h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I don't think this argument works. What would have happened if the people in your anecdotes had (a)No beliefs (a la Princess Di); (b)Different beliefs? We just don't know. Maybe they would have been better off. What about that cult (Shakers, Dukhebors - I don't know and maybe can't spell) who believed they should not have sex and (obviously) children. How would that promote their survival?

This stuff is entertaining, but is it of any academic value?

My thesis is that belief - just about any belief - gives a survival edge.

That there is something about belief (lots of things in fact, as I argue in my entry on affirmation and prayer A778034) which change how an individual reacts with the world).

Since a propensity to believe is pandemic in humans, there must have been a point in time when humans or humanoids or anthropoids who held beliefs (any beliefs) and when those who didn't died.

My argument is that believing in something (anything) is a survival mechanism.

The argument may not fly, but if it doesn't the reason is not the ones you gave which are based on content of belief.

B

(The argument is not that god saves believers, btw. The argument is that believers hang on in there when non-believers whimper and give up the ghost).

I don't think that you can separate out the content of a belief just like that. After all, there is no such thing as a contentless belief is there? I believe I can fly, so I step out of a 40th floor window. I believe I can live without food, fight a pride of lions, swim the Pacific. Not much survival value there. What about the psychotic conditions involving beliefs that one can hear voices, read minds etc. They all seem to be more or less pathological.

Everyone believes many things anyway. Where is your control group for comparison? I believe I'm here, alive, human, male the list goes on. Do these beliefs help me to survive regardless of content? How would you know?

Eek again! You can't talk about non-believers unless they're dead. Non-believers in x maybe (and x seems to equal God in your terms). Isn't that faith more significantly than belief?

I think you *can* separate out process from content. Hell, I know you can, I do it all the time, and it is one of the things I am paid to do.

Read the entry on Affirmation and Prayer to see what I mean about separating process from content in the context of spiritual practices. (Really I would like that entry to be part of the Uni project, I will have to talk to the Eds about that, I guess).

But to take an example: Fundamentalist Islamicists have more in common with Fundamentalist Christians than either do with their moderate co-religionists. The WAY in which their fundamentalist beliefs make them feel and behave is similar, even though the content of those beliefs is different.

My guess is that we probably need another example. Let me think. If you are driving a car, you use the steering wheel, brakes, gas, clutch, gear-shift, etc. The process of driving the car is the same regardless of whether you are driving through the Lake District or down Picadilly. Actually that is not a terebly helpful example either. Sorry.

This is not to deride content, but content blinds us to process, and I want to open people's eyes and minds to the concept that process is in itself interesting, and that belief is a process, and just maybe content is not worth killing for.

I obviously need to bridge the gap and explain more about why I think belief helps animals survive. And I suspect I am going to have to get some biometrics on that. Hey ho.

Read Affirmation and prayer, hopefully it will explain a lot.

B

Are you talking about contentless belief or belief with any old content? The first is impossible - "I believe", "OK, what do you believe?"..... "There's no answer to that, I just believe".


So contentless doesn't work. What about manifestly false belief? Is that of survival value too? What about fools' paradises and needless fears? Both belief states. You aren't talking about belief per se but doing a lot of special pleading with the examples you choose.

I am not talking about contentless beliefs. I don't think you can have a contentless process, I am not sure about it, but I don't think it is possible.

Sure - there are beliefs which are less useful than others, but that is a separate track. (I absolutely acknowledge that some beliefs are less useful than others, by the way).

I am NOT saying that what you believe is irrelevant to survival. Merely that it is a lot less relavent than you would think.

I am arguing that the fact that you believe something is more important than what you believe, in most cases, anyway - if you believe you can fly you are clearly onto a loser.

The problem is that order to look at process you have to get content out of the way, and see what is left.

Fear is absolutely a survival mechanism. That is its only purpose. The fact that people have needless fears does not make necessary ones any less useful. We live in a maze now anyay.

Not a fabulously cohesive post, because I am at work.

