I'm surprised that the list did not include the Bible?

The bible is not on the list because it has about as much to do with science as does "American Idol".

Alan, I have a doctorate degree in an applied scientific field with close connections to neuroscience. Could you please make it clear why the list of books and videos you have cited is actually a thinly veiled attempt at promoting atheism under the guises of "intersection between science and religion", (except for Alvin Plantinga's work) rather than being a true representation of the scientific research on religion? Many of the books you have cited in fact reflect personal opinion rather than published peer reviewed science. Thank you.

If you want to know where religion and all that stuff comes from, read: Conversation with gods: Book One

"The well-known atheist addresses the well-known paradox of free will vs. determinism in this slim 96-page paperback. Harris cuts through quantum claptrap to argue that free will is an illusion"

Silly argument. Does he really argue that religion has not changed some people's lives?

Personally, I don't see any 'paradox'. The Bible clearly indicates that the vast majority of people do have a free will to do as they wish, but that God also has the ability to control certain actions for 'some' people in order to further His will.

No 'paradox' there.

. Could you please make it clear why the list of books and videos you have cited is actually a thinly veiled attempt at promoting atheism under the guises of "intersection between science and religion

can you explain why the creators of the ridiculous movie "expelled" lied to everyone they were interviewing that they were making a documentary on the intersection of science and religion called "crossroads"? then turned around and made a mockumentary pack of half-truths and distortions worthy of michael moore?

Personally, I don't see any 'paradox'. The Bible clearly indicates that the vast majority of people do have a free will to do as they wish, but that God also has the ability to control certain actions for 'some' people in order to further His will.

That's not the "paradox" that it was referring to. The paradox is not whether some people have free-will and some don't. It was referring to the philosophical implications of free-will in a universe that appears to be deterministic.

An even bigger problem - the poll is HORRIBLY done. They asked people how important "science, innovation and health" were in the election? Let's see...

1) Innovation: That's an economic issue, and bound to be viewed as important during a tough and slow economic recovery, and...

2) Health: After the Affordable Care Act, and with Supreme Court soon to come down with a decision on the mandate, millions without care and prices continuing to rise, the word "health" is bound to get a lot of votes in a poll like this.

The bottom line is I don't see how this poll really tells us anything about how important science is to voters. It's like saying, "Do you consider NASA, the war in Afghanistan and the unemployment rate to be important issues in this election?" and then going on to use the results to decide how Americans feel about the space program.

Since the poll asked about science, innovation and health, it just shows how misleading Allan Boyle is in when he claims this research supports his contention that science is the most important issue for everyone. The research does not separate science, health and innovation. I would rate the importance of health (i.e. availability of health care) as one of the most important issues for me personally, while science less so.

Science is ultimately the driving force behind both innovation and affordable medical care. And education of all kinds, but especially that related to the physical sciences, is one of the driving forces for an intelligent and democratic country.

While people often can't see two feet in front of them and are worried more about short term problems than long term goals, I would have to say that I would consider science and scientific education to be two of the most important and foundational issues facing our country today. And it will only get worse as our society becomes more dependent upon technology that they really do not understand the science behind.

"Science" is used as a very generic term, and I suspect that the majority of people polled, even those who say science is important, would not be able to provide a terribly satisfying definition of what "science" is, if asked. It's just one of those things people know they are supposed to be in favor of, and they generally assume that whatever agrees with their worldview is "science" and whatever contradicts it is something else.

As an example, all of the "creation science" proponents would probably say that science is important and that they are doing or supporting good science, when the opposite is true. Or take the opposite side, polls show people usually have a strong stance on evolution, either supporting or opposing it, even though polls also show that most people do not actually understand what evolution describes or entails.

It's one of the ironic limitations of opinion polls: we tend to form opinions even when we don't have the requisite knowledge to do so in an informed manner.

I'm inclined to believe in E. O. Wilson's idea that human's, because they are social animals, made an evolutionary jump, ( like ants and termites ) to function biologically as a group, and therefore our behaviors are for a group purpose, ( politics, religion, etc. ) I'm sure many kids playing in the back yard have been witness to a battle of red ants vs.black ants.

Science provides a broader explanation of the day to day workings of our world than religion does, so social groups must view resource extraction ( food, for instance ) to the groups benefit as a conflict of interests, and the tools of science are the only tools which give them an upper hand. You can pray for rain, but it's the day to day, or seasonal weather forecast which food producers rely upon more in this day and age. One can pray for a miracle cure, but most rely on medical science for a cure, etc.

