Metodologías Ágiles y el Software Libre

There are a number of cognitive theories that try to account for our apparent disposition to believe in non-natural phenomena. I will give a very brief account of some of these. None of these accords perfectly with the thoughts on the emotion/evolutionary connection I have presented above. Cognitive theories are more sophisticated, more intellectual, and more focused ultimately on explaining the higher levels of development of religion, but they would be compatible with my speculations about emotive seeds and roots.

The first is called by Daniel Dennett (the following discussion is largely based on Dennett 2006, pp74-93) the ‘sweet tooth’ theory and is based around the notion that we have genetic ‘receptors’ or a ‘god center’ in our brains that responds to supernatural explanation. This is a general class for the hard-to-credit idea that religiousness is somehow ‘hard wired’62in our brains – straightforwardly genetic. But, as Richard Dawkins aptly puts it:

If neuroscientists find a ‘god center’ in the brain, Darwinian scientists like me want to know why the god center evolved. Why did our ancestors who had a genetic tendency to grow a god center survive better than rivals who did not.

(quoted in Dennett 2006, p 83)

61 _{For example, we can do some ‘social reverse engineering’ based on the lifestyles and}

folkways of contemporary hunter-gatherers whose ways and conditions of life, anthropologists have thought, are closer than urban hominids to those of the ‘environment of evolutionary adaptedness’ – the often acronymned ‘EEA.’ Also, by way of example, the supposition I made earlier that prehistoric mammals had emotions, is based on all existing mammals having a limbic system, the seat of emotions. (Lewis et al. 2001)

62 _{However, there is a part of this that I am tempted by – see below under the discussion of}

78 The second type of cognitive theory is called a ‘symbiont’ theory. Symbiosis is a biological relationship between different organisms where they somehow ‘share’ life together – they may be mutually beneficial to each other, but can also neutral or parasitic. Symbiont theories (there are several variations) are based around Richard Dawkins’ idea of ‘memes.’63 Basically the notion is that a cultural idea can have a life of its own as a ‘meme,’ which, like a living entity, is subject to a process akin to natural selection. (Dawkins 1976/89, p 189ff) A meme once started, passes horizontally from person to person, or brain to brain, and the ‘better’ memes or ideas, in this case religious ideas, will endure because they somehow ‘stick’ – like a catchy tune. The memes may, but do not have to benefit you. Instead they are replicators in their own right, moving on the ‘back’ of language from brain to brain. Dawkins has suggested that religion is like a ‘mind virus’ – a ‘parasite’ that is well evolved to “counter our defences and enhance their own propagation.” (Dennett 2006, p 84)

This idea has some persuasive force but is very hard to verify (or falsify). Sterelney and Griffiths are “very sceptical about this way of applying evolutionary theory to the task of explaining features of human societies.” (see 1999, p 333ff) I share their scepticism for the additional reason that Dawkins is ever at pains to portray religion in the most negative light. Without doubt, religious ideas, like ideas and information generally, do pass from mind to mind (duh), but the parasite and virus idea are part of the Dawkins’ program of ‘rebuttal by ridicule.’ That doesn’t means the parasite/virus idea is necessarily incorrect of course, but it makes the idea suspect in my book. Dawkins is very insistent that the onus is and ought to be on ‘believers’ to show that their beliefs are grounded in reality. I submit that the onus is on him to show that memes are ‘real.’ Of course, they are an explanatory construct and do not need to exist in any material way – but could we not say something similar about gods? But I digress…

63 _{First introduced in The Selfish Gene, (1976, pp 192ff). Much could be said but it is beyond}

our scope here. It has become an intellectual industry, taken up by many, including Daniel

Dennett. (see 1995, PP 335-369) Susan Blackmore has written a book on the concept, The

Meme Machine, 1999, in which she develops the notion of transmission by imitation. It seems the ‘meme’ meme is replicating quite successfully. We now have meme pool, memeplex and even the memeosphere! I myself have written a song called, ‘Please Love Meme.’ Will it ever end? Not if memes have anything to say about it! They do because our brains are full of them.

