Can The Belief Instinct Be Controlled?

That belief manifests as an instinct in humans has now been well documented. It is mainly in the field of evolutionary biology that much of the research into this instinct has been done, including by Dominic Johnson in his new book, 'God Is Watching You - How The Fear Of God Makes Us Human'. Of course, neither Johnson or other evolutionary biologists are touting an actual deity in which belief is invested, but rather a creation of the human brain that offers unique evolutionary advantages.

But religious belief, as in investing one's mental capital (to the extent of conviction) into a given religion's credos and dogmas, must not be confused with God belief.  The conflation of the two is what leads many to think religious belief is wired into the brain. It is not. Rather the brain's temporal lobes are predisposed to supernatural beliefs in general, whether devils, angels, ghosts or vampires. Johnson himself argues that belief in supernatural forces (and especially an "angry god") that can punish is a useful evolutionary adaptation in that it can steer adherents toward moral probity and societal cohesion, progress.

How come? Well, while rape for instance, might have enabled primitive, amoral tribes to spread their genes indiscriminately, once language and a god-fearing culture developed  the putative presence of an invisible and angry monitor would have prevented tribe members from incurring high social costs. Also, it would save the tribe social capital by having to decapitate so many offenders if the invisible censor in the members' brains was already eliminating potential vicious acts before they could manifest.

Johnson himself also argues that god-fearing societies with high moral senses would also be more likely to be established and grow given they'd more likely punish even minor offenders. For example, he argues that societies that punish cheaters more consistently and aggressively are more likely to prosper.  This can also explain why so many of these god fearin' societies have little tolerance for atheists, especially in holding high office.  Johnson quotes the 17th century English philosopher John Locke, for example:

"Those who deny the existence of the Deity are not to be tolerated at all. Promises, covenants and oaths, which are the bonds of human society, can have no hold upon or sanctity for an atheist"

Of course, this is all bare balderdash, with Locke merely invoking another form of the ignoratio elenchi fallacy. Generate a false premise, i.e. "atheists deny the existence of the deity" (which we don't, we merely withhold  investing belief in an unproven entity) and ergo we will have no truck for oaths, promises and covenants.  But this is also a non sequitur even if some hard core atheists did "deny" a deity, because the rejection of bonds and covenants would militate against their own self interest!

But again, there is no real deity only a concept of one, what we call a "God concept". If  religions or religionists claim they are advancing the SAME God but in different ways, then the critical thinker must point out the redundancy and superfluous nature of most. Since they will never agree on whose God meets that standard, then we must come back to the notion of relative and subjective God concepts.

The use of the term God-concept then recognizes implicitly that the nearly universal allegiance to some God belief or other is separate from the issue of any factual existence of a deity. In other words, the widespread use and appeal of God concepts does not mean that there is a genuine correspondent in reality. In fact, humanity's penchant for creating Gods via God-concepts is fully explainable by appeal to brain architecture and tendencies such as described by Michael Persinger in his monograph, The Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs, 1983.  As he noted therein:

"The God Experience is an artifact of transient changes in the temporal lobe”

But that doesn't mean it isn't evolutionarily useful. Persinger was merely among the first to recognize that human brains possess a hyperactive agency detector device, thereby seeing unseen "agents" - spirits, demons, angels, gods  and the like in natural phenomena as well as random happenings. (I.e. a person come through an airplane crash unscathed and insisted "God was protecting me!" - but somehow in his infinite power missed the dozens of other passengers.

As for natural phenomena, like solar eclipses, powerful lightning strikes, tsunamis etc., it was to be expected primitive humans - before the advent of modern science - would latch onto supernatural agents as the primary causes. They had no theoretical or rational wherewithal to come up with anything else. Still, as Johnson puts it:

"Learning religion is part of human nature. Learning science is against human nature"

Especially as much of modern science (e.g. quantum mechanics) goes directly against our dictates of common sense and simplistic versions of causality. Our basic nature is to use these as guiding standards but in QM and relativity, for example, they are useless.

As Johnson and many of his peers have noted, there is little harm in reacting to something that turned out not to exist but dismissing an unseen agent causing rustling in the thick brush might have dire consequences. Those primitives that ignored it might become meals for a saber tooth tiger.  So, no surprise that the benefits of survival would be mutated to a pattern of evolutionary selection in seeing agents everywhere.  I mean, hell, the instinct is even easily triggered in atheists. How many times have we walked down dark city streets late at night, and suddenly heard a noise behind us, then picked up our pace?  Maybe not a goblin, but could be a mugger.
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All of which discloses that perhaps there is something to be said for controlling the belief instinct in certain venues - whether of politics, our modern culture, or psychology. If then belief is allowed to run amuck, say whether in unhinged paranoia (such as circulated on Alex Jones'  "Info Wars"), or in accepting all Muslims are terrorists, or in supernatural cataclysms (e.g. the Armageddon fantasy) then we may pay the price. In the latter case , for example, if Ted Cruz seriously believes in Armageddon and that - if elected President- he has the power to bring it to fulfillment, we may all be in serious trouble.

