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

And to stop us going around in non-intersecting circles forever:

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

B

Consider:

1. Belief in something "beyond our ken" *seems* ubiquitous. I can't think of a society which lacks priests of one stripe or another - which is to say people who are "more spiritual than thou", for want of a better characterisation. This ubiquity begs explanation.

2. There are two readily available possible explanations, which may be characterised as "hardware" and "software" explanations. Alternatively, to use more evolution-friendly terminology, spirituality may be genetic or memetic.

If it is "just" a meme (a self-replicating idea or concept), that doesn't make it any less subject to the concepts and strictures of evolutionary theory. It just means it has an intellectual rather than a physical basis. The recipe for bread or the proper way of napping a flint axe are memes, but ones with blindingly obvious survival benefits.

But: it's ubiquity suggests it may be genetic - that there may be something about the human which intrinsically leads to us needing to believe in something. Personally, I don't think this is the case, but I don't have enough evidence in either direction to decide.

So: a theory. The need for belief in something unknown and unknowable is a genetic trait in humans.

It's scientific theory, because it is falsifiable. ONE example of a human society or culture completely lacking any such belief would blow it out of the water. I can't think of one.

I honestly hope someone else can, because I personally prefer the idea that religion is a meme. If nothing else, it make me feel better about having absolutely no spirituality in my life at all because if it's just a meme, then I'm resistant to an idea, whereas if it's genetic then I appear to be physically lacking something!

Just a thought.

Oh, and a suggestion: if any of the above makes any kind of sense, you may consider a title change along the lines of "Belief: Genetic or Memetic?" or something like that. It would remove that mention of evolutionary "function" which toxxin seems to be struggling with...

H.

I always wondered if you were an evolutionary throwback, Hoo, or whether or not you were just a sport!

I like it Hoo! I only have to struggle with 'spirituality' then. Of course, Ben thinks it isn't falsifiable because it doesn't have to be universal even if it is genetic. 'Pandemic', she calls it. Therefore, in her terms, the hypothesis still wouldn't be scientific unless we know just how general it has to be. Even then, it would be very difficult to falsify (although falsifiable in principle). Do you, Hoo, say that genetic implies universal - except for the relatively short period when a new mutation is becoming established? Even then, it would be possible to argue that we are currently in such a period.

That's why I've protested about the 'pandemic' thing. Over to Ben for a solution to that one, once again.

Genetic doesn't imply universal.

Taking this to its logical conclusion, I can conceive of (but do not expect) the discovery of an isolated society who completely lack any concept of spirituality, and the subsequent discovery that they are genetically distinct from the rest of humankind in the same way any other isolated group may be genetically distinct (e.g. like, say, the Yahgan Indians of Tierra del Fuego were - they had measurably higher metabolic rates than "normal" humans, which allowed them to sleep naked on the ground in temperatures which would kill a fully clothed European within hours). If this were to happen, it raises the tantalising possibility that we could actually discover the gene(s) responsible for belief...

Wonder what we'd do with *that* knowledge...

Of course, I prefer the idea that it's memetic - but just because it's easier to believe doesn't make it right.

H.

That's fascinating stuff, Hoo. But I'm not sure how much the first sentence is supported by the rest. Maybe its just your choice of example scenario where genetic belief is universal among those with the same genetic makeup, but absent in just the genetically different group. Could it be other than universal among a group with a common genetic makeup, even in theory? Clearly much would hinge on the answer to this.

By the same token. Isn't it possible that belief should be universal yet, coincidentally, memetic in origin? Another interesting line of thought is, given the genetic/memetic distinction (annoyingly, belief could also be both, could it not) where would we expect the exceptions to appear, if any? If memetic, a separate group is the first thought, but why not isolated eccentrics. Would the latter finding be less evidential?

Is it churlish to point out that you are slinging in more questions Toxxin without answering the two I tossed back in your court: "What would your sufficient chunk be, and what would the dependent variable be?"

Probably is churlish of me.

Hey ho.

a churl called Ben

It's your project Ben, and Hoo seems so clued up on this topic that I'm asking him the hardest questions I can think of on your behalf as well as mine. I'm not qualified to pronounce on the biological aspects of this stuff, but I think I am up to the reasoning aspects.

The main question seems to have mutated since your questions to me. We're now concentrating on genetic v memetic. Do you approve of this? Or do you still want 'evolutionary' in there somewhere?

Ok, I will leave you and Hoo and Ste to it, then.

Have fun guys.

B

There's nothing left to be left to right now. Not until some responses come in anyway.

The specific contents of any belief would be, presumably, memetic, as this is the only reason why beliefs would have the sort of cultural continuity that they do while still being subject to widespread change over short time spans (eg at the inception of new religions). The question is really whether any postulated 'god shaped hole' exists, and if it does does it have a genetic basis?
Presumably such a hole would be in some system/structure of beliefs and experience which would be predominantly learned; the question of the ubiquity of belief systems constructed this way is then the primary question.

Noggin

Greetings Noggin. I can't see an alternative to the contents of any belief having to be memetic, but Ben has ruled out content in favour of consideration of belief as such. You seem to be saying that any 'god-shaped hole' introduces content via the back door. That is my view anyway as expressed in a much earlier post.

However, the ability to believe has to be genetic. Ability and content seem to pose few problems, but 'need' seems to fall between the two. Is it genetic or memetic? That seems to be Ben's question.

The factoid that we need to believe seems to require a genetic explanation. The factoid that we need to believe X seems to require a memetic explanation. How do we ask the crucial question of ourselves and nature to sort out what is going on here? How, if at all, would answering the question concerning ubiquity help us here?

To be honest I'm groping about in the dark here rather. What do all the different varieties of 'inspired' or 'transcendent' belief have in common (if anything)? Are they essentially beliefs in or beliefs that? Why do they have that element of necessity or compulsion for the believer in the absence of empirical verification? How is the traffic of internal messages turned into meaning? I'd really like to know because some of these questions are relevant to the peices I'm writing. Answers on a postcard to the usual address please.

Noggin

Well, me too Noggin. I've been trying to get Ben to clear this up since it's her topic. I have had a look at your embryonic entries too. The problems of the evolutionary terminology seem to have been resolved. The spiritual/transcendent/inspired issue has not. A can of worms, I'm prepared to consider. A can of smoke is beyond me.

I notice that we've reinvented the bad old nature v nurture question in terms of genetic v memetic! It always was something of a false dichotomy. I wonder if the new formulation goes any way towards getting round that.

Hi all,

I actually read this last week but felt a little out of my depth in the back end of the thread.

There are some interesting ideas in the entry, but i don't want to duplicate what may well have been said in one of those middle pages of blog i didn't read.

I'll endeavour to have another look and contribute some thoughts if i think they might be constructive.

cya
spiff

Hey, Spiff, contribute anyway. The backlog of this one is confusing as hell, bitchy, personal, and circular.

My recomendation is read the entry, skip the backlog, and say what you think. I would value your opinion on how this works as an entry.

B

neck...

nisi prius...

nosh...

nurse...

oh, hang on...

numerus clausus...

ah, here we are - numinous: pertaining to a diviinity, suffusied with feelling of a divinity;

numinousness.

ok, new word learnt. (not exactly the one i was originally looking up, though - )

*heads back to entry*