How could asceticism have evolved?

[Phr3121]

How could asceticism have evolved?

To start, I take it pretty much as a given that every human actuality (mental, behavioural, anatomical, etc) was enabled somehow by biological evolution, though not necessarily selected for.

But sometimes the potential routes to a particular endpoint are baffling. I suspect that part of the religous resistance to evolution stems from this perception that there's no conceivable way of getting from A to B.

How could Nazism have evolved?

 

[tonysmasseuse]

Seriously...

You implying this is not a good thread?

Obviously can't compete with the 2000 daily 'Tits durr durr amarite', 'Someone stealing my müsli' and 'I hate women, why can't i get laid?' threads on Mayberry, but ok decent, imo.

 

[Aegon Spengler]

No. That would be gravity...

Lmao. What? No it isn’t.

Check it out

 

[JSN]

OP are you talking about the evolution in relatively modern, settled, societies?

A lot of hunter-gatherer societies tend that way. Having someone like Terrell Owens in your tribe of thirty would be a recipe for disaster.

 

[Tycho- Taylor's Version]

How could Nazism have evolved?

Is that somehow related?

OP are you talking about the evolution in relatively modern, settled, societies?

A lot of hunter-gatherer societies tend that way. Having someone like Terrell Owens in your tribe of thirty would be a recipe for disaster.

No, I mean it more formally - actual biological evolution creating a psychology with the potential for asceticism.

 

[djacobox372]

Asceticism likely evolved because in a tribal society there needed to be some control over males fighting over females.

 

[Phr3121]

You implying this is not a good thread?

No. The 'scholastic' side part.

 

[Phr3121]

Lmao. What? No it isn’t. Check it out.

There you go. Great video. Thanks for proving my point. Gravity as a 5th dimension. Did you watch the video? Also, check this out...

"If extra dimensions exist, they could explain why the universe is expanding faster than expected, and why gravity is weaker than the other forces of nature."

"In physics, Kaluza-Klein theory is a classical unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism built around the idea of a fifth dimension beyond the usual four of space and time and considered an important precursor to string theory."

 

[Yotsuya]

But the capacity to make such a conscious decision evolved, right?

the software for reasoning would likely have been coded already by then, even if it had yet to be made explicit. It's not something that people would just sit back and contemplate how to do at that stage.

No, I mean it more formally - actual biological evolution creating a psychology with the potential for asceticism.

Biological evolution created hardware that was so flexible and powerful, that the cultural evolution could really get going.

 

[Phr3121]

Nazism - Is that somehow related?

You tell me. What is asceticism? How did it evolve? For humans, is the process not the same for Nazism and other ideologies? Does it not require some form of 'severe self-discipline', commitment to a higher cause, and higher thinking? Compare an ascetic Indian (India), a Catholic nun, and an SS Gestapo officer. How exactly does one's mind get to that point?

 

[Aegon Spengler]

There you go. Great video. Thanks for proving my point. Gravity as a 5th dimension. Did you watch the video? Also, check this out...

"If extra dimensions exist, they could explain why the universe is expanding faster than expected, and why gravity is weaker than the other forces of nature."

"In physics, Kaluza-Klein theory is a classical unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism built around the idea of a fifth dimension beyond the usual four of space and time and considered an important precursor to string theory."

Nothing in that video comes anywhere close to proving your point.

 

[superpunch]

Same reason soldiers are willing to sacrifice their own lives for the group.

Evolution isn't about your own genes surviving to the next generation. It's about your individual genes competing amongst themselves to survive to the next generation. Your genes aren't just present in your own body; they're also present in other people and even other species. And it doesn't matter to those genes whether they survive through your body, other peoples' bodies, or other species' bodies.

Imagine gene A is present in individuals X, Y, and Z. If gene A suicides a copy of itself in person X and that causes Y and Z to have kids with gene A, gene A will kill person X. Thus, the soldier.

