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

How does the term 'transcendent belief' sound?

I think "god shaped hole" is ok in scare quotes as it's metaphorical rather than literal. But it's not so much a hole in the belief system as a context for the more mundane contents that would be missing. The hole is around the outside, not in the middle.

Belief is a systemic property; the system as a whole has certainly evolved, but I'm not sure if the term evolution can be applied to the individual properties of the system. On the other hand, showing that belief has a generally useful function within the system (which you have) comes pretty close. On a little further thought I think the term evolution can be applied to individual properties so long as the contextual nature is clarified.

Does it work? I'm coming round to it; hope the above bridges the gap.



Noggin

Yeah - I am coming round to the view that transcendant belief (do I *have* to use that term? ) has been fostered by natural selection.

As toxxin argued at the very start of my conversations with him, it is touch and go to say much more than that.

Unfortunately the title 'The evolutionary function of belief' is a lot snappier than anything I can think up involving the phrase 'natural selection', so I may well keep the title.

My guess is that I will tackle the changes again on Sunday.

Since we have turned the page, I will ask my questions again:

1) can anyone think up a better wording for 'inspired belief' or 'the god-shaped hole' - both phrases cause trouble?

2) whether or not tg-sh is a function of evolution or of natural selection, do you think that the entry agues it's case lucidly?

3) ditto convincingly?

All the best

a primate called Ben

"It does not matter which one came first. Evolution is adaptation to the environment"

So what if the better environmentally adapted form came first? Would that still be evolution?

Hi Ben,

I was expecting to read more about biological evolution, but it only really touches upon it in a way that is not very well defined. This could be dealt with by a name change. I'm not sure what though. It's hard to put your finger on it. To keep the title as it is, you have to link your points more firmly to biological evolution. Which is going to be a damn tough thing to do.

It would be nice to go up in scale, starting off at Personal belief, going up to A people, united in a cause, and then moving onto the wider picture of evolution's role in it all.

I don't think Diana is a very good example either, I'm afraid. The most inspiring thing she did to the vast majority of people was to die. Sad but true.

I LOVE the Personal Belief story of Viktor Frankle . Aren't there some statistics out there that proved that during the holocaust, the people who possessed religious faith survived more. I'm sure I've heard that somewhere. If you could drag that stat out (I tried, couldn't find it, then that would be your strongest evidence).

(In a wolf pack only the alpha male and female are permitted to mate!)

If you're coming from an atheist perspective all life is a product of evolution, that includes us and our idiosyncracies. That's the best argument for it all I think, but one that isn't going to readily convince the average believer.

I would suggest that a good replacement for "inspired belief" or "god-shaped hole" would simply be "religious faith". Then people knwo straight away without further explanation where they are.

It's a good overall idea, but it needs more structure and relevance to evolution in my opinion.

Ste

Noggin, I don't like "generally useful". "Adaptive" is the usual term and that is in relation to the environment and resulting in more reproductive success. I guess that comes somewhere near to 'generally useful'. But has Ben really showed that transcendent belief is even generally useful? Are all her examples of transcendent belief as opposed to self-belief/obsession or similar?

Hi Ben. I seemed to have helped to turn this topic into a bit of a hornets' nest. Not necessarily a bad thing though. I would be very reluctant to sacrifice accuracy for snappiness. It ain't the academic way. Look at some PhD titles!

If only I could understand the terms in your title, I would instantly be more sympathetic to what follows, I think. Psychologically, I'd know where it fitted (or was intended to fit) into my belief system.

I wrote:
"For an organism to evolve, a competing allele is not required to become extinct. It does not matter which one came first."

Toxxin wrote:
"So what if the better environmentally adapted form came first? Would that still be evolution?"

I was coming at it from the general view, not specifically the melanic form of Biston, but anyway, point taken . It is still not required for the melanic form to become extinct for evolution to be said to be in action though.

