What's the Harm - What's the Reason?

[Southwind17]

Watching the video link in the "What's The Harm" article appearing here on 29 October (or rather dwelling on it later (it's almost impossible not to!)), I got to wondering, and can't help feeling that the human brain has evolved faster than we're capable of controlling it (notwithstanding that "we", essentially, are, our brains when it comes to "control".).

It's almost as though the human brain has taken a quantum leap from that of other animals and as a result by-passed certain key neural developments that would otherwise have evolved gradually, serving to regulate and control certain thought processes, particularly those that govern our ability to process and rationalise extraneous notions (such as the existence of witches) that our brain uniquely (compared to other animals, presumably(!)) unwittingly allows us to receive or imagine and accept as true.

What's going on here?! Is this "simply" a social issue whose explanation lies somewhere other than in an evolutionary short-circuit (or similar)? Would it be wrong to claim, or even suggest, that natural evolution is the root cause?

BTW - given my more-than-hints at evolution and the selected tags I was torn between posting this here and in the Science sub-forum (which, of course, is where all discussions on evolution should be!), but on balance I think primarily this is a social issue, particularly given the nature of the article that has prompted my post, and accordingly here is the right place to sow the seed. I'm sure a mod will relocate it if not, though.

Also - there's no need to view the highly disturbing video to participate here. The nature of the written text of the article should be sufficient to appreciate where I'm coming from.

[A.A. Alfie]

My understanding is that the human brain has the same level of intelligence/same size that it had (say) two thousand years ago. The people that lived back then were no smarter than we who live today.
That said, the obvious difference is that we know so much more than they did.
We have education from a young age, information etc, and as such, a huge capacity to build up larger knowledge bases within our brains (does that make sense?).


So, I think the 'evolution' is not of our brains, individually or collectively, more that our knowledge bases, science, medicine, technology, social horizons has evolved rapidly.

Is this what you mean?


PS. Where can I see the "what's the harm" article?

[Southwind17]

My understanding is that the human brain has the same level of intelligence/same size that it had (say) two thousand years ago. The people that lived back then were no smarter than we who live today.
That said, the obvious difference is that we know so much more than they did.
We have education from a young age, information etc, and as such, a huge capacity to build up larger knowledge bases within our brains (does that make sense?).


So, I think the 'evolution' is not of our brains, individually or collectively, more that our knowledge bases, science, medicine, technology, social horizons has evolved rapidly.

Is this what you mean?
Not really, but it leads to the same essential question. It seems that our brains are not capable of properly processing the information or "knowledge" that they are capable of receiving. It's like having a sausage machine that's fed all sorts of trash in addition to sausage meat that it's incapable of properly processing. It's not surprising, then, that we get something other than sausages out of the other end! So why even have such a machine - that's the point?!

PS. Where can I see the "what's the harm" article?
It's on the Forum main page. Scroll down - it's near the bottom now.

ETA: Sorry - JREF Homepage, not main Forum page.

[pakeha]

Your OP is right, it's impossible not to think about.
Would this was only Kenya.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=156820

is a link to a discussion we had here about the situation in Nigeria.

[A.A. Alfie]

OK, Ive just seen the footage and read the article.
I think this is more a case of knowledge and education than anything else. After all, it was only a few hundred years ago that western society was burning witches at the stake.
Since then we have had the industrial revolution and a huge expansion of the middle classes bringing education to virtually all. These folk in third world countries have not had the same advantages that we have, and are 'stuck' in that old way, where the supernatural seems totally believable in the absence of any science.
Don't get me wrong here either - I am in no way condoning or making excuses for the behaviour, just exploring the reasons.

[athon]

The brain never evolved to understand nature. It evolved to play a numbers game - get as much benefit for as little cost (energy) as possible. Given neurology is so energy hungry, this is a big ask, so the brain has to take a lot of shortcuts.

For the most part, our brains evolved to work well in a social unit. As such, the main stresses that acted upon it were social ones, dealing with language and empathy. It conveys huge benefits in allowing us to work as collective units, ensuring survival. Yet a side effect of this is our tendency to anthropomorphise and engage in animism, amongst other things. Children up to the age of about five or six are typically animistic, and many cultures do little to dismiss this.

