[ExI] de Waal

Keith Henson hkeithhenson at gmail.com
Sat Mar 3 19:56:43 UTC 2018


John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote

> Tell me what the hell ?free will? means and I?ll tell you if I?m a
proponent of it or not. No idea in philosophy or psychology or law has
caused more muddled thinking than free will, it is an idea so bad its not
even wrong.

I am with John on "so bad it's in even wrong."  Marvin Minsky has
probably put this subject to bed better than anyone else.

I certainly didn't expect this subject to degenerate into a muddle.
It's obvious people have some variable but widespread propensity for
being infested with religion, and it's different from normal passing
on of information about the world from generation to generation.

It also is quite clear there is a genetic basis.  Mormons were
selected in this regard a few generations back.  People of this
genetic background are considerably over represented in Scientology.
It also may have to do with brain reward chemistry because
Scientologists are considerably more likely than the general
population to be smokers.

Assuming religiosity has a genetic basis, it's either something that
was directly selected or a side effect of some trait that was directly
selected.  I tend to go with the latter.

Given the prevalence, it must have been a selection on the similar
level of intensity as that which gives us the human trait of
capture-bonding.  Since religions are (at the heart of them)
xenophobic memes, of what survival use was it in our stone-age past
(at least under some situations) to be susceptible to xenophobic
memes?

Keith



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