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You are referring to the things that people do that are a result of beliefs, not the beliefs themselves. I've heard theories that the sensation of early human

by tomc1985 6y ago

You are referring to the things that people do that are a result of beliefs, not the beliefs themselves. I've heard theories that the sensation of early human consciousness was akin to feeling enslaved to a higher power in one's head, as a sort of summary of that person's internal drives manifesting as God. Who is to say these things would not have happened if humans simply skipped the 'internal voice equals god' conclusion?

IgorPartola 6y ago
That theory was popularized by Westworld and is highly debated. But you can’t separate the two: you believe in things like money and corporations and ownership of property and transfer of property right? Those ar exist as fictitious and god or satan. You might believe in things like capitalism or communism: both are simply types of religion. You might believe in destiny or free will: both artificial constructs. The point is that there is subjective reality (I feel anxious), objective reality (a tiger is chasing me), and intersubjective (I am a part of a village and we share communal property). The latter is what enables us to do things like build anything that requires more than one person. Beliefs in things like money are as real as a hammer and cannot be separated from their real world effects. The book Sapiens goes into a lot of detail about this and does a much better job explaining it than I can.
- tomc1985 6y ago
  > you believe in things like money and corporations and ownership of property and transfer of property right? That's twisting words. Belief in some cosmic, anthropomorphic entity is nothing to do with "belief" in money or corporations. How does one "believe" in those things anyway? They are here, they exist, and they're fucking shit up right now, and we can trace much of our woes to those forces. You cannot say the same about magical beings looking down on us from the clouds
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    No they don’t exist the same way a hammer exists. A corporation is nothing but a piece of paper that a high priest of our religion (Secretary of state) has brought into existence via a ritual (signing a piece of paper). That is all a corporation is. Money: it exists as a physical piece of paper. Our belief in its value is what gives it value. Not unlike our belief in the idea that consuming a communion cracker is like ingesting the body of Christ (ritual cannibalism). Most things you consider real live in the intersubjective and religion is no different.

IgorPartola 6y ago

That theory was popularized by Westworld and is highly debated. But you can’t separate the two: you believe in things like money and corporations and ownership of property and transfer of property right? Those ar exist as fictitious and god or satan. You might believe in things like capitalism or communism: both are simply types of religion. You might believe in destiny or free will: both artificial constructs. The point is that there is subjective reality (I feel anxious), objective reality (a tiger is chasing me), and intersubjective (I am a part of a village and we share communal property). The latter is what enables us to do things like build anything that requires more than one person. Beliefs in things like money are as real as a hammer and cannot be separated from their real world effects. The book Sapiens goes into a lot of detail about this and does a much better job explaining it than I can.

tomc1985 6y ago
> you believe in things like money and corporations and ownership of property and transfer of property right? That's twisting words. Belief in some cosmic, anthropomorphic entity is nothing to do with "belief" in money or corporations. How does one "believe" in those things anyway? They are here, they exist, and they're fucking shit up right now, and we can trace much of our woes to those forces. You cannot say the same about magical beings looking down on us from the clouds
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  No they don’t exist the same way a hammer exists. A corporation is nothing but a piece of paper that a high priest of our religion (Secretary of state) has brought into existence via a ritual (signing a piece of paper). That is all a corporation is. Money: it exists as a physical piece of paper. Our belief in its value is what gives it value. Not unlike our belief in the idea that consuming a communion cracker is like ingesting the body of Christ (ritual cannibalism). Most things you consider real live in the intersubjective and religion is no different.