Friday, November 28, 2008

Crib Notes from Andy Thompsons "Why we believe in gods" lecture.

Religion may be a bi-product of other common, well-understood cognitive mechanisms (or adaptations) that evolved to solve survival problems not related to religion or faith.

Some of these mechanisms include:

Minimally Counter-intuitive Aspects: When we picture god(s), we attribute them with all the normally expected attributes of another thinking, conscious being. god(s) think, and feel, and are presented as vulnerable to all the same emotional and cognitive weaknesses that humans are. With a few “minimal” exceptions that step outside of our intuitive expectations. god(s) talk to us (in our minds), god(s) know what we are doing (because they are presented as omnipresent), god(s) know what we are thinking (because they are presented as omniscient), etc… But we still imagine them as thinking and feeling much the same way that we imagine ourselves to. We are more prone to accept something with minimal detours into the counter-intuitive than things that are firmly counter-intuitive. (Yes I understand the soon to be voiced problems with use of the word minimal in this example....)

Decoupled Cognition: We can envision and enact conversations with absent family members, deceased family members, etc.
(Some of us can envision conversations with god(s) and can further carry that conversation into an imagined or projected 2-way dialogue - using simple decoupled cognition to fill in the blanks of what our god(s) reactions might be to these conversations - interestingly this might explain why our mythological miracle makers seem to have a very anthropomorphized ability to perform miraculous events that seem to be limited or tied to the cultural understanding of the time of their origin.)

Reciprocal Altruism: We have cognitive mechanisms that automatically keep track of who we owe and who owes us. We track these things (to varying degrees) automatically.
(Religion is full of reciprocity. Just look at some of the “IF you do this...” and “IF you don’t do this...” messages inherent in nearly all religions.)

Childhood Credulity: Our cognitive development leaves children and adolescents open to the influence and suggestion of authority figures in their lives. So much so that they soak up the culture that surrounds them and adapt it as the status quo. This aids in the rapid learning of survival behaviours. It also allows for the infiltration of non-survival and/or toxic learning if presented from recognized authority figures like Parents, Teachers, Religious figures of authority, etc…

Vulnerability to Authority: all humans are vulnerable - to varying degrees - to figures of authority. IF we perceive an instruction as sourced in suffiecient authority, we may follow it even if it would otherwise be an instruction to perform a repulsive, abhorrent or out-of-character action.
(It should be fairly obvious how this relates to religion and authority structures inherent in same. Ref: Stanley Milgram - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment)

Attachment System: When we are in distress - at all ages of life - we turn to a care-taker figure. Whether that be a parent when a child or adolescent, a spouse or partner when an adult, or some other care-taker figure we hope will succor us from our distress, this mechanism is present in all of us.
(This mechanism is likely responsible, in part, for romantic love and parental attachment. It should be fairly obvious how religion might make use of this mechanism and allow us to turn to a super-parent, per se. Ref: Letters of Mother Theresa indicating her “falling in love with jesus”, “getting married to jesus” etc...)

Transference: We base our present relationships on past relationships. We learn as children how to treat relationships. Our perceptions use this to form images of people like “Fatherly Figure” or “Good Motherly Figure” etc…

The Problem of Dead Bodies: We have “theory of mind” mechanisms that allow us to project a mind (somewhat like our own) into other people. We imagine them as having similar thought processes, motives, and emotions. When we’re confronted with dead bodies we recognize (from physical clues) that there is no life present, but our “theory of mind” mechanism continues to look for the thought, feelings, emotions etc that we expect to find there.
(It should be fairly obvious how this mechanism might relate to some religious concepts of continued consciousness or mind, after death.)

Hyperactive Agent Detection/Attribution: We all have mechanisms inherent that look for a cause where there may not be a cause. Sounds we hear at the edge of conscious audibility might be translated into ‘whispers’ or ‘other anthropomorphized’ sources. There is a strong benefit to experiencing false positives with this function over the potentially fatal repercussions of experiencing a false negative using this mechanism. We may see 1000 imaginary tigers in the trees and suffer no ill consequence, but to miss just a single tiger that is actually there could have fatal consequences.

Intuitive Reasoning: We fill in the blanks. When we don’t actually have knowledge, our brain attempts to fill in blanks in our knowledge.
(Hyperactive Agent Detection helps us to try to fill in these blanks with humanized or anthropomorphized reasons. Many optical illusions work using this mechanism where will envision a line that completes a ‘shape’ that may not exist. See attached image. Our mind creates the edges of a white-triangle where one does not actually exist.)

Motivated Reasoning: We doubt what we don’t want to hear.
(We don’t change beliefs easily, because this may put us at odds with the group (adopted kin) and that, in the past, was a counter-survival trait.)

Confirmation Bias: We tend to look for evidence that corroborates our opinions, or notice data that confirms our beliefs (much more so than data that does the opposite or is neutral to our opinions and beliefs) - sometimes even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Mere Familiarity: We favour what is familiar (tradition) over something new or relatively unknown.

Belief in Belief: We have a bias toward belief. Our brain is set up to ‘form opinions’ rapidly - we perceive, form opinion or believe, then at leisure may pause and think about that which we’ve formed opinions about.
(Example - in the past, if a tribe-mate told us there was a tiger behind a tree, it would be a net positive survival mechanism to believe that claim, even if there were no tiger behind said tree. Another example of false positives being far more survival focused than any single false negative. Ref: Some republicans continuing to hound upon Obama as being a terrorist. If we continue to hear something, our cognitive mechanisms tend towards believing that - in spite of evidence to the contrary.)