But even in less serious or intense scenarios managing the belief instinct can prove valuable..

The "12 Worst Ideas Unleashed On the World By Religion" - How They Can Be Nullified (Part 1)

Heretics meet their tortured ends at the hands of the Inquisition.

Let us agree as a starting proposition that any form of intellectual enterprise or program predicated on fantasy worlds or what are deemed "beyond the natural" realm (i.e. supernatural) are bound to be rife with terrible ideas. The reason is simple: By ignoring natural world constraints and natural laws (e.g. 2nd law of thermodynamics) then "anything goes" and the casual violation of the laws becomes as easy as shooting fish in a barrel.

This then can lead to a fictitious morality and sanctions that have no realistic bearing on what is humanly feasible or possible. These can then lead to arrogant overstepping of bounds and persecution of others simply because they don't share the same beliefs.

So we are clear where I am coming from, and as I pointed out in my recent book, Beyond Atheism, Beyond God, religions ought to be accorded respect but only in so far as they agree they are really  espousing God-concepts - not any actual God. The reason is logical and simple: If there are 2,000 religions they cannot all be claiming  the same truths - or the same "God"- which is the same thing.  Hence,  the only conclusion must be their dogmas and sacred books are about God-concepts. These are fallible, artificial creations of the human mind which are inherently flawed and limited.

If  religions or religionists claim they are advancing the SAME God but in different ways, then the critical thinker must point out the redundancy and all but one are useful. Since they will never agree on whose God meets that standard, then we must come back to the notion of relative God concepts.

The use of the term God-concept then recognizes implicitly that the nearly universal allegiance to some God concept or other is separate from the issue of any factual existence of a deity. In other words, the widespread use and appeal of God concepts does not mean that there is a genuine correspondent in reality. In fact, humanity's penchant for creating Gods via God-concepts is full explainable by appeal to brain architecture and tendencies such as described by Michael Persinger in his monograph, The Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs, 1983.

All this is put forward before I examine each of the '12 worst ideas unleashed on the world by religion' discussed in a recent article  by Valeria Tarico on salon.com. Now, taking them in order - with the author's (edited) descriptions-  then my take:


1."Chosen People" –The term “Chosen People” typically refers to the Hebrew Bible and the ugly idea that God has given certain tribes a Promised Land (even though it is already occupied by other people). But in reality many sects endorse some version of this concept, i.e. he New Testament identifies Christians as the chosen ones.

Religious sects are inherently tribal and divisive because they compete by making mutually exclusive truth claims and by promising blessings or afterlife rewards that no competing sect can offer.

Response: This is pretty well spot on, especially the last part. If then we were to replace "God" with God -concept most of the problems would vanish because mutual exclusion vanishes since all God-concepts are relative one to the other (i.e. none can be known absolutely) and hence none is superior to the others.  Effectively, God "competition" ceases and there can be no spoken idiocy such as one Gen. Jerry Boykin once uttered ("My God can beat your God!")

In the same way, if all are relative, none can promise special "eternal" rewards that the rest can't - because again, all are relative to each other, and subjective. Thus, their beliefs - such as concerning afterlives - must also be relative and subjective.  As I observed in Chapter 1 of my book:

 The implicit relativism acts as a restraint, backing the believer away from a militant absolutism. Ideally, this should dispose him or her to be more tolerant toward unbelievers, and tolerant toward those of different religions


2. Heretics – Heretics, kafir, or infidels (to use the medieval Catholic term) are not just outsiders, they are morally suspect and often seen as less than fully human.

Response: Again, spot on.  "Heresy" is merely a lingual confection and device to isolate a person or minority group if their beliefs do not coincide with the primary belief group's.  In thereby performing this lingual exercise the outcasts created  ("heretics") are rendered sub-humans and can thereby be tortured by the primary group at will - such as shown in the depiction of heretics tortured by the Inquisition.

