A map of the mind....

Three guesses as to what's crucially different about learning the language / cultural practices of one's community and combating pathogens...

I'd better flesh that out. The body generates a huge variety of antibodies b/c the target (pathogens) is protean & constantly evolving, even once inside your body (recent gnxp post). So the immune system has to cover all bases.

The target for various cognitive domains is not protean, often rather monotonously predictable. In none of the world's languages does "black dog" mean things that are black but not dogs, dogs but not black, either black or dog, either black or dog but not both, or any of the other infinite conceivable interpretations. It always means the intersection of the two sets denoted by the noun & adjective (for garden variety adjectives; exceptions like "big" and "former" are also monotonously predictable). X is-a Y always means the set denoted by X is a subset of that denoted by Y. And so on. That's why compositional semantics never makes use of cross-linguistic data.

In syntax, the "rules" will always care about phrase structure and not only the linear string of words. No language will allow questions like "What did you drink juice and?" on the intended meaning "What is the thing X such that you drank juice and X?"

The area that's most diverse, and where they actually do study other languages -- phonology -- is still rather predictable. Only vowels & perhaps a small set of liquids & nasals are allowed as syllabic nuclei (the "kernel" of a syllable), if a language allows "st" at the beginning of words, it'll allow just "t" but not necessarily vice versa, and so on.

But even newborns, who haven't undergone neural death, can differentiate stress-timed languages like Dutch & English from mora-timed ones like Japanese, based only on the rhythm. Plus a gazillion other things they know/do at birth in language & vision. Even the landmarks that occur later aren't evidence of somatic selection; for all we know, it's on a maturational timetable.

Other cultural practices (music, morality, etc.) can be more wacky, but it's not an anything goes world -- unlike w/ pathogens. You'd think these guys never heard of the Baldwin Effect.

"I also believe our mind comes with predisposed cognitive biases"

I've also believed this. Isn't it impossible that there could not be cognitive biases. We're animals, just animals. And like other animals, we have deterministic cognitive hardware. We're wired for stuff. There's basic stuff, then there's epiphenominal stuff & tendencies that arise.

"..but the ability to learn language with obligate ease is a function of our biology"

The way i see it, how could it not be? This whole issue has a sort of philosphical flavour to it. We're not blank slates, imo. There is cognitive hardware. Some things are set & completely deterministic, while other things seem quasi-deterministic, imo, if any of that makes any sense. We're(humans) *wired* to learn language, i believe.

"This is an issue that i think fellow athiests need to understand, that religion is not just about conscious mind, or creeds or models of the universe, but it is lurking in the cognitive hardware of most humans in a very fundamental fashion"

Very interesting quote, & i have never seen the matter differently from you. But with all the discussion of this sort on GNXP in the last few years, i'd have imagined that this is basic stuff, understood & maybe taken for granted by now.

Theistic thought or tendencies are biological, inherent, innate, in our cognitive hardware, built in, etc., etc, i believe. The flavour of the religion is *epiphenominal & trifle*, just something on top of something already there - those foundations set in our cognitive hardware. I'm with you, i think, entirely. I've never seen it to be otherwise. It just seemed obvious to me upon reflection. It always made sense.

You'll never convince people(athiests or otherwise) to accept the biological *truth* of the matter if they are blank slaters who'd be dumbfounded for an answer if you asked them why lion/tiger cubs can't learn human language.

I love this intersection of cognitive philosophy, if that's what it is, although this is more cognitive & obvious than philosphical, i believe.:)

Hope i made sense & didn't contradict myself. Maybe i'm assuming i know more about this stuff than i really do:(.

Yes but...

We have ~10^11 neurons in our brains with maybe 1000+ synapse connections average per neuron? And only ~10^9 codons in our DNA. And the DNA has to code for the whole body and only ~10% of it is exons.

I would say DNA sets the basic structure but the environment adapts it and fine tunes it. In the end, informationally, an adult human is mostly environment. Must be. But the genes are the dominant part - must be true too because they are the management, the executive. The game is being run for their benefit.

Perhaps approaching this issue from the perspective of common logical levels of consciousness my be interesting. I think we can take it as axiomatic that we all have our own quirks of internal experience that are different from and incommunicable to other? yet also as axiomatic that we all have the mechanisms in place to learn to talk to each other? So that which we have in common, as humans, must be built-in, hard-wired, genetically determined. I see one such axiomatic mechanism as being a boot-strap engine through which we populate our mental toolkit with useful paradigms taken from our contemporaries, a mechanism which later on yields somewhat to a growing ability to self-populate these things. In other words, we start out accepting other peoples stated paradigms as unquestioned foundations. Now it can be that some starrting points include memes that forbid the later flowering of constructing ones' own tools, or deconstructing the starting point set. Then one gets locked into an uncritically accepted and dictated way of life.

