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I mean, maybe? They experience that life is completely unpredictable, sure. They learn whatever they are taught along with it. Consider, life was far more un

by taeric 2y ago

I mean, maybe? They experience that life is completely unpredictable, sure. They learn whatever they are taught along with it. Consider, life was far more unpredictable just a few hundred years ago. Literally stubbing your toe in the forest could go septic and then you were dead. Violently so. Bad harvests could happen with no forewarning at all.

airstrike 2y ago
The fact that stubbing your toe meant death in the past doesn't mean that facing massive adversity doesn't have real negative long term impact on one's mental well being. You're equating psychological harm and learned patterns of behavior that are unresourceful with physical accidents, without explaining why we should see them as comparable. Even if they were comparable, who's to say Neanderthal younglings with badly stubbed toes didn't also have skewed reward processing as adults?
- taeric 2y ago
  Example of stubbing toe was about how unpredictable life was. Getting a wound to go septic was basically random for a long long time. Most of the time, stubbing your toe was about the same as it is today. Annoying and nothing more. Have it go septic, though, and it likely looked like someone had been cursed to death. And note that this goes for more than just literally stubbing your toe. Snag on a bush? Bitten by animal. It would have seemed far far more random. My post is specifically in response to the one above me. It is framed with modern events and pushing that they are obviously going to seem unpredictable to people. My assertion is that they can be seen that way, sure; but don't think this is somehow a modern thing. To your point, I would expect that reward processing is influenced by these events, sure. I would also expect any indoctrination that was happening at the same time to stick. My current bias is to expect indoctrination to stick more effectively than raw experiences. And yes, this is somewhat cheating because the indoctrination is almost certainly done to compliment experiences.
  - lazyasciiart 2y ago
    Arbitrary danger in nature is where religion came from.
    - taeric 2y ago
      This largely runs to my point. It wasn't the arbitrary danger that led to religion. It was people teaching that the danger was from a directed source that did. Put differently, without priests, would there be religion?
      - em-bee 2y ago
        It was people teaching that the danger was from a directed source that did i'd rather think it was the demand for an explanation for those events. and just like any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, so is any unexplainable event indistinguishable from an act of god.
        taeric 2y ago
        For this to work, though, you would have seen a convergence of all humanity onto the same explanations? While I think you can almost make the case that there are some commonalities between origin stories, I think you would be stretching credibility a fair bit there. This also hits a pretty tough point with regards to other animals. Do they have religions?
        em-bee 2y ago
        For this to work, though, you would have seen a convergence of all humanity onto the same explanations given the dominance of monotheistic religions this is actually happening. there is no need for origin stories to have commonalities because the convergence can also happen through replacement. if every group comes up with their own explanation for the different experiences they have, their stories are naturally going to differ, and that is what we see in history. but also, commonalities are there. pretty much all stories have some kind of creator of the universe and many refer to someone who will come and bring salvation.

by taeric 2y ago

airstrike 2y ago

The fact that stubbing your toe meant death in the past doesn't mean that facing massive adversity doesn't have real negative long term impact on one's mental well being. You're equating psychological harm and learned patterns of behavior that are unresourceful with physical accidents, without explaining why we should see them as comparable. Even if they were comparable, who's to say Neanderthal younglings with badly stubbed toes didn't also have skewed reward processing as adults?

taeric 2y ago
Example of stubbing toe was about how unpredictable life was. Getting a wound to go septic was basically random for a long long time. Most of the time, stubbing your toe was about the same as it is today. Annoying and nothing more. Have it go septic, though, and it likely looked like someone had been cursed to death. And note that this goes for more than just literally stubbing your toe. Snag on a bush? Bitten by animal. It would have seemed far far more random. My post is specifically in response to the one above me. It is framed with modern events and pushing that they are obviously going to seem unpredictable to people. My assertion is that they can be seen that way, sure; but don't think this is somehow a modern thing. To your point, I would expect that reward processing is influenced by these events, sure. I would also expect any indoctrination that was happening at the same time to stick. My current bias is to expect indoctrination to stick more effectively than raw experiences. And yes, this is somewhat cheating because the indoctrination is almost certainly done to compliment experiences.
- lazyasciiart 2y ago
  Arbitrary danger in nature is where religion came from.
  - taeric 2y ago
    This largely runs to my point. It wasn't the arbitrary danger that led to religion. It was people teaching that the danger was from a directed source that did. Put differently, without priests, would there be religion?
    - em-bee 2y ago
      It was people teaching that the danger was from a directed source that did i'd rather think it was the demand for an explanation for those events. and just like any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, so is any unexplainable event indistinguishable from an act of god.
      - taeric 2y ago
        For this to work, though, you would have seen a convergence of all humanity onto the same explanations? While I think you can almost make the case that there are some commonalities between origin stories, I think you would be stretching credibility a fair bit there. This also hits a pretty tough point with regards to other animals. Do they have religions?
        em-bee 2y ago
        For this to work, though, you would have seen a convergence of all humanity onto the same explanations given the dominance of monotheistic religions this is actually happening. there is no need for origin stories to have commonalities because the convergence can also happen through replacement. if every group comes up with their own explanation for the different experiences they have, their stories are naturally going to differ, and that is what we see in history. but also, commonalities are there. pretty much all stories have some kind of creator of the universe and many refer to someone who will come and bring salvation.