B

We ALL have beliefs. Well all us humans anyway. Once again, where is your comparison control group so you can see what happens when people don't have beliefs? Can't exist can it! I think your topic is 'hope' rather than 'belief'. Try comparing those - which of them has the more survival value? Your examples are very worthy, but you should really stick a pin in a dictionary and study beliefs about whatever you hit. That way you use randomness to control for biased belief content. At present you're in a sort of no-person's-land between philosophy and social science. You have to go one way or the other. Is this study empirical or conceptual in essence?

Damn! I need to think about this more. And you are right, I am being a little sloppy in my use of terminology.

It is about the god-shaped hole in the human psyche, the belief in the 'other' - why the hell do we *do* that as a species?

B

Ah, now we're getting to the 'real' question behind the question. Yes, it was sloppy earlier. Glad I got on your case. Shame I can't do this for money - I'd be good at it

Ok, so that is the question which the entry is answering.

Seems to me that anything which is apparently so pointless but nethertheless so universal could only have propogated through a species to the extent that it has if there is a destinct survival benefit.

If there was no survival benefit then there would be no pressure to select or deselect, and it would propogate through the human species much more patchily - like body piercing or tattoos, say.

But it is far more universal than that.

Ergo - there must have been a survival benefit.

Then, if we look at it from the opposite direction, we see that individuals who have strong beliefs ['in something other than the mundane' understood] survive better conditions of extreme physical and psychological stress.

We also find that groups who have inspired leaders with visionary goals do better than groups who don't.

So - we find something which is so widespread it indicates that there is an evolutionary benefit in it, and lo! we find that when we look at the something in more detail it does indeed have a benefit.

The entry is my answer to the question I posed a couple of posts ago. Why do human beings *do* that?

It is also something I happen to think is true, or at least plausible.

B

Ah so this is about the survival benefit of what some would call superstition. Well, Dawkins writes about 'memes' as he call them. Perhaps you should read up on them. Try here for starters: http://www.2think.org/mememachine.shtml

No. Superstition is content again.

There is a survival benefit to fear, there is a survival benefit to motherly love, there is a survival benefit to sexual desire and to being-in-love, and I am sugesting that there is a survival benefit to inspired belief.

I have read Dawkins 'Selfish Gene' and have a copy of 'The Extended Phenotype'. When I saw him talk in Cheltenham a couple of years ago he was promoting 'Unweaving the Rainbow' which is on my list of books to get. Interestingly he is married to Lalla Ward who was one of the Doctor's Assistants in Doctor Who.

B

I'm sorry that I seem to be risking going round in circles but I would like to get this right. 'Inspired' belief, you say. It's a causal thing then rather than content? This is about belief that comes about in a particular way. Can you describe what that way is and why beliefs so arising should have a different survival value from others? Or is that the purpose of the whole project?!

Is it also, or rather, a different WAY of believing? I want to understand what makes this kind of believing different.

Yay, Toxxin,

I appreciate the time you are putting into this - it is going to make this entry much stronger.

Ok

You said:
'Inspired' belief, you say. It's a causal thing then rather than content? This is about belief that comes about in a particular way.

Ben:
I am not sure how it comes about, but what I mean by 'inspired belief' is belief in a god, belief in a cause, belief in numinescence, belief in something greater than the believer. The god-shaped hole in the human pscyhe. These days it is sometimes called a 'vision' (companies establish their vision, and then work out mission statements). I am reading about the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo Missions at the moment, and these guys were completely focussed on Kennedy's vision of an American on the Moon by the end of 69. As I said, Thatcher had a vision for how she wanted Britain to be. Hitler had his own vision of an aryan reich which would last 1000 years. These visions inspired others to go above and beyond the call of duty and to achieve far more, in a focussed direction, than they would or could have achieved otherwise. So perhaps the word is 'inspirational belief'.

Does that make sense?

You said:
Can you describe what that way is and why beliefs so arising should have a different survival value from others?