Back to the academic point: there are mechanisms we share and are born with, and these must be composable functional units, and the process of composition must under cortical control, which means with some luck we may even find conscious access to them. One way of thinking about these things is as storylines. A basic set might be: hungry:eat:not-hungry and not-hungry:wait:hungry. Parameterizable little stories, with a set of actors, a starting context, a set of possible actions, and a desired finishing context. Other storylines will likely be activated to handle the results of actions. I happen to have a serious side interest in figuring out how to model this kind of story in a computer. But little if any knowledge of am I on a blind alley? What do others think is useful in this kind of practical way?

After some 60 years of life, I personally have accumulated quite a few to choose from in elaborating the "eat" action above. And, I hope, the "wait" action. Both of which I am going to activate. Now.

First of all I'd like to thank you for the reply, I really didn't expect it this way :)

I don't disagree with our minds possessing cognitive "guidelines", filtered down to us genetically in generations, I never did for that matter, although I'm pretty sure I suck at conveying my thoughts in English.

But I slightly disagree with the way we sample our examples.

"humans have natural faculties for facial recognition (of other humans), social model building and numeracy."

There's a tribe in brasil, the Piraha. They don't have numbers and they have a really difficult time understanding arithmethical concepts: http://www.jcrows.com/withoutnumbers.html

In our "modern society", itself evolved with religion [which itself evolved -and continues to evolve- from a cultural melting pot with many different gods, beliefs and ethic rules in many different cultures] in thousands of years, we may have developed a "religious base" but I wouldn't include "all the human beings" in this.

The guy who had his DNA in a social group for thousands of years, would of course have an easy time building social models. I don't think it's impossible that one day, we stumble upon some people who live alone in the wild and only meet with others for mating [like pandas] -- although highly improbable.

The main question here is "What is human?".

Are we sure that what we observe today was the same way 3000 years ago? And if it was not, does it make a difference? As our evolution is an ongoing thing, how can we know that which faculties are new and which ones are old?

I see the "religion lurking in our hardware" as a by-product of an overwhelming desire of "understanding how things work". [although it can easily be a relatively new evolutionary step in the minds of most humans, thoroughly conditined by ages and ages of religious oppression]

Since the first day the human beings had time to sit down and do nothing for a while (having enough food to survive, right after dirt and berries, a little bit before irrigation), they started thinking about "other" things. Which inevitably lead to the question "how the hell did we come to be?".

They answered the question in many different ways in many different parts of the world, all of them based on local geography and other life (animals, plants..), which is also based on local geography.

Egyptians had ra masturbating on a hill to seed the desert to give birth to humans, mayans thought they were made out of corn, mesopotamians thought they were made of clay.

The religion back then, was what science is today. It tried to explain how the universe worked. It lacked scientific method and observation consisted of just what you saw around you. So it became "tales of creation" more than science, but nonetheless, they explained things in a tale consistent in itself, then based social models on that tale, and lived in it.

If we believed we figured out how EVERYTHING worked, [that's what they did] i think we would live happier lives. As the constellations *are* the gods, you don't need any other proof. You know that if you do this, that god replies by doing that. Great comfort. (Which leads back to what I said in the other post: religions, like ideologies, are accepted filters for the mind that ease our decision-making processes)

I know that I've never come to terms with religion since I've first learnt about the concept. This may mean that I do not possess that "religious base" or I overrode it but, the most important thing here is that I *could* reject it. That means noone in my family or my social network reproached me for it, nor attacked me nor told me that I'd go to hell.

I'm a Turkish guy [although I'm an expat now]. In my country, when you're born, if your parents have "Islam" as religious belief on their ID cards (yes we have that) you're automatically stamped with that in "your" ID card. And if you have Islam as religious belief on your ID card, you must take the mandatory "religion and ethics" course in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL [talk about ID vs Evolution..]

Now think about it, you're a little boy, you go to school and in school they tell you that there's a god named Allah, he's not born nor given birth to, he sent some books, adam, eve, the whole story. Think that it doesn't really fit in with what you have learned and the way you see the world -I really don't remember how it was back then, although I'd kill to think with my 5 years old mind.