This also works across species. There are some organisms that give themselves up to parasites that eat their bodies or hijack their brains. The host being eaten alive is the 'soldier' in that case. Both of these organisms will have common genes that are destroying the host to make more copies of themselves. In both cases, this is a symbiotic-parasitic relationship for the benefit of a mutual gene.

Thus, religion, homosexuality, and so many other things that don't make sense for spreading your genes at the individual level. EG -- gay men like dudes, a lot. Sisters of gay men with those same man attraction causing genes really, really, really like dudes. And they have more kids than sisters of straight men. So the gay gene sacrifices itself in the gay person's genome to more than make up for it with success in his family member's genomes. Etc.

 

[Phr3121]

Nothing in that video comes anywhere close to proving your point.

...than you don't have a clue as to what you are watching. Also, how is time considered a dimension?

 

[IDL]

Abstract thought is required as a sense making apparatus.

You can't contemplate anything without it, and making sense of the world in an abstract way I am sure has its survival benefits.

As for asceticism, it will have been observed over time that certain behaviors, values, etc, lead to different outcomes and that there are benefits bestowed upon people who restrain themselves and follow various paths. This concept also scales to society. I think that also ties in with the idea of delayed gratification. Something humans are much better at than other animals, who are more driven by impulse. Human can contemplate the future and plan for it. That is huge.

If asceticism is the extreme form of the above, then maybe it's just the human proclivity to push anything to its extreme and is a fringe. There may be no evolutionary advantage to take that to its extreme but there certainly would be for people to push things to extremes in general. To find outer boundaries.

 

[Aegon Spengler]

...than you don't have a clue as to what you are watching. Also, how is time considered a dimension?

Lmao. I know exactly what I’m watching. You obviously don’t.

If you got “gravity is the 5th dimension” out of that then there’s no point in having a discussion with you. No fair minded person would come to that conclusion.

Cheers. Best of luck meandering around this subject.

 

[Devout Pessimist]

 

[Phr3121]

Lmao. I know exactly what I’m watching. You obviously don’t. If you got “gravity is the 5th dimension” out of that then there’s no point in having a discussion with you. No fair minded person would come to that conclusion.

Yeah, that's about the response I was expecting. Avoiding a debate when you realize you are wrong and can't explain what you think you know. Thanks for playing...

 

[Aegon Spengler]

Yeah, that's about the response I was expecting. Avoiding a debate when you realize you are wrong and can't explain what you think you know. Thanks for playing...

Look, I got a little agitated. Sorry.

He’s saying that if light behaves differently than we expect it would demonstrate that there’s a 5th dimension.

Gravity contains some clues about a 5th dimension. If we can find the interference pattern in light from a distant star, it would mean that at some point it’s being bent by a massive object that shouldn’t exist.

Our universe is touching another universe.

The imagination bit was a joke (he said the universe looks like brainwaves)

 

[Phr3121]

Look, I got a little agitated. Sorry.

Over gravity and a 5th dimension? Three points you have failed to answer:

1. Your video at 7:35. You've touched on it on your post above, #78.

2. Time. How is time a dimension? If time is a dimension why can't gravity be a dimension?

3. Kaluza-Klein Theory: Again, in physics, Kaluza-Klein theory is a classical unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism built around the idea of a fifth dimension beyond the usual four of space and time and considered an important precursor to string theory."

 

[Aegon Spengler]

Over gravity and a 5th dimension? Three points you have failed to answer:

1. Your video at 7:35. You've touched on it on your post above, #78.

2. Time. How is time a dimension? If time is a dimension why can't gravity be a dimension?

3. Kaluza-Klein Theory: Again, in physics, Kaluza-Klein theory is a classical unified field theory of gravitation and electromagnetism built around the idea of a fifth dimension beyond the usual four of space and time and considered an important precursor to string theory."

I wasn’t agitated over gravity and a 5th dimension. Some stuff is going on IRL that has been bugging me so I was a little more aggressive chatting here than I should have been.

A single dimension is a line. 2 dimensions is a plane. 3 dimensions is a cube. The cube in motion = time, fourth dimension.

I will continue this conversation tomorrow morning when I get home. Cheers