So for the group to survive, in a civil fashion, "we" no longer starve our enemy into submission, ideas which were practiced in the last century. No, to accommodate this new morality, we have genetic engineering of crops, etc. The groups of people with the "older concepts" still wish to survive, however their faith doesn't provide the day to day intellectual tools. so hence they value afterlife, which promotes this life as insignificant, to boost their personal spiritual egos.

If morality is in our genetic code to benefit our group's survival, then religion has lost another round, specifically the importance of the afterlife concept which is more significant than this life's efforts. Religion is evolving, just like genetic engineering, and social patterns. Look at the arguments of Intelligent Design. More and more they have to accommodate science ideas, until eventually they will just be arguing science and forego the Designer.

You seem to be under the understanding that morality is solely determined by genetics, when in fact, it has been shown in twin studies, (where identical twins who share 100% of their genes are raised apart) that they are roughly only 30 to 50% concordant for morality/immorality, the rest is determined by the enviroment in which they are raised in. The most important determinant of morality is environment, and religious upbringing at least here in the US is a big part of the enviromental influence.

Heizenberg's Uncertainty Principle. There is no 100%. Planck Length, ( 1.61619 x 10 to the minus 35 Meter.), no measurable Infinity. Close but No Cigar is the limit of Science. So you don't need to have 100% of the world's population behaving in perfect adherence to a moral proposition to have adequate goodness without religion, and you can maybe get a Planck Length close, but not quite perfect unity. Most people would be mostly satisfied with 99 cents on the dollar, than the all, or nothing concept.

If morality is in our genetic code to benefit our group's survival, then religion has lost another round, specifically the importance of the afterlife concept which is more significant than this life's efforts.

The propensity to be moral is genetically determined, but as Derezzed pointed out above it is largely environmentally determined. He mentioned religion as a major determinant, but social norms and personal understanding are also major determinants of morality.

When I was growing up, I actually rejected the Christian religion of my parents because I disagreed with it on several moral points. I decided to devote my life to science and medicine, and the more I learned, the more I modified my moral outlook of the world.

At least for me, my scientific understanding dramatically altered my moral compass in a way that I consider to be certainly beneficial. With regards to your evolutionary perspective on morality benefiting the group, it has been my general observation that the more educated someone is, the more all-inclusive that group tends to be.

Compassion is extended from simply your immediate social group or family, to your nation, to the human race at large, and finally to all forms of life. That is the true mark of an intelligent, civilized society, I think.

There was a news item on TV where a small boy fell into a gorilla enclosure at a zoo. A female gorilla went to where the boy had fallen, picked him up and cradled the child. Being a primate, gorillas are genetically close to humans. Another news item, was a little girl standing opposite the glass from a lion in a zoo, the lion not being of close kinship genetically to primates. Neither of these zoo animals are known to have gone to church. If you haven't seen the video, guess how the lion behaved.

Yes, environment influences our behavior, as in you put on warm clothes when it's cold, but even our earliest human ancestors fashioned stone tools from group interactive learning, and went extinct, ( Homo habalis ). There would be no indication of spiritual activity in human ancestry for thousands of years yet to come. There must have been some type of compassion, yet even then, even without civilization.

There must have been some type of compassion, yet even then, even without civilization.

Of course there was. It is an emotion generated by oxytocin, which is ubiquitous across mammals. Hell, a well known study on the genetics of behavior and compassion generated mice with impaired maternal behavior.

Maternal Behavior is Impaired in Female Mice Lacking Type 3 Adenylyl Cyclase
Zhenshan Wang and Daniel R Storm. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2011 March; 36(4): 772–781.

Many species exhibit compassion, not just the great apes. Additionally, social species that are intelligent like the apes, dolphins, elephants, canines, etc. exhibit compassion that is often extended beyond their immediate social group or even beyond their species itself.

Morality predated religion because it doesn't depend upon religion. It depends upon neurology. But the brain is a plastic organ, it is not merely genetically crafted and controlled. Consequently, religion has the effect of modifying the moral views of an individual. But, I think it would be more correct to say that rationalization in general has that effect. Ie: "killing is wrong because of x, y, z logic..." is a superior moral standpoint to "killing is wrong because God says so".

