The following are 62 correlates that I’ve collected of things called “sacred”. I invite any of you to offer a theory of the sacred that explains as many of these as you can, as simply as you can. (And to suggests edits of this list.)
Group Selection: Our polite reverence and respect for “the sacred” may serve to keep social order and cohesion within a community. By showing deference to certain sacred beliefs, practices, or objects, we signal our adherence to shared cultural or religious norms and reinforce a sense of group identity. This can help promote social cooperation, reduce conflict within the community, and enhance the survival and reproductive success of the group.
Theory: the sacred is an evolved cultural technology that utilizes the human capacities you describe (group-binding and afar-seeing) as well as imagination (defined broadly) to boost health via 'placebo' or 'belief effects', with recursive feedback effects on the operative capacities.
The 'placebo' effect is strong but difficult to study without concepts like 'double-blind' -- plenty strong-enough to drive an area within cultural evolution. Known early-traditional healing practices appear to rely on placebo, and to be more effective the more social proof and consensus view is involved. Thus the older anthropological view of e.g. shamanism as placebo strengthens (and is strengthened) by the dimensions you discuss in the pdf.
Also I submit 33a: "Sacred things have invisible as well as visible components."
This sounds pretty similar to some of Paul Tillich's insights about the object of religious/sacred attitudes being one of "ultimate concern." Yours is a social science rather than philosophical/theological approach, but it was the first thing that came to mind.
"37. We understand the sacred poorly using cognitive rational analysis, or numbers."
To that I'd say:
2. What is sacred is sacred because it is, not because we know it is.
And then:
3. Any workable system has something to it that's sacred, and that sacredness is eternally incomprehensible. Once an agent in that system accepts the eternal incomprehensibility of the sacred, the system works. Otherwise, the system does not work.
I’m currently working on an academic paper that tries to explain this (let me know if you’d like an early draft). The basic idea is that status games are fragile and vulnerable to collapse, and sacred values protect them. We all want status, but we can't admit it, because wanting status makes us seem vain, petty, self-centered, insecure, and low-status. Status symbols cease to be status symbols when they are seen as status symbols, because no one wants to be seen as a status-seeker. So how do we seek status without making it seem like we're seeking status? The answer is sacred values and narratives (i.e. the "official motives" you talk about in elephant in the brain). Instead of acting like we’re pursuing status, we collectively pretend that we’re pursuing something else that has nothing to do with status—something sacred. The sacred value has to be maximally disassociated with status and status-related resources, sufficiently abstract so as to plausibly explain a variety of our status-seeking activities, and taboo to question to prevent the status game from collapsing. Obviously we would revere the sacred and love people connected to it because we revere and love high-status people. Sacred values are a way of rationalizing our status games as purely altruistic, non-status-related activities, so that nobody sees them for what they are--i.e. status games. We make them taboo to question because if people did see them for what they are, they would collapse and we would lose lots of accumulated status. That’s the gist. There are lots of details to fill in, but I do think this explains a good number of these features.
15. The sacred isn’t for use by commoners, or for common purposes. There are many sacred acts which are used for common purposes, by commoners e.g. custom prayers for common tasks. Using a sacred thing with a designated purpose for other purposes is forbidden, though. For instance, appearing to pray to gain acceptance in a group.
I'll be reading the pdf! Might as well say a hypothesis that I've thought about a lot in the context of tribalism is "information compression". It's related to the fact that simple ideas can be faster-spreading than complex ones. And that in academic talk, we have the luxury of saying very complex things, and just shrugging our shoulders if people misunderstand them, whereas prospective political leaders have a bigger constraint to obey: they can only talk in "soundbites".
Combine that with this: people need shared things to bond over; they are screwed if they can't do this. This plus the fact that only simple ideas can be relied on to be heard about, and you have that the things that people will bond over need to be simple.
Sorry, this isn't an attempt to answer your question, because I think the question is a bad one. What you're doing here is essentially analytic philosophy of ordinary language, a project which can be extremely useful, but has a few problems.First, there's a bunch of assumptions built in, all of which are pretty problematic in this case. (1) That the English word sacred has a single meaning/is used in a unified set of ways; (2) that the meaning of the word is logically sound, i.e. not self-contradictory; (3) that the meaning is essentially abstract and conceptual in nature (versus, e.g. prototype theory, where meanings start with something concrete).I find your analysis reasonably persuasive, but this whole armchair linguistic philosophy enterprise has been fairly roundly criticized by philosophers (and linguists), and is now generally approached with a lot more caution. Given how wobbly the field of psychology looks these days, why should anyone have any confidence that 'construal theory' will still be seen as valid in 20 years? And given how obviously culturally situated some of your correlates are, why should anyone assume that 'sacred' will still be seen in the same way?What we can take away from this, I think, is a nice riff on sacredness. The metaphor of distance does seem to correlate nicely with sacredness in a lot of ways, and I think that's a useful rhetorical insight. But it can't be anything more than that.
You're right that there's more to it than not applying individual reason, but the additional content still follows from the division of our behaviors into X, Y, and Z.
