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I also think that religiosity is a neurological phenomenon and is as much a part of being a human as language, music, money or tool use. Nobody, including mysel

I also think that religiosity is a neurological phenomenon and is as much a part of being a human as language, music, money or tool use. Nobody, including myself, can escape it. I see a lot of talk in this thread about making the definition of "religion" meaningless by broadening it too much, but I think the definition that gets narrowed in is "the phenomenon of humans engaging in dogmatic belief." A good example of this is transhumanism, specifically, the idea that you can upload your mind to a computer. It is all but given based on our current scientific understanding that the mind is inseparable from the body, yet somehow particularly atheist people behave as if they are separate things. This is a dogmatic belief. Other closely related behaviors are ideological movements. I believe that religion is largely social in nature and driven more by social pressure and community/family and less by actual rational analysis or any other method of coming to conclusions about the world. I think it shows in the decline of traditional religion and also in the rise of what are often being termed "religions" these days by detractors (correctly in many cases, for example the Gaia worship end of times cult). When that is taken into account, the irrational behavior of swathes of people who hold as a core identity characteristic their perceived strict adherence to rationality makes a lot of sense. I know I have a religion, I don't know what it is exactly, but I'm a human so I have one. But I try to be open to any idea I hold being challenged, I'd like my belief system to be as close to the truth as I can get it, and that means ignoring social proof and being prepared to find out that anything and everything I believe is wrong. Of course, until I find out I'm wrong, I think I'm right.

meowface 5y ago
>A good example of this is transhumanism, specifically, the idea that you can upload your mind to a computer. It is all but given based on our current scientific understanding that the mind is inseparable from the body, yet somehow particularly atheist people behave as if they are separate things. This is a dogmatic belief. It's unknown if such a technology will be possible one day, but I don't find transhumanism or that idea dogmatic. The human mind is of course part of the human body, but there's nothing that prescribes any particular mind must be part of a biological body. This is known as "substrate independence". If substrate independence is true, it would suggest creation of conscious machines and simulation of conscious beings is feasible. There are additional difficulties when it comes to the possibility of actually "uploading" one's mind, but it seems incorrect to say "atheists who trust science believe the mind and body are inseparable, yet here they act like they can be separated". The atheist/physicalist/scientific claim is that the mind emerges from the brain, and that the brain is made of ordinary matter - not that they're "inseparable" in the sense that there can't be such a thing as a mind without a fleshy body. It's orthogonal to "bodiness" or an idea of anything like a soul. If substrate independence is true, then a mind is a thing which must exist on some physical substrate composed of matter. It's fine if you believe substrate independence isn't true, but I don't see any dogma. Perhaps a dogma would be "substrate independence is true" without demonstrating any evidence of it, but I haven't seen that claim. This'll probably only ever be known for sure if some group actually manages to instantiate a seemingly-conscious mind on a non-biological substrate, and if it seems to pass every possible test for consciousness we can devise.
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  Belief that your mind can be moved is a dogmatic belief, if you hold it, seeing as our current scientific understanding of the brain precludes it. That isn't to say a machine cannot be conscious, or that a different type of consciousness cannot exist.
  - meowface 5y ago
    I'd say certainty in such a belief would be dogmatic. But I don't think it's at all dogmatic (or wrong) to say that in the distant future it could maybe become possible. If one merely says "I believe there's a chance we may one day be able to upload our minds to a machine", I don't think that's dogma. Even if one says "I believe there's a chance we may one day be able to upload our minds to a machine and retain continuous consciousness in the process" (as opposed to basically just creating a mental copy of oneself), I'd say that also isn't dogma, even if the odds are lower. I would actually say "our current scientific understanding of the brain precludes it" is dogmatic. Unless you mean "we don't yet know how we could go about it given our current limited understanding", then sure; but asserting that something (especially something that doesn't violate any laws of physics) will never be possible is a positive, definitive statement, and one I also don't think is true. We just know it would be enormously difficult and complex and that it's extremely unlikely it would be possible within the next few centuries, and may never be possible. There's nothing we know about right now that would fundamentally make it impossible. It's all just matter and information. The definition of dogma, according to Google, is "a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true". Claims of incontrovertible truth are dangerous, whichever direction they're in. If some transhumanist wholeheartedly expects they're going to be inside of a computer by the time they're 80, then that would be dogmatic, but I've personally not seen anyone with such an attitude.
  - parineum 5y ago
    Current scientific understanding is inconclusive. You can't prove a negative so it definitely doesn't preclude it.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
evoo5Rlyea2D 5y ago
> A good example of this is transhumanism, specifically, the idea that you can upload your mind to a computer. Better examples might be what you can find in certain strands of rationalism: the simulation argument, that God (friendly AI) doesn't exist but ought to be created, that if the AI isn't summoned (programmed) in a very particular way it will be maximally dangerous, the Judgment day when the AI is brought online, and even intangible possible Hells through TDT and basilisk arguments. I can't help getting the impression there's a weirdly distorted version of Christianity in there somewhere, and the reason it can survive is because its adherents don't recognize that that's what it is.