But if all "Gods" are relative to each other, and also subjective - since as James Byrne observes ('God', Continuum Press, 2001, p. 151.):

"The idea of God as Being is the creation of the philosophical gaze, a result of the drive to objectification which is the hallmark of the history of metaphysics. It is the ‘God’ which is argued about in theism and atheism, and which can only be a projection of humans"

Then it's a wash. No one's God is truer than any other's so anything one person says pertaining to its nature is as good as any other description.  Hence, "heretic" becomes meaningless and superfluous because the original need for isolation is eliminated. This can be formulated as a kind of axiom: "In a world with only God-concepts, which are all relative, there can be no such thing as heresy or heretics."

3. Holy War – If war can be holy, anything goes. The medieval Roman Catholic Church conducted a twenty year campaign of extermination against heretical Cathar Christians in the south of France, promising their land and possessions to real Christians who signed on as crusaders. Sunni and Shia Muslims have slaughtered each other for centuries.

Response:  Given what has already been said in my response to "heretic" the application of the God-concept meme is even more cogent here. Indeed, since all God-concepts are relative and subjective it becomes a stupid waste of time to wage "holy war", crusades, or "jihad" - call it what you will.

Understand here the fundamental thrust of all holy wars is forced conversion of the invaded population to the religion or beliefs of the invaders. But if all Gods are relative, via God-concepts, then conversion emerges as asinine and useless. Conversion would only make sense if one could be absolutely certain his God was superior to all others, But he can't because his brain architecture is too limited to know that. Its capacity for absolute insight is foreclosed and since even the brains of the authors of the respective scriptures are limited, then one can't learn any more from those works either.


4. Blasphemy – Blasphemy is the notion that some ideas are inviolable, off limits to criticism, satire, debate, or even questioning. By definition, criticism of these ideas is an outrage, and it is precisely this emotion–outrage–that the crime of blasphemy evokes in believers. The Bible prescribes death for blasphemers; the Quran does not.

Response: Again, if Gods are replaced by God-concepts, then blasphemy becomes redundant and irrational. It is no longer possible to rationally invoke it because one's deity is no better, no more advanced or "perfect" than another's. This is admittedly a difficult pill for the religious absolutist to swallow, but there it is! Also, let's be clear that severely limited god-concepts can themselves wreak havoc. (Since God-concepts are relative, it is possible to have inferior or puerile ones as well as more sophisticated advanced ones -depending on the level of culture and intellect of the people who created it).

To distinguish retrogressive deity concepts from the more advanced, I invoke "god-concepts"- with the common 'g' indicating a primitive version. In the case of the Biblical prescription of death for blasphemy cited above, let us note this comes from the Old Testament where the primitive concept of the demiurge  or demiurgos dominated. [1]


5. Glorified suffering – Picture secret societies of monks flogging their own backs. The image that comes to mind is probably from Dan Brown’s novel, The Da Vinci Code, but the idea isn’t one he made up. A core premise of Christianity is that righteous torture—if it’s just intense and prolonged enough–can somehow fix the damage done by evil, sinful behavior. Millions of crucifixes litter the world as testaments to this belief.

Our ancestors lived in a world in which pain came unbidden, and people had very little power to control it. An aspirin or heating pad would have been a miracle to the writers of the Bible, Quran, or Gita. Faced with uncontrollable suffering, the best advice religion could offer was to lean in or make meaning of it.

Response: This grotesque idea was at the heart of many of the critics' responses to Brittany Maynard, i.e. to just "offer your pain and suffering up to God".   But what if Brittany didn't believe in God, or in the "God" of these fanatics? Then again, the notion of God-concepts comes to the fore. If Brittany adhered to a more subtle or nuanced God-concept, i.e. that rejected unnecessary pain, then her first duty would be to eliminate the possibility of reaching that stage, e.g. of a pain-wracked vegetable with no cognition who could only experience agony and lacked bowel, urinary control.

Others may insist that THEIR God declares this to be "suicide" and a "mortal sin" or whatever, but since all God-concepts are relative, it doesn't matter. Brittany's choices (even if she adheres to NO God-concept) are as good and as justified as those who accept a more stringent or punitive God-concept.


6. Genital mutilation – Primitive people have used scarification and other body modifications to define tribal membership for as long as history records. But genital mutilation allowed our ancestors several additional perks—if you want to call them that. Infant circumcision in Judaism serves as a sign of tribal membership, but circumcision also serves to test the commitment of adult converts.

Response:  All true, which is exactly why,  as I noted in a previous blog post, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/12/cdc-trying-to-get-male-teens.html

that all forms of such mutilation, including male circumcision, amount to an antiquated religious practice that has no place in the modern world. Neither does it have any place in any objective religious world where all "Gods" are really God-concepts, and "covenants" are derived from these and also subjective and relative.