In your PDF you divide your 45 into categories. Category A is, "it is valuable." What is the proximate reason we don't apply individual reason to optimize members of Y and Z? It's because we intrinsically value Y and Z so highly that we are unwilling to change them. Category A follows from this.
Category B is, "We show that we see it." To me, most of these are also about the Y or Z behavior being highly valued. Of course, we get emotionally attached to what we value, and desire to connect to it, and what we value highly comforts us, and we are willing to sacrifice for what we value. Category B seems to me to be a repetition of category A.
Category C is, "it unites us." Behaviors in Y are premised to result from cultural evolution, so naturally, behaviors in Y would tend to unite people into cohesive cultures.
Category D is, "it is set apart." I'd say your correlates in this category follow from members of Y and Z being not susceptible to optimization by reason. They are set apart from members of X, meaning we won't use our normal individual reasoning on them.
Category E is, "it is idealized." This follows from valuing the Y or Z behaviors highly. We value them highly and refuse to think critically about them, therefore we are willing to ascribe all sorts of exaggerated positive attributes to them.
Category F is, "feel it not think it." This is about not applying reason to members of Y or Z.
Category G is, "touching makes & shows it." The correlates listed in this category seem like miscellaneous stuff that may only apply to a few specific "sacred" behaviors, not generally.
I think I see his point. He's saying our behavior is the result of multiple levels of optimization. Say that a person's behavior is determined by a bunch of variables. A subset of these variables, call them X, are optimized according to an individual's faculty of reason. Elements of X might be "what kind of heating solution should I install in my home" or "who should I cc on this email." Another subset of these variables, Y, are optimized according to cultural evolution, such as "which religion should I believe in" or "how many members of my family should live under one roof." Variables in Y are not much optimized based on an individual's reason, because if they were, they'd be in X instead of Y. Then there can be another subset of variables, Z, that are optimized based on genetic evolution, being not much optimized by culture or individual reason.
Most of your 45 correlates have something to do with not applying individual reason to the "sacred" subject. This would fit with them being in Y or Z rather than X. I don't think "sacred" is the best word for this, but it is a useful concept.
There can be good practical reasons for some behavior to be in Y or Z rather than X. An individual may benefit from being able to make a credible pre commitment to some pro social behavior. If the behavior is in Y or Z, that helps ensure it is not going to change in the short term, providing that credible pre commitment.
Group Selection: Our polite reverence and respect for “the sacred” may serve to keep social order and cohesion within a community. By showing deference to certain sacred beliefs, practices, or objects, we signal our adherence to shared cultural or religious norms and reinforce a sense of group identity. This can help promote social cooperation, reduce conflict within the community, and enhance the survival and reproductive success of the group.
Theory: the sacred is an evolved cultural technology that utilizes the human capacities you describe (group-binding and afar-seeing) as well as imagination (defined broadly) to boost health via 'placebo' or 'belief effects', with recursive feedback effects on the operative capacities.
The 'placebo' effect is strong but difficult to study without concepts like 'double-blind' -- plenty strong-enough to drive an area within cultural evolution. Known early-traditional healing practices appear to rely on placebo, and to be more effective the more social proof and consensus view is involved. Thus the older anthropological view of e.g. shamanism as placebo strengthens (and is strengthened) by the dimensions you discuss in the pdf.
Also I submit 33a: "Sacred things have invisible as well as visible components."
This sounds pretty similar to some of Paul Tillich's insights about the object of religious/sacred attitudes being one of "ultimate concern." Yours is a social science rather than philosophical/theological approach, but it was the first thing that came to mind.
Would you say that the devil is negatively sacred? There are also things seen as "unclean" by some religions. Would they also be negatively sacred?
"37. We understand the sacred poorly using cognitive rational analysis, or numbers."
To that I'd say:
2. What is sacred is sacred because it is, not because we know it is.
And then:
3. Any workable system has something to it that's sacred, and that sacredness is eternally incomprehensible. Once an agent in that system accepts the eternal incomprehensibility of the sacred, the system works. Otherwise, the system does not work.
Rather than make a list of descriptions of sacred things, I start with this.
1. You can't have fun if nothing is sacred.
And that is a hard rule, not a general principle.
I’m currently working on an academic paper that tries to explain this (let me know if you’d like an early draft). The basic idea is that status games are fragile and vulnerable to collapse, and sacred values protect them. We all want status, but we can't admit it, because wanting status makes us seem vain, petty, self-centered, insecure, and low-status. Status symbols cease to be status symbols when they are seen as status symbols, because no one wants to be seen as a status-seeker. So how do we seek status without making it seem like we're seeking status? The answer is sacred values and narratives (i.e. the "official motives" you talk about in elephant in the brain). Instead of acting like we’re pursuing status, we collectively pretend that we’re pursuing something else that has nothing to do with status—something sacred. The sacred value has to be maximally disassociated with status and status-related resources, sufficiently abstract so as to plausibly explain a variety of our status-seeking activities, and taboo to question to prevent the status game from collapsing. Obviously we would revere the sacred and love people connected to it because we revere and love high-status people. Sacred values are a way of rationalizing our status games as purely altruistic, non-status-related activities, so that nobody sees them for what they are--i.e. status games. We make them taboo to question because if people did see them for what they are, they would collapse and we would lose lots of accumulated status. That’s the gist. There are lots of details to fill in, but I do think this explains a good number of these features.
