[Skybird]

@Skybird

Indeed I don't believe that spirituality need die in association with religion. I feel that there is an inherent truth to much spritual thinking, insofar as it pertains to the concept of perception and insight. In that sense the rational self aware atheist can easily call himself spiritual without sacrificing any of his good sense.

Sounds like you wish to give a reference to Buddhist concepts of human mind, or is that by coincidence only?! Buddhism is atheistic and imo not even a religion like the others more an attitude towards life and how to live it, and nthat again has much in common with what Kant said in the Golden Rule. Now, a confessing Christian or Jew or Muslim can live in accordance with the golden Rule, yes. I never denied that. What IU deny is that the Golden Rule and the morals that give skin and flesh to it derive from any of the three desert dogma and their scriptures. Ol' jahwe, the God of the old testemant and much of the new, Allah, they all are not that pleasant and kind at all. They make humans like Stalin or Tamerlan, Hitler or Saddam look like liberal, humanistic amateurs in the business of how to terrorise mankind, or the indovodual hero in a given story as well. Fathers told to buthcer their sons, leaders being told to conmquer that forign land and wipe out every triobe living there, not saving anyone, all life on earth being exterminated due to some animosity God had for the behaviour of his creature that he had designed by his own image, and time an again the displays of extreme hostility against women, and disrespect for their existence: stories on men preferring to hand over their daughters to a mob for gang rapes over sending away foreigners under their roof who - by chance I'm sure! - all happen to be precious males... Lovely book. Puts all authors of war and crime novels to shame. If God is perfect, and created us by his image, why do we fail and get punished by him then? Is god not poerfect then? Or is he just a sadist misdesigning us intentionally so that he can have his fun with us when punishing us for being what he made us to be?

Also, I agree about the notion that our susceptibility towards this dogmatic thinking likely is a function of evolution. I however am apt to think this is all a byproduct of the evolution of the rational self aware mind and it being at odds with the pre-existing primal survival instinct, the one that tends towards conformism at the cost of the individual in favor of the group.

You say vulnerability to religious dogma/authority is a byproduct of the evolution of self-aware mind. A categorical adaptation mismatch, you mean? How does that work exactly? The argument I gave in my explanation of the term spirituality over religion (some posts above), as well as the example on the moth and how that may serve as an example of human children's behaviour serving a survival task but making them vulnerable to religious authority, would argue differently.

I think of self awareness like its some unfavorable mutation that has yet to find its equilibrium. Really it'd be so much better if we just could shut up and get on with the currents.

Why do you think so? And what do you say to the apparent trend for increasing complexity we see in evolution of life on earth, and in physical, chemical, ecological, astronomical systems as well? In the models on how matter aggregades to form solar systems, to observations of how an individual life form gets formed up after fertilzation, or the evolutionary design of the race'S characteristc features? I would say the trend from simplicty to complexity is almost omnipresent where life and existence unfolds - and it is reverse were it dies. When a life form dies, the higher and more complex functions of the body die first, the basic, vital ones late. When an eco system collapse, the more advanced lifeforms in the hierarchy are threatened first, the rudimentary, simple forms hold out the longest time.

I cannot prove it, but by how I see things in the universe moving I think evolution means a trend from simplicity to increasing complexity, and that the universe by this process in the end becomes more and more aware of itself. Developing mind (in a wide meaning of the word and surpassing the limited reference to man and his intellect) maybe is the real drive. But that is just a subjective opinion of mine.

Really though its a very curious mutation. To be self aware and capable of essentially reaching a point of defining so much of what we are is both freeing and powerful but also entirely depending on so many factors that its a much messier way to be.

You are a candidate for Wilber'S model of "holon hierarchies". It includes this basic principle, that the construction of systems of higher complexities always come at the price of forming new problems that on lower levels of complexity did not exist. The solution of problems emerging on a given complexity level leads the system to transformation where the solution gets realised, a structure of higher order and complexity forms up, where the problems of the level before can be solved and have been solved - but new problems emerged.

Romanticising a bit here, couldn'T this also be seen as a drive and motor of evolution?