Ben:
If you believe that the sun will come up, or water is wet, or fire burns then they are useful and functional beliefs, and definitely have a survival value. I think there is a qualitative difference between these survival benefits and the survival benefits of inspirational beliefs.

Inspirational beliefs generate the ability to go the extra mile, to put in the extra hours, that you will be saved for a purpose, that you have a mission. In 'The Blues Brothers' Jake and Elmore are 'on a mission from God' - the film takes the p**s out of the concept, but the concept is there to have the p**s taken out of it in the first place. (I love Pratchett's slant on that, a dwarf called Glod (his parents could not spell Gold) sends some dudes out to do something. They are - inevitably - on a mission from Glod. Trust Pratchett to get in two puns where one would have done.)

In a group, shared beliefs mean that the group will act more cohesively, with less debate and delay, and will individually go the extra mile. Hitler generated the third reich by creating a national belief in a national destiny while Chamberlain was faffing around with an umbrella. The US is dangerous now because it believes it leads the free world, (whatever that may be).

Visionaries are dangerous people, because their visions make them powerful.

You said:
Or is that the purpose of the whole project?!

Ben:
Hmm. The purpose of the project is to help people separate the function of religious belief from its content. 'Mary O'Grady and the Colonel's lady are sisters under the skin'. We have more in common with people whose religious beliefs appear to be different from ours than most people can see or acknowledge. The purpose of the project is to make people question the function and purpose of beliefs, and to lead them to that conclusion.

You said:
Is it also, or rather, a different WAY of believing? I want to understand what makes this kind of believing different.

Ben:
I think it is a different way of believing in many respects. Water is wet, etc, is verified by the senses. God is good, or the trees are spirits, or the goddess has three forms, there is a 'third way', and the international proletariat will throw off their chains are believed without support from the senses.

Hopefully this goes some of the way towards explaining where this comes from.

Keep the questions coming. When I have finally managed to articulate clearly, I will update the entry. Do you want a co-credit? You deserve it.

B

I just read your interchange, and (from my perspective), Toxxin is questioning the obvious, some of the time. I think your aim is moderately clear, Ben.

Toxxin, I feel you are approaching this from a 'scientific' point of view, which worries me. The classical scientific perspective reduces humans to 'impartial observers', which is a nonsense in general, and a hugely damaging nonsense when one is trying to study something so essentially human as belief.

Nevertheless, this is going to be a difficult project to complete, and perhaps the most important part will be its presentation: how you present your conclusions to the waiting masses of the world. So clarity is well worthwhile. Keep up the good work!

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Pedantic note: Ben, you keep saying there "must" be some evolutionary advantage to belief. It could be coincidence. I believe there's *probably* some survival advantage in the kind of belief you describe.

Hmm. There may be another explanation of course. Divine intervention would explain it.

I love the fact that I can sling into the creationism debate the idea that evolution created god....

Are you going to contribute an entry Patter Chaser? Mind you - calm critiquing is even more useful!

B

This is toxxin but I forgot my name! I'm very busy so no credit please unless I find time to do more. I've just spotted your reply and I asked Noggin for help too. I just reckon that if I can't figure out what the topic is in unambiguous terms then probably nobody else will. I'll study your message and get back to you I hope. Cheers.

Me toxxin again. When you said 'vision' it send me down a track that arrived at 'aspiration'. Did I say 'hope' b4? Maybe 'aspiration' is a better word. Is that close at all? There's an element of motivation too I think. Believing in oneself. Really wanting something, and almost anything will do in that spot. I think I might be getting there but I'm sorry that I still ain't sure that 'belief' is the word for where you're at. Self confidence? Trust in something? Just brainstorming the terminology. Sometimes it helps.

Yeah, I think you are there now, the words you are using are synonyms for what I mean, and near enough.

I dole out co-credits like confetti, I appreciate having my thoughts challenged, and quite often co-credit the challenger, even though none of their words make it into the entry. Their thoughts make the entry better, and that is what helps.

Hope you get your U-ID back soon!

B