[1] See, for example, Elaine Pagels’ explanation in her book, The Gnostic Gospels, p. 37, wherein demiurgos is a lesser divine being who gives the law and metes out judgments to those who violate it. Obviously, demiurgos is a primitiv concept for a preliterate people or culture.

(To Be Continued)

The Bid to Adjust and Manage the Atavistic Brain

The atavistic brain was discussed years ago by neuroscientist Michael Persinger, in his book,   The Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs.  Persinger's work was spurred to inception and completion by his notice of the regressive and atavistic component in many religiously inclined brains- especially those possessed by  avid fundamentalists.  He took care to distinguish this species, with their hellfire screeching and terrorist "witnessing" from the more laid back counterparts who, while they may have believed in the myth of personal Saviors and God-men, didn't try to foist it on others.

Persinger's work was motivated by a reality -based perception articulated in his biographical sketch in the same book:

"The research has been encouraged by the historical fact that most wars and group degradations are coupled implicitly to god beliefs and to the presumption that those who do not believe the same as the experient are somehow less human and hence expendable. Although these egocentric propensities may have had adaptive significance, their utility for the species' future may be questionable."


This was remarkable in clearly stating why judgmental religiosity was a toxic meme, and futher, had to be stomped out. His experiments, wherein he stimulated subjects' temporal lobes to excite religious epiphenomena (using a specially designed helmet) further disclosed that the primary site for the problems were located in the brain. If one could attack these brain regions properly, such as in the temporal lobes, it might even be possible to eradicate all excessive religious zealotry.

This take was not new, since in his interview with Persinger, Jack Hitt noted:

"Persinger is not the first to theorize that the Creator exists only in the complex landscape of the human noggin. In his controversial 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes, a Princeton psychologist, argued that the brain activity of ancient people - those living roughly 3,500 years ago, prior to early evidence of consciousness such as logic, reason, and ethics - would have resembled that of modern schizophrenics"


Similarly, in a 1987 paper, (p. 137), Persinger boldly stated that:

"The God Experience is an artifact of transient changes in the temporal lobe”

Now, with the further development of quantum dot technology (see, e.g. 'The Quantum Dot: A Journey Into the Future of Microelectronics') we may well be on the cusp of controlling and regulating (at minimum) these atavistic brain tendencies which have produced everything from the Inquisition, to the Crusades, and even genocides. No human in his or her right mind could possibly dispute the fact that our species would be much better, operate more compassionately and perhaps even effectively in the social arena, if the brain could at least be subject to more regulation. At least the brains of those who need it.

The beauty of quantum dots is they can be specifically located in the exact brain regions where the most control is needed. If a feasible neural network mapping can be applied first, say to select input-output processing of hate and intolerance (as transmitted electro-chemical signals) in the brain's amygdala, is it not also possible to "disinfect" this tendency by altering the neural pathways and responses? Could the electro-chemical transfers effectively be cut off? Consider the most elemental input and output situation given by:


O o----------(e1)------(e2)------O (Z)


where e1 and e2 are two components by which an input at O yields a current (throughput)transferred to Z with information. The structure function of this would be: f(x1, x2) = x1*x2. But now suppose the component (e2) is negated or co-opted with another device. Then e2 = 0 and f(x1,x2) = 0. In other words the normal output one would expect is nullified.

We already know electro-chemical signals (via action potentials) are conveyed to  receptor neurons in the region of the amygdala. We note that when an axon is in its resting state it maintains a constant potential difference, or ‘resting membrane potential’ of –70 mV. When it is excited, it rises to a peak voltage of around 40 mV.  The latter basically arises from an uneven distribution of K+ (potassium) and Na+ (sodium) ions across the axon cell membrane relative to a collection of negatively charged protein molecules inside the cells.


Now, if neurons are stimulated – say by an electric shock from implants, an electronic monitoring device will show the 40 mV ‘action potentials’ on the traces. An interesting phenomenon associated with this, is that no matter the size of the stimulus applied, the action potential peak remains the same. What this shows is that even an appliance, device or artificial neural network (to "train the brain's receptors") placed in the immediate pathway will not stop the signal propagation. Like solar x-rays that can incept total communication blackouts, a way or mode must be found to short circuit the whole transfer process.


Note further that each pulse peak for the action potential coincides with a polarization change in the axon. Thus, as the pulse moves to a given site on the axon, Na+ ions move into the axon. Though technically both potassium and sodium ions are involved, there is actually a preferential bias. This bias is what we'll need to exploit in creating an adequate neural network to regulate the reception of impulses. This particular bias inheres in a preferential transferrence of Na+ ions through the axon membrane by a ratio that varies from 3:1 to 3:2 relative to K+ ions.

