morality within evolution

Thomas, not sure of your meaning in that last point. Certainly WW1 did a huge amount of good for enabling women. The reason for that enablement was because all the men were at war and women had to start taking on jobs that were exclusively for men before the war. Once that enablement was established there was no turning back. Or was that your point?

Wil, it will be a long, long time before there is an end to slavery. Slavery has existed from the earliest times to the present day. Different forms of slavery certainly, but slavery by any other name… Juan mentioned debt as one form of slavery, Thomas mentioned illegal immigrants as another. In both those cases the slavery is in the form of debt one can never rise out of. There is, unfortunately, plenty of people who are slaves in the traditional sense of the word. This too is common in so called first world countries, as well as just about everywhere on the rest of the planet.
 
Yes the women took over when the men went to war....as they always did...in every war since the beginning of time it appears....until the men came back...and then they were immediately barefoot and pregnant again and kicked back out of the factories and offices..

and yes our perception of what is slavery changes....working for wages for instance... but again...slavery will always be, until it becomes economically unnecessary.... (even with all its name changes)
 
I think as humans we have stifled our human evolution....we are becoming androids, technology (washing machines, smart phones, wearable tech) is becoming part of us...and our current evolution.
 
juantoo3 said:
Not to seem crass, but what does any of this have to do with the development of morality in an evolutionary context?
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Nothing actually. Threads do tend to drift off into unrelated stuff. Best bet to get back on track is to rephrase the original question. Or add something back on topic. Juan, if you will do the honors?
 
OK, since I seem to be the one asking the majority of the questions anyway...Why does religion exist universally around the world in prehistoric antiquity, predating even agriculture and writing? Why does there seem to be a consistent and quite similar religious paradigm spanning 30K years or more throughout the known range of humanity during that time? Considering if G!d indeed does not exist, why did *all* of prehistoric humanity chase after some elusive "something" they intuited instinctively?
 
This is a question I also ponder. There is no doubting that humans seem programmed to develop religions. I'll leave whether there are actually any Gods behind them out of the picture for now. Gods or no Gods, humans seem to need religion. It is a conundrum for me as I am one of the few exceptions; I have no need for religion in my life. I get along through the good times and the bad just fine on my own. So it is difficult for me to understand this need that the majority of the people around me seem to have.

There was a fascinating book written some years ago by by Julian Jaynes, who presented an idea in his 1976 book The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, wherein he made the case that a bicameral mentality came to be the normal and ubiquitous state of the human mind until as recently as 3000 years ago.

Jaynes uses governmental bicameralism as a metaphor to describe a mental state in which the experiences and memories of the right hemisphere of the brain are transmitted to the left hemisphere via auditory hallucinations. Essentially the two hemispheres of the human brain were not integrated, but separate entities. The messages the right side of the brain sent to the left was perceived by ancient man as if these messages were actually being transmitted to them from outside of the self. That these messages were from Gods was the logical conclusion to these people as they had no concept of where else these messages could be coming from.

That is a very short and fast simplification of this groundbreaking work. If you are not aware of it, I strongly recommend getting a hold of a copy. Now I am not saying Jaynes is correct or not. Just that it is a fascinating theory that could explain the answer to the question Juan posted.

The down side to the theory is that it is based on non verifiable evidence; no one has found a way to test the theory to my knowledge.

http://www.julianjaynes.org/bicameralmind.php
 
OK. Not to seem dismissive, but I agree the concept seems like a bit of a reach. I think I've heard the gist of what you are saying being called "self-talk," what we say to ourselves in our minds. But I think that would be an enormous stretch to say that early humanity drew upon that to justify and sustain a search for the Divine. I would also point out that it would demand an existing language to function, without which it would of necessity be conducted in images, as that is how we catalogue and associate memories and manipulate them in our minds. Some of that was lost in a lot of people as they gained mastery of symbolic language, but there are people who still are able to juggle images in their minds quite freely. (There's even an aptitude test for it)

Moreover, it doesn't begin to touch on the lengths early humanity went in that search. I was just over a bit of my old research here digging up some old threads, and came across some work pointing to caves, and why people would go so deeply into them, all the while with their psyche screaming "get the hell out of here, you fool!" My paraphrase, of course, but the point being is that it was counter-intuitive to go as deeply into the caves as they did to conduct the ceremonies that they did.

Check here:
http://www.interfaith.org/community/threads/4598/page-3
post 57
 
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Devils' Advocate said:
It is a conundrum for me as I am one of the few exceptions; I have no need for religion in my life.
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I found this odd. You equate modern religiosity with with ancient and then exclude yourself from this norm.
I thought you would agree that atheism (or comparable) is a social phenomenon tied to the local culture and is thus more or less prevalent depending on the culture. Thus ones view on religion isn't inherent in the person from birth but conditioned into the person just as certain religious views are.
In this way you are only separate from the norm as a product of social conditioning. And if we see modern religiosity as partly or even mostly conditioning than they must be separate from ancient religiosity...unless the ancients where conditioned by gods!

Sorry for the semi-of topic, I'm trying to figure the advocate out.
 
Tea I would be glad to respond - I don't have an idea of what you just said! You touched on Deism, atheism, conditioning, and ancient gods. A lot to throw out there in such a brief post, and I don't understand how it all comes together. Could you rephrase?

The only part that I think I get is the beginning. Where Juan commented that Deism is much like ancient Animism and I agreed with that. You then feel I excluded myself from what I had just said I agreed with. If this is a reasonable interpretation of what you said the answer is this. Something I have mentioned a couple of times in passing. Religions 'for me' are more compatible for me as philosophies. I like the Deistic philosophical concept that we are all a part of the whole; that there is nothing separate in the universe. Don't know if that helps your understanding. Hope so!
 