But as social animals that possess an understanding of morality and a drive towards compassion, our civilizations must reflect our nature. And like all things, compassion is progressive, and changes over time as our knowledge and as our culture does.

There was a news item on TV where a small boy fell into a gorilla enclosure at a zoo. A female gorilla went to where the boy had fallen, picked him up and cradled the child. Being a primate, gorillas are genetically close to humans. Another news item, was a little girl standing opposite the glass from a lion in a zoo, the lion not being of close kinship genetically to primates. Neither of these zoo animals are known to have gone to church. If you haven't seen the video, guess how the lion behaved.

I remember that. If this is what you're referring to, it was the silverback.

The big Silver-back showed only concern for the wee fella, but a younger male gorilla went a bit spastic for a while.

This shows the video.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=8a5baf9236

You realize that:

3:God does not play dice with the universe.

Comes from the fact that Albert Einstein was never comfortable with, or fully accepting of Quantum Physics with all ts messy probabilities. Sorry, Al wasn't always right. Just ask his ghost about the Cosmological Constant he threw in as a fudge to keep the Universe static, when the equations of General Relativity implied that the it must be either expanding or contracting. When Edwin Hubble's observations showed that it was indeed expanding, ht characterized his unwillingness top accept what the equations were telling him as 'his greatest blunder.'

Also, after hearing #3 and #4 from Einstein, Niels Bohr is said to have responded; "Stop telling God what to do!"

And, with respect to the 'hidden variables' aspect of quantum physics, Stephen Hawking has remarked:

"God not only plays dice, He also sometimes throws the dice where they cannot be seen."

Nice Frank ....

Your post should take you back to the first quote I posted ....

A vote for you ....

Einstein also made very clear that he did not believe in a personal God, so his anthropomorphic quotes about God are somewhat metaphorical.

"It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie
which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I
have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me
which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the
structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it." (Albert Einstein, 1954, The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and
Banesh Hoffman, Princeton University Press)

Here is Eisntein's view on God - from Wikipedia ""About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church... As long as I can remember. I have resented mass indoctrination. I cannot prove to you there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws" (1954).^[55] William Miller of Life Magazine who was present at this meeting described Einstein as looking like a "living saint" and speaking with "angelic indifference."^[56]

Einstein's "god" was just a poetic tool he used to express himself, not an actual belief in a deity.

This whole thread is the most intelligent thing I've seen in a while. I like it. :-)

Also, it's interesting to note that in the first quote, Einstein said "gods," not "God."

Interesting thing about the "Cosmological Constant" is that recent measurements showing that the expansion of the universe is accelerating are consistent with the mathematics of the Cosmological Constant, although no one really knows why. The most common explanation, that of "dark energy," is likewise not yet understood.

Einstein believed in the capacity of religion to inform our values and morality and of science to inform our knowledge and understanding.

Personally, I agree mostly with that, but only with the caveat that religion should be understood anthropologically as a community's attempt to arrive at an optimum system of values as opposed to an authoritarian deity imposing those values upon us. More free market, less invisible hand.

I should have added that IMO, the only natural "religion" mankind has had was/ is Paganism and Druidism. Some Pagans think of Paganism as being a religion and some don't but spirituality is definitely involved. The Catholic Church took a lot of their customs, rituals and holidays from Paganism. It's all about rebirth as in Spring. Letting go of the old and in with the new.

So does meditation, which usually involves the science and energy of nature, which would be recycled as science again--a never ending cycle.

More energy is generated where? Within the brain? That could be simply due to increased passion. Not likely to affect anything outside the body.

I like to view consciousness (or a soul)

This is a major problem that I have when discussing the "soul" in relation to science. Not a single person that I've talked to, to date, can give me a definition of the word "soul" that is meaningful in a scientific manner. Often, they will fall back and equate it with consciousness. But, this Cartesian view of the soul/consciousness has been thoroughly debunked for a long time now.

Consciousness, in the most meaningfully scientific sense, is the perception of qualia or stimuli. A loss of consciousness is a loss of the perception of qualia or stimuli, as occurs with anesthesia and global depression of the cerebral cortex. Consciousness is 100% produced by the processing activity of the brain. This is basic neurology. There are few scientific fields that are more convincing in their correlation between cause and effect. A specifically placed lesion can cause a specific and predictable alteration of consciousness.

