Monday, March 23, 2015

Regarding the Development and Fitness Value of Spirituality.


 And the Lord God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

Genesis 3:22
This is extracted from Air Water Ground: An Essay on New Adaptive Strategies, © 1978-2014 for different part,  Jay Moynihan, all rights reserved. Portions of part 2 published previously in “The Wider View” column, © 1994-2002 Jay Moynihan.
Cover photo: Copper Falls, after sunset,  © 1986, Jay Moynihan.
Disclaimer
I am responsible for the contents herein. It should not be assumed or thought that anything herein is in anyway the view or opinion of any past, present, or future clients, employers, acquaintances, friends, family, etc.

The question of whether or not god(s) exist is not interesting, scientifically. The characteristics of god(s) are by their nature not subject to scientific study.[1] But we can observe and study human behavior, tools, and given language and psychology; symbolic objects. So study of the origins of spirituality, and the social phenomena of religion can be interesting, scientifically.
In the last couple of decades this has become an area of significant interest among some of those interested in evolutionary theory.  I intend here, to set forth my own views on this subject.

Many years ago on a summer day I did a thought experiment. The day was clear with a few high fluffy clouds and a soft breeze. I was laying on a lawn, on my back starring up. I decided to cast my mind back in jumps of about 100 years. Meaning, I would relax, anchored with the earth under my back and imagine the whole of my specie a century before. What did I, as a well-educated individual know and believe? When I would get a gestalt of that space-time, I would jump back another 100 years. After a while of course, I ran out of track. There I was imagining East Africa. The Rift Valley, and eventually, nothing. Mind empty. Small white clouds slowly moved across the sky. Moving.
I sat up quickly. Yes! If it moves, it is alive.
Animation. Anima. The vital principle, Animus, the soul. “Latin anima (“a current of air, wind, air, breath, the vital principle, life, soul”), sometimes equivalent to animus (“mind”); see animus and compare Greek άνεμος (“wind”).” [2]
Absent modern knowledge, absent even medieval knowledge, the primitive logic is crystalline. [3]
What moves is alive.
I am, I move, and I intend to move.
Therefore
What moves, intends.
If it intends, I can communicate with it. I can scare it or placate it. Maybe it will help me.
Sympathetic magic is born?

The Golden Bough and other books over the years propose a progression of sorts from sympathetic magic, or animism to later forms. Some propose a link between the changing conceptions of god(s) to the changes over time in economic and social complexity. But in animism there is in essence, a real biogeophysical object or effect (such as wind or heat). Just as we and some other intelligent and social species exhibit theory of mind, perhaps animism can be simply described as theory of mind applied to natural objects generally.[4] 

But what about the other spiritualties? What about god(s)?

Most writing, with the exception of the Mathew Alper’s “The God Part of the Brain (1996) seems to explain the belief in god(s) by reference to its value to a group. And how it develops via tag –mediated contingent altruism into social structures, competing groups, etc. [5] My interest is much narrower, and I think, basic. Separate and apart from its value to a group, what is the benefit of spiritual beliefs/ related symbolic objects to the phenotype? How is the individual’s fitness enhanced?[6]

It is an assumption in ethology that if a behavior or set of behaviors is shared across the population of a specie, it is biological, not learned. The belief in the supernatural is cross-cultural in humans.[7] Therefore, we must assume it is not at its origin a cultural or learned characteristic.[8]

Lets inventory some of the probable characteristics of our hominid ancestors.
  • Endothermic
  • social
  • Allo-parenting
  • Omnivorous
  • Kinship Altruism
  • Tag-Mediated Contingent Altruism
  • Reciprocal Altrusim
  • Arboreal

All of these are found in primates, and their distant past appears to be arboreal.  An arboreal environment is thought to contribute to complex neural development in some species due to the necessity of three dimensional navigation, triangulation  etc. In a social arboreal specie, relationships would also take place in three dimensions.  Add to this ancestry and the big-brain &  hyper vigilance mechanisms common in social prey species of arboreal origin. [9]

My speculation is that self awareness is a spandrel formed by the probable characteristics of our hominid ancestors listed above. That self awareness then became an exaptation. That original value[10] of self awareness to a phenotype was more efficient exercise of reciprocity, and more precise application of theory of mind.[11]

Self awareness had a price.[12] With self awareness comes knowledge of your death and imaginings of harms. This is not just the fear/instinct reactions to avoid a predator. It is a personal and existential terror.
The role of symbolic object(s) of god(s) in lessening this problem and other points are well explained in Alper’s book. This alone could probably be a fitness value of such importance to “justify” it alone.

Expanding on the anxiety aspect. Consider the four foundation principles.[13] Anxiety can interfere with the pursuit of them. Spirituality can also, enhance the efficacy of the phenotype in their pursuit.
The reduction of anxiety can be enhanced by the development of teleological concepts, which spirituality is a very fertile ground for.  Spirituality also can turn anxieties, including existential ones, into symbolic meta-sets of related symbolic objects and thoughts. These meta-sets can then themselves become even more abstract, inclusive symbolic objects. These in turn can then be mentally used and manipulated with less time expenditure. Also, the greater level of abstraction reduces anxiety by creating “distance” from the immediacy of the threat.