I'll sent you something privately when I've fleshed out my question and statement, no need to bother others with my conundrum.
 
Devils' Advocate said:
Essentially the two hemispheres of the human brain were not integrated, but separate entities. The messages the right side of the brain sent to the left was perceived by ancient man as if these messages were actually being transmitted to them from outside of the self. That these messages were from Gods was the logical conclusion to these people as they had no concept of where else these messages could be coming from.
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Something about this doesn't make sense to me. I can grant perhaps you aren't familiar enough to speak conversantly, but are the two hemispheres divided in other simians? I know I don't know brain anatomy well enough to form an instant conclusion, but I'm thinking "not." If they are, then this argument has something to stand on. If not, it wouldn't make any sense to believe human brains were separated only to regroup.

Just a few minutes research shows the part of the brain used to bridge between the two hemispheres is the corpus calosum (sp?).

http://www.ask.com/science/happens-...d=dirN&ap=google.com&o=0&qo=boostResultOnSERP

Wasn't able directly to determine if other simian brains have this, but it appears Porpoises and other Cetaceans do...so that implies that simians probably do as well.

The link points to what happens when the corpus calosum is damaged, and auditory hallucinations aren't on the list of aftereffects.

Just confirmed with a Neurologist that other simians do indeed have a corpus calosum, and also confirmed that damage to or loss of a corpus calosum would not cause auditory hallucinations. That is sufficient for me to call Mr.(?) Jaynes hypothesis into question.
 
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If you want to take self-interest as a motivating force in evolution...that would include morality. In that sense, morality has self-benefits. By being moral, one conforms with a group and gets greater protection.

However, I am not sure there is all that much worth in seeing morality through that lens.

Seems to me, a bit like trying to create a computer program to write a love poem.

I think love poems need to be motivated by love, not math.
 
Welcome JonDD22!

JonDD22 said:
If you want to take self-interest as a motivating force in evolution...that would include morality. In that sense, morality has self-benefits. By being moral, one conforms with a group and gets greater protection.

However, I am not sure there is all that much worth in seeing morality through that lens.

Seems to me, a bit like trying to create a computer program to write a love poem.

I think love poems need to be motivated by love, not math.
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Forgive me, and it may simply be me misunderstanding. If I interpret what you wrote correctly, it seems to imply that self-interest somehow spawned morality...while in a herd or pack situation? I guess I don't see the connection or how that could come about. Would you care to better explain?

From a raw, purely scientific point of view, morality among humans could only be somehow vestigial, if it ever formed at all. While I can agree that what humans call morality can take many forms, yet it remains a fundamental aspect of being human, and even among other herd and pack animals -eliminating as much as possible any tendency to anthropomorphize- seem to have an elemental morality, at least among the family or tribal unit. Apes for instance, though showing typical "Alpha equals strongest / biggest / baddest so I get my way" behavior, also demonstrate a degree of cooperation, even what might be loosely called etiquette or manners among the family. But outsiders, even of the same species, often are dealt with in a far different manner, often cruelly and often violently.

So science is missing something, it is overlooking something. Whether that is deliberate, or an error of omission, or anomalous facts that don't fit the establishment paradigm (and so fall to improper use of Occam's Razor), or some other reason that I'm not thinking of...there is something about morality that doesn't comfortably fit the usual evolutionary model as it is typically explained. Developmental psychology, while not in so many words, does demonstrate among very young human children a tendency to want to help, and to get along with others, even before becoming verbal. So a tendency towards morality seems almost hardwired into human brains, and it is the culture that defines and normalizes the particulars of that morality (at least at first) until that person gains greater cognition and the ability to analyze the world around them (presuming on my part this is an option, considering there have been and still are cultures and religions that frown on such analysis).

Morality is not religion, although religion has long been used to teach moral lessons and promote morality. In more modern times, at least since the Code of Hammurabi (or whatever the preferred spelling is these days), law has also been used to instill and promote morality. Morality itself does not require religion or law.
 
No, I don't believe morality arose through self-interest. I was just writing that it seems some folks want to see it through that lens. I don't.

I think there is a soul within us that is our direct connection with God.

I think that we receive inspirations from the soul, which include morality.

And we receive lower inspirations from our mind of calculation and competition.

And we tend to obey one or the other or a mix.


As far as my own philosophy / theology....

What I believe is expressed in Hinduism in the writings of Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Paramahansa Yogananda, and other well known Hindu Yogis.

Sri Ramakrishna felt that all the world's major religions lead to the one same goal. That is my belief as well.

I believe in St. Francis of Assisi and St. John of the Cross in Christianity. I believe in the Sufi poets Rumi and Hafiz....and in others as well.
 
JonDD22 said:
Sri Ramakrishna felt that all the world's major religions lead to the one same goal. That is my belief as well.
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Another exercise I started way back when (this is a very old thread) had to do with the similarities of moral teachings across religions. The vast majority share some variation of "do unto others as you would have done unto yourself." Some are couched in "thou shalt not" verbiage, some are couched in "thou shalt" verbiage, but the underlying theme shares a remarkable similarity. What works, clearly works across the board. Whether that is an evolutionary development, I still cannot say.

I'm more of the opinion there are paths up the mountain, with the caveat it is important to stay to one path. Jumping back and forth across paths can lead to problems and one can get lost along the way. The paths are well laid out and easy enough to follow, pick one and stay on it.
 
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