voice? Is it not totally automatic that people can control their conscious mind?

A key component of Jaynes' definition of "conscious" is introspection. You could still learn and do other things normally, but that little voice that tells you things like "don't do this" was attributed to the gods instead of introspection.

Re: Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history

#58

Post by ABCLAW »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #54
leftyted wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the OP's point is crudely valid. Greek gods basically wanted you to pray and appease them, more or less. Jesus and the Buddha wanted you to be a fundamentally better person, moreover, they were themselves enshrined in a metaphysical spirituality. "Being a better person" means different things in different moral frameworks. Plato fought in wars. Jesus didn't. We don't live under a moral framework where "dyin…

I don't think anyone is suggesting that Greek mythology is absent any kind of moral impetus. But the Greek Gods seem fairly petty, jealous, vain etc.. Their description in the Ilyad puts them as 'superhumans' more than anything, there is definitely no overarching metaphysical appeal to either morality, or towards stoic search for meaning of life etc.. It's like they're just the superhuman overlords humans have to dea…

Homer wasn't the only person writing in the classical period. His contemporary, Hesiod, depicted gods as immortal arbiters of justice in Works and Days.

The Ilyad clearly has struck some narrative gold, but was in no way the only manner in which the pantheon was portrayed.

Re: Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history

#59

Post by ABCLAW »

MockObject wrote: post #21

> “Our results suggest that collective identities are more important to facilitate cooperation in societies than religious beliefs,” says Harvey Whitehouse. Then it's pretty awkward that the West is engaged in a long program to critique and dismantle its collective identity.

The West isn't dismantling its collective identity. It is refactoring it. Key elements of what construe western identity are restated in more defensible, universal terms through the process of critique.

Human dignity is a stronger foundation for our system of thought than a few statements from the first council of Nicaea or some other arbitrary religious authority.

Re: Complex societies precede moralizing gods throughout world history

#60

Post by ABCLAW »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #52
boomboomsubban wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're moving the argument too far. As complex societies developed without a moralizing god, religion is not necessary for morality. You can't use this to then say religion is unnecessary, as nobody has said morality is the only reason for religion. Even today, many religious people will say that atheists are incapable of having morals. This is evidence showing that claim is ridiculous, not an attack on religion.

Atheists can certainly act morally, and many do. But I would say that atheists don't have a basis for having morals. dictionary.com says that morals have to do with "right conduct". But in atheism, there is nothing with the authority to give you a definition of "right". There's nothing absolute in the way that, say, the Christian God is absolute, except the universe, and the universe doesn't tell you what right condu…

>But I would say that atheists don't have a basis for having morals.

>So the atheist usually takes something non-absolute and makes it an absolute

Okay, so that's a basis. The only issue here being that you don't consider a non-absolute basis to be valid. However, the deity of choice isn't absolute either - you have to deem it so in the same way that the atheist does. So either way there's no perfect ontological solution provided by either path.

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