So what do you do? You go and ask your unquestionable source of authority, your parents "is it true that there's a god out there?" The reply you get will vary of course. "Nobody knows" is one, "Of course there is! Don't blaspheme you little jerk!" is another, "yes" and "no" some others. Depending on the nature of the answer, you may never even *think* about questioning the truth of religion again and the "fact" that there's a god out there, watching, may become etched in your little mind. You may even become hostile in years to come.

As always I've got carried away to lots of places and I can't come back now :) I'll try to get things under control the "religious" way, by making a statement and running away :)

In the end, what we become is the mixture of our genetic heritage and our social and personal history.

[after previewing the post.. god.. this *is* long. I hope it doesn't bore you]

There's a tribe in brasil, the Piraha. They don't have numbers and they have a really difficult time understanding arithmethical concepts

innate numeracy is analogy, not digital. so your point doesn't address what i'm talking about actually (see 'the number sense' by dehaene).

As our evolution is an ongoing thing, how can we know that which faculties are new and which ones are old?

if you can map faculties to genetic loci you can model coalescence between variants (intra or interspecies). that's kind of what they did with FOXP2 ('the language gene').

I see the "religion lurking in our hardware" as a by-product of an overwhelming desire of "understanding how things work"

how you parse this is crucial. i think people conflate 'understand' between scientific and religious contexts. a religious, intuitive, 'understanding' is fundamentally different than a scientific and analytic understanding.

They answered the question in many different ways in many different parts of the world, all of them based on local geography and other life (animals, plants..), which is also based on local geography.

but, there are common similarities between supernatural agents. for example, they tend to be peculiar and transcend our conceptions of how things work (they have incredible powers), but they are not bizarre and uncomprehensible (stones may have powers, but they don't get 'hungry').

The religion back then, was what science is today. It tried to explain how the universe worked. It lacked scientific method and observation consisted of just what you saw around you. So it became "tales of creation" more than science, but nonetheless, they explained things in a tale consistent in itself, then based social models on that tale, and lived in it.

this depends. and this is a crucial distinction: there is 'religion' preserved by egyptian periods or formulated by the poet hesiod, and there is religion that is lived on the ground by normal people. the latter really is different than proto-science, and it is not particular concerned about creation myths, ontologies and systematic theories of the world. it is ad hoc, intuitive and often quite implicit.

. You know that if you do this, that god replies by doing that. Great comfort.

and yet most ancient religions did not provide great comfort. the gods were often capricious, malevolent and to be placated, not worshipped. the hebrew sheol, hades, etc. were not pleasant afterlives.

I'm a Turkish guy [although I'm an expat now]. In my country, when you're born, if your parents have "Islam" as religious belief on their ID cards (yes we have that) you're automatically stamped with that in "your" ID card. And if you have Islam as religious belief on your ID card, you must take the mandatory "religion and ethics" course in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL [talk about ID vs Evolution..]

Now think about it, you're a little boy, you go to school and in school they tell you that there's a god named Allah, he's not born nor given birth to, he sent some books, adam, eve, the whole story.

but this is ideology. it can be part of religion, but it is not necessary for religious belief/ideology. 'islam,' 'christianity,' 'buddhism,' etc. are probably just relatively new "skins" on top of the core functionality of religion.

"but this is ideology. it can be part of religion, but it is not necessary for religious belief/ideology. 'islam,' 'christianity,' 'buddhism,' etc. are probably just relatively new "skins" on top of the core functionality of religion."

Then I'm totally lost about what actually is religion :)

The ideology part of what I related was just to illustrate the environment for children's development where I lived. The governmental ideology can have great effect on how we thing and make decisions. Religious 'systems', ("corporate religions" if you wish) are no different.

I agree that islam, christianity etc are just skins. But then, I think we must come to a consensus about what actually the religion's core functionality is.

I see it as attributing the things you can not understand, to the doings of a 'supreme being', be it allah, buddha, the cosmic energies of the universe, ra, whatever.

"if you can map faculties to genetic loci you can model coalescence between variants (intra or interspecies). that's kind of what they did with FOXP2 ('the language gene')."

So, you think that we'll find a "religion gene" in the future?

what is "religion that is lived on the ground by normal people"?

are you talking about the ethical aspects of religion? I really couldn't quite understand this.