Ste

I guess I have to accept that Ste. The point is, I suppose, how small a step of micro-evolution do we still want to call 'evolution'. Or to put it in another way: how many processes have to come together before we call it 'evolution' from a general view?

"how small a step of micro-evolution do we still want to call 'evolution'."

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

Evolution is not something that happens for a bit, stops happening, then starts happening again. It's a *continuous* process. Humans seem to have a difficulty understanding processes - we like things broken up into easily digestible chunks, so we invent amorphous, meaningless concepts like "species" and then go around classifying things according to them. This then causes us a problem when the universe is inconsiderate enough to throw up examples which don't conform to our neat categories.

Evolution is going on *all the time*, whether we happen to be able to observe the changes it is wreaking or not. Whether you want to call a small step of micro-evolution "evolution" or not is really up to you. As I said earlier, nature really doesn't care.

H.

Toxxin - to be perfectly honest I am not actually that interested in your belief system. But neither do I expect you to be interested in mine.

Ste - Biological evolution - I think that a more accurate title would be 'the natural selection benefits of spiritual belief', since I am arguing that spiritual belief had/has benefits which naturally select for it in a wide variety of rather nasty circumstances. But the title I chose was intended to imply that belief has other functions too; the personal ones are the most obvious, but there are societal functions for belief as well.

Going up in scale - The original entry started off with the zebra/wolf thing, then went to individuals and finally to groups. What I like about finishing with individuals in the punch-line. I will think about re-structuring it though, and thanks for the suggestion.

Princess Di - I am not bothered about her either way. I wanted a counter example, an exception which proves the rule, if you like. She seems to me to be someone who did aquire a mass following, but one which did not involve any inspired belief. The nature of that following interests me too, (as you can see from the entry I wrote about it). I may well lose Diana since y'all dislike her so.

Stats - ahhhhh - now where can I find those.....?

Convincing believers - I am not interested in undermining the faith of others, just in testing out amongst agnostics or atheists whether or not this idea flies. One bizzare thing is that despite writing this entry I am not in fact an athieist. But don't tell anyone.

'Religious Faith' - for me that phrase is too narrow. I am too aware that people believe in policical causes in exactly the same way (function again, always function) that they believe in a religion. 'Fanaticism' is wrong too. Quiet faith moves mountains. I guess one of the reasons it is tricky is that it is a whole bloody venn diagram of similar but subtly different things.

Hey ho.

Thanks for the comments, all.

B

"someone who did aquire a mass following, but one which did not involve any inspired belief"

Elvis?

H.

So to get back to Ben's central question, how would one demonstrate that something is or is not an advantage in evolutionary terms? What is needed is a sufficent chunk (however arbitrary) of dependent variable to decide whether certain characteristics (the independent variable) make a difference by comparison with a control group. How else would you do it, and what could that pesky dependent variable be? That is the reason for the question, not breaking things up into chunks for the sake of it.

Okie dokie.

And what would your sufficient chunk be, and what would the dependent variable be?

B

Well Ben, it's your project. What do you say? You say you have observed such advantages. Can you define them with a bit of rigour so you know what to look for?

No, sweetie, I asked first. And since you are clearly a fount of knowledge and wisdom, I am kneeling down on the steps of the getting slightly damp from the spray, and asking you to say what your sufficient chunk would be, and what the dependent variable would be?

A seeker of truth and cheesecake called Ben

I don't make any such claims. Just try to be helpful and really am interested. I just don't understand your project well enough to know what would be required. I've tried my damnedest but it still seems kinda vague. Maybe that's the lager too!

I suppose that the dependent variable would have to be something like 'number of grandchildren'. What do you say to that?

"Must try harder" Toxxin.

B

Ooooh, yer an 'ard woman Ben! You say this ere belief has advantages. Just name something that can at least be observed and accordingly counted if not measured. Or compared anyway with controls better/same/worse.

"Just name something that can at least be observed and accordingly counted if not measured."

Sigh.

Will somebody please explain to Toxxin that I already have?

B