The most common voluntary activity is not eating, drinking alcohol, or taking drugs. It is not socializing with friends, participating in sports, or relaxing with the family. While people sometimes describe sex as their most pleasurable act, time-management studies find that the average American adult devotes just four minutes per day to sex.
An interesting aspect of this is not just preventing boredom, as Drewfus commented rightly, but spending time doing things that are other than reality and involve the imagination has mental, emotional, and probably chemical influence on our bodies. This is displayed in the use of such methods in spiritual therapy in New York City, as well as other big cities. This sort of thing isn't just entertainment. It can heal those who are pained in many different ways and sustain those who are trying to avoid pain or hurt.
The worlds of imagination prevent boredom. Boredom implies excessive brain capacity. A small brain can never be bored, because it cannot generate a state of surplus time in the first place. A bored big brain is ripe for optimization. The noblest thing anyone can do is to keep their brains active, interested, entertained, because cognitive stimulation keeps our big brains, big. It is noble in the sense that the benefits of big brains accrues to society as a whole. The returns on cognitive stimulus are non-excludable.
If one story is about a character who burns his anus (with a hot ember) to punish it and then unexpectedly feels pain, well, why tell such a silly story? Surely it’s not to share the piece of wisdom that poking a hot stick up your butt is going to hurt. There are lots of sacred stories roughly that silly. What’s the point?
Two things to bear in mind:
Stories are not simulating physical reality, they are simulating social reality.
Stories are not making predictions, they are making volitional extrapolations - best and worst case illustrations of social ideals. Story telling ia far mode activity, signaling social ideals. Silly stories usually illustrate some moral or social principle in a concrete form.
You need to differentiate between the ability to tell stories, whether about the day's events, or about things you might do tomorrow or the next day, etc., and the stories that people actual tell as the "deep" stories tell to share the "deep" meanings of their culture. And if you want to think about our ancient ancestors, then you need to look at stories like those they might have told -- of course, we have no direct acess to them. But, for example, you might read the Winnebago Trickster stories, as collected by Paul Radin early in the 20th century. These stories are long on outrageous silliness and short on practical utility. Until you seriously consider such stories, your speculations are of doubtful value. I've got two oldish posts in which I think about story-telling with such stories in mind:
Note that these stories are told in public, so signally is involved. But just what is being signaled, that's the question, no? If one story is about a character who burns his anus (with a hot ember) to punish it and then unexpectedly feels pain, well, why tell such a silly story? Surely it's not to share the piece of wisdom that poking a hot stick up your butt is going to hurt. There are lots of sacred stories roughly that silly. What's the point?
Why do other mammals sleep so much when they arent hunting? probably because its safer to be at home sleeping and dreaming. it is safer for us to sit at home watching movies and playing video games. better than thrill seeking by scoring cocaine and picking up hookers. well, not in my opinion, but its still probably better.
"... fiction scenarios seem quite poorly sampled if the purpose is to learn to predict actual events well....."
Hmmm... I wouldn't want to argue that imagination is invariably a GOOD source of predictions, just that (a) it provides possible alternatives when facts are lacking and (b) with experience and better reasoning power, we can recognize some alternatives are more likely than others. Tiny amounts of imagination would have given an edge to our forebearers in circumstances where other animals would have only been confused and frustrated. Over time, selection would increased that capability.
Wait a second, folks. Why are y'all treating "adaptive" as synonymous with "good"? My personal utility has nothing whatsoever to do with the classic goal of reproduction. Knowing what's evolutionary adaptive and what isn't tells me how I got here, not where I want to go.
Peter, Buck, foragers usually had lots of useful things they could do.
John, mike, Tim, fiction scenarios seem quite poorly sampled if the purpose is to learn to predict actual events well. Surely something else is going on.
Bryan, happy to admit that seems so.
ravi, yes we seem to over-consume sugar and fiction today.
I don't see any reason to think that maladaptive (or non-adaptive) behaviors shouldn't develop and even become widespread in a population that has mitigated a number of serious evolutionary pressures.
Why did fiction/theater evolve in the first place. Very easy to see that .. 'artists' gifted with higher levels of verbal faculty discovered that they could gain social power .. as cultures achieved more division of labor certain people had more time to learn what entertains people through trial and error .. just like other forms of art ..
Most Entertainment is highly maladaptive .. their information/utilatarian value is highly suspect .. they are like dangerously addictive sweets .. that have been exquisitely refined through centuries of trail and error ..
Let us see .. why do we eat sweets? Understanding the mental machinery that gives us pleasure when we eat sweets is easy. So does it mean that sweets serve some function? 'Most' fiction and theater is the same way. Arguably some fiction/theater could be used for utilitarian purposes. That does not mean that there is some high and lofty reason for 'all' fiction/theater.