meowface 5y ago

>A good example of this is transhumanism, specifically, the idea that you can upload your mind to a computer. It is all but given based on our current scientific understanding that the mind is inseparable from the body, yet somehow particularly atheist people behave as if they are separate things. This is a dogmatic belief. It's unknown if such a technology will be possible one day, but I don't find transhumanism or that idea dogmatic. The human mind is of course part of the human body, but there's nothing that prescribes any particular mind must be part of a biological body. This is known as "substrate independence". If substrate independence is true, it would suggest creation of conscious machines and simulation of conscious beings is feasible. There are additional difficulties when it comes to the possibility of actually "uploading" one's mind, but it seems incorrect to say "atheists who trust science believe the mind and body are inseparable, yet here they act like they can be separated". The atheist/physicalist/scientific claim is that the mind emerges from the brain, and that the brain is made of ordinary matter - not that they're "inseparable" in the sense that there can't be such a thing as a mind without a fleshy body. It's orthogonal to "bodiness" or an idea of anything like a soul. If substrate independence is true, then a mind is a thing which must exist on some physical substrate composed of matter. It's fine if you believe substrate independence isn't true, but I don't see any dogma. Perhaps a dogma would be "substrate independence is true" without demonstrating any evidence of it, but I haven't seen that claim. This'll probably only ever be known for sure if some group actually manages to instantiate a seemingly-conscious mind on a non-biological substrate, and if it seems to pass every possible test for consciousness we can devise.

betwixthewires 5y ago
Belief that your mind can be moved is a dogmatic belief, if you hold it, seeing as our current scientific understanding of the brain precludes it. That isn't to say a machine cannot be conscious, or that a different type of consciousness cannot exist.
- meowface 5y ago
  I'd say certainty in such a belief would be dogmatic. But I don't think it's at all dogmatic (or wrong) to say that in the distant future it could maybe become possible. If one merely says "I believe there's a chance we may one day be able to upload our minds to a machine", I don't think that's dogma. Even if one says "I believe there's a chance we may one day be able to upload our minds to a machine and retain continuous consciousness in the process" (as opposed to basically just creating a mental copy of oneself), I'd say that also isn't dogma, even if the odds are lower. I would actually say "our current scientific understanding of the brain precludes it" is dogmatic. Unless you mean "we don't yet know how we could go about it given our current limited understanding", then sure; but asserting that something (especially something that doesn't violate any laws of physics) will never be possible is a positive, definitive statement, and one I also don't think is true. We just know it would be enormously difficult and complex and that it's extremely unlikely it would be possible within the next few centuries, and may never be possible. There's nothing we know about right now that would fundamentally make it impossible. It's all just matter and information. The definition of dogma, according to Google, is "a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true". Claims of incontrovertible truth are dangerous, whichever direction they're in. If some transhumanist wholeheartedly expects they're going to be inside of a computer by the time they're 80, then that would be dogmatic, but I've personally not seen anyone with such an attitude.
- parineum 5y ago
  Current scientific understanding is inconclusive. You can't prove a negative so it definitely doesn't preclude it.
- fighterpilot 5y ago

evoo5Rlyea2D 5y ago

> A good example of this is transhumanism, specifically, the idea that you can upload your mind to a computer. Better examples might be what you can find in certain strands of rationalism: the simulation argument, that God (friendly AI) doesn't exist but ought to be created, that if the AI isn't summoned (programmed) in a very particular way it will be maximally dangerous, the Judgment day when the AI is brought online, and even intangible possible Hells through TDT and basilisk arguments. I can't help getting the impression there's a weirdly distorted version of Christianity in there somewhere, and the reason it can survive is because its adherents don't recognize that that's what it is.