the evolving mind

Faces and other human forms seem to pop out at us on all sides. . . . Voices murmur or whisper in wind and waves.
- S. Guthrie (16)

[N]ote that gods and spirits are not represented as having human features in general but as having minds, which is much more specific. People represent supernatural agents who perceive events, have thoughts and memories and intentions. But they do not always project onto these agents other human characteristics, such as having a body, eating food, living with family or gradually getting older.
- P. Boyer (17)

Perhaps more than seeing form in abstract stimuli, religious experiences rely on inferring the work of agents behind events. If, as you exit your garage, your hear something fall, you look back, half expecting to discover that an animal had snuck in. You find a shovel has fallen to the floor. Did a ghost do it? Or had you leaned it askew, moments before, and the force of gravity took awhile to win out over the friction of where the handle met the wall?

We can infer intentional behavior behind events, large scale and small, particularly if those events lack causality by some other obvious agent. Additionally, events that startle and confuse us tend to move us to suspect intention. Examples range from earthquakes and hurricanes to a mysterious draft felt wafting up the spine. We ask not, “how did that happen?” but “who did that?”

When people cannot connect an event to natural phenomena—which says more about our abilities than the universe – people tend to conjure up supernatural causal agents. In fact, the concept of supernatural agents intruding into our world is a cultural universal. (18) Furthermore, the “spectrum” of supernatural agents is quite large: from dead ancestors intruding invisibly into village life, to a “Timeless Benign Force” (19).

At least two things occur when we infer agency behind inexplicable phenomena. Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: belief, evolution, religion

The above pic is of Enceladus, one of Saturn’s Moons.

While traveling the desert regions of the Southwestern U.S., I first realized that my view of planet Earth was superficial. Yes, there is a complex and fascinating fabric of growth carpeting much of it. But scrape away the scraggly growth and you are left with a naked planet, a huge lump of minerals, solid at the surface, molten down below.

Biological life is but a veneer on Earth, sometimes distracting us from the truth of rock. What is our planet? A rock plus a little bit of a lot of other stuff.

Third rock from the sun, indeed. Actually, make that third rock from a sun. One sun among billions and billions.
[photo thanks to Astronomy Picture of the Day]

Technorati Links: astronomy, biology

The English poet William Blake wrote:

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

Is it hypocritical for a person to be strongly scientifically-oriented yet to seek out sublime experiences (some blend of aesthetics, emotion and meaning)? I don’t think so. Being able to “artistically experience” the universe and being able to think about it scientifically are not mutually exclusive. True, you may not be able to wear both hats snugly at the same time. . . .

Flowers, birds, stars and planets – we tend to think of these as art when someone bothers to paint or photograph them and hang their work on a wall.

I once considered making myself a custom pair of eyeglasses. I’d use two, small picture frames to hang the lenses just above my nose. That way everything would be art. Including my eyes.

—
[photo thanks to Astronomy Picture of the Day]

Technorati Links: art, meaning

The memorable nymphs and fairies and goblins and demons that crowd the mythologies of every people are the imaginative offspring of a hyperactive habit of finding agency wherever anything puzzles or frightens us.
- Daniel Dennett (7)

It is a fact; confronted with abstract stimuli people anthropomorphize: they tend to find human features — particularly facial feature. When viewing a prototypical abstract image, the Rorschach inkblot, what do people see in the ultimately meaningless shape? They tend to see people. Second on the list is animals (8) – other potentially important agents, at least in an evolutionary context. While a talking herbivore, if so able, might report seeing types of vegetation and predators, we see people.

Seeing forms is one thing, inferring behaviors another. When confronted by “abstract” (uncertain) events, surprise! people tend to not see but infer the meaningful (intentional) work of agents: human, human-like, and animal. “The most literal anthropomorphism in daily life is mistaking some nonhuman thing or event for a human. We may hear a door slammed by wind or a branch tapping at a window as human action, or hear water in a brook or gurgling in plumbing as a voice.” (9)

We naturally and habitually err on the side of agency. Better to perceive too much intent in the events we witness than too little. So a blur of light in the dark of night becomes a ghost, a shadow on a lake, a monster, a flash of form in the sky, a UFO piloted by aliens.

Humans very readily conclude (perhaps too readily in our more informed age) that behind the events we witness there always exists an agent “pulling the strings,” so to speak. Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: psychology

Today I travel to New Mexico. I am looking forward to some good New Mexican cuisine. I might fit a couple extra meals into each day so I can take advantage of being there.

I also look forward to experiencing a different subset of American culture. A strongly Hispanic and/or ranch (cowboy) and/or desert and/or Native American culture.

And then there are the different plants species and birds. The above is a mimosa growing in a backyard I’ll be revisiting. One of my morning pleasures will be to stroll the backyard while sipping coffee, reacquainting myself with plants I have visually “shaken hands” with before. Will I think, “My, how you’ve grown?” or “Seems you’ve come down with a case of leaf miners, hope you get better soon.”?

Each person and bird and plant is a snowflake. Not literally, of course. Am I a flake for thinking that?

Technorati Links: culture, nature

Yowsa! IMO, these twins are the floral equivalent of a pair of bare 34-Cs. They arouse my attention.

Was that 34-Cs comment sexist? I don’t think so. Human animals are capable of functioning on different levels at different times. For example, I can feel lust for my wife one minute and the next seriously ask her opinion about an intellectual matter.

And just because I can feel pulled by the beauty of a blossom doesn’t mean I want to pollinate it. Or something.

Technorati Links: biology, sexuality

I’m dreaming of a white red Christmas
Just Nothing like the ones I used to know  I’ve known
Where the treetops Martian atmosphere glisten[s],
and children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the tales of distant snow[s]

I’m dreaming of a white red Christmas
With every Christmas card this blog I write
May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases be white beyond sight

 Snowfall on Mars — have you heard?  This Christmas spread the word.  The findings of NASA are a wonderful gift, exciting the imaginations of all who care to dream.

Technorati Links: astronomy

We can’t see complete darkness. Complete darkness is not seeing anything. Not seeing.

So the expression, “Man, it was complete darkness,” is not fully accurate. “Man, I experienced complete darkness,” is usually closer to the mark.

Alright, much of philosophizing smacks of linguistic gymnastics, the cleaving and teasing from words new meanings.

I once attempted to read Jean Paul Sartre’s Being and Nothingness. I slogged through 60 pages before giving up. I thought, “Man, 500 pages on nothingness. I’m glad he didn’t try to write about somethingness.”

In the case of complete darkness we are talking not about the being of a nothingness, but of the lack of something, namely light. Can the lack of something have being (i.e., “it was”)?

Technorati Links: semantics

I would be all for injecting religion into education with two caveats:

1. It would have to be done critically. In other words, as a scholarly undertaking and not in a post-modernist fashion, blindly accepting truth claims simply because they represent someone’s truth and are thus just as true as any other claim to truth.

2. The relationship go both ways: The door be open to injecting education into religion. Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: politics

Above is a foureye butterfly fish. One of my favorites. Okay, I have dozens of favorites, so maybe that’s not saying a whole lot.  I “caught” the fish in roughly 8 feet of water, 1/2 mile off the northwest coast of New Providence Island, Bahamas.

The 116 Edition of Tangled Bank was posted a few days ago.

The title to this blog carnival is derived from the oft-quoted concluding paragraph of one of the most important books ever written: Origin of the Species.

Continue Reading »

Technorati Links: biology, fish, snorkeling