Here’s a common story about gods. Our distant ancestors didn’t understand the world very well, and their minds contained powerful agent detectors. So they came to see agents all around them, such as in trees, clouds, mountains, and rivers. As these natural things vary enormously in size and power, our ancestors had to admit that such agents varied greatly in size and power. The big ones were thus “gods”, and to be feared. While our forager ancestors were fiercely egalitarian, and should thus naturally resent the existence of gods, gods were at least useful in limiting status ambitions of local humans; however big you were, you weren’t as big as gods. All-seeing powerful gods were also useful in enforcing norms; norm violators could expect to be punished by such gods.
The need for Gods masks our need for connection, for poetry, for magic. I love math and exact sciences, I love engