Religions > Atheism > Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection?
| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"Adam Hadem" |
| Date: |
08 Jan 2005 12:08:59 PM |
| Object: |
Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
RANDOLPH NESSE, M.D.
Psychiatrist, University of Michigan; Coauthor, Why We Get Sick
I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure that people gain a selective advantage
from believing in things they can't prove. I am dead serious about this. People
who are sometimes consumed by false beliefs do better than those who insist on
evidence before they believe and act. People who are sometimes swept away by
emotions do better in life than those who calculate every move. These advantages
have, I believe, shaped mental capacities for intense emotion and passionate
beliefs because they give a selective advantage in certain situations.
I am not advocating for irrationality or extreme emotionality. Many, perhaps even
most problems of individuals and groups arise from actions based on passion. The
Greek initiators and Enlightenment implementers recognized correctly that the world
would be better off if reason displaced superstition and crude emotion. I have no
interest in going back on that road and fundamentalism remains a severe threat to
enlightened civilization. I am arguing, however, that if we want to understand
these tendencies we need to quit dismissing them as defects and start considering
how they came to exist.
I came to this belief from seeing psychiatric patients while studying game theory
and evolutionary biology. Many patients are consumed by fears, sadness, and other
emotions they find painful and senseless. Others are crippled by grandiose fantasies
or bizarre beliefs. On the other side are those with obsessive compulsive personality.
They do not have obsessive compulsive disorder; they do not wash and count all day.
They have obsessive compulsive personality characterized by hyper-rationality. They
are mystified by other people's emotional outbursts. They do their duty and expect
others will too. They are often disappointed in this, giving rise to frequent resentment
if not anger. They trade favors according to the rules, and they can't fathom genuine
generosity or spiteful hatred.
People who lack passions suffer several disadvantages. When social life results in
situations that can be mapped onto game theory, regular predictable behavior is a
strategy inferior to allocating actions randomly among the options. The angry person
who might seek spiteful revenge is a force to be reckoned with, while a sensible
opponent can be easily dealt with. The passionate lover sweeps away a superior but all
too practical offer of marriage.
It is harder to explain the disadvantages suffered by people who lack a capacity for
faith,but consider the outcomes for those who wait for proof before acting, compared to
the those who act on confident conviction. The great things in life are done by people
who go ahead when it seems senseless to others. Usually they fail, but sometimes they succeed.
Like nearly every other trait, tendencies for passionate emotions and irrational convictions
are most advantageous in some middle range. The optimum for modern life seems to me to be
quite a ways towards the rational side of the median, but there are advantages and
disadvantages at every point along the spectrum. Making human life better requires that we
understand these capacities, and to do that we must seek their origins and functions. I cannot
prove this is true, but I believe it is. This belief spurs my search for evidence which will
either strengthen my conviction or, if I can discipline my mind sufficiently, convince me that
it is false.
.
|
|
| User: "JTEM" |
|
| Title: Re: Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
08 Jan 2005 04:56:57 PM |
|
|
"Adam Hadem" <a@b.c> wrote
I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure that people gain a
selective advantage from believing in things they
can't prove.
And you benefit from that, right?
People who are sometimes consumed by false beliefs
do better than those who insist on evidence before they
believe and act.
Take any number of witch burning, for example.
The psychos who were afraid of their own shadows lived
out their lives in relative peace, while their victims
suffered horrible deaths at the stake.
People who are sometimes swept away by emotions do
better in life than those who calculate every move.
If by "do better" you mean "More likely to have a heart
attack" then you're right.
These advantages have, I believe, shaped mental capacities
for intense emotion and passionate beliefs because they give
a selective advantage in certain situations.
And you benefit from believing this... right?
.
|
|
|
| User: "Adam Hadem" |
|
| Title: Re: Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
08 Jan 2005 05:41:44 PM |
|
|
"JTEM" <gymraven@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:gvmdnQAYUo0d_n3cRVn-iQ@comcast.com...
"Adam Hadem" <a@b.c> wrote
I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure that people gain a
selective advantage from believing in things they
can't prove.
And you benefit from that, right?
Please try to keep your quotes sane - I didn't say that, Dr Nesse did.
Somehow I doubt he is reading this newsgroup right now...
If by "do better" you mean "More likely to have a heart
attack" then you're right.
I think he meant that people who have palpably false beliefs have less
trouble in their lives with mental illness. He is a psychiatrist after all and is
in a position to know about these things...
These advantages have, I believe, shaped mental capacities
for intense emotion and passionate beliefs because they give
a selective advantage in certain situations.
And you benefit from believing this... right?
If you disagree with Dr Nesse's thesis, why don't you post an argument
to counter it?
.
|
|
|
| User: "JTEM" |
|
| Title: Re: Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
09 Jan 2005 02:54:41 PM |
|
|
"Adam Hadem" <a@b.c> wrote
I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure that people gain a
selective advantage from believing in things they
can't prove.
And you benefit from that, right?
Please try to keep your quotes sane - I didn't say that, Dr Nesse
did.
Well then I'll just wait until you post something that you're
willing to stand by.
Until then, "Bye!"
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Craig Franck" |
|
| Title: Re: Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
08 Jan 2005 08:21:09 PM |
|
|
"Adam Hadem" <a@b.c> wrote
RANDOLPH NESSE, M.D.
Psychiatrist, University of Michigan; Coauthor, Why We Get Sick
You wished for some constructive comment. On a positive note:
I am not advocating for irrationality or extreme emotionality. Many, perhaps even
most problems of individuals and groups arise from actions based on passion. The
Greek initiators and Enlightenment implementers recognized correctly that the world
would be better off if reason displaced superstition and crude emotion. I have no
interest in going back on that road and fundamentalism remains a severe threat to
enlightened civilization. I am arguing, however, that if we want to understand
these tendencies we need to quit dismissing them as defects and start considering
how they came to exist.
I agree with the sentiment behind this paragraph. All others contain major
flaws.
People who lack passions suffer several disadvantages. When social life results in
situations that can be mapped onto game theory, regular predictable behavior is a
strategy inferior to allocating actions randomly among the options. The angry person
who might seek spiteful revenge is a force to be reckoned with, while a sensible
opponent can be easily dealt with. The passionate lover sweeps away a superior but all
too practical offer of marriage.
This all depends on the social situations under consideration. In chess
and poker, hot heads lose, and lose big. Same thing for being a lawyer,
cop, or doctor. My experience is most marriages often benefit from a
combination of an irrational commitment to ideas and a willingness to
concede.
It's obviously true that societies in which myth and magic run wild you
are better off being a rationalist, and in societies that are grinding
themselves to death with rationality, you'd be better off being more of
an intuitionist.
All this being true only if you can avoid being persecuted too greatly for
non-conformity. Greece in the 5th century BC is a good society for a
burst of rationality. China through most its ages would benefit by cutting
loose from Confucianism.
It is harder to explain the disadvantages suffered by people who lack a capacity for
faith,but consider the outcomes for those who wait for proof before acting, compared to
the those who act on confident conviction. The great things in life are done by people
who go ahead when it seems senseless to others. Usually they fail, but sometimes they succeed.
Again, this must be tailored to the specific case. In some societies being
sure is more important than being correct. Others the reverse. You can't
really tell without the specific situations, which is the main flaw in the
article.
At present, the Bush administration is just now learning that picking a
course of action and not wavering, no matter what, in order to appear
confident, can easily backfire.
Finally, I feel that the basic premise that the human condition is such that a
person's mind needs an escape mechanism to remain sane is sound and
more than born out in experience. Absurd problems require absurd
solutions.
--
Craig Franck
craig.franck@verizon.net
Cortland, NY
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Larry Heath" |
|
| Title: Re: Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
08 Jan 2005 09:22:40 PM |
|
|
"Adam Hadem" <a@b.c> wrote in message news:crp89j$qkr$1@kermit.esat.net...
RANDOLPH NESSE, M.D.
Psychiatrist, University of Michigan; Coauthor, Why We Get Sick
I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure that people gain a selective
advantage
from believing in things they can't prove. I am dead serious about this.
People
who are sometimes consumed by false beliefs do better than those who
insist on
evidence before they believe and act. People who are sometimes swept away
by
emotions do better in life than those who calculate every move. These
advantages
have, I believe, shaped mental capacities for intense emotion and
passionate
beliefs because they give a selective advantage in certain situations.
I am not advocating for irrationality or extreme emotionality. Many,
perhaps even
most problems of individuals and groups arise from actions based on
passion. The
Greek initiators and Enlightenment implementers recognized correctly that
the world
would be better off if reason displaced superstition and crude emotion. I
have no
interest in going back on that road and fundamentalism remains a severe
threat to
enlightened civilization. I am arguing, however, that if we want to
understand
these tendencies we need to quit dismissing them as defects and start
considering
how they came to exist.
I came to this belief from seeing psychiatric patients while studying game
theory
and evolutionary biology. Many patients are consumed by fears, sadness,
and other
emotions they find painful and senseless. Others are crippled by grandiose
fantasies
or bizarre beliefs. On the other side are those with obsessive compulsive
personality.
They do not have obsessive compulsive disorder; they do not wash and count
all day.
They have obsessive compulsive personality characterized by
hyper-rationality. They
are mystified by other people's emotional outbursts. They do their duty
and expect
others will too. They are often disappointed in this, giving rise to
frequent resentment
if not anger. They trade favors according to the rules, and they can't
fathom genuine
generosity or spiteful hatred.
People who lack passions suffer several disadvantages. When social life
results in
situations that can be mapped onto game theory, regular predictable
behavior is a
strategy inferior to allocating actions randomly among the options. The
angry person
who might seek spiteful revenge is a force to be reckoned with, while a
sensible
opponent can be easily dealt with. The passionate lover sweeps away a
superior but all
too practical offer of marriage.
It is harder to explain the disadvantages suffered by people who lack a
capacity for
faith,but consider the outcomes for those who wait for proof before
acting, compared to
the those who act on confident conviction. The great things in life are
done by people
who go ahead when it seems senseless to others. Usually they fail, but
sometimes they succeed.
Like nearly every other trait, tendencies for passionate emotions and
irrational convictions
are most advantageous in some middle range. The optimum for modern life
seems to me to be
quite a ways towards the rational side of the median, but there are
advantages and
disadvantages at every point along the spectrum. Making human life better
requires that we
understand these capacities, and to do that we must seek their origins and
functions. I cannot
prove this is true, but I believe it is. This belief spurs my search for
evidence which will
either strengthen my conviction or, if I can discipline my mind
sufficiently, convince me that
it is false.
Do you have any citations for long-term peer-reviewed studies that you base
this supposition on.
Later Larry
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "maff" |
|
| Title: Re: Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
09 Jan 2005 03:27:50 PM |
|
|
Adam Hadem wrote:
RANDOLPH NESSE, M.D.
Psychiatrist, University of Michigan; Coauthor, Why We Get Sick
I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure that people gain a selective
advantage
from believing in things they can't prove. I am dead serious about
this. People
who are sometimes consumed by false beliefs do better than those who
insist on
evidence before they believe and act. People who are sometimes swept
away by
emotions do better in life than those who calculate every move. These
advantages
have, I believe, shaped mental capacities for intense emotion and
passionate
beliefs because they give a selective advantage in certain
situations.
[...]
Among the Inept, Researchers Discover, Ignorance Is Bliss
http://www.nytimes.com/library/national/science/health/011800hth-behavior-incompetents.html
By ERICA GOODE
There are many incompetent people in the world. Dr. David A. Dunning is
haunted by the fear he might be one of them.
Dr. Dunning, a professor of psychology at Cornell, worries about this
because, according to his research, most incompetent people do not know
that they are incompetent.
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Hlafordlaes" |
|
| Title: Re: Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
09 Jan 2005 08:21:41 AM |
|
|
Adam,
There is in my view a dual (or even plural) human "nature" we might
call the Jekyll and Hyde syndrome.
On the one hand, there is the genetically based behaviour derived from
primitive instinct (Hyde), which is made up of the basic drivers for
personal genetic survival, ie seeking food and reproducing. This
"character" can equally use illogical, mythological, or pathological
"justifications" and does so, when done at all, to provide the
rationale for behaviour that higher-order thinking begs (but does not
require).
On the other we have a higher-order capacity for systems thinking
(Jekyll), made up of "component" capacities (logic, reasoning,
language, memory) that give emergent rise to self and sentience. This
"character" (the sporadically "good" guy) provides us our empathetic
motivators, capable of promoting, at times, behaviours for the common
good. Whereas this behaviour may or may not be ultimately altruistic,
since its main function appears to be a group survival, it introduces a
way to see the broader impact of our actions on society (tribe), and
thereby seek to build a social environment conducive to the survival of
offspring. It's ethic is, "what I condone may be done to me or my kin,"
so I may limit the range of my "Hyde" behaviour as part of a social
contract that manages risk at the expense of freedom (here meaning
simply unrestricted behaviour).
To observe that allowing hyde-thinking to predominate one's comportment
is often advantageous is trivially obvious. In contexts in which there
is low risk of suffering from the consequences of generalizing the
behaviour in the group and becoming victim of one's own "policies", we
see successful hyde strategies:
(1) tyranny in non-democratic hierarchies, be they political or
corporate
(2) abuse in social hierarchies, such as families (eg domestic
violence) and communities (eg persecuting minorities)
(3) relentless pursuit of narrow self-interest in the absence of any
perceived community (cf. Dirkheim's anomie and anti-social behaviour)
It is easy to think of examples of people accomplishing the great
and/or the horrifying under these circumstances.
In contrast with this wealth of anecdotal evidence of "ballsy" personal
successes, we have the socio-political and technical-economic framework
built up over centuries of the oft invisible yet far more transcendent
successes of the systems thinkers. I suggest that this is the
"character" to which your description
"The great things in life are done by people who go ahead when it
seems senseless to others.
Usually they fail, but sometimes they succeed."
is most aptly applied.
Civilization is built and maintained by the purposeful minds of
semi-altruistic systems thinkers (with a more balanced mix of jekyll
and hyde motivations). The more famous and lauded hyde-onlys will be
the "success" stories within the framework, from robber barons to
wartime conquerors. The better the system, the greater are the
successes to be selfishly reaped from it, the more abundant and full
the triumphs of powerful hyde figures.
I suggest that the association you make between emotional and
faith-based behaviour is a good one, in that it highlights exactly why
so much self-serving, holier-than-thou-whilst-robbing-the-till rhetoric
comes from faith promoters. The betrayal of the purported higher
purposes of religion is a given, since hydes can now escape from any
need to give reasonable justification for their actions, couching them
in illogical, mythological, self-serving rationale that is completely
"acceptable."
[Aside: Since even "Jekyll" is narrowly motivated, favoring local tribe
or society, we get the full brunt a totally aligned, malicious Jekyll
***** Hyde behaviour in inter-ethnic and international conflict, wherein
both emotion and logic are trained on eliminating the enemy. See for
example the treatment given to those who argue for a greater good for
human society as a whole when they raise their voices on either side of
a conflict (Palestinian-Israeli, US-Al Qaeda, or political moderates in
a US Congress at war.)]
Sad species, these Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Killed all the other hominins
and now they're alone and can only turn on each other.
Hlafordlaes
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "" |
|
| Title: Re: Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
09 Jan 2005 01:23:54 AM |
|
|
I assume that religious tendencies had a reproductive advantage in
paleolithic days, when our genetic heritage was being deterrmined.
Superstitious beliefs have such an obvious disadvantage that I find it
hard to believe that it has no reproductive advantage to outweigh the
occasional false and fatal belief.
Whether Dr. Nesse has a handle on it I don't know. He's certainly in a
position to have some facts at hand. It could be that certain
paleolithic traits have "turned bad", so to speak, in the modern world
- like Type II Diabetes, or our sweet tooth.
In any event, even if flaming religious fervor *has a reproductive
advantage now, that doesn't mean that the content of any religion, or
even religion in general, is true.
Kermit
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Ron" |
|
| Title: Re: Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
08 Jan 2005 01:49:29 PM |
|
|
In article <crp89j$qkr$1@kermit.esat.net>, "Adam Hadem" <a@b.c> wrote:
RANDOLPH NESSE, M.D.
Psychiatrist, University of Michigan; Coauthor, Why We Get Sick
I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure that people gain a selective advantage
from believing in things they can't prove. I am dead serious about this.
People
who are sometimes consumed by false beliefs do better than those who insist
on
evidence before they believe and act. People who are sometimes swept away by
emotions do better in life than those who calculate every move. These
advantages
have, I believe, shaped mental capacities for intense emotion and passionate
beliefs because they give a selective advantage in certain situations.
LOL. Why won't Dr. Nesse prove it? It seems that the article is
precisely what he observes in others -- a faith based belief rather than
something verifiable.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Adam Hadem" |
|
| Title: Re: Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
08 Jan 2005 01:53:26 PM |
|
|
"Ron" <ronis@home.com> wrote in message news:ronis-E30573.14492908012005@news.isp.giganews.com...
In article <crp89j$qkr$1@kermit.esat.net>, "Adam Hadem" <a@b.c> wrote:
LOL. Why won't Dr. Nesse prove it?
Why don't you disprove it if you disagree with it?
.
|
|
|
| User: "Nick" |
|
| Title: Re: Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
09 Jan 2005 12:27:29 AM |
|
|
Adam Hadem wrote:
LOL. Why won't Dr. Nesse prove it?
Why don't you disprove it if you disagree with it?
The burden of proof is on the claimant, not on the one who doubts the claim.
*********************************************
"Don't look now, I'm just a friendly reminder!" Homsar from the HR website
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Sir Frederick" |
|
| Title: Re: Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
08 Jan 2005 12:51:34 PM |
|
|
On Sat, 8 Jan 2005 18:08:59 -0000, "Adam Hadem" <a@b.c> wrote:
RANDOLPH NESSE, M.D.
Psychiatrist, University of Michigan; Coauthor, Why We Get Sick
I can't prove it, but I am pretty sure that people gain a selective advantage
from believing in things they can't prove. I am dead serious about this. People
who are sometimes consumed by false beliefs do better than those who insist on
evidence before they believe and act. People who are sometimes swept away by
emotions do better in life than those who calculate every move. These advantages
have, I believe, shaped mental capacities for intense emotion and passionate
beliefs because they give a selective advantage in certain situations.
I am not advocating for irrationality or extreme emotionality. Many, perhaps even
most problems of individuals and groups arise from actions based on passion. The
Greek initiators and Enlightenment implementers recognized correctly that the world
would be better off if reason displaced superstition and crude emotion. I have no
interest in going back on that road and fundamentalism remains a severe threat to
enlightened civilization. I am arguing, however, that if we want to understand
these tendencies we need to quit dismissing them as defects and start considering
how they came to exist.
I came to this belief from seeing psychiatric patients while studying game theory
and evolutionary biology. Many patients are consumed by fears, sadness, and other
emotions they find painful and senseless. Others are crippled by grandiose fantasies
or bizarre beliefs. On the other side are those with obsessive compulsive personality.
They do not have obsessive compulsive disorder; they do not wash and count all day.
They have obsessive compulsive personality characterized by hyper-rationality. They
are mystified by other people's emotional outbursts. They do their duty and expect
others will too. They are often disappointed in this, giving rise to frequent resentment
if not anger. They trade favors according to the rules, and they can't fathom genuine
generosity or spiteful hatred.