And since the brain dies with the body, if you are going to propose the existence of a "soul" which presumably survives death, then it must a) NOT be consciousness and b) Not be dependent upon the function of the brain.

So, what is it then? Propose a reasonable definition for the word soul, and an interesting theological/philosophical conversation could be had about it.

The soul is an inherently non-scientific concept, so I see little point in debating it at that level.

jock, as you know I usually agree with 100% of what you say as my background is likewise in biology, and I admire the way you so consistently attempt to educate creationists and people like them, lol. You have far more patience than I do. But on this, I'm going to have to disagree with you, respectfully.

The soul as religious people have traditionally defined it is an unscientific concept. But consciousness as it was traditionally defined was once an unscientific concept as well. So much, that it was placed in a philosophical realm beyond what science could address. We now know that is not the case.

Nonetheless, what eventually made consciousness a scientific topic was that we asked questions about it in a scientific manner and attempted to understand it in a scientific manner. We then defined it in a scientific manner.

My field now is veterinary neurology. I spend my time treating diseases of the brain in animals. And I do not believe that something called a 'soul' exists. And furthermore, I consider the 'self', which is largely associated with the soul in modern religious thought, to be a complete illusion constructed by the brain.

Nonetheless, I am willing to entertain the thought that I am wrong. I am admittedly biased, as I have been taught to view neurology in a completely materialistic fashion because that is the only way we can view it.

So in light of that, I will still ask people to clarify their position of what they consider a 'soul' to be. Because if such a thing does actually exist, then like consciousness, it can be addressed by scientific inquiry - but only if we can define it first.

Or to put it another way, I am open minded and eternally inquisitive. But to this date, not a single person has been able to provide a definition that is suitable. So yes, I agree that in light of that, it is not worth discussing. But only in that light, and not because it is a topic that is inherently not worth discussing.

for some reason, people equate the word soul with some immortal substance. If you read the source of most of these ideas, the bible, soul is simply 'life'. Animal, human, soul is soul. Now spirit is a different thing. Look it up. spirit is breath/air/wind. It comes and goes, can be taken or given, is invisible. I have learned over the years that ignorance is the big problem in these discussions. The definitions are in the Bible.

Yes, you are absolutely correct about their etymology. And it is clear where the origin of these words came from. The word "spirit" literally means "breath", and it is clear that when primitive man attempted to understand a living body and a newly dead body, what was different between the two is that one had breath and one did not.

And soul likely derives from the old English sáwol which means the life present in all living things - roughly equivalent to the concept of vitalism.

Both concepts have been roundly disproven by science as having zero basis in reality. At some point the word soul was made to be equivalent with the word spirit, and the soul itself was made to be equivalent with consciousness, thanks to Cartesian philosophy on the matter.

Now, most people view the soul as an immortal substance that is "them", the "me-ness" of themselves that is equivalent with consciousness and transcends the physical death of the brain.

This too, has been shown to have no basis in reality.

Having a mysterious immortal "soul" may not be necessary for an afterlife. God could presumably access your brain (perhaps via a fourth dimension?), make a copy and "run" the copy on different and more advanced "hardware." Someday we might learn to do that ourselves, although keeping a copy "running" for eternity would likely prove difficult if not impossible!

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; although eventually it does make you wonder.

Because you believe, Jimmie, there's nothing left to discover? LOL! We're discovering new things every day! When a man actually states as fact - "there is nothing left to discover" - he shows he's delusional and ignorant.

No evidence of aliens, yes. But much like how the ancient philosophers predicted the existence of atoms based on nothing but logic alone, so too can we predict the existence of extraterrestrial life based on logic, and on our current understanding of biology, evolution, and astronomy.

God is a different story, as no amount of logic can predict one type of God over another, and logical affirmations of God's existence based on the structure of creation fall flat time and time again.

Eric, agree about aliens, but as far as logical affirmations of god's existence based upon the structure of creation, I believe you are mistaken.

If you look at the complexity of of any structure, especially a mobile life form, the relativity of all interactive, interdependent components upon one other to create a healthy balance of the whole, you would be hard pressed to offer logic it was not all by design.

you would be hard pressed to offer logic it was not all by design.

not really, various organisms will take up niches that offer opportunity. eventually, said organism will evolve to specialize and take full advantage of said niche.

Easy: natural selection.

