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Science Forum Index » Bio Evolution Forum » Did Tribal Territorial Defense Mechanisms Evolve To Cover Be
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| Adam |
 Posted: Thu Feb 01, 2007 12:46 pm |
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Is it possible that when Man evolved language, conscious thought, and
the ability to store ideas our already existing tribal territorial
defense "programming" evolved to cover beliefs? If so, it would
certainly explain observed behavior. There seems to be a distinct
difference in the way we treat mere ideas, which we can discuss
rationally, and beliefs, which we can not.
A new book, "Man by Nature: The Hidden Programming Controlling Human
Behavior," claims this is actually so. It also hypothesizes that the
surge of anger we experience when hearing an idea opposing our beliefs
is the result of subconscious brain processing that compares ideas
with existing beliefs and generates an emotional cue whether the idea
should be accepted or rejected. It claims that the brain's
"interpreter" function (described in several of Dr. Michael S.
Gazzaniga's books) then generates the conscious ideas that we spout to
trash the idea. ... Weird, but at least the existence of the
interpreter function is well established and documented.
There's even some justification for the "unconscious processing of
ideas" hypothesis. I dug up Michael Shermer's "Skeptic" column
entitled "The Political Brain." (Scientific American, July 2006) It
proclaimed: "A recent brain-imaging study shows that our political
predilections are a product of unconscious confirmation bias." The
column related that shortly before the 2004 presidential election
fifteen subjects who described themselves as "strong Republicans" and
fifteen who described themselves as "strong Democrats" underwent fMRI
brain scans while being asked to assess statements by George W. Bush
and John F. Kerry in which the candidates appeared to contradict
themselves. In all cases the subjects were critical of the candidate
they opposed, and spun explanations excusing the candidate they
supported. What was surprising, however, was that the fMRI scans
showed that the parts of the brain associated with processing
emotions, resolving conflict, and making moral judgments were
activated, but the part of the brain associated with reasoning was
not. ... Thus it's possible the theory expressed in Man by Nature may
be correct. |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 8:19 am |
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I think that there is another interpretation to this data. The people
involved may have thought over the issues reasonably when they first
heard them. Some of them may have used a "reasoning neural net" to
make their decisions. However, once they made their decision, using
both logical and rational neural nets, new programs were written where
pure emotion would be solicited.
In any case, I don't think pure genetic programming was involved.
Most decisions are rational, although they may not be logical. A
little kid may first decide to follow his parents religion because he
gets candy, which is a rational decision. However, he can grow up to
be sincerely a believer, and even starve himself for his religion.
Same with politics. I think people really start out having a reason.
Some of them even start out logically. Genes are only peripherally
involved. The genome is a framework, not the building. |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Fri Feb 02, 2007 10:00 pm |
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On Feb 1, 2:46 pm, "Adam" <acleon...@comcast.net> wrote:
Quote: Is it possible that when Man evolved language, conscious thought, and
the ability to store ideas our already existing tribal territorial
defense "programming" evolved to cover beliefs?
I would agree. But I would distinguish between tribalism and
communalism.
Quote: If so, it would
certainly explain observed behavior. There seems to be a distinct
difference in the way we treat mere ideas, which we can discuss
rationally, and beliefs, which we can not.
Yes, and much of this is subconscious to us. Which makes it very
difficult to discuss since many of us--by design it seems--cannot
distinguish between our beliefs and rational thoughts.
Quote:
A new book, "Man by Nature: The Hidden Programming Controlling Human
Behavior," claims this is actually so.
It is actually so.
It also hypothesizes that the
Quote: surge of anger we experience when hearing an idea opposing our beliefs
is the result of subconscious brain processing that compares ideas
with existing beliefs and generates an emotional cue whether the idea
should be accepted or rejected. It claims that the brain's
"interpreter" function (described in several of Dr. Michael S.
Gazzaniga's books) then generates the conscious ideas that we spout to
trash the idea. ... Weird, but at least the existence of the
interpreter function is well established and documented.
Yes.
Quote:
There's even some justification for the "unconscious processing of
ideas" hypothesis. I dug up Michael Shermer's "Skeptic" column
entitled "The Political Brain." (Scientific American, July 2006) It
proclaimed: "A recent brain-imaging study shows that our political
predilections are a product of unconscious confirmation bias."
Yes, and our minds hide this from us to achieve the illusion that we
are thinking rationally.