From the little sample pool we have on this post we can easily see that "religion" means different things to different persons. Maybe isolating the concept and well-defining it would be a nice step.

"i think people conflate 'understand' between scientific and religious contexts. a religious, intuitive, 'understanding' is fundamentally different than a scientific and analytic understanding."

If your whole knowledge of the universe consisted of your land, the sky, and the stars above, would it make any difference?

So, you think that we'll find a "religion gene" in the future?

no, i think there will be genes which correlate with religiosity. the heritability of religious zeal seems to be about 50%. but, religion is not something like height, it is a fuzzy and amorphous character. there are many things which influence your propensity to religion, and some of them are genetic. to be concrete, there are some suggestions that very autistic people really aren't religions in any conventional way, they know how to 'fake it,' but on a fundamental level they have a hard time imagining the idea of entities which are non-corporeal (gods, demons, etc.). so, one could say that 'theory of mind' (which is rooted in our biology) is a necessary precondition of genuine religiosity.

But then, I think we must come to a consensus about what actually the religion's core functionality is.

religion may have no 'core functionality.' it may simply be like the heat off an engine, a byproduct of other mental processes.

are you talking about the ethical aspects of religion? I really couldn't quite understand this.

no. 'core religion' is NOT about ethics. 'higher religions' incorporate ethics and philosophy, but 'lower religons,' which invariably precede higher religions, do not.

If your whole knowledge of the universe consisted of your land, the sky, and the stars above, would it make any difference?

i don't get what you are trying to say here.

no. 'core religion' is NOT about ethics. 'higher religions' incorporate ethics and philosophy, but 'lower religons,' which invariably precede higher religions, do not

That's what I thought too, but then, what is core religion? Is it what we believe about creation? is it only the belief in a supreme being? or can any "belief" be treated as religion?

"If your whole knowledge of the universe consisted of your land, the sky, and the stars above, would it make any difference?"

I meant that, if this was all your conception of the universe, the "religious" and "scientific" understandings of it may not differ too much.

That's what I thought too, but then, what is core religion? Is it what we believe about creation? is it only the belief in a supreme being? or can any "belief" be treated as religion?

not a supreme being, godlings. to a greater extent a supreme being is an abstraction which looms large in higher religions, but in most pre-world religons supreme "all fathers" are distant and irrelevant. what matters are lower godlings and what not. christianity is monotheistic, but in roman catholicism the cult of the saints emerged as mediators. similarlity, saints show up in islam too. northern europe banished saints with the rise of protestantism, but secularism has been much stronger in protestant areas of europe than in catholic ones (you can see this in germany and the netherlands, where protestants have eroded in numbers faster and deeper than catholics). in terms of 'what is religion,' i think supernatural agents and their concomitant features are essential.

Razib,

what exactly do you mean by "supernatural agents"?

gods, angels, demons. people with supernatural powers.

Gods, angels, and demons are pretty good descriptions for the internal mental processes that human beings can temporarily identify themselves with. Watching your children develop (and watching yourself respond to their behaviors) can be a great teacher here. Anger driven to the level of rage -- can certainly seem pretty demonic. Your "interlocking non-integrated semi-independent cognitive sub-modules" understanding of the human psyche, that is not so far removed from the Greek, Norse, Egyptian or Hindu pantheon of gods that influence human thought and behavior.

As for "supernatural powers", that really needs to be defined clearly. I am not quite certain what that might refer to other than phenomena that most members of the NAS believe today are impossible and not real. That's why we do experiments, to discover what phenomena are supported by the evidence and what phenomena are not. Otherwise we are not looking at the issue scientifically but instead are assuming our models are correct instead of testing them. And that is an approach that has proved inadequate, again and again.

do you believe the full range of phenomena are probable?

briefly put, supernatural agents tend to be somewhat counterintuitve, but still interface with the real world. there are people who believe in that opening a door and walking through it and a witch or godling passing through it are equally possible. but, they classify the latter as supernatural, and the former would probably be mundane and banal.

do you believe the full range of phenomena are probable?

No. I believe many or most claims of paranormal powers are fraudulent, for the purposes of scoring attention or money. Most of the phenomena appear to simply occur spontaneously, without control from the conscious mind. The phenomena are much more likely to occur to those who have not ruled them out (sheep / goats effect).

Question:

Insofar as we can say religion is a set of behaviors--sacrifices, rituals, prayers, whatever--has anything like religion--or that can be construed as religion--ever been observed in species other than man?