An interesting perspective on why humans are almost universally spiritual.

[yhelothar]

This social scientist makes a provocative analogy that compares humans losing the self to work together for a cause to prehistoric bacteria coming together to become organelles in eukaryotic cells. This, he says, is a fundamental driving force in evolution. Cultures and memes are the beginnings of a superorganism?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MYsx6WArKY

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Hippy nonsense.

 

[sandorski]

Hippy nonsense.

I was gonna flame you, but after 1ish minute listening to it.... agreed.

 

[KillerCharlie]

I read your description and thought "this sounds like a bunch of bullshit with nothing to back it up... must be a TED talk."

For every decent TED speech there are 2 terrible speeches.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

I was gonna flame you, but after 1ish minute listening to it.... agreed.

Hint: all social-science is based on a meta-physics and thus any one explanation is just as bullshit as the next.

Also, if I remember properly, the tag for the thread is a well-known native-brazilian hallucinogen.

Edit:

I was close, it's south american but lesser used in Brazil than other countries.

 

[DAGTA]

ATOT members combine to form....


MEGANERD!

 

[yhelothar]

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle

There are indeed many questions in life that cannot be irrefutably answered with hard science. Life in itself, as well as existence is deeply mysterious. Does that make it a worthless topic of discussion?

Many of these questions are perhaps some of the biggest questions that we all ask, and for the course of human history, no one has come up with an irrefutable answer. We are all blind men trying to make out what the elephant is.
Is it bullshit that a blind man can touch the ear of the elephant and decide the elephant is flappy? Sure. But is there still something to be learned from him? I'd hope so.

Jonathan Haidt takes a stab at it through an evolutionary perspective.

There's a good summary of his point in the last 3 minutes of his presentation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=2MYsx6WArKY#t=900s

 

[Dr. Zaus]

Does that make it a worthless topic of discussion?

No, but it makes the moniker of scientists stupid: More like social-philosopher.... or, if you will, just philosopher.

So what's up with the drug-reference in the tags?

 

[sixone]

This social scientist makes a provocative analogy that compares humans losing the self to work together for a cause to prehistoric bacteria coming together to become organelles in eukaryotic cells. This, he says, is a fundamental driving force in evolution. Cultures and memes are the beginnings of a superorganism?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MYsx6WArKY

He makes no accounting for the effects of boredom and apathy, which bacteria do not suffer. Bacteria are not able to engage in the same self-destructive behavior that humans do.

 

[ImpulsE69]

You know...2 days ago, I hadn't even heard of TED Talks. My first one was the "fake" Weyland TED Talk, which led to links of other real TED Talks (I watched a handful with interest)...and now I can't get away from them. I think the bacteria are telling me something.

 

[BurnItDwn]

I think humans will evolve past spirituality and religion.

 

[Matthiasa]

As sentient creatures that know one day they will die. Most have the desire to believe or simply hope that there is there is something that happens after death.
It is to be scared of the possibility of simply not existing, and so something is placed there.
It also makes it much easier for populations to be effectively controlled.

That said quantum mechanics says anything is possible so you never know.

 

[BoberFett]

So if me and my friends all try hard enough, we actually can become Voltron?

And I'll form the head!

 

[Kadarin]

There are indeed many questions in life that cannot be irrefutably answered with hard science.

Who are you (or I, or anyone else) to say that science cannot answer a question? "We don't know yet" is a perfectly valid answer that doesn't make the unfounded assumption that the question will not be answered at some point in the future.

 

[Kadarin]

I am not a spiritual person. In fact, I have real trouble getting a handle on questions like "what is spirituality?" and "what, exactly, is the human 'soul'?" To me, both are abstract concepts that remain abstract because there's no objective measurement or observation.

 

[Zebo]

Hippy nonsense, vanity and ego is why ppl fall for religion or born into it and indoctrinated.

Being self aware we just don't want to admit we end after a few short years.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Who are you (or I, or anyone else) to say that science cannot answer a question?

I am myself.

I can state confidently that there are very real phenomena beyond the reach of scientific investigation, although I will also concede that it is still the subject of some debate -- it's just that the losing side hasn't come to terms with it yet.

"We don't know yet" is a perfectly valid answer that doesn't make the unfounded assumption that the question will not be answered at some point in the future.

The idea that one can achieve an objective explanation for subjective experience is absurd on its face.

 

[Kadarin]

I am myself.

I can state confidently that there are very real phenomena beyond the reach of scientific investigation, although I will also concede that it is still the subject of some debate -- it's just that the losing side hasn't come to terms with it yet.

Philosophical nonsense. "What does it feel like to experience the color red?"

The idea that one can achieve an objective explanation for subjective experience is absurd on its face.

Absurd, why? As we continue to run MRIs while experiencing various things, understanding how the brain behaves in different environments, it could well become possible to generate synthetic experiences.

 

[Cerpin Taxt]

Philosophical nonsense.

Not nonsense.

"What does it feel like to experience the color red?"

More directly: "What is it like to have subjective experience?"

Absurd, why?

It should be obvious. An objective explanation is one divorced from subjective experience. You can't have an explanation of subjective experience that is divorced from subjective experience. When all you can do is access the outside of something, you cannot hope to explain the inside.

As we continue to run MRIs while experiencing various things, understanding how the brain behaves in different environments, it could well become possible to generate synthetic experiences.

"Synthetic experience" is an oxymoron.

 

[Dr. Zaus]

What is it like to have subjective experience?

Is the subjective experience generlizable to some behavioral outcome?

Given the calming effect that the color blue has on a large portion of the population, I would say that there are degrees of generlizable information to be gained.

 

[PsiStar]

ATOT members combine to form....


MEGANERD!

Isn't this already done?

Man invented all gods to explain what could not be explained quickly enough by any other means. The sin of impatience. There is a circular argument in there but I am too lazy to type all that.

And then, we kill each other because the other does not believe one's own invention. Comeuppance ... ?

 

[Leros]

In a world with zero knowledge, religious reasons are probably the first answer that a logical mind would jump to.

Q: Why does the sun move across the sky?
A: There must be a person who moves it across the sky everyday.

In addition, we know that most people accept a comforting answer as truth even without evidence to back it up.