Can Evolution explain this? (Re: The biological evolution of religious belief)

I agree it's an interesting topic. And I agree that it could be "spandrel," or even derivative (i.e. arising from some system that WAS selected for, but itself not contributing to the survival of the species).My overwhelming belief is that it is derivative. No animals are religious (I'm serious! And no MANTIS jokes ), and (from what I've read AND INTERPRETED) higher cognition (< 100,000 yrs old) is much more recent than our social structure.But then again, this question also shows the bad side of evolutionary theory. It's open-ended, just like Creationism. There's so many ways to spin sparse data points like these (compare spinning evolution to interpreting the bible to referring to an all-powerful creator). So, ... just, I am mindful of my own speculation.But, as is, the fact of religion doesn't cause an "internal error" to evolution theory. That much is for sure.Ben

At the fear of continuing an off-topic thread, and of disagreeing with jar (who I respect as one of the most level-headed and fair people on this board)...I completely agree that the 'start' of an eye could arise (unless the 'start' of an eye is on a system that is highly unlikely to develop in the given environment). However...claiming that an eye could develop in a non-adaptive environment is, to me, EXACTLY the same as a creo claiming that ambiogenesis is impossible, since the number of combinations necessary for a single cell to arise DE NOVO is so huge.Without selective pressure, an eye would have to RANDOMLY develop at each step of the way. AND THERE'S A LOT OF STEPS. So... sorry to nit jar... think of me as a 'new guy who is testing his knowledge to see if he understands this stuff properly.'Ben

AP,The plural of anecdote is not data!!well, like I said in an earlier post, this aspect of evolution (the one where we wildly speculate about something) is so unscientific, anecdotal information is as good as any.Personally, I, like many others, think of religion stemming from a need to explain. This view of religion is certainly based on higher-level cognition.But that doesn't necessarily explain its roots; maybe that's simply how it is used now. Still, in order to attribute religion to your cats, I think you have to give them some mental apparatus (such as intentional states [that they want to do something] and a theory of mind [that doing this thing will make you happy]) that I'm not really prepared to do.Of course, what you've said is possible. And it's also possible that it is just perception due to our tendency to 'personalize' pretty much anything--from cats to robots to clouds. We seem to naturally attribute intentional states to anything.If we really wanted to discuss it, I think we'd have to get an agreement of what is religion.

Well... by definition, random mutation cannot ever produce metaphysical phenomena, in the dictionary form of the world. And on the other hand, the metaphysical cannot interact with the physical. Otherwise it WOULD be physical. That is the problem of dualism.The simple question is, can you see what APPEARS to be metaphysical as simply an extension of what you'd be willing to call physical. Like CrashFrog, I think pretty much every bridge can be built, easily. The only one that I fail on is the problem of "qualia" (not that we have subjective experence, but why it takes on the qualities that it does).I think there still is an interesting question in what you're asking Ignoring the subjective accounting that these are 'metaphysical'... I think there's a point here that crash missed. Even if you view ALL of these things as symbol manipulations (and I would argue against that for untrained artists), there are MANY types of symbol manipulations that we DO NOT DO. In other words, it is still interesting to ask WHY we do THESE things, and not others.The fact that we have brains that are able to process things symbolically isn't logically CAUSAL for us to play music. In fact, I can name at least one other symbolic processing device that does NOT do any of the things that you mentioned. And that's the personal computer.But like I said, I have no personal motivation to look farther than the human brain. I would suggest reading some books about cognition before making that leap; we really know quite a bit more than you're probably aware of, and it might change your mind about the necessity of appealing to something beyond the brain.Ben