On 01/20/2014 02:12 PM, Jochen Fromm wrote: > > It is not only a metaphor. It goes deeper, and it touches the core of > our civilization and what it means to be human. Religious groups are > adaptive units subject to evolution. They are based on replicating > entities shaped by group selection.
I'm not convinced. The idea is that the gene-related family or the meme-related group is the map to the cell, with accompanying lineages. And when that family or group is corrupted in some way, then that seeds the tumor. My main criticism still stands: The intervention for cancer relies on killing the broken cells. You can't just scatter them and have them blend into healthy tissue. But you _can_ scatter the families/groups and have them blend into a healthy society. But even if we dive down deeper into your analogy, there is another glaring difference: In cancer, each cell has its own copy of the DNA. Mutations happen at that level. Granted, there are differences in the interpretation of the DNA as well. But I don't know of evidence that cancer is _primarily_ epigenetic. Am I simply ignorant, here? Because individual cells have their own copy of DNA, they are more autonomous than, say, a family/group that uses a holy book like the bible or quran. A great example might be the consideration of the various sects. Both Jehova's Witnesses and Catholics claim to read the bible as a holy book. Same book, seemingly different "group DNA". So, _if_ the analogy maps cells to families/groups, then the holy book is definitely _not_ analogous to DNA. Some other structure is required, something intra-group that allows the group to be more autonomous. We can go further and nit-pick each mapping. But I think the most important one is the intervention problem mentioned above. I don't think we're going to find a "cure" for totalitarianism that is in any way similar to whatever cure we might find for cancer. At least, so far, the abatement methods for cancer don't seem to bear any resemblance to the abatement methods for totalitarianism ... unless your proposal is that the state of the art treatment for totalitarianism is to kill the citizens... which seems a bit extreme. > You know, the holy book which is read every saturday (in the Jewish > religion) or sunday (in the Christian one) is in fact nothing else but a > bundle of instructions how to create a group of people which get along > with each other. The preacher who preaches a sermon is like someone who > translate the genes of the holy script. He reads the genetic information > (the DNA) and creates a message (the RNA) so that the believers can > translate the information into behavior. The behavior of the church > members is the protein which is generated. Church service is the > expression of cultural genes, and religious groups are adaptive units > subject to evolution and group selection. > > There you have it, the mystery of religion. From a sociological > perspective it is quite obvious. All the basic religious terms are > related to group terms: > > god: group > sin: breaking the rules of the group > blessing/curse: wish to be included in/excluded from the group > heaven/hell: being loved/hated by the group > prophet: founder of the group > priest: maintainer of the group > holy (profane): something which belongs to the group (or not) > holy book: history and blueprint of the group > prayer: conversation of individual and group > word of god, commandment: laws of the group > baptism: gain a new existence as a member of a group -- ⇒⇐ glen ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College to unsubscribe http://redfish.com/mailman/listinfo/friam_redfish.com
