Monday 17 April 2006

Pic of the day: Think of the kittens! Dogs and cats have been bred to become more childlike and trustful. Is the same true with humans?

Secular belief

Perhaps you think that "believe is something you do in church". But the truth is that all of human culture is based on belief... without our ability to believe, we would not be human as we understand it today.

All of history and almost all of geography is based on what other people tell us. We have lived only a short time and seen only a small part of the world. And as far as our personal observation goes, the stars could as well to be candles in the air. Most of us accept that our tax money is being spent on schools, hospitals, roads, police and military... even though for all we know, perhaps the taxmen are drinking it all up in the nearest bar. Without our ability to readily believe, we could not function in society. If we take disbelief to its logical conclusion, we could not even learn to speak, as we learn the meaning of words from others.

***

The most popular theory today about the rise of human culture is that someone invented spoken language in the late Ice Age, perhaps 60 000 or even 40 000 years ago, and it spread like wildfire all across the world and created the humanity we know today. It certainly was a dramatic revolution: Until then, it seems that most humans lived like smart apes. Then suddenly we got things like painting, carving, elaborate tools and weapons, ritual burial and the expansion into new continents and climates. It is as if the human spirit suddenly descended on Earth. Of course, the existence of a human spirit in any literal sense is also a matter of belief. Perhaps what happened is that humans invented belief.

I have mentioned from time to time the theory that the human species we have today is caused by domestication. In the same way that we have domesticated first the dog and later other animals, the women domesticated the men by selectively breeding the most trustful. Think about it: Newborn mammals are instinctively trustful, because they all rely on their mother to keep them alive. This trait gradually fades with age, but not equally in each individual. Therefore it is possible to breed more and more baby-like individuals. The dog, which has been domesticated the longest, is much more trustful and puppy-like than the wild wolf. Likewise the human species itself is strikingly similar to baby apes. For some reason it seems that women of our species has always preferred the boyish man. Perhaps it was a simple genetic error that caused one instinct (love baby) to partly overwrite another (love partner). So instead of choosing the most hairy and aggressive partner with the largest eyebrow ridges, women started to prefer guys with less hair and bigger head... and childlike trust.

Whatever happens back there, when human culture suddenly exploded onto the scene, it was made possible by a humanity which was already childlike in its trust, with the ability to readily believe.

***

Of course, we don't believe everything. Generally we believe the things that we hear from those we trust the most, and the things that fit in with those things we already believe. The balance between "trust" and "things that fit" differs from one individual to another. To some extent I believe (!) that intelligence is involved: With more intelligence, it is easier to quickly compare new statements with what we already know and see whether it fits in or not. If we have less intelligence, we may have to rely on trust more. Also, learning from others saves time. Most of us don't have unlimited time on our hands, so the shortcut makes sense.

Actually, a lot of what we learn is not really true. It is at best a working approximation. For instance, my personal favorite, the existence of nations. People question whether gods really exist outside our heads, but they don't doubt that nations exist. And yet a few moments of thinking should show you that nations are simply something we have agreed on, like the rules of a game. They did not exist before we made them, and will cease to exist the moment many enough stop believing in them. But while they exist, they are eerily similar to gods in the way they wield power over virtually any aspect of human life.

A particular case is "lie-to-children", simplifying things so that they can be at least partially understood. For instance atoms don't really consist of planet-like electrons circling the nucleus. A better approximation, which is given to young adults, is that they exist as swarms of probabilities at certain distances from the nucleus. Not even this is really correct, but the correct description can not be given visual form, because this object is far outside visual range. It can only be described by mathematics, if at all, and that is not something ordinary people can remember easily (or at all).

The whole field of "popular science" as illustrated by the plethora of magazines is largely based on "lie-to-children", simplifying obscure theories and murky statistics to tease out possible connections and explanations. Sometimes the theories are later found to be wrong, but the uncertainty is often downplayed in the most "popular" magazines. The more serious the publication, the more cautious and ambivalent the description, as a rule. This is why many people prefer the most "popular" ones, or even to read about science somewhere else, such as in Playboy or the tabloids. This has the benefit that they only get the most entertaining or shocking parts, which is what they wanted anyway.

We really do only understand in part, and we really see much of reality only as in a flawed mirror or through bad glass, or shadows in a cave. But we learn as long as we live (or until Alzheimer's gets us), and if we are lucky, we even manage to unlearn a bit. And I intend to keep combating mindless, unreflected and unfounded beliefs for a long time to come... God willing! ^_^