Next in our parade of theories are those based on sexual selection – simply that religion is something akin to a peacock’s tail or a bowerbird’s bower. I am inclined to this idea, not because females are necessarily drawn to religious ideation, as in the classic (peacock’s tail) sexual selection hypothesis, but because religious ideas can be

comforting, and even alluring or mesmerising when they come from the right source with the right tone of voice! In fact, this notion lends support to my contention, mentioned earlier, that aesthetic inclinations blend in some way with the spiritual. I believe there is some commonality between artists/musicians and priests/purveyors of religious or quasi-religious (mysterious) ideas. I call this the ‘poet/priest complex’ and I think it is sexual selection at work. The following longish quote is from the pen64 of evolutionary psychologist Geoffrey Miller, whose revival of Darwin’s ‘other’ theory, sexual selection, as previously mentioned in Chapter Two, is very interesting – and he might even be right! Most of his work is devoted to arguing that the relatively rapid increase in hominid brain size (nearly tripling in about two million years) is due to sexual selection. However, he pauses to share this scenario with us, which resonates with my thinking on the poet/priest complex:

Imagine some young hominids huddling around a Pleistocene campfire, enjoying their newly evolved language ability. Two males get into an argument about the nature of the world, and start holding forth, displaying their ideologies.

The hominid named Carl proposes: “We are fallible primates who survive on this fickle savannah only because we cluster in these jealousy-ridden groups. Everywhere we have ever travelled is just a tiny, random corner of a vast continent on an unimaginably huge sphere spinning in a vacuum. The sphere has travelled billions and billions of times around a flaming ball of gas, which will eventually blow up to incinerate our empty, fossilized skulls. I have discovered several compelling lines of evidence in support of these hypotheses…”

The hominid named Candide interrupts: “No, I believe, we are the immortal spirits gifted with these beautiful bodies because the great god Wug chose us as his favourite creatures. Wug blessed us with this fertile paradise that provides just enough challenges to keep things interesting. Behind the moon, mystic nightingales sing our praises, some of us more than others. Above the azure dome of the sky, the smiling sun warms our hearts. After we grow old and enjoy the babbling of our grandchildren, Wug will lift us from these bodies to join our friends to eat roasted gazelle and dance eternally. I know these things because Wug picked me to receive this special wisdom in a dream last night.” (Miller 2000, p 421)

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80 Now I ask you, according to current stereotyping at least, which of these characters would any red-blooded romantic female be more drawn to? Despite the tongue-in- cheek delivery, there is an important and possible truth here – both about how beliefs may have got started and quite plausibly about how religious stories are sustained (meme-like). My contention is that the poet/priest phenomenon, so ably illustrated in Miller’s vignette, supports the idea that, at a certain point in hominid evolution, when language was sufficiently advanced, quite possibly around a flickering fire, which would lend atmosphere, clever and creative males sought to impress and win the affections of ‘choosy’ females with rich and mysterious tales – not to mention songs.

Could anyone doubt that music is the richest of all veins in the ‘mines’ of sexual selection? Why do people sing? For the same reason that birds do. (Attenborough, Radio National 30/01/10). As Daniel Dennett jokes, “The idea that musical talent is the royal road to the embrace of a woman is certainly familiar; it probably sells a million guitars a year.” (2006, p 88) With mystical, mythical murmurings and enchanting lyrical songs, the border between fact and fiction is increasingly blurred – and becomes unimportant, second to emotional rapture. Dreaming is and always was a great mystery, and, as I’ve claimed, could readily be invoked as evidence of ‘another world.’ Whatever the reality status of a tale once told, if it was repeated down the generations (meme-like), as was often the case in oral cultures, a fanciful story could easily be transmuted, as suited the teller, into as much ‘reality’ as required to get the ‘job’ of maintaining mystique and enhancing sexual attractiveness done.