Originally posted by Planko:
Originally posted by Count Iblis II:
I think that the problem has more to do with the human brain. We are susceptible to religion/superstition, because our brains are programmed in this way. This may have helped us in the past to survive, but today this is hampering progress.
Perhaps there is also an Anthropic reason why we are not more science minded. Civilizations consisting of intelligent beings that are very rational will evolve much faster than backward civilizations such as ours. These civilizations will develop machine intelligence much sooner than we will. These machines will become so different from the biological creatures that you could justify saying that you couldn't have been a machine.
Because the ''biological'' history of backward civilizations lasts much longer than that of rational civilizations, our type of civilization will have produced more biological individuals before the machines take over. It is thus much more likely to find yourself living in a backward civilization.
**** man! You have a plethora of hypotheses with no indication of why we should accept any of them!
I'll start for now by asking you: What makes you think that our brains supposedly being "programmed" in a way to makes us susceptible to belief in religion/superstition helped us to survive or was essential to survival? Because I don't see the link: from ambulatory amphibian eating flies, to monkey, to religion/superstition being a necessary part of survival...? I would like to see the link though...how religion was necessary for something as basic as survival...so please expound.
Going on, what makes you so sure that this particular brain "programming" that we evolved out of survival necessity is no longer necessary for survival? Are you instead insinuating that it is religion/superstition that we no longer need for survival, so that it should be replaced by some alternative intellectual construct satisfying the brain "program" which manifests itself through belief in religion/superstition? Aren't you then in effect saying that the very brain "program" which manifests religion/superstition should be altered and thus is itself at fault and no longer necessary for survival in its current form?
And lastly, for now, what makes you believe that you have this insight over nature and when was the line finally fully crossed when humans could understand the faults and deficiencies in the fundamental system which produces them enough to call for its alteration?
Are we completely part of the system or partly above the system?