It means the default human, so to speak, who develops in a culture that does not hold philosophical values in science or critical thinking, will tend to be animistic and mythopoeic. As to why there are cultures that don't fit that bill, well, that's a long story in itself (happy to discuss it, but I'm not sure if it would constitute a derail for the purposes of this thread).

Athon

[Southwind17]

The brain never evolved to understand nature. It evolved to play a numbers game - get as much benefit for as little cost (energy) as possible. Given neurology is so energy hungry, this is a big ask, so the brain has to take a lot of shortcuts.

For the most part, our brains evolved to work well in a social unit. As such, the main stresses that acted upon it were social ones, dealing with language and empathy. It conveys huge benefits in allowing us to work as collective units, ensuring survival. Yet a side effect of this is our tendency to anthropomorphise and engage in animism, amongst other things. Children up to the age of about five or six are typically animistic, and many cultures do little to dismiss this.

It means the default human, so to speak, who develops in a culture that does not hold philosophical values in science or critical thinking, will tend to be animistic and mythopoeic. As to why there are cultures that don't fit that bill, well, that's a long story in itself (happy to discuss it, but I'm not sure if it would constitute a derail for the purposes of this thread).

Athon
So, in a sense, the brain is being "corrupted" by information and thoughts that it isn't capable of processing in a rational way, at least initially?

Is it just a transitionary stage, though, that each individual "race" of humans has to go through? As pointed out above, many western societies also burned "witches" but a few hundred years back. Once every other race on the planet has got through that stage we should all be "up to speed" (at least as regards witch burning!), shouldn't we. One question, though, I suppose: How long will it take every race on the planet to reach the transitionary stage, let alone get through it?

[pakeha]

One step at a time?
This link will take you to an article about one such step:
http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/5396458-147/Oron_monarch_endorses_campaign_to_stamp.csp

Stepping Stones (charity) will take to you to wikipedia and from there to stepping stones's sites, with documentation.

I hope this isn't a derail, witch burning in Africa is no joke. My point is only that the problem is on a larger scale than you'd think.

[athon]

So, in a sense, the brain is being "corrupted" by information and thoughts that it isn't capable of processing in a rational way, at least initially?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'corrupted'. As for rationality, I'd define rational as a mix of logic and internal consistency. The brain can certainly be logical (in that it has something of a symbolic way of dealing with information), however it depends on the circumstances as to whether a logical conclusion trumps an emotional one. In a tight-knit collectivist community, emotional conclusions are often far more important. Community knowledge, especially that which is mythopoeic by nature, has historically provided far more benefits than what we might deem to be rational today.

Is it just a transitionary stage, though, that each individual "race" of humans has to go through? As pointed out above, many western societies also burned "witches" but a few hundred years back. Once every other race on the planet has got through that stage we should all be "up to speed" (at least as regards witch burning!), shouldn't we. One question, though, I suppose: How long will it take every race on the planet to reach the transitionary stage, let alone get through it?By 'race', I assume you mean culture. I only state that as it's cultural by nature and has nothing to do with biology (just wanting to clarify is all).

Anyway, here's a bit of a rough-sketch history lesson on philosophy -

A couple thousand years ago in the Mediterranean, what is today mostly Turkey, certain Greek cities were developing cultures that were somewhat unique, in a way that we'd recognise as a proto-form of scientific philosophy. It valued internal consistency, objectivity and a greater reliance on direct observation to describe reality. The interesting question is this; never before in human history has there been evidence of people stepping away from animistic and mythopoeic thinking, so why now?

The cultural and technological differences in that region provides a clue. Unlike places like Egypt or Mesopotamia, the lands around Greece and Turkey were relatively poor for agriculture. So many relied on trading what they did have (nominally stuff like olive oil). Trade meant living abroad and becoming familiar with various other cultures. This reduced collectivist ideals and created more individualistic ones. After all, if you encountered three different animistic causes for a natural phenomenon, you were less likely subscribe to one over the rest.