Kin Recognition: We have strong tendencies to favour ‘kin’ over ‘non-kin’ in our social mentation - sorting our world into “kin” and “Near-Kin” and “not kin”.
(Interestingly, religion is rife with false or appropriated Kin-Terminology to describe figures of importance {to the religion} - Father for Priest/Minister/Pastor, Brother for Monk, Sister for Nun, etc.... Further there were - in the past - some very real benefits for ‘religion’ and ‘survival’ inherent in the artificial expansion of Kin-Perception in people belonging to a religious group.)

Mirror Neurons: If you were in a room with another person and they raised their left arm - that portion of their brain that controls the left arm, right motor cortex - would light up with activity. So would your brain. If that person hurt their left hand, their right-thalamus would light up with activity in response to that pain. So would your right-thalamus, even though your hand was not injured. You would literally feel the other person’s pain (to a reduced degree).

All these mechanisms, if appropriated by religion, can play upon our cognitive functions to reinforce the stories and functions religions attempts to appropriate - Particularly in artificial-kin environments.

EG: saviour mythology co-opting our cognitive mechanisms: artificial-kin, authority figure, agent attributed, decoupled mental conversationalist, object of reciprocal altruism, authority figure, super-brother/parent/caregiver, transferred-kin, object of attachment, source of intuitive answers to metaphysical questions, source of confirmation biased opinion/faith, familiar, playing upon mirror neurons with readily available images of suffering
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This post is composed of crib notes taken by myself while listening to a lecture by Andy Thompson. All attribution, sourcing, credits, etc. should be directed toward his comprehensive research.





Andy Thompson's lecure is available for download or viewing here:
http://www.richarddawkins.net/article,3373,Why-we-believe-in-gods,J-Anderson-Thomson

Thursday, November 13, 2008

I still think I want a Yurt - 21 Century Style

Money-View:


Round Kitchens


Ultra-mod round kitchen


Ultra-mod Round Kitchen 2


Loft: Open to Below


Loft 2


Stunning night view


Another stunning night view




So, I found a site at http://www.yurtworks.com/ for an Oregon Company that makes round-homes in yurt-like fashion - utilizing the same wall-strap to hold the whole house together. These, however, look and act just like a real home at a fraction of the cost! They had a blog: http://www.yurtworks.blogspot.com/ On their blog I found a link to a flickr album from which I scooped these images. They are a reminder for me in my thinking about alternate dwellings. They are the property of their originator and not my own. I do think, however, that they illustrate some of the best of Yurt-dom out there, and serve as an excellent inspiration piece.

Thursday, November 6, 2008

I think I want a Yurt.

A yurt is a traditional Mongolian semi-permanent round tent structure used by the nomadic tribesmen as mobile-homes. They would disassemble them and cart them on to the next camp site. They were made from sticks, and hides and cords. They look sorta primitive. Until you look at 20th Century Technology in a Yurt. Like this one:



There are some modern companies out there that produce Yurts.
They have 2-story yurts.



They have winged Yurts.




As an occasional use vacation dwelling, with an eye toward retirement dwelling in a semi-rural or fully rural location, I think this structure has a lot of promise.
I just wonder if I can improve on these designs somewhat.

I was thinking, for the Canadian climate:
A central hearth and fireplace with chimney running up through the center of the dome.


This could serve 3 or 4 purposes at once:

- It could support the roof if excess snow-load occurs.

- It could support some sophisticated water catchment technology that might allow for gray-water natural water utilization.

- It could be built massive - out of natural stone work, with wings out into dividers of the living space (like kitchen island and bedroom/bathroom wall divider - allowing for a large thermal mass, heated by a double-sided fireplace, to warm the interior on cold winter nights.
If a high efficiency 2-sided insert were purchased for this spot, it could burn for 20+ hours on a single charge of fuel.
- It could divide the room and provide some nice eye-candy. Imagine a slate wall with chimney running up through the roof of the Yurt - out of which projects both the Kitchen Island Peninsula and the heated wall dividing the master bedroom and the shower area.
Sounds sexy - in my mind's eye. The other thing I like about the Yurt is that its a very voluminous space in a small footprint. Especially if one adds wings or a second story.

I personally think a sleeping loft above the main great room, with utilities, bath, and part of the kitchen under the loft part, and a double-height living space could be very very sexy. This also has the added benefit of allowing the heated thermal mass dividing wall between kitchen and bath (downstairs) to run the full height (upstairs) dividing the sleeping areas with even more heated stone volume.

I definitely need to think more about this, but if I can get one of these built on a slab heated with geothermal heating, gray water catchment, thermal mass additional heating for really cold times in the winter, this could be a really efficient vacation/retirement home. If I back it with the right insulation, long-life roofing solution, and a decent water purification system, this could almost be the perfect expandable retirement home setup.





Yup. I want a yurt.


Wednesday, November 5, 2008

How the 2008 Obama Election isn't a Sign of Change



In spite of the optimism surrounding Obama's election by the people of the US, there are some Liberty Limiting mob-rule ballots out there bringing down the overall positive of the election for many.

Florida and Arkansas are not really all that surprising, but I was sorta hoping that California residents would not vote in Prop 8.

Now the State Supreme Courts have their work cut out for them - especially in California where some gay couples HAVE married - setting up a situation of special and different liberties for some, but not all homosexual couples. Lets hope the SC does the right thing.