Man on Earth: The Origin of Faith?
More Thoughts on the book 'Man on Earth' by John Reader
John Reader's description of a society whose survival is based on rice production shows how evolution begat faith.
Rice is capable of supporting large populations on small amounts of land (think of China, Japan, India) provided that it's needs for water and nitrogen are carefully served. But what primitive human would know about nitrogen, let alone how to ensure that his rice is adequately served with it?
The intricate process for caring for rice must have been discovered, by trial and error, and honed over generations. But what caused the discoveries to be maintained? One man may discover a better way to grow rice, but how's does that knowledge get passed to his son, and his grandson? Especially if it is a complicated procedure. He didn't write it in a book! he didn't explain it to his son - because he didn't know why it worked, and probably didn't have the verbal skills to explain anything.
And why did the son do it? He does not know why its a good thing to do. He doesn't know that his survival depends on doing it.
I guess that mostly it didn't happen. But sometimes it did. Some sons were inclined to repeat what their fathers did. Some sons were detailed oriented enough to repeat the exact behavior of their fathers. And those were the ones who survived. At least, they survived if their fathers were doing the right things for growing rice.
So in the end the survivors are the descendants of people whose genes gave them an inclination to repeat, with precision, the behaviors of their parents and whose parents, or grandparents, or ancestors further back, were lucky enough to stumble upon a good way to grow rice.
And an entire societal structure develops around repeating these 'traditions'. Their actions are not based on knowing why they do them, but only on faith that they must do them. They adorn that faith with Gods and synthetic causality, but their survival depends on them repeating the traditions, not on them understanding why they should or how their behaviors lead to their survival.
And, like the Big Men of New Guinea, there is nothing to keep these behaviors in check. In a process John Reader calls Involution, the behaviors turn in on themselves. Mindless repetition for no reason that they know, becomes mindless repetition for no reason at all, and then mindless repetition for its own sake. Which becomes what we recognize in others, but not ourselves: religion.
Rice is capable of supporting large populations on small amounts of land (think of China, Japan, India) provided that it's needs for water and nitrogen are carefully served. But what primitive human would know about nitrogen, let alone how to ensure that his rice is adequately served with it?
The intricate process for caring for rice must have been discovered, by trial and error, and honed over generations. But what caused the discoveries to be maintained? One man may discover a better way to grow rice, but how's does that knowledge get passed to his son, and his grandson? Especially if it is a complicated procedure. He didn't write it in a book! he didn't explain it to his son - because he didn't know why it worked, and probably didn't have the verbal skills to explain anything.
And why did the son do it? He does not know why its a good thing to do. He doesn't know that his survival depends on doing it.
I guess that mostly it didn't happen. But sometimes it did. Some sons were inclined to repeat what their fathers did. Some sons were detailed oriented enough to repeat the exact behavior of their fathers. And those were the ones who survived. At least, they survived if their fathers were doing the right things for growing rice.
So in the end the survivors are the descendants of people whose genes gave them an inclination to repeat, with precision, the behaviors of their parents and whose parents, or grandparents, or ancestors further back, were lucky enough to stumble upon a good way to grow rice.
And an entire societal structure develops around repeating these 'traditions'. Their actions are not based on knowing why they do them, but only on faith that they must do them. They adorn that faith with Gods and synthetic causality, but their survival depends on them repeating the traditions, not on them understanding why they should or how their behaviors lead to their survival.
And, like the Big Men of New Guinea, there is nothing to keep these behaviors in check. In a process John Reader calls Involution, the behaviors turn in on themselves. Mindless repetition for no reason that they know, becomes mindless repetition for no reason at all, and then mindless repetition for its own sake. Which becomes what we recognize in others, but not ourselves: religion.