Yet, again, this wasn't new. The Phoenicians had been doing this for centuries, and no such critical philosophy arose in them.

The missing piece is the advent of coinage. Wealth in Phoenicia aggregated around a central monarchy. By the time of the rise of the Greek diaspora, coins allowed the pooling of wealth outside of select groups. Basically, it meant you could travel overseas and become wealthy. It also allowed for a greater distribution of wealth, opening the way for 'leisures' such as study and navel gazing. :D

Since then, the same patterns have become obvious. Wealth and individualistic cultures create a different social environment, where animistic and mythopoeic beliefs don't have the same benefits, while objective thought and internal consistency of a model explaining reality becomes more useful. Periods in history where governance reduces individualism and the distribution of wealth typically match a rise in behaviour we might recognise as not being scientific or reasonable by nature.

(Sorry if not much of this makes sense - I'm recollecting a lot from my notes and have a few other distractions at the moment. Please feel free to ask me to expand and I'll see if I can't give some better details later)

Athon

[babbits]

The other theory of course is that the growth of commerce led to the need for arithmetic and writing, for business record keeping and for transactions and contracts. This inevitably led to disputes, which would be heard before, variously, a king, a panel of merchants, a vizier, or some other ad hoc jurist.

By 2600 years ago, the sons of Greek merchants were having tutors in logic so they could argue the family 'case' convincingly. And logic developed apace by analysis of 'good reasoning'.

[athon]

The other theory of course is that the growth of commerce led to the need for arithmetic and writing, for business record keeping and for transactions and contracts. This inevitably led to disputes, which would be heard before, variously, a king, a panel of merchants, a vizier, or some other ad hoc jurist.

True, yet writing wasn't new, having been developed by the Sumerians centuries ago. Nor was an objective legal system (see Hammurabi). There was no sign of science in their culture, nor other literate/legal cultures.

By 2600 years ago, the sons of Greek merchants were having tutors in logic so they could argue the family 'case' convincingly. And logic developed apace by analysis of 'good reasoning'.

It's certainly a hypothesis. Unfortunately it seems a little 'just so' for my liking.

Athon

[Soapy Sam]

The human brain perceives the world via two filters:-
The senses
and
Language.

External awareness is sensory.
Internal modelling is linguistic.

The two differ radically.
If you don't think so, try to write a verbal description of your own face.
Now look in the mirror.
Which is "you"- the internally generated verbal description, pulled from your own mind, or the pattern of light bouncing off a sheet of glass?

Natural selection fits organisms for their environment.
The environment for which the human organism is fitted is that of a smallish group of other humans in a non technological society, probably living by scavenging / foraging.

The environment we find ourselves in is a planet-spanning race of 6-7 billion other humans.

There may be a few functional conflicts in the firmware.
Microsoft will release a Service Pack soon.

[Darth Rotor]

The human brain perceives the world via two filters:-
The senses
and
Language.

External awareness is sensory.
Internal modelling is linguistic.

The two differ radically.
If you don't think so, try to write a verbal description of your own face.
Now look in the mirror.
Which is "you"- the internally generated verbal description, pulled from your own mind, or the pattern of light bouncing off a sheet of glass?

Natural selection fits organisms for their environment.
The environment for which the human organism is fitted is that of a smallish group of other humans in a non technological society, probably living by scavenging / foraging.

The environment we find ourselves in is a planet-spanning race of 6-7 billion other humans.

There may be a few functional conflicts in the firmware.
Microsoft will release a Service Pack soon.
In which case, we are truly {Rule 10}'d. A curse upon Eve for eating the first Apple ... oh, wait, I'm a bit tardy with that!

[Southwind17]

In which case, we are truly {Rule 10}'d. A curse upon Eve for eating the first Apple ... oh, wait, I'm a bit tardy with that!
You do realize that "{Rule 10}'d" is itself a breach of Rule 10, so you'd might as well type the real thing (if it would allow)! ;)