Thus spake Douglas Roberts circa 10/31/2008 04:48 PM: > The reality is that as long as people feel the need to use religion hide > from reality, to use ritual and dogma to avoid having to think for > themselves, there will be fundamentalist religions
Excellent! Now we may get closer to the truth. Humans (and their psychological, biological, sociological, etc. constitution) _causes_ fundamentalist religions, not vice versa. (though there will obviously be reinforcing global forces when fundamentalism is the dominant context that feed back onto the causes, but fundamentalism re-emerges so often that I'd claim the feedback is weaker than the first order causes) Now that we have the directionality of that causal relationship straight, we can begin talking about the constitution of humans, i.e. the causes, rather than religion, which is merely the symptom. What is it about humans and their context that gives rise to the need for habit, ritual, dogma, "instinct", and un/subconscious stimulus-reaction processes? And when do things like habit prove beneficial versus detrimental? It's quite clear that when, say, riding a bicycle or hitting a baseball, ritual and habit reign. But when, say, voting or playing Go, it's better to spend a large amount of time thinking. Mixed circumstances, e.g. wielding an automatic rifle in the middle of Iraq, will obviously present a complex problem that has to be solved with part habit and part thought. Are there any generic (abstracted) properties of circumstances where habit is clearly best ... or where in-depth analysis is clearly best? -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://tempusdictum.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
