On Purpose

People who study such things tell us that the ability to identify and understand the motivations of others is, if not uniquely human, at least uniquely developed in humans. It's a very powerful technique for understanding and predicting human interaction, not to mention being the most likely origin of art, empathy, politics, and perhaps even language. Lately, I've been wondering about its role in the origin of science and religion.

It's Arun's fault, or at least partly his fault, that I got started thinking about such things. Everytime I post something about religion - not too often, I hope - he posts some quotes on religion than I can't quite understand.

So why do religious ideas see to be almost universal in humans? How did our remote ancestors come up with such things? We don't know, of course, but we do have a couple of clues. The first clue is that those modern and pre-modern peoples who retained a lifestyle like that of our remote ancestors seem to be almost universal in having animist ideas. They see everything around them as containing spirits or gods that have motivations and purposes somewhat like our own. Sky gods, wind gods, storm gods, fire gods and the spirits of a grove of trees or a mountain.

Here is my idea (I have no idea as to its originality, but I don't recall seeing or hearing of it): understanding of purposeful behavior was such a useful tool in predicting human and animal behavior that it became natural to apply it to the inanimate world as well.

Here is an example with animal behavior. Humans and chimpanzees both find termites a useful source of food, and both hunt them. Humans are much cleverer at it. One technique, which could hardly be imagined without our purpose seeking thinking, is druming very lightly with ones fingers on the termite mound to create a sound in the mound like that of rain. Termites like to come out in the rain, it seems, and fooling them into thinking it's raining is one way to get a high protein meal.

Such purpose seeking behavior is less effective with inanimate things like the Sun and rain, but apparently still has some utility for making classifications and predictions. If the sky god is angry and clouds his face with clouds, he is likely to make thunder crash and lightning bolts fly.

I see this sort of animistic thinking as the real root of religious ideas, and of protoscientific ideas as well.

"Mr. Huxley," asked the reporter, "what has a lifetime of studying nature taught you about the ways of the Lord?"

"He seems," replied Huxley, "to have an inordinate fondness for beetles."

Huxley was having fun with his interlocutor, of course, but it certainly is one way to make the prevalence of beetles - there are about 350,000 extant species - memorable.

More to follow in a future posting on Agriculture and Religion.