The
Quote: column related that shortly before the 2004 presidential election
fifteen subjects who described themselves as "strong Republicans" and
fifteen who described themselves as "strong Democrats" underwent fMRI
brain scans while being asked to assess statements by George W. Bush
and John F. Kerry in which the candidates appeared to contradict
themselves. In all cases the subjects were critical of the candidate
they opposed, and spun explanations excusing the candidate they
supported. What was surprising, however, was that the fMRI scans
showed that the parts of the brain associated with processing
emotions, resolving conflict, and making moral judgments were
activated, but the part of the brain associated with reasoning was
not. ... Thus it's possible the theory expressed in Man by Nature may
be correct. |
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| Adam |
| Posted: Sat Feb 03, 2007 9:24 am |
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On Feb 2, 1:19 pm, drosen0...@wahoo.com wrote:
Quote: I think that there is another interpretation to this data ...
Most decisions are rational, ....
However, if the theory is correct, then your reply may be an example
of your interpreter function (which I prefer to think of as "The Great
Explainer") providing you with a ready-made rebuttal for an idea which
challenges your existing beliefs. :>)
The existence of the interpreter function is not a matter of opinion
or interpretation any more than is a round earth. It has been verified
and is widely referenced in neuroscientific and evolutionary
biological literature. Yes, it is shocking to realize that the brain
can and does cause us to think (and fervantly believe) the conscious
logical reasons it generates for unconscious illogical behavior are
true, but that is the new reality.
I encourage you to read either Man by Nature or one of Dr. Gazzaniga's
books describing the discovery of the interpreter function. Knowledge
of its existence and how it affects human behavior is essential for a
"new Enlightenment." |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Mon Feb 05, 2007 6:55 am |
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On Feb 1, 2:46?pm, "Adam" <acleon...@comcast.net> wrote:
Quote: Is it possible that when Man evolved language, conscious thought, and
the ability to store ideas our already existing tribal territorial
defense "programming" evolved to cover beliefs? If so, it would
certainly explain observed behavior. There seems to be a distinct
difference in the way we treat mere ideas, which we can discuss
rationally, and beliefs, which we can not.
A new book, "Man by Nature: The Hidden Programming Controlling Human
Behavior," claims this is actually so. It also hypothesizes that the
surge of anger we experience when hearing an idea opposing our beliefs
is the result of subconscious brain processing that compares ideas
with existing beliefs and generates an emotional cue whether the idea
should be accepted or rejected. It claims that the brain's
"interpreter" function (described in several of Dr. Michael S.
Gazzaniga's books) then generates the conscious ideas that we spout to
trash the idea. ... Weird, but at least the existence of the
interpreter function is well established and documented.
There's even some justification for the "unconscious processing of
ideas" hypothesis. I dug up Michael Shermer's "Skeptic" column
entitled "The Political Brain." (Scientific American, July 2006) It
proclaimed: "A recent brain-imaging study shows that our political
predilections are a product of unconscious confirmation bias." The
column related that shortly before the 2004 presidential election
fifteen subjects who described themselves as "strong Republicans" and
fifteen who described themselves as "strong Democrats" underwent fMRI
brain scans while being asked to assess statements by George W. Bush
and John F. Kerry in which the candidates appeared to contradict
themselves. In all cases the subjects were critical of the candidate
they opposed, and spun explanations excusing the candidate they
supported. What was surprising, however, was that the fMRI scans
showed that the parts of the brain associated with processing
emotions, resolving conflict, and making moral judgments were
activated, but the part of the brain associated with reasoning was
not. ... Thus it's possible the theory expressed in Man by Nature may
be correct.
I think there is some substance to the theory; it would certainly
explain why Bush was elected two terms. Certainly reason was not
utilized. However, it is a very negative prognosis if processing
emotions, resolving conflict, and making moral judgments is not
associated with reasoning. More than ever as a species we need to use
reason in processing our emotions, resolving conflict, and making
moral decisions. If we don't then we end up maladaptively or even
pathologically "processing" our emotions; we will fail even more in
resolving conflicts and making moral decisions. Yet as a species we
seem much more given to those brain areas which don't involve reason.
Michael Ragland |
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| Gil Lawton |
| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 8:54 am |
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"Adam" <acleonard@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:eptqk3$u6n$1@darwin.ediacara.org...
Quote: Is it possible that when Man evolved language, conscious thought, and
the ability to store ideas our already existing tribal territorial
defense "programming" evolved to cover beliefs?
The notion that science deals only with -- or even primarily with -- direct,
hard, empirical evidence, is an enormously fallacious idea in and of itself.
If you will stop and think about it, you will realize that at least 99 % of
what you think you know consists of things you have been TOLD. Have you
verified through DNA analysis that the two people alleged to be your parents
actually are? How about their parents? How about your neighbors, etc.
What have you been told about electricity? Even if you are a physicist who
has memorized all the formulas which were derived from
thousands of experiments, have YOU confirmed each and every one of those
experiments? Or have you simply chosen to believe them. Have you
duplicated the Michelson Morely experiment? Have you gone to Washington DC
and confirmed that there actually is a place where the Congress meets?
