The Evolutionary Origins of Religion

1. The Evolutionary Origins of Religion Presented by Ken Baskin 2016 IBHA Conference Amsterdam, Netherlands July 2016

2. The Writers’ Rorschach, except “The first step is to remember that gods are products of cultural evolution, not biological evolution.” Robert Wright, The Evolution of God

3. And now for something completely different . . . • In its most expansive sense, Religion is a product of natural selection, evolving genetically to fulfill the human need to create a vital symbolic order (VSO) – a living, adaptive way for group members to survive through cooperation • That need derives from the integration of two survival strategies that are at least 200 million years old: • Allanimals need to create models of a world too abundant to perceive directly • Social animalsneedsophisticated communications.

4. Survival Functions at Three Scales • Personal scale: the need to know, connect with, and “control” the invisible forces of the world • Social scale: the process by which we negotiate a shared model of the world (VSO), enabling group members to understand each other, cooperate, and build common identity • Cultural scale: the blueprint from which all our societal institutions emerge, as an integrated, symbolically coherent set of “games”

5. Three stops along the journey • Survival strategy 1: Perceptual reduction • Survival strategy 2: Social cohesion • Religion as the integration of 1 and 2

6. Umwelt and Perceptual Reduction • The world-as-it-is: William James’ buzzing, formless mass of signals, an ocean of possible meaning • Every species evolves the senses that enable it to reduce this mass to the model they need to survive – the umwelt (inner world) of bats and dogs • Human umwelt – coherent explanatory stories and story-like constructions • Those stories become models that we use to collapse the mass of signals into a specific experience

7. Brain Structure of a Storyteller • Brain structures that make us storytellers: neo-cortex and associated structures – thalamus, hippocampus • Functions of neo-cortex include expanded memory; integration of senses; executive functions, such as abstract thought, anticipation of future, and image construction (all necessary for storytelling) • These structures emerged fully in last 3 million years

8. Evolution of Human Brain

9. Emergence of Storytellers • Brain structure for primitive storytelling as early as australopithecines • Merlin Donald (1991) on “mimetic culture”: Homo erectus first to communicate through creative mime and imitation • Without sophisticated language they could have represented acts in the spirit world as mime and dance – ritual

10. Social Animals, Social Order • The lives of social animals – bees, wolves, chimps – depend on cooperation • They live in diverse, often hierarchical groups with many generations, hunt and defend together, and often rely on learning • In that cooperation, they need ways to communicate complex messages quickly and ensure social cohesion (bird songs)

11. Fixed Action Patterns • FAP: characteristic patterns of action with set meanings for group members • Example 1: Mating rituals – silverwashed fritillary (I approach not to hurt you but to negotiate sex) • Example 2: Wolves packs are so complex they need FAPs to demonstrate public commitment to social hierarchy

12. FAP as Storytelling • When evolutionary ancestors developed a storytelling umwelt, natural selection favored genes for brain structures that enabled FAPs as mimetic communication strategy • With Homo erectus, FAPs may have become ceremonial rituals to share stories, perhaps even about the invisible world • While controversial, Homo erectus seemed to need a powerful method of communication to colonize from Spain to Australia (boat building) • Neanderthals, c. 500,000 years ago, almost certainly because of ritual burials

13. “Ritual” as an Adjective • People talk about ritual as formal ceremony, repeated in a standard manner (government and religions) • Human FAPs range in degree of ritualization from the Eucharist to handshakes, with sports, business meeting, and birthday parties between them • All are FAPs that communicate complex messages and enable participants to understand each other

14. Human FAP Functions • To recreate/remember participants’ vital symbolic order, especially in increasingly large post-Ice Age communities • To signal commitment to the resulting social order • To create a visceral sense of group unity • To educate the young in their VSO • To define membership and otherness (raised fist)

15. Evolution of Religion • 3 million years ago, larger craniums with expanding neo-cortex and associated storytelling hardware • 1.8 million years ago, FAPS were hijacked to create storytelling umwelts, as well as social cohesion • 500,000 years ago, Neanderthal burial rituals • 250,000 years ago, language to tell more sophisticated stories • 70,000 (?) years ago, symbolic language to create VSOs • 12,000 years ago, end of the Ice Age – larger groups

16. Post-Ice Age Challenges • Maintaining order in larger socially constructed communities (Uruk at 40,000 was more than a thousand times larger than a hunter-gatherer band) • Justifying the disparities of wealth and power in larger communities • Adapting to growing social complexity in “as-if” communities, structured as culture games – tapu and mana; positive and negative mitzvot; blessing and sin

17. Scale 1: Personal Level • People tell explanatory stories about the invisible world to complete their umweltsso they can connect with the invisible world and understand how to “control” it • Generally accepted stories may be H-Gs explaining sickness as anger of ancestors or Israelite prophets trying to explain Assyrian invasion • These stories offer the explanation demanded by the human brain; without it, people don’t know how they should act and brain structures trigger increased anxiety

18. Scale 1: Personal level (cont.) • Brain circuits in religious experience: i.e., occipital/parietal, experience God as existing, and parietal/frontal, feeling of relationship with God • Meditation and ritual activate feeling of being in God’s presence; rhythm and repetition of ritual, unity of participants • Shared VSOs reassure individuals that they are part of the group, behaving the “right” way

19. Scale 2: Social level • Religion creates a shared VSO that enables communication, cooperation, and common identity within groups • Stories of Egyptian gods, Torah, or writings of Confucius and Lao-Tzu provide common understanding of the world and how to keep order when chaos always feels near • They provide the group umwelt, collapsing the field of possibilities so that people can have shared group experience

20. Scale 2: Social level (cont.) • Shared experience expressed ritually in many ways – H-G initiation rites, Muslims in mosque, Confucians in extensively ritualized daily life • Public ritual participation signals a pledge of commitment to the group and its values, understanding of the invisible world, and hierarchy (Spinoza) • Rhythm and repetition of ritual also creates visceral feeling of group unity, making cooperation, especially in inter-group hostility, more easily developed

21. Scale 3: Cultural level • Group’s VSO becomes blueprint for its culture – the behavior, ideas and artifacts it generates, including an “ideal” set of interlocking societal games, based on value sets such as tapu/mana • In Ancient Egypt, the religion was about realizing Ma’at (proper order and justice): Pharaoh was responsible for maintaining order through proper ritual and equal justice • Egyptian culture was about maintaining an island of order in a sea of chaos (origin story) and its institutions were dedicated to maintaining Ma’at

22. Scale 3: Cultural level (cont.) • Because mythology serves as “cultural DNA” – storehouse of behaviors people unconsciously draw on –mythologies seem to predict their societies’ history • Ex. 1: Viking mythology and conquests across Europe • Ex. 2: Exodus story and Jewish diaspora with cycles of entering a place as strangers in a strange land, helping build it, being persecuted, and then leaving

23. Vital Symbolic Order as adaptive • What makes VSO “vital” is its ability to change and adapt, especially with increasing social complexity • When they can’t change, religions become sclerotic, making it more difficult for people in their societies to adapt – Catholic Church and Islam today • Changes in Egyptian religion – Old, Middle, New Kingdom • Most profound period of such change are the Axial Age, with the emergence of Western monotheism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism, and Modernity

24. Last words • Temptation to examine contemporary VSO – a combination of Science, Capitalism, and Nationalism • We see the mythology spun out on TV, in movies, and on the Internet, with rituals such as elections, government events, and sports • Your feedback: Does this seem like an approach worth following? • If it is, I promise to come back in two years with an in-depth look at our Sci-Cap-Nat VSO!