In its broadest sense, the  fitness value of spirituality for the phenotype is that it may avoid the mental friction or disability or lessen the intensity of combinatorial explosion, that I think may be a danger of self-awareness.[14]
While the value of spirituality (if shared) by groups is apparent, we should not forget that the ability of the phenotype to build tag-mediated contingent altruism with in the group would be to his or her benefit. Assuming that teleological schema and relevant meta-sets are shared within a group, the ability to communicate and use them could increase a phenotype’s fitness even with conspecifics in its group. This would enhance many things, including alliance building, given the importance of trust, and the role of tag-mediated contingent altruism in that.[15]

[1] If a scripture states events occurring in biogeophysical space-time in the past, those events may be subject to study, assuming there is a sufficient historical record and evidence for the events. But to argue from the scripture itself as proof, is an example of argument from authority (also known as appeal to authority) which is a logical fallacy.  That is where it is argued that a statement is correct because the statement is made by a person or source that is authoritative. It is also known as argumentum ad verecundiam (argument to respect), argumentum ad potentiam (argument to power), Besides, "The weight of evidence for an extraordinary claim must be proportioned to its strangeness." Marcello Truzzi.
[3] It is arguable that a linguistic artifact of this can be found in all human languages. It is called the Pathetic Fallacy (referring to pathos). It is the treatment of inanimate objects as if they had human feelings, thought, or sensations. Examples are phrases such as “angry clouds”, vengeful sea, etc.
[4] The rituals of animism and sympathetic magic can I think be viewed as an early “technology”, to influence the environment and its creatures.
[5] Much of the argument made by the so called “New Atheists (Dworkin, Dennet, et al) seem to dwell in this “benefit to group” landscape, with a bit of a tip of the hat to anxiety reduction functions, which I do not mean to diminish. The role of spirituality and its social form religion in behavior is very powerful. As a binding factor within groups that are comprised of little or no kinships it can play an important role. It can also provide closure on non-utilitarian speculation or anxiety within a group during times of stress. Allows “chunking” together of higher order abstractions into communicable, reassuring forms. Obviously, it can be a key element in tag-mediated contingent altruism, with it minutiae, symbols and other tags acting to build trust, or separate populations. Spiritual symbolic objects and religious symbols/rituals can reinforce trusted behavior patterns, define and identify cheaters, and given an “unseen” observer, can even decrease the frequency of social cheating. All of this would reinforce cooperation.  I recommend to the reader the many papers by Robert Axelrod, such as Evolution of Cooperation without Reciprocity (2001). Speech, and shared symbolic metasets would lend to an ever stronger tag-mediated contingent altruism. Unfortunately, with isolation and divergence between groups, pseudospeciation could also be stronger.
[6] In a strictly Neo-Darwinian view, a characteristic will continue if it is survival neutral and gets “carried along” or it is positive to survival. Therefore, the most important examination of this has to be at the individual level, not the group level. Something had to have formed at the phenotypic level, and have been more favorable than not to persist, and to be available for group (social) use.
[7] A biological predisposition in a specie does not always express exactly alike. The more social and complex a species’ behavioral ability, the more diverse the expression.
[8] Obviously, its detail’s and forms would be learned and passed on social, in whatever social group is involved. For a list of cross cultural behaviors, usually termed “Universal Behaviors”, see: The Evolution of Childhood, M. Konner, p. 715, (2010).
[9] Hyper vigilance mechanisms “keep people alert and ready, but also make them overly inclined to attribute a natural event as some kind of intentional act.” The Cognitive Psychology of Belief in the Super-Natural, Jessie M.  Bering. American Scientist v94 #2, p. 149. Also see: Hyper Vigilance and (Inferred Intent) Religion , Justin Bartlett, Institute of Cognition and Culture (Belfast) and Scott Atran, University of Michigan. These papers include interesting discussions of among other things; an innate mind-body dualism in very young children, innate belief in consciousness surviving death, and various theory of mind matters also.
[10] Obviously self awareness can be seen as enabling a wide variety of new behaviors. For example, I would strongly doubt language could develop without self awareness.
[11] A spandrel is a feature passed down as part and parcel  with another trait(s), and is not in and of itself, “naturally selected”. (S.J. Gould & R. Lewontin). An exaptation is a feature or characteristic that has come with time to have a utility, but in the past it had a different utility or no utility at all. (Gould & Vrba). The classic example of an exaptation is feathers. Originally associated with thermal regulation, and only later as an aid to flight.
[12] As Adam & Eve, Prometheus and other characters in creation stories would attest. I have always been found of an ancient Greek story about this. When Prometheus’s gift to humans made them become self aware, they experienced great fear and anxiety. The goddess Ceres took pity upon them, and taught them how to make beer, so they could at least for a while forget their pain.
[13] . Four “foundation” principles:
Maximization of positive reinforcement (a phenotype will seek stimuli that are a reward),
Freedom from predation (a phenotype will seek a state free from predation).
Reproductive opportunity (a phenotype will seek replication or reproduction).
Maximization of advantage of progeny (a phenotype will act in an environment ( or fitness landscape ) to increase the relative fitness of its progeny).
[14] Combinatorial explosion is an idea from cybernetics. It is a problem that can arise in systems engaged in automated theorem proving. A search must be used to try all choices, known as an exhaustive search. The problem in such a search is that “the number of intermediate expressions we must generate grows super-exponentially with the length of the desired proof.” The exhaustive search becomes unfeasible due to time and storage necessary to prove the theorem. http://www.aaai.org/Papers/AIPS/1996/AIPS96-033.pdf & http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combinatorial_explosion
[15] Re tag-mediated contingent altruism, see: Robert Axelrod,  Evolution of Cooperation Without Reciprocity” (2001) and “The Evolution of Ethnocentrism” R. Hammond and R. Axelrod (2005)