Oh, but "everybody knows" these things. Right? Don't be too sure. The
history of science (according to historians I have read) is a history of
widely-held fallacies. The trick to seeming to be "right" on any given day,
in any given place, is to go along with what "everybody knows" (which I put
in quotes because it is anything BUT that... and ACTUALLY is... what most
people YOU identify with BELIEVE.)
When you read a book review, do you go and get the book and check to see if
the review is accurate? In fact, when you read a book, do you recall each
and every word... every comma... etc.; or do you sort of get some very clear
(to you) ideas of what the author has said, which you are convinced is
accurate?
How many times have you read about, say, some period in history and
"believed" what the book said. Have you taken into account that
historians -- although they tend to agree on many of the so-called fact do
not agree on all of them? Do you go to the source... go back in a time
machine... and verify each and every one of those facts? Do you verify them
through the eyes of each witness. Do you check each official document from
which information was taken, and confirm that no error or no deliberate
misrepresentation was made on it?
I have read that there is a far higher agreement among historians that most
of the "available" facts about things that happened yesterday, last week, a
month ago, a year ago -- a million years ago are somewhat accurate. Hardly
any two, however, are in TOTAL agreement as to which among those "fact" is
most essential to our "knowing" what caused what, or why the winds of change
blew this way or that way primarily. Yes, there are some fairly coalesced
consensus among historians in a given country, at a given time, but would it
surprise you to know that the historians immediately after a war and
historians of a later generation... another century... can end up with very
different consensuses. Are you aware that pictures of large historical
changes and events "seem" to get increasingly clear as the DISTANCE in
geography and in time increase away from the actual facts... and the muddy,
overwhelming detail of intercontradictions among facts become less known?
The facts of anything are beyond any man's capacity to "know." LEGENDS, on
the other hand, have a certain popular appeal, because they are what is left
after people have had a chance to decide what they would like to hear, what
is easy to picture in the imagination, what forms a good "STORY," with
characters, mood, complication, climax and conclusion. History qua WHAT
ACTUALLY HAPPENS is very unwieldy, very full of conflicting testimony, very
shy as to offering ALL the facts, tends to be reported differently by
different interests, tends to be written by the victors...
Understanding what goes on as to the actual dealing of scientists directly
with "facts" is a similar kind of "belief system."
Don't take this old coot's word for it. But instead... get off by yourself
and weigh just what you ACTUALLY have confirmed to be so in your life, and
how much that is believed in your home, at your job, at the schools you
attend, in the books you read, has had a lot of the ACTUAL rough edges
knocked off, consists of many things that MOST people in certain OTHER
surrounds do not "know" the same way as those you rub elbows with "know."
Learn, if you can, to see just how much liberty has been, and is, taken with
"facts" and how very much (probably more than 99 %) of what any person
perceives himself to know, and to have verified, is merely believed, without
checking it out directly.
The realization of this may take much self-prying open of the mind, and
might require rigorous effort to see through one's reliance upon legend and
one's unique acculturation of local consensuses.
Perhaps if one gets angry when disagreed with, the source of that anger
might be fear... fear that the whole shell of self-delusion any individual
relies on might crack open and expose the fact that we humans tend to wrap
ourselves in a cloak of assumptions, and merely name that cloak "knowledge."
g
Quote: certainly explain observed behavior. There seems to be a distinct
difference in the way we treat mere ideas, which we can discuss
rationally, and beliefs, which we can not.
A new book, "Man by Nature: The Hidden Programming Controlling Human
Behavior," claims this is actually so. It also hypothesizes that the
surge of anger we experience when hearing an idea opposing our beliefs
is the result of subconscious brain processing that compares ideas
with existing beliefs and generates an emotional cue whether the idea
should be accepted or rejected. It claims that the brain's
"interpreter" function (described in several of Dr. Michael S.
Gazzaniga's books) then generates the conscious ideas that we spout to
trash the idea. ... Weird, but at least the existence of the
interpreter function is well established and documented.
There's even some justification for the "unconscious processing of
ideas" hypothesis. I dug up Michael Shermer's "Skeptic" column
entitled "The Political Brain." (Scientific American, July 2006) It
proclaimed: "A recent brain-imaging study shows that our political
predilections are a product of unconscious confirmation bias." The
column related that shortly before the 2004 presidential election
fifteen subjects who described themselves as "strong Republicans" and
fifteen who described themselves as "strong Democrats" underwent fMRI
brain scans while being asked to assess statements by George W. Bush
and John F. Kerry in which the candidates appeared to contradict
themselves. In all cases the subjects were critical of the candidate
they opposed, and spun explanations excusing the candidate they
supported. What was surprising, however, was that the fMRI scans
showed that the parts of the brain associated with processing
emotions, resolving conflict, and making moral judgments were
activated, but the part of the brain associated with reasoning was
not. ... Thus it's possible the theory expressed in Man by Nature may
be correct.
