The idea that humans naturally evolved to be religious is funny. Do you think that mammals naturally trend to theism, or is it a general vertebrate thing? — Nope, our ancestors were quite actively selected for religion, with fire and sword.
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Replying to @Plinz
but -- they were selected by -- other humans -- is this not still natural?
#philosophy#Nietzsche#evolution#theism#religion#xianity2 replies 0 retweets 1 like -
Replying to @femalefaust
In this sense, nothing that is is natural. However, understanding the fitness function requires models that are not described by the natural sciences.
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Replying to @Plinz
or everything is. possibly why "all natural" has so little meaning.
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Replying to @femalefaust
I think of it in terms of descriptive frames: biology is physical, but physics has relatively little to say about organisms. We might think of biology as a special subfield of physics, but biology does not depend on physics very much. Social sciences are similar.
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Replying to @Plinz @femalefaust
So supernatural forces? Because physics describes everything, as far as I can tell. Complexity is an emergent function of physical particles and forces combining in a huge (or infinite) ocean of everythingness. We can make academic categories, but ultimately it's all physics.
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Replying to @thewiseturtle @femalefaust
Most people think that there is mathematics outside of physics. Some of these mathematics can probably be used to describe the emergent complexity of systems in the physical world. These models are substrate independent, not supernatural.
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Replying to @Plinz @femalefaust
Interesting. I'm not sure I've heard about that. Can you point me towards any info about it? That sounds really interesting. (Though maybe you're talking about Penrose's quantum tubules or something in the brain?)
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Replying to @thewiseturtle @femalefaust
No, I am not talking about the implementation, which is physical. But you can for instance talk about circles or feedback loops in ways that do not allow them to literally exist, and you can use such models to predict reality.
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Replying to @Plinz @femalefaust
Ahh, so more of the Platonic ideals? As in the ideal forms that contrast with the messier (probably fractal) reality? So, biology and psychology end up being better represented by the ideal forms, than by the (current) equations that physics use?
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The 'fractal' is probably not messy, in the sense that it does not yield to mathematics, but since we don't know the generator function nor where we are, we have to model the local neighborhood with whatever models work.
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