Cognitive Evolution and Religion; Cognition and Religious Evolution

Abstract

This paper presents contemporary cognitive approaches to the evolution of religious beliefs. Arguments are put forward that different types of beliefs, or ‘modes of religiosity’, occur as a result of a number of evolutionary factors (biological, cultural, socio-political etc). At the same time, religions across the world retain a significant level of common and shared elements, also explained in evolutionary terms.

Mood, expertise, analogy, and ritual: an experiment using the five-disk Tower of Hanoi

“…If you view religion as an "adaptive complex" in evolutionary terms (sensu Alcorta & Sosis, 2005), then you might consider the differential usefulness of each (Russell et al, 2011). Accordingly, we can adopt the view that religions themselves are evolutionary units of replication (Whitehouse, 2008): they survive by gaining adherents; they die out by losing adherents; and they can be identified as possessing traits that are causally related to their survival (also see Whitehouse, 2004). In other words, they can be adaptive or maladaptive in a given "religious marketplace."…”

“…In contrast -given that every religion carries a range of stipulations about how to live, how to behave, and what to believe -we conjecture that dysphoria might be most useful for ensuring that adherents pay closer attention to the meaning of rituals, the analogical connections between them, and their salience in everyday life. In terms of (cultural) evolutionary success (Whitehouse, 2008), we can speculate that the most successful religions (in terms of the capacity to attract followers, keep them, and spread into new territories) are likely to be those that offer an optimal combination of euphoria and dysphoria (see Whitehouse, 2004). However, in the mind of a ritual participant, there is likely a complex interplay between pain, pleasure, and the socio-cognitive meaning of the ritual (cf.…”

Religion is natural, atheism is not: On why everybody is both right and wrong

“…We do not mean to imply that Whitehouse is unaware of distributed cognition, but his mentioning of it is very much in passing (cf. Whitehouse, 2008). Further, external mnemonics other than the imagistic and doctrinal modes play hardly any role in his theory (cf.…”

“…Further, external mnemonics other than the imagistic and doctrinal modes play hardly any role in his theory (cf. Whitehouse, 2008Whitehouse, , 2004. 43 Semiosis refers to the dynamics involving 1) a physical sign, 2) a cognizing subject that interprets the sign, and 3) the result of its interpretation, viz.…”

The role for simulations in theory construction for the social sciences: case studies concerning Divergent Modes of Religiosity

“…In the absence of such pedagogic aids, religious beliefs tend to be converted over time into more intuitive expressions, a process that has been described as the Cognitive Optimum Effect . Our model incorporates four anchor points; a more complete model would require several more (Whitehouse, 2008). The mainstream orthodoxy of the Kivung depicted in Figure 1 is occasionally eclipsed by small splinter groups comprising no more than a few villages at most, which break away temporarily from the larger religious movement, claiming that they have a new plan for bringing the ancestors back from the dead.…”