15. The sacred isn’t for use by commoners, or for common purposes. There are many sacred acts which are used for common purposes, by commoners e.g. custom prayers for common tasks. Using a sacred thing with a designated purpose for other purposes is forbidden, though. For instance, appearing to pray to gain acceptance in a group.
I'll be reading the pdf! Might as well say a hypothesis that I've thought about a lot in the context of tribalism is "information compression". It's related to the fact that simple ideas can be faster-spreading than complex ones. And that in academic talk, we have the luxury of saying very complex things, and just shrugging our shoulders if people misunderstand them, whereas prospective political leaders have a bigger constraint to obey: they can only talk in "soundbites".
Combine that with this: people need shared things to bond over; they are screwed if they can't do this. This plus the fact that only simple ideas can be relied on to be heard about, and you have that the things that people will bond over need to be simple.
Sorry, this isn't an attempt to answer your question, because I think the question is a bad one. What you're doing here is essentially analytic philosophy of ordinary language, a project which can be extremely useful, but has a few problems.First, there's a bunch of assumptions built in, all of which are pretty problematic in this case. (1) That the English word sacred has a single meaning/is used in a unified set of ways; (2) that the meaning of the word is logically sound, i.e. not self-contradictory; (3) that the meaning is essentially abstract and conceptual in nature (versus, e.g. prototype theory, where meanings start with something concrete).I find your analysis reasonably persuasive, but this whole armchair linguistic philosophy enterprise has been fairly roundly criticized by philosophers (and linguists), and is now generally approached with a lot more caution. Given how wobbly the field of psychology looks these days, why should anyone have any confidence that 'construal theory' will still be seen as valid in 20 years? And given how obviously culturally situated some of your correlates are, why should anyone assume that 'sacred' will still be seen in the same way?What we can take away from this, I think, is a nice riff on sacredness. The metaphor of distance does seem to correlate nicely with sacredness in a lot of ways, and I think that's a useful rhetorical insight. But it can't be anything more than that.
You're right that there's more to it than not applying individual reason, but the additional content still follows from the division of our behaviors into X, Y, and Z.
In your PDF you divide your 45 into categories. Category A is, "it is valuable." What is the proximate reason we don't apply individual reason to optimize members of Y and Z? It's because we intrinsically value Y and Z so highly that we are unwilling to change them. Category A follows from this.
Category B is, "We show that we see it." To me, most of these are also about the Y or Z behavior being highly valued. Of course, we get emotionally attached to what we value, and desire to connect to it, and what we value highly comforts us, and we are willing to sacrifice for what we value. Category B seems to me to be a repetition of category A.
Category C is, "it unites us." Behaviors in Y are premised to result from cultural evolution, so naturally, behaviors in Y would tend to unite people into cohesive cultures.
Category D is, "it is set apart." I'd say your correlates in this category follow from members of Y and Z being not susceptible to optimization by reason. They are set apart from members of X, meaning we won't use our normal individual reasoning on them.
Category E is, "it is idealized." This follows from valuing the Y or Z behaviors highly. We value them highly and refuse to think critically about them, therefore we are willing to ascribe all sorts of exaggerated positive attributes to them.
Category F is, "feel it not think it." This is about not applying reason to members of Y or Z.
Category G is, "touching makes & shows it." The correlates listed in this category seem like miscellaneous stuff that may only apply to a few specific "sacred" behaviors, not generally.
"Most of your 45 correlates have something to do with not applying individual reason to the "sacred" subject."
There is a LOT more detail to be explained than that.
I think I see his point. He's saying our behavior is the result of multiple levels of optimization. Say that a person's behavior is determined by a bunch of variables. A subset of these variables, call them X, are optimized according to an individual's faculty of reason. Elements of X might be "what kind of heating solution should I install in my home" or "who should I cc on this email." Another subset of these variables, Y, are optimized according to cultural evolution, such as "which religion should I believe in" or "how many members of my family should live under one roof." Variables in Y are not much optimized based on an individual's reason, because if they were, they'd be in X instead of Y. Then there can be another subset of variables, Z, that are optimized based on genetic evolution, being not much optimized by culture or individual reason.
Most of your 45 correlates have something to do with not applying individual reason to the "sacred" subject. This would fit with them being in Y or Z rather than X. I don't think "sacred" is the best word for this, but it is a useful concept.
There can be good practical reasons for some behavior to be in Y or Z rather than X. An individual may benefit from being able to make a credible pre commitment to some pro social behavior. If the behavior is in Y or Z, that helps ensure it is not going to change in the short term, providing that credible pre commitment.
Outstanding!
And how specifically does that explain these 45 correlates?
Sacred are the things which an optimization process greater than us (evolution, cultural evolution) has selected when optimizing upon us.