"you would be hard pressed to offer logic it was not all by design."

Something that is designed does not have to be planned by an intelligence. Natural selection is perfectly capable of designing organisms for their environment without any intelligent planning. In fact, there is no way to stop it from doing so.

If you look at the complexity of of any structure, especially a mobile life form, the relativity of all interactive, interdependent components upon one other to create a healthy balance of the whole, you would be hard pressed to offer logic it was not all by design.

You are welcome to disagree (and thank you for the respectful manner in which you did, it is all too often missing from discussions like this). And, as Jock pointed out, you are not necessarily wrong. Evolution does design things. But it is not an intelligent force.

Of course, I do not share your view that the complexity of life required an intelligent designer. This is because my background is in biology. But more than that, it seems to conflict with the concept of an omniscient, omnipotent being - ie: God created the universe, but did not have the foresight to allow life to arise and evolve on it's own, naturally, thus requiring subsequent intervention? Thus, I consider Intelligent Design to be both theologically and scientifically absurd.

But there's more than that too. There was a time in my life when I worked as a geneticist. At that time, I was convinced that genomic data offered the most compelling evidence of evolution. It still offers extraordinarily compelling evidence, but my opinion on the matter has changed somewhat. After that, I went to veterinary medical school, and as I was studying the anatomy and physiology of various animal species I was struck by the fact that every single one of them suffered from examples of horrible design. Design which one would be hard pressed to argue was ideal, since examples of superior design for the same structure could be found in another species altogether. Evolution predicts this inconsistency in design, ID explicitly does not, since it defies intelligence in the designing process.

Thus, although I still think that modern genetics offers incontrovertible evidence in favor of evolutionary theory, comparative anatomy and physiology is equally convincing. A true student of nature knows that one cannot study the various beautiful species of this Earth without being struck by the fact that evolution was the force that crafted them.

You should be ashamed of yourself for your ignorance. When you did all the evil you did as a child, were we to accuse and denounce your parents, even though they told you to do what was right? Not only did they tell you what was right, if they were normal parents, but they told you the outcome of doing wrong. They did not follow you around the world every minute and force to to do the right thing against your will. they told you to do right and let you go. You and all around you suffered the consequences of your wrong doing. Are they to blame? Now consider the author of LIFE. Surely it is a sad thing when WE, as humans, destroy life. Can we blame someone for allowing us to destroy life? Someone who has given us the free will and the creative power that He has? We can destroy life, but He can restore life to the innocent and the guilty alike. You may feed your ego by cursing Him, but he is the author of YOUR life also. take care

hardn,

Since I hate when religionists compare humans to children I'm going to have to point out some problems with you comparison. First, when a child kills himself with a parent's gun, we often do go after the parents because they should have known better than to leave a gun lying around.

Second, parents, unlike the god you are talking about, are not omniscient or all-powerful. They cannot stop their children from harming others before it happens. Your god can. But he chooses not to? Strange.

I tell people who ask "Well, what do you think life after death is like then?"

I say, "Probably exactly like what it was like before being born and becoming conscious...it's certainly nothing to be afraid of."

If they keep on and persist with another question like, "But where do we go when we die?"

I say, "The same place the light does when you turn the switch to off."

It's all good.

Ahhh but WHO created Satan?? God

Not only that, but Satan was once a good angel. (sarcasm)

lucille, you are doing a wonderful job of painting god as an arbitrary , bloodthirsty lunatic

How could Lucifer decieve an all knowing god ?.....just asking

We are Gods own little neglected puppy mill.....He would get arrested if he were a pet owner for how he neglects us

Of course you first have to buy the book don't you? So what is the real myth? Ah making the writer rich by using mirrors.

Read Below.....

I can't imagine having an intelligent conversation about these topics without being at least somewhat familiar with Campbell's writings.

I can't imagine having an intelligent conversation about these things without any knowledge of the word of God. People speak all the time about this subject without knowing a word of the original source. With modern computers as texts and concordances, this information is available, even in original languages, to the most unlearned, uneducated. Sadly, God says those are the ones He's chosen to disseminate this information.

hardn, most of us are familiar with the Bible, and many with other religious teachings as well. That is what the writings of Joseph Campbell are all about -- studying religious stories to understand universal themes.

dwighthuth, there is such a thing as a library. And Joseph Campbell passed away many years ago. While something may still go to his estate, he's not trying to get rich.

jock... agreed that many of us who do not accept the Bible as literal truth are familiar with it. I was part of the church until my latter 20's, reading the Bible over and over, avidly living as I was taught I should, until certain realizations hit me.

dwighthuth,............very rational except the notion of faster than light.