Those that conform to the more dogmatic mindset obviously are the backbone of our species still, basically forming the survival-buoyancy necessary for us 'dreamers' to strive towards self improvement and expand our self awareness. What does a poet add to the human race that is substantially more valuable to survival that is not utterly eclipsed by the simple mundane product of the farmer? The insight into self in

Well, the Darwinian model would claim that no features exist for whose existence there have not been a good reason. Poetry may be a sideeffect of another evolutionary feature design, but we cannot be sure that it is this way, or any other way. Maybe it is a by-product of our intellect unfolding that enabled us instrumentally to master our environment. Maybe it serves a deeper function in itself. However, good poetry, music, arts, are a pleasurable and satisfying experiences - experiences without which life for a horse or a dog may not be different, but for us is makes a difference. Or wouldn'T you miss it? With our level or self-reflection and self-awerness, there can be more than just feeding the physical body. I would even say: there must be more.

not necessary for the farmer to buoy the human race's continued existence, but the failure of the Poet has much less impact compared to the failure of the farmer. Yet you must turn around and say if there are no poets why bother farming? Where do we go from there? Even the most mundane of thinkers fully inculcated into the dogma of narrow conformism is in some way motivated by that essential desire for more than just survival.

So it comes to me the fact that those two elements of humanity, the animal; the survivor, and the thinker; the self aware creature, don't function as a whole the way most elements of a creature's evolutionary package do. Mostly one finds a tail bone, the vestigial marker of a previous form, yet this is hardly at odds with the new evolutionary form.

As I indicatd I tend to think that mind is a higher goal of evolution than just physical life, the latter is just a necessary fundament for the first, maybe. Seen that way I cannot follow you when you differ between farmer-necessary, poet-not necessary for survival. I must admit I fail to see the conflict you describe, but that is because I think evoltution aims at something higher than just biological life. And I wonder if there is a cap, an upper limit to what evolution of the universe is going for. I don'T think so, and if there is such a limit, then we probably cannot imagine it, because it is too high above our current level. The wannabe-novelist in me just voiced his idea that maybe life/we are aiming at finally turning into god. I admit that queer thought makes me giggle.

Basically, I think neurosis is the manifestation of the essential dysfucntional nature of our bizarre evolutionary model. More than any other creature we struggle to find our equilibrium. Other creatures struggle with surviving the elements and the biosphere, we struggle with surviving the argument over our own true nature.

Wowh, and people call me a pessimist! I think our evolutionary design is like it is becasue until here it worked pretty well. Maybe it is not poerfect, yes. Maybe a shark is more perfect in being a shark, and indeed he is a marvellous design. I admire it absolutely. But a shark also is what he is, and that is a relativley low life form, that has not changed since how long it was? 7 million years? I do not remember, but it was a damn long time, I'm sure A shark cannot manipulate his environment, cannot leave his element, cannot reflect about himself, and when a new meteor hits Earth and kills all life on it, then he will suffer what he must becasue he has not the intellect to try finding ways to escape. Needless to say, sharks also do not write poetry, since we have been there two paragraphs earlier. The develoepment line of sharks gives the imporession to be somewhat the end product of that line. It will not go any further from there. We have the freedom to allow that - we have a choice,m we can chose for self-destruction, or for adaptation and adressing factors vital for our world'S future. A shark does not do that.

And the ultimate differences: we can choose to care for the interests of sharks, and other animals. while I do not know a single animal developed enough to make the same stand regarding us. And second, we can leave our environmental habitat to some degree. Technology is our way to transcend the limits of our biological design. It is a two-sided sword, I admit. We can spell disaster by abusing it, we can do marvellous things with it if we become wise enough. Anyhow, I more and more believe that technology is part of human evolution, in the meaning of enabling man to expand the limits of his biologial design. And that is what really sets us apart from any other life form on this planet.

As I said in the holon-hierarchy model, each level of complexity has cures for problems of earlier stages, but introduces new problems as well. that we can be overwhelemed by the problems of your developement stage should not make us doubt that we are on a higher complexity level than a shark nevertheless.

Or, to be coy, I believe that answer to the meaning of life is that we're just a well and truly f**ked up evolutionary mistake.

Answer rejected. Too simple.