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This may be an axial age development. Benevolence bias in the universe triggered by opting in = surrender. Not the capricious gods of antiquity, surrender to whom would mean nothing. You’d have to outwit them.
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Hmm. Bicameral mind something something. You don’t surrender to a trickster voice in your head, only to an external silent force. Gods who don’t talk back.
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Shit I’m converging on Jaynes model via a different argument. I can see why bicameral hypothesis makes sense. Only an introspective consciousness would (and arguably must) invent a surrender-based notion of the divine. So the absence pre-axial-age suggests non-introspective minds
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Bit of a bold leap to jump to voices-in-head consciousness as a precursor, but it’s consistent. Though not clear if it’s the simplest hypothesis.
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To want a religiosity based on surrender to an abstract divine, your sense of the world has to go from many concrete fears (lightning, storms…) to abstract fear of uncertainty which implies abstract planning etc.
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Like in an ancient religion, who would you surrender *to*? The gods are too specific. Surrender to thunder god (oral contract with voice in head) and you’re only safe from storms. You want general amnesty from unknown unknown shittiness in universe. You want god of black swans.
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Hinduism is interesting here because the evolution is unbroken. Early Vedic bicameral gods retreat and the abstract unicameral ones and avatar scheme advance by around 500BC. Have your polytheist cake and eat the monotheistic cake too.
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Believe it or not I ended up down this bunny trail via thinking about planning under uncertainty and when it makes sense to surrender rather than fight it, cf Dune scene where Paul gives up trying to control the ornithopter in sandstorm because voice in head.
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That struck me as a powerful metaphor. I do it all the time myself. Up to a point you fight to increase certainty in plans/contingencies and try to control outcome. Beyond that you let go and sort of dance with the chaos.
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Replying to
The more mastery you build, the more affordances the environment offers... that could definitely feel like divinity in your OODA loop.