Well, about all I can say is that (at least so far) it's Einstein's geometric interpretation of spacetime that actually matches the experimental data.

Yes, religious holidays are religious. Non-religious holidays tend not to be so much.

Easter didn't begin with the early Catholic Church. As I pointed out earlier, The Church took a lot of their rituals from Pagans (which are not "heathens").

Origins of the name "Easter":

The name "Easter" originated with the names of an ancient Goddess and God. The Venerable Bede, (672-735 CE.) a Christian scholar, first asserted in his book De Ratione Temporum that Easter was named after Eostre (a.k.a. Eastre). She was the Great Mother Goddess of the Saxon people in Northern Europe. Similarly, the "Teutonic dawn goddess of fertility [was] known variously as Ostare, Ostara, Ostern, Eostra, Eostre, Eostur, Eastra, Eastur, Austron and Ausos." ₁ Her name was derived from the ancient word for spring: "eastre." Similar Goddesses were known by other names in ancient cultures around the Mediterranean, and were celebrated in the springtime. Some were:

http://www.religioustolerance.org/easter1.htm

For what it's worth, I don't mind celebrating Easter because I see it as a Spring celebration and I'm not bothered at all that Christians celebrate Easter because of the resurrection of Jesus. (Not that anyone would need my permission anyway.)

At some point, you have to live and let live.

Darrah - And not to mention the correlation of the rebirth of the plants or animals coming out of hibernation and resurrection of Jesus from death. Spring has always been considered a rebirth of life.

The early Church wanted to squash all opposition such as Paganism and have it seen as demonic and sinful yet they moved in fast on the rituals they found so disturbing.

The Pope of the early Church decided when Easter would be. You have to wonder which came first, Jesus or Christianity. The Church was looking for a fall guy and there just happened to be a lot of men who were considered prophets by the people follwing them. There were so many to choose from. That particular man name Jesus just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was so political at the time that's there's no wonder how things played out. But did this man actually rise from the dead? IMO, no.

He was just a sacrifical lamb.

I'm confused how you are confused? Atheism has nothing to do with whether or not free will exists, but beyond that, it generally adopts a materialistic view of nature, of which determinism would seem to contradict free will. But beyond that, Sam Harris is a neurologist. Neurologists are taught to understand the brain in a materialistic and deterministic fashion. How would you expect him to believe in free will, in light of that?

What mechanically driven cause and effect gives rise to joy

Serotonin, and dopamine largely.

Why did that soldier die to save a young Afghan girl

Compassion is the driving force behind altruism, and it is largely modulated by oxytocin.

What mechanical cause and effect process gave rise to us caring about what anonymous people communicate on this site.

Social conditioning.

Theoretical Astronomical Physicists have determined that the entire Universe is a holographic projection.

They haven't determined anything. It is even less accepted than string theory.

These things you have mentioned, as an argument for some metaphysical component to consciousness, can all quite clearly be demonstrated to be due to the function of the brain. There is no ambiguity there.

However, I will concede that the simple fact that such subjective sensations of joy, compassion, love, etc. exist in the first place is remarkable and perhaps could be formulated into a theological argument that I would not necessarily object to.

We are compassionate because we are empathic; we are empathic because we are social; we are social because it was and is evolutionarily advantageous.

Or something like that.

I honestly think that compassion and altruism do not spring because of pro-social behavioral advantages, but rather are inherent to sapience. We aren't necessarily wired to feel compassion because of something evolved in our genes, but because at a certain level of intelligence it is acquired. It comes with the way we think, not because we're wired to excrete certain chemicals through some subconscious script.

Which would be a good hypothesis, except for the fact that we've already firmly established the secretion of those chemicals with the act of feeling compassion. Oxytocin primarily, but also serotonin are responsible for it. Deficiencies in either cause an individual to lack compassion to a degree, and an over-release of both (as occurs with use of methylenedioxymethamphetamine - Ecstasy) causes an individual to become hyper-compassionate.