An interesting aspect of this is not just preventing boredom, as Drewfus commented rightly, but spending time doing things that are other than reality and involve the imagination has mental, emotional, and probably chemical influence on our bodies. This is displayed in the use of such methods in spiritual therapy in New York City, as well as other big cities. This sort of thing isn't just entertainment. It can heal those who are pained in many different ways and sustain those who are trying to avoid pain or hurt.
The worlds of imagination prevent boredom. Boredom implies excessive brain capacity. A small brain can never be bored, because it cannot generate a state of surplus time in the first place. A bored big brain is ripe for optimization. The noblest thing anyone can do is to keep their brains active, interested, entertained, because cognitive stimulation keeps our big brains, big. It is noble in the sense that the benefits of big brains accrues to society as a whole. The returns on cognitive stimulus are non-excludable.
If one story is about a character who burns his anus (with a hot ember) to punish it and then unexpectedly feels pain, well, why tell such a silly story? Surely it’s not to share the piece of wisdom that poking a hot stick up your butt is going to hurt. There are lots of sacred stories roughly that silly. What’s the point?
Two things to bear in mind:
Stories are not simulating physical reality, they are simulating social reality.
Stories are not making predictions, they are making volitional extrapolations - best and worst case illustrations of social ideals. Story telling ia far mode activity, signaling social ideals. Silly stories usually illustrate some moral or social principle in a concrete form.
"My personal utility has nothing whatsoever to do with the classic goal of reproduction."
Nor does it have anything to do with "the good"!
Fiction is evolutionarily valuable because it allows low-cost experimentation compared to trying things for real. -- Dennis Dutton
You need to differentiate between the ability to tell stories, whether about the day's events, or about things you might do tomorrow or the next day, etc., and the stories that people actual tell as the "deep" stories tell to share the "deep" meanings of their culture. And if you want to think about our ancient ancestors, then you need to look at stories like those they might have told -- of course, we have no direct acess to them. But, for example, you might read the Winnebago Trickster stories, as collected by Paul Radin early in the 20th century. These stories are long on outrageous silliness and short on practical utility. Until you seriously consider such stories, your speculations are of doubtful value. I've got two oldish posts in which I think about story-telling with such stories in mind:
http://www.thevalve.org/go/...
http://www.thevalve.org/go/...
Note that these stories are told in public, so signally is involved. But just what is being signaled, that's the question, no? If one story is about a character who burns his anus (with a hot ember) to punish it and then unexpectedly feels pain, well, why tell such a silly story? Surely it's not to share the piece of wisdom that poking a hot stick up your butt is going to hurt. There are lots of sacred stories roughly that silly. What's the point?
Why do other mammals sleep so much when they arent hunting? probably because its safer to be at home sleeping and dreaming. it is safer for us to sit at home watching movies and playing video games. better than thrill seeking by scoring cocaine and picking up hookers. well, not in my opinion, but its still probably better.
"... fiction scenarios seem quite poorly sampled if the purpose is to learn to predict actual events well....."
Hmmm... I wouldn't want to argue that imagination is invariably a GOOD source of predictions, just that (a) it provides possible alternatives when facts are lacking and (b) with experience and better reasoning power, we can recognize some alternatives are more likely than others. Tiny amounts of imagination would have given an edge to our forebearers in circumstances where other animals would have only been confused and frustrated. Over time, selection would increased that capability.
Amen brother man.
Wait a second, folks. Why are y'all treating "adaptive" as synonymous with "good"? My personal utility has nothing whatsoever to do with the classic goal of reproduction. Knowing what's evolutionary adaptive and what isn't tells me how I got here, not where I want to go.
Peter, Buck, foragers usually had lots of useful things they could do.
John, mike, Tim, fiction scenarios seem quite poorly sampled if the purpose is to learn to predict actual events well. Surely something else is going on.
Bryan, happy to admit that seems so.
ravi, yes we seem to over-consume sugar and fiction today.
but satisfaction brought him back... you know?
I don't see any reason to think that maladaptive (or non-adaptive) behaviors shouldn't develop and even become widespread in a population that has mitigated a number of serious evolutionary pressures.
Why did fiction/theater evolve in the first place. Very easy to see that .. 'artists' gifted with higher levels of verbal faculty discovered that they could gain social power .. as cultures achieved more division of labor certain people had more time to learn what entertains people through trial and error .. just like other forms of art ..
Most Entertainment is highly maladaptive .. their information/utilatarian value is highly suspect .. they are like dangerously addictive sweets .. that have been exquisitely refined through centuries of trail and error ..
Let us see .. why do we eat sweets? Understanding the mental machinery that gives us pleasure when we eat sweets is easy. So does it mean that sweets serve some function? 'Most' fiction and theater is the same way. Arguably some fiction/theater could be used for utilitarian purposes. That does not mean that there is some high and lofty reason for 'all' fiction/theater.
But Robin, won't you at least admit that the time we now spend on imaginary worlds is highly unadaptive?