guessing. in the beginning equality bore balance. in the end supremacy begot chaos. in the beginning there was awe. in the end there was confusion. in the beginning: a necessity for trial and interpretation. in the end: the error of conclusions. if humanity’s origin is considered the beginning and the present day, the bleeding edge of time, the end, then each new day is the end. in the beginning there were objects and shadows and unknown forces. in the end there were gods and monsters and miracles.

wondering. before it’s mutation into more elaborate and complex forms of self aggrandizing balderdash there was animism. as part of the natural world rather than perceived masters of it we looked outward and saw a continuum of our lessors, our equals, and our betters. we saw mountains, and snorting bulls, and quivering bunny nostrils. each with a power, a force, a “soul” of it’s own.

quote: In some animistic worldviews found in hunter-gatherer cultures, the human being is often regarded as on a roughly equal footing with animals, plants, and natural forces. Therefore, it is morally imperative to treat these agents with respect. In this worldview, humans are considered a denizen, or part, of nature, rather than superior to or separate from it. In such societies, ritual is considered essential for survival as it wins the favor of the spirits of one’s source of food, shelter, and fertility and wards off malevolent spirits.

respect was called for but a respect born of necessity. there was not only the power within to think about but the considerable danger from without. shamanism, shintoism, and pantheism all share this aspect to varying degrees. animism, however, was not properly a religion, as such, for religion implies some form of emotion. Animism is in the first instance an explanation of phenomena rather than an attitude of mind toward the cause of them, a philosophy rather than a religion. is it possible that our very first interpretations of the natural world, philosophically, were in fact the wisest and most healthy?

though in the particulars the anthropomorphic tendencies of animism might seem naive, is it worse than the religions which supplanted it? the religions grounded in the ultimate anthropomorphism of attributing the whole of the natural world’s creation to anthropomorphic designers and it’s purpose to a testing ground for humanity? what could be more arrogant and prideful? what could be less intuitive? and isn’t science, in it’s way, returning us, philosophically, to a more holistic view of the planet and the universe? in as much have all the religions which have dominated our minds in between been destructive missteps? have the centuries of progress actually in the long run made it harder for us the understand the natural world? how can we now take an objective view when the world is made over in our own image?

seeing things. science may yet excuse us our folly. evidently we can’t help ourselves. the factors which have likely lead us down the paths we now walk are by and large involuntary. they are inborn and instinctive. their results unavoidable it seems.

pareidolia, apophenia, anthropomorphism, anthropopathism, (better known as pathetic fallacy), anthropic bias, reification.

some causes, some effects, but a potent hodgepodge of forces for the human mind to reckon with. interestingly even as our understanding of the natural world has deepened our susceptibility to pareidolia and apophenia in particular has remained, either as evolutionary hold overs or as integral parts of consciousness. but where as now we do less peering into shadows for the movement of predators its effects manifest as religious icons in burnt toast, faces on the surface of mars, and the like. we just cant help it, we are pattern recognition machines. albeit self-centered ones.

an interesting theory holds that it is precisely these mechanisms which lead to theology in the first place, that in effect religion is anthropomorphism writ large.

people find a wide range of humanlike beings plausible: Gods, spirits, abominable snowmen, HAL the computer, Chiquita Banana. We find messages in random events such as earthquakes, weather, and traffic accidents. We say a fire “rages,” a storm “wreaks vengeance,” and waters “lie still.” our tendency to find human characteristics in the nonhuman world stems from a deep-seated perceptual strategy: in the face of pervasive (if mostly unconscious) uncertainty about what we see, we bet on the most meaningful interpretation we can. If we are in the woods and see a dark shape that might be a bear or a boulder, for example, it is good policy to think it is a bear. If we are mistaken, we lose little, and if we are right, we gain much. in scanning the world we always look for what most concerns us—livings things, and especially, human ones. Even animals watch for human attributes, as when birds avoid scarecrows. In short, we all follow the principle—better safe than sorry. -paraphrasing of ideas put forth in the book faces in the clouds.

seems a sensible idea. it might explain why, as we became more and more successful, we went from attributing personified powers to the natural world- to attributing the whole of the natural world’s creation and purpose to personified powers. combine the tendency to resolve visual confusion into familiar quantities with the desire to resolve confusion of purpose and -thwap! a steaming hot pile of mythologies.

now as we become more adept at creation ourselves we seek to imbue our mechanical progeny (robotics,  a.i., and computers) with human attributes as well. we managed long ago to dispel the notion that the earth was at the center of the cosmos but the notion that humanity is in fact the center of all creation continues to chug along. but how could it be otherwise?

in the beginning: a frightening world which humans sought to understand in terms of supernatural powers and gods.
in the end: gods modeled after humans and a world molded to humanity’s desires- frightening.