So, just as we can be certain that acetylcholine is the substance which triggers the depolarization cascade at the neuromuscular junction, so too can we be sure that these chemicals trigger that emotional response in the brain - because manipulation of them has the effect that would be predicted.

But, I will agree with you that sapience modifies compassion (and all other emotions, I think). As I explained elsewhere, it has been my general observation that the more intelligent someone is, the more expanded their compassion is. From their immediate familial group, to the nation at large, to all of humanity, and finally to all of animal life - compassion moves from being an emotion reserved for those of genetic relation to all, regardless.

That is a phenomenon that involves sapience I think.

But, for a moment, entertain this thought - what if we were not a social primate species that raised its' young for an extended period of time. What if we were not wired to feel this way? What if we were a species in which we reproduced, and then left our young to fend for themselves, or in which the males practiced infanticide? What if we did not seek out the social interaction of other human beings, but were fine and content with living in solitude by ourselves. How different would our outlook be, despite our sapience?

I would argue that it would be completely different, and the reason is because these emotions that we are discussing are associated with the primitive brain. While intelligence can shape them, it does not control them. And if we belonged to such a species, it would be almost completely alien perspective to the one we have now.

Eric - And to add, the base cells for secreting these neurotransmitters are typically found in the ancient parts of the brain. The mid-brain, the pons, the substantia nigra and the hippocampus, to name a few. And without the forebrain mitigating these primal actions through understanding and knowledge, the truth of the matter would be that a complex religion like Christianity would have never been developed.

Yes, absolutely. I believe I mentioned their localization to the primitive brain elsewhere in this discussion. Have we had a discussion on neurology before TReed? I feel like we have, but if not, I enjoy talking with knowledgeable people on the subject.

Eric - Yes, I believe we have. It is just good to be able talk with someone who knows a topic, instead of personal opinions.

You misunderstand "survival of the fittest". Survival of the fittest does not mean "survival of the most strong and ruthless". "Fitness", roughly, means an organisms capacity and effectiveness to reproduce. It has nothing to do with strength and weakness.

This is such a fundamental concept of evolutionary theory, that I suggest you actually read or take a class on it before discussing it further. I'd be willing to explain more to you of course, but it is really something that must be learned and digested on ones own.

What mechanical evolutionary process cared about joyful, sociable and sacrificial.

Again, this is another fundamental concept in evolution - mathematical increase. Animals that possessed joy, sacrifice, etc have a higher fitness (under certain ecological conditions) than those that do not. I could explain the neurological underpinnings of pleasure/pain, joy/suffering to you and how it is rooted in the primitive brain and fundamental to the survival of most higher species - if you want.

Once mammals came along mechanics just don't make sense even with full knowledge of the DNA and the proteins created by the program. Mere mention of the DNA program posits a programmer.

a) The "programmer" is selection. b) Mammals aren't the only group of vertebrates that exhibits compassion, so your statement makes zero sense from a biological point of view. c) Your position that evolution cannot account for animals more complex than ants or lizards is erroneous.

I do feel like I should expand upon the last point though, because if you are interested in this area of research then I can get you started in some things to read about.

The behavioral characteristics that you are impressed by and that mammals possess are due entirely to the evolution of the cerebral cortex. But first, a backtrack. Almost all vertebrates, from the simplest of fish to a human, have the same five divisions of the brain - the forebrain, the mesencephalon, metencephalon, medulla oblongata and cerebellum. The forebrain is composed of the diencephalon and the telencephalon in mammals and birds, but the same basic precursor structure exists in all vertebrates.

Mammals and birds have independently evolved a cerebral cortex - the telencephalon, and they have independently evolved similar corticothalamic connections with the diencephalon and connections to the rest of the primitive brain - with the exception that birds largely still process vision in the optic tectum, while mammals do it in the visual cortex. This is largely irrelevant though.

The point is that the same cortical structures for higher emotion, cognitive thought, and complex behavior have evolved independently in two widely separated branches of life. This suggests that not only does evolution produce such structures and such behavior, but it did it twice. And in a manner that is correctly referred to as convergent evolution. This is remarkable. But more than that, it demonstrates that there really is nothing all that special about the subjective conscious states that you are purporting cannot be produced by nature - because they can be, and were, more than once.

Absolutely. The ego yearns to survive. All animals fear death, most of them just don't know it, and most of them can't rationalize it or agonize over it like we do. But there is nothing to fear. It is a natural part of life.