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November 16, 2010

Barrett, CSR

• "Cognitive science of religion (CSR) brings theories from the cognitive sciencesto bear on why religious thought and action is so common in humans and whyreligious phenomena take on the features that they do."

• -piecemeal, interdisciplinary, 15 years of research, method. pluralist.

• -2: cognitive structures such as "domain-specific inferences systems / Mental tools

• -Theological Correctness -- on-line vs. off-line tasks show switching bet correctness/incorrectness

• -Minimal Counterintuitiveness -- in online env only minimally counterintuitive concepts will take off.

• -Sperber: "epidemiology of representations"

• -God -- df. - a counterintuitive agent that motivates actions, provided it is believed in.

• -old work: Guthrie, Faces in the Clouds, anthropomorphism. Newer work on HADD

• -HADD -- hypersensitive agency detection device -- (evolution may have favored overdetection). religious concepts help make sense of HADD experiences.

• -"natural born dualists" (also Bloom's work should be included here, Descartes Baby)

• -Actions: ritual, prayer, spirit possession.

• -Whitehouse's theory of "imagistic" and "doctrinal modes"

• -Boyer - costly signal theory.

Atran, in Gods we Trust reading

Atran basically describes how difficult and complicated understanding the evolution behind specific traits is, and why evolution creates things that are useful but also many traits that are not. He begins by explaining that traits like a panda's thumb, although it looks similar to a primate's thumb, come from an entirely different source and so are very different structurally and are for different uses. Between this and the trade-offs that species often make, such as smaller fingers for more tool use but less tree swinging in monkeys, it is hard to see what structure an adaptation comes from. Atran points out that if the evolutionary pressure on the animal no longer exists it would be very hard to see that it had caused the adaptation-- because the adaptation worked the pressure is no longer evident. The final complication is that some adaptations create 'by products' that have no use but came from other adaptations, which may later seem to have a certain use or even gain one. The chin was one of these, adapted by necessity because of our changing jaws, but later became a feature in sexual selection. He explains that our explanations for features on ourselves therefore can be very wrong and hard to prove, and that this problem increases exponentially as we get to more complicated features like the brain.

Human brains are incredibly difficult to explain, for many of the reasons he describes earlier and also because it is hard to prove which other species have mental constructs like grammar or a sense of perspectives of others. Some monkeys appear to have these structures but the way we test them may be reading into behaviors that are entirely different. Atran outlines some hypothesis for societal structures like monogamy and explains that some of our emotional and social structures may be responses to evolutionary pressures that no longer exist-- he explains that a fear of snakes is no longer useful but is much more pronounced than our more useful fear of an atom bomb. Atran says that evolutionary psychology is difficult because it is so hard to see what a feature of our brains was useful for initially and what features of our brains were incidental, especially since higher thinking has yet to be mapped in a brain. He says he will try to explain the cognitive structures that support religion and how these would have been useful but this section seems to me to be more of a warning about easy answers than proof he is correct. Skolmes 18:31, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Boyer, Pascal What is the Origin?

• Chapter 1: What is the Origin?

• Why do people have religious thought?

• ref to mysteries/ problems (Chomsky?) -- explaining religion has gone from a mystery to a problem.

• -explanation of religion lies in the way the brain works.

• How can we explain the diversity of religion in terms of a brain which is the same everywhere?

• Natural selection vies us "particular mental predisposition" p. 3 nomral brains don't have to have religion (but they can realize it because of the kind of brain we have)

• Review of various theses explaining the origin of religion.

• -Claims that religion provides explanations, comform social order, or is a cognitive illusion.

• -6ff: diversity of religious belief, diffculties of classification (ex. animism?) Congo might be christian, but they may still worship ancestors.

• -diversity of supernatural agents: abstract vs. down to earth, salvation not always the goal, official religion vs. unofficial, "relgion" not a word everywhere, not always about faith

• -example of Fang (African) -- how the thought of spirits; exemption for the white guy (good example of theological correctness).

• -explanation origins assume 1) explanation is universal goal; 2) religious explanations not like ordinary ones.

• -interest in particular evils, not always generl prob ove evil. '

• -p. 14: Shaman story (with the stauettes) -- different kind of explanation.

• -Sperber -- religion creates "relevant mysteries." We need to ask, "What makes a mystery relevant?"

• -minds are not general explanation machines, but particular ones. (16) "inference systems" rleigions do make use of inference systems. in normal explaatnion we reserve bio explanations for biological events, etc. not so in religion.

• -religious thought involves distinct predictiabl inferencnormal (Categories are violated.)

• -positive thesis: religious concepts are influence by a distinct inference system.

• -problem with "religion as comfort" explanation -- rituals might create the need they satisfy (p. 20). also, rleigions with reassuring explanations tend to come from wealthy environments.

• -assurance about mortality just isn't always an issue.

• -positive thesis: emotions -- our evolutionary heritage might explain how "emotional programs" affect religious concepts.

• -religion as social glue -- crit. p. 24 - religion not always in charge of the social order.

• -functionalism --- out in anthropology since 60s --- problem: some institutions have no clear function, explanations seemed increasingly ad hoc, social not a "whole", necessarily.

• -yet, wants to bring back some notion of functionalism -- claims that the discovery of the "social mind" helps explain how we choose representations that promote social cohesion (27).

• Religion as an illusion -- sleep of reason -- criticism: need to explain specific contours of religious concepts. What do people accept these concepts over others?

• 32: Turning question around: religoius concepts we observe are relatively successfull. We should see religion as a "reduction of concepts"

• 33: "Does this mean that at some point in history people had lots of possible versions of religion and that somehow one of them proved more successfiil? Not at all. What it means is that, at all times and all the time, indefinitely many variants of religious notions were and are created inside individual minds. Not all these variants are equally successful in cultural transmission. What we call a cultural phenomenon is the result of a selection that is taking place all the time and everywhere."

• memes -- problems with memes

• example of the fate of two memes: "meme" and "selfish gene"

• our minds select and work on membes not just transmission.

• -concepts and templates.

More readings if anyone is interested form Evolutionary Religious Studies

beginner readings Other books and articles