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| Bob Kolker |
| Posted: Wed Feb 07, 2007 8:25 pm |
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Gil Lawton wrote:
Quote:
The notion that science deals only with -- or even primarily with -- direct,
hard, empirical evidence, is an enormously fallacious idea in and of itself.
If you will stop and think about it, you will realize that at least 99 % of
what you think you know consists of things you have been TOLD. Have you
verified through DNA analysis that the two people alleged to be your parents
actually are? How about their parents? How about your neighbors, etc.
It is well known that the facts of science are thoroughly theory laden.
Yes we believe what we have been TOLD. What makes us believe what we
have been TOLD is the gadgets that science gives rise to by way of
applied science and engineering arts. Physics has produced tangible and
visable results for the less scientifically educated. And that is why
science (in particular, physics) has the credit it has. So it is not a
mere story that science is telling us. It is a story with clearly
discernable and useful results.
That fact that we are exchanging ideas on this matter over a world-wide
computer network tells the story loud and clear.
Bob Kolker |
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| Kent Paul Dolan |
| Posted: Thu Feb 08, 2007 8:42 am |
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On Feb 1, 3:46 pm, "Adam" <acleon...@comcast.net> wrote:
Quote: Is it possible that when Man evolved language,
conscious thought, and the ability to store ideas
our already existing tribal territorial defense
"programming" evolved to cover beliefs?
Since "defense of territory" exists in creatures as
incapable of evidencing "beliefs" as ant colonies,
that's probably just one more example of an idea
inflated beyond all evidence.
You've got the horse and cart in an inappropriate
order.
xanthian. |
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| Guest |
| Posted: Sun Feb 11, 2007 7:41 pm |
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On Feb 8, 10:42 am, "Kent Paul Dolan" <xanth...@well.com> wrote:
Quote: On Feb 1, 3:46 pm, "Adam" <acleon...@comcast.net> wrote:
Is it possible that when Man evolved language,
conscious thought, and the ability to store ideas
our already existing tribal territorial defense
"programming" evolved to cover beliefs?
Since "defense of territory" exists in creatures as
incapable of evidencing "beliefs" as ant colonies,
that's probably just one more example of an idea
inflated beyond all evidence.
You've got the horse and cart in an inappropriate
order.
I think you meant to say that since *collective* defense of territory
exists in creatures as incapable of evidencing "beliefs" as ant
colonies, that this weighs against the notion that beliefs evolved as
a collecrtive (group selected) territorial defense mechanism. And I
would agree that this objection needs to be addressed. But it is
hardly a stopper. There are, afterall, major distinctions between
human territory and group structure as compared to social insects.
Most of these distinctions are rather obvious so I won't bother to
point them out. But one that is less obvious and often overlooked is
that there is a time element to human group selection--dry season--
that dictated dramatic shifts in levels of abundance and that
necessitates (or rewards) the rather unique abilities of hominids to
shift the structure of their society through shifts in ideology based,
culturally expressed, beliefs (which are almost totally subconscious
to us--for good reason). |
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| Kent Paul Dolan |
| Posted: Mon Feb 12, 2007 9:40 am |
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claudiusd...@sbcglobal.net wrote:
Quote: "Kent Paul Dolan" <xanth...@well.com> wrote:
Since "defense of territory" exists in creatures
as incapable of evidencing "beliefs" as ant
colonies, that's probably just one more example
of an idea inflated beyond all evidence.
I think you meant to say that since *collective*
defense of territory
Please _don't_ put words in my mouth which I did not
say.
Please _do_ turn on your mind before trying to
defend an already bankrupt concept.
Just because I used "ants" as an easily understood
example doesn't prevent you from thinking for your
very own self of the hundreds of examples _you_
_already_ _know_ of higher order non-human creatures
that defend territories _individually_, from peeper
frogs to bull elephants, before responding with
unthinking nonsense.
Some of humankinds closest relatives, the
chimpanzes, defend territory collectively, so
there's nothing "low level" or "of lesser worth"
about collective territorialism, it's just another
way to defend territory.
More to the point, _humans_ defend territory both
individually, in fistfights, and collectively, in
wars.
Trying to fabricate ways that humankind is different
in kind from other animals is the task of religion,
not of science. Let's leave that process to destroy
itself from the weight of its unsupported
superstructure, unhelped by us, in other newsgroups,
not run its test-to-destruction in parallel in this
one as well.
FWIW
xanthian. |
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