People who lack passions suffer several disadvantages. When social life results in
situations that can be mapped onto game theory, regular predictable behavior is a
strategy inferior to allocating actions randomly among the options. The angry person
who might seek spiteful revenge is a force to be reckoned with, while a sensible
opponent can be easily dealt with. The passionate lover sweeps away a superior but all
too practical offer of marriage.
It is harder to explain the disadvantages suffered by people who lack a capacity for
faith,but consider the outcomes for those who wait for proof before acting, compared to
the those who act on confident conviction. The great things in life are done by people
who go ahead when it seems senseless to others. Usually they fail, but sometimes they succeed.
Like nearly every other trait, tendencies for passionate emotions and irrational convictions
are most advantageous in some middle range. The optimum for modern life seems to me to be
quite a ways towards the rational side of the median, but there are advantages and
disadvantages at every point along the spectrum. Making human life better requires that we
understand these capacities, and to do that we must seek their origins and functions. I cannot
prove this is true, but I believe it is. This belief spurs my search for evidence which will
either strengthen my conviction or, if I can discipline my mind sufficiently, convince me that
it is false.
Of course you are correct, our primate folk brain is well structured and
functional to produce religious experiences. These common experiences
along with the common primate folk proclivity to personify everything, and the
social need to handle these experiences in society promotes the
church on nearly every city block and every village.
Unfortunately the folk explanation for that behavior and those
experiences leaves out the neuroscience part, thus the mess we are in, in the
world. I have posted a great deal on this issue with little support. Good to
have your presence.
Email me if you wish to discuss this privately.
--
Best,
Frederick Martin McNeill
Poway, California, United States of America
mmcneill@fuzzysys.com
http://www.fuzzysys.com
http://members.cox.net/fmmcneill/
*************************
Phrase of the week :
"Who does Not Know the Truth, is simply a Fool...
Yet who Knows the Truth and Calls it a Lie, is a Criminal."
- In "Galileo Galilei" by Berthold Brecht (1898-1956)
:-))))Snort!)
*************************
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "ernobe" |
|
| Title: Re: Is faith/irrationality beneficial to human beings - is it favoured by natural selection? |
08 Jan 2005 01:53:32 PM |
|
|
["Followup-To:" header set to alt.atheism.]
I came to this belief from seeing psychiatric patients while studying game theory
and evolutionary biology. Many patients are consumed by fears, sadness, and other
emotions they find painful and senseless. Others are crippled by grandiose fantasies
or bizarre beliefs. On the other side are those with obsessive compulsive personality.
They do not have obsessive compulsive disorder; they do not wash and count all day.
They have obsessive compulsive personality characterized by hyper-rationality. They
are mystified by other people's emotional outbursts. They do their duty and expect
others will too. They are often disappointed in this, giving rise to frequent resentment
if not anger. They trade favors according to the rules, and they can't fathom genuine
generosity or spiteful hatred.
These are in general the symptoms of Western materialism. You can be sure
that, unlike people with observable physical symptoms, these patients are
willing patients; they, more so even than their doctors, wish to be in the ward
because they know and firmly believe that they are the true representatives of
the West. They know that their so-called diseases are what most westerners
have freely chosen to evince as the only means to give a semblance of reason
to their insatiable thirst for material goods. Meanwhile, certain among them
who call themselves atheists have, it seems from long contact among
themselves, realized something of their predicament, and have made a desperate
attempt to flee in hopes of outside help. These can be seen posting all sorts
of anti-religious nonsense on alt.atheism, in hopes of identifying those with
similar tendencies, and making their own case histories clear, in the various
sorts of iniquities they manifest. All this makes them feel that they are not
alone, that the outside world cares about them, and to show this the loss of
one of their theist caretakers is deplored by all of them, as is noticeable in
the harsh and vulgar language they adopt when anyone of them threatens to
leave. What else can I say? Psychiatry is doomed to a long, drawn out death,
unless it can also successfully identify and treat those among them who in a
final desperate attempt have tried usurp the role of their wardens, by calling
themselves theists and Christians.
--
"The world of existence is an emanation of the merciful attribute of God."
Abdul-Baha
http://www.costarricense.cr/pagina/ernobe
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
