Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
Tom, As you know, my hypothesis is that behavior choice in animals, including humans, is an emotion driven process that attempts to produce a favorable emotional outcome. In humans, intellect provides another emotional input that's sometimes available for enhanced decison-making. I write this post, not to convince anyone or change their mind about this, but to clarify for myself some of the more important implications.
One of the human behaviors most susceptible to this emotion driven process is the opinions we form and hold about the world. We all love to believe that our own opinions are derived from the most rigorous logical and objective processes - and that those who don't share our opinions are just not very good thinkers. From the article Quote:
By the time we are adults, when we are exposed to new information, our first instinct is to see if it fits in with our existing beliefs. If it does not, we may reject it out of hand. If asked, we will put our mind to work coming up with logical reasons why it could not possibly be true. If it does fit, we do the opposite. It feels so right. We have no trouble rationalizing reasons why it simply must be true. However, some have worked hard to develop the ability to make rational judgements and think objectively about new information - to guard against emotion in that process. Good scientists strive to develop this ability - although not all scientists are so good at it. The internet provides a wonderful lab to observe this in action. Almost all discussions about politics or philosophy (and psychology) are vivid illustrations of this. Most comments made in discussion groups like this are rationalizations for or against the beliefs that the commentors already hold in their minds. Some commentors are very intelligent and very skilled at making these rationalizations - disguising them as unbiased objective arguments. Sometimes however, new information and new ideas are actually explored in online discussion. It's easy to see the difference between the two modes. In one, people question and offer observations - in the other, insults fly. Most often, and most unfortunately, the modes coexist - with some members trying to discuss human nature while others, whose beliefs may be threatened, throw insults at them. There are differences between personalities in this online process. First, different persons have different areas of belief that they hold sacred. While one person may have no strong beliefs about God, for example, they may have strong partisan political beliefs - or vice versa. They may be quite capable of objective evaulation and comment in one of these areas but not the other. Another difference that I suspect true is that different persons develop (or are genetically endowed, perhaps) with a greater chemical need to attach their beliefs to strong emotions. Some persons tend to go through life seeking those attachments. Strong passions were certainly a net benefit for early humans who faced death every day from an uncaring nature and other humans. Those who carried the most passionate clan loyalties and the religious instincts that cemented them in place were most likely rewarded with better mate choices and more offspring - who then were likely to be passionate believers in all that their clan held sacred as well. I suspect that many of the problems of the modern world are the result of this inherited bias for passion in our beliefs. I am not saying that these are always counter-productive for human-kind. It would be easy to make that generalization but that's not my purpose. Instead, I would propose that there is another side to behavior choice that could be nurtured in society, generally, and in children so that it will be available to them when needed. That is the passionless practice of reason. It is easy to imagine that the first humans had little ability for this - and that the advance of civilization is pretty well marked by a gradually increasing ability to reason without the passion of irrational beliefs getting in the way. Still, I can see many examples where passion is not only necessary but where good outcomes would not be possible without it. When someone attacks us there is no choice but to passionately defend ourselves. At some point we must stop trying to reason and defend ourself - by whatever means necessary. The Second World War was a good example where we as a nation, at some point stopped anguishing over the alternatives and got about killing large numbers of Germans and Japanese. But even then, our success was at least partially due to our ability to manage the war more intelligently and rationally - than passionately. The passion was needed - but measured and applied skillfully - which is difficult to do. IMO the most admirable achievements of humanity have been examples of the skillful combination of passion and reason. I think that a successful strategy for life on the personal level - and for societies - is to be capable of both passionate competition and reason - but to develop the wise ability to choose when and where to apply each, and in what proportions. I'm sure I could use a lot of improvement here. We all deal with this functional duality in our minds every day in terms of competition in society. Passion is good for advertisers, for example. People simply do not buy things unless they are emotionally committed to the purchase. Millions of dollars are spent every day to make us more passionate and more competitive - usually about specific products - but the aggregate effect is a general elevated competitiveness (and social stress) that comes to permeate our lives. There are areas of life where passion and competition has deadly serious consequences. Religion is capable of generating the most ferocious passions as any world history book will show. The tragedy of 9/11 and the current state of religious war in Iraq provides a vivid example that will affect our lives for many generations to come. It's OK to hold passions regarding one's beliefs. But when those passions become competitive, religion invariably requires the demeaning of others' religions - and