Thus, one way to engender a short circuit would be to alter the bias by altering the ion concentration at the axon membrane, say to 1:1. The synapses also have a role, of course, specifically the synaptic cleft. As I noted above, action potentials are constantly generated in an ‘all or nothing’ kind of way, and their endpoint is the synaptic cleft of the neuron. But here is where the ‘buck’ or rather the pulse, stops. Because as the axon has no choice in propagating the action potential, the neuron on the opposite side of the synapse (the post-synaptic cell) does have a choice of whether to fire or not fire when the potential arrives. If post synaptic neurons fired predictably with arrival of each and every action potential they’d be totally deterministic.


And boring. The fact that they need not fire, indicates a high degree of probability factored into the process. This process is depicted in Fig. 2 in simplified view, based on treating the axons as simple electrical ‘cables’ and the ends as ‘terminals’. This is perhaps the essential modus operandi for the brain acting as self-programmable von Neumann machine, particularly since quantum mechanics can easily be factored in.


In the diagram, we focus on Axon 1 and note that when the action potential arrives at the terminal it’s depolarized. This depolarization enables Calcium ions (Ca+2) already within the terminal to diffuse out into the mediating space. These ions follow a concentration gradient, unlike the case of the Na+ ions in the sodium pump. As the ions migrate, then diffuse to the post-synaptic cell (at Axon 2), they leave a channel in their wake that allows quantal releases of neurotransmitter (shown as a solid dot). These, like the Ca+2 ions diffuse across to the post-synaptic cell(s).


One neurotransmitter is acetylcholine. If the transmission of this or any similar chemical is rapid firing will occur, if not it won’t. Note also that Axon 2 must have a way of eliminating neurotransmitters almost as soon as they arrive. For acetylcholine, the enzyme cholinesterase acts to break it down into choline and acetate. In these inactive forms the neuron is spared being in a state of maximal and continuous excitation that would otherwise destroy it.


Generalizing the electrical cable analogy, the synapses act as switches in the system, the ‘on’ or ‘off’ positions denoted by information, in the form of chemical messages, to cross the synaptic cleft and trigger firing of the post-synaptic neuron(s) or not. Most probably there are bundles of similar neurons linked together by their respective connections, to perform critical functions. One might refer to the neuronal super-assembly or 'super-circuit’ within which considerations such as networks, and optimization of paths as well as 'adjacency and order' take precedence. Again, this is almost absurdly oversimplified since there really are no neurons that have only one connection to another. Indeed, we expect the typical neuron to have something like 10,000 connections to others.


But a start to how we might proceed is depicted  in the Kohonen SOM (Self-Organizing Map) in Fig. 3. Again, I reiterate, I'm keeping this at the most basic level. To reinforce this, trials performed quickly disclose Kohonen SOM  is too oversimplified. For example, it's applicable only to a single layer but the brain region under scrutiny is multi-layered. In addition, each "grid" neuron is an output neuron only. In real life, one must have both input and output neurons.Technically, we would need to examine and use the Multi-Layer Perceptron Network.

Anyway, as the Kohonen (SOM) is implemented, each input pattern gives rise to a localized region of activity in the feature map against a background of lower activity.For example, the activity may be registered as relative voltages, and these in turn may signify the ratio of Na+ ions to K+ ions. Once the Kohonen SOM is entrained, the aggregation of the input pattern should cause a localized group of neurons to be active.

However, the activity will almost surely not be what is desirable, because the simplicity of the map doesn't allow us to make drastic changes to the configuration of action potential thresholds.  In this case, using quantum dot implants - say for a fundie's brain - might well send him into convulsions, or worse. We certainly don't wish to have happen to the fundie what transpired with the main character in 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest' (i.e. after he was lobotomized at the end) we merely want to see his most reactive behavior tempered, so that he's tolerable, and more tolerant to others!

We ought to note here that already amazing steps have been made in terms of electronic implants, to control everything from over -eating to alcoholism. If these aberrant behaviors are within our purview, it is only a matter of time before excessive, meme (mind-virus) -driven zealous religiosity and its hate-driven actions derived from it are controlled.

See the following for information on the progress in electronic brain implants thus far:

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-brain-implant.htm#


http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/david-manners-semiconductor-blog/2010/11/brain-implants-in-10-20-years.html


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2087843/Living-cyborg-brains-created-laboratory--electrical-chips-replacing-missing-parts.html