eventually, if left unchecked, attacking or killing members of other faiths. I believe it is not the nature of religion itself, but the nature of the minds in which it dwells - as to whether religious belief can be a force for good or destruction. The passion for belief is inherent in all of us from our evolutionary past. It seems, no matter how strong or weak it may be, that capacity can be amplified culturally or by upbringing - to completely consume some lives. At the same time, passion for belief I suspect has become less necessary as our species evolved. What was vitally necessary for the survival of small superstitious bands 100,000 years ago, has become an enormous wholesale destroyer of DNA in the modern world. And the most passionate believers - as in WWII - don't always win. Has cultural evolution so outpaced genetic evolution that we are destined to reduce humanity to a more appropriate smaller number of more primitive bands again - that can better accommodate the passions of our belief systems and use them to advantage? Possibly the greatest advance in the organization of human civilization was the secular US constitution and Bill of Rights that recognized the inherent right of all to happiness and equal treatment under the law - and the all-important notion of separation of the affairs of church and state. The duality in society that reveals our liberal and conservative mind-sets is an indicator of this evolution-in-progress - the bitter struggle of passionate beliefs vs. a live-and-let-live approach - that allows people to believe whatever they wish as long as they don't impose their beliefs on others. The conundrum hidden in that struggle is that it's hard to live-and-let-live when someone is trying to put you in prison for smoking pot or having an abortion or trying to have a loving relationship with someone of the same sex. The passionate religionists will therefore always have their way. They will get their belief wars - because they need them, because the chemicals in their brains demand them. And those who would try to avoid them, will always be the first to suffer the consequences of those chemically induced passions. Such is the human condition. And I guess we are fortunate to have members here who illustrate the chemical determinism of the human mind, in all its wonderful permutations, so very well - including me. Margaret |
Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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But MM’s so-called hypothesis—that we humans are “driven by emotion to do what we do . . . driven to seek an emotional payoff for itâ€â€”would dictate that you didn’t eat the pie b/c you, per se, “WANTED†to eat the pie, but rather b/c you were “driven by emotion†to eat the pie, “driven to seek an emotional payoff†from eating the pie. |
Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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Blessings of Liberty? What did the deists/theists Founding Fathers have in mind? Any other documents that might give us a clue? Yep! The Declaration, where the Founders noted that we are “endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.†And it was with the Constitution that these Rights, endowed by our Creator, were secured. There’s a new book that some of the more fanatical atheists here may want to consider reading—American Gospel : God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation , by historian and Newsweek editor Jon Meacham. Meacham, as noted in the Amazon Review: Quote:
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Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
Fred sed,
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I guess you think that because your God is the symbol of Christianity that the Crusades and Inquisition never occured and that the Southern Christian churches that defended slavery by quoting scripture and sent the Confederate soldiers off to war with their blessings were really the good guys, your god's messengers on earth. If the Constitution and Bill of Rights were supposed to enshrine the place of your Christian god in our government, as you claim, it's strange that there is no simple, straightforward statement to that effect anywhere to be found. Why is there no simple unambiguous statement that says that we are a Christian nation - to be guided by Christ's teachings. Why are the Ten Commandments nowhere to be found in those documents? That would have been very simple to include. This in a document that was worried over and edited carefully to cover all imagined possibilities for misunderstanding. Instead, we get token mention of some ambiguous "creator" without any apparent Constitutional function. BTW, if our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were endowed by your creator (which apparently gives him - or you - the right to say how we can enjoy them) - why did humanity have to wait 20,000 years or so for human society to organize itself well enough and wisely enough to actually protect those god-given rights? Why do we need this man-made constitution at all? Wouldn't your all-powerful god have secured those inalienable rights for us - right along with dominion over the beasts and flowers of the field? Maybe he just forgot? Well, even then he forgot to give them to negroes and women, so maybe I shouldn't complain. In any case, the founders' purpose was not to outlaw religion. It was to keep it in the personal domain - and out of the realm of government. The establishment clause states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", which assured that government could not sponsor or favor any state religion. The deists and theists there certainly accepted that or would have insisted on some specific wording to the contrary. Other Christian Dominionists like you are doing their best to re-write our nation's history and change the fundemantal nature of the Constitution - to turn us into a theocracy. I'm not so interested in that as I am in the vivid example your post provides of the irrationality that can be caused by such strong mind infections. I would remind anyone reading this that your belief system is so strong that I'm sure you actually believe these farcical re-interpretations of history - I don't think you are being deceptive. They must provide you with warm feelings of satisfaction for the sense of protection they offer your beliefs. Do you feel the power of god in your heart when you attack us immoral atheists? The war has always been between strong, emotionally held belief systems that take over people's minds, like yours - and scientific rationality. It is not between Nazis or Communists or atheists - and Dominionist Christians - as you would prefer to characterize it. All those, except atheism which is a non-belief, are actually just different versions of the same sickness. Try another frame, Fred. :rolleyes: Margaret |
Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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And sure enough, the Preamble of the Constitution notes that the Constitution was established to, among other things, “secure the Blessings of Liberty.†Quote:
BTW, regarding the abolition of slavery, as noted in Wiki, “Abolitionism had a strong religious base including Quakers, and (among Yankees) people converted by the revivalistic fervor of the Second Great Awakening in the North in the 1830sâ€; and also I’m not a born and raised “Southerner,†so my ancestors weren’t the ones, as MM seems to be insinuating, albeit a silly insinuation, that “defended slavery by quoting scripture and sent the Confederate soldiers off to war with their blessings.†Happy 4th of July everyone. |
Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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You already know that when I say 'wanted' I mean that your brain's current state caused you to make that choice. There's nothing free about will if it is dependent on the state of the brain. And the experiments I cited prove that it is dependent on the state of the brain. You even agreed that will is dependent on the brain. I stand by my simplified characterization of MMs hypothesis. |
Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
Fred, You seem to have avoided a follow-up on the side-track you diverted us to in your efforts to avoid justifying your religious view of downward causation.
Here's a reminder: If the Constitution and Bill of Rights were supposed to enshrine a place for your Christian god in our government, as you claim, it's strange that there is no simple, straightforward statement to that effect anywhere to be found. Why is there no simple unambiguous statement that says that we are a Christian nation - to be guided by Christ's teachings. Why are the Ten Commandments nowhere to be found in those documents - nor even a mention of them? Certainly, they would have been very simple to include, if that was in any way the founders' intention. This in a document that was worried over and edited carefully to cover all imagined possibilities for misunderstanding. Instead, we get token mention of some ambiguous "creator" - and then only in the Declaration, a lofty statement of moral justification for separation from England, in no way a document meant to describe the organization or operating principles of a new government. BTW, if our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness were endowed by your creator (which apparently gives him - or you - the right to say how we can enjoy them) - why did humanity have to wait 20,000 years or so for human society to organize itself well enough and wisely enough to actually recognize and attempt to protect those god-given rights? You say, Quote:
Please explain why we need this man-made constitution at all. Wouldn't your all-powerful god have secured those inalienable rights for us - right along with dominion over the beasts and flowers of the field? Inalienable means - Quote:
In any case, the founders' purpose was not to outlaw religion. It was to keep it in the personal domain - and out of the realm of government. The establishment clause states that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", which assured that government could not sponsor or favor any state religion. The deists and theists there certainly accepted that or would have insisted on some specific wording to the contrary. You said, Quote:
Other Christian Dominionists like you are doing their best to re-write our nation's history and change the fundemantal nature of the US Constitution and our government - to turn us into a theocracy. For our entertainment value, let's see a real objective. scientific justification for your Dominionist premise - the kind that only rational unemotional intellects like yours can appreciate. Please tell us again as clearly as possible, why it is that we are really supposed to be a Christian nation according to the wishes of the founders, but we just don't know it yet. Margaret |
Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
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So MM has convinced me: MM’s hypothesis apparently is true for MM herself b/c she herself apparently is driven just by emotion to do whatever she does, driven only to seek an emotional payoff for whatever she does, and reality/truth rarely, if ever, enter into her “thought†processes and/or behavior. You win MM. Pleasant dreams, and have a lovely July 4th. |
Re: The Political Brain - More Evidence of Evolved Psychology
C'mon Fred, Is that the best you can do? Sort of an addled version of "Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you?" ;)
You're right about the emotions thing, though. The difference between us is which emotional centers have the most influence over our behavior decisions. And, how much each of us is willing to harness our intellect toward affirming our hardened beliefs - vs. our respective willingness to be open to new knowledge and information that might provide better explanations of human behavior - and discuss those objectively. Your posts are like a broken record - repeating one view, a religious one - in all its possible permutations - supporting a single vacuous and scientifically unsupportable conclusion, for months on end. Happy 4th to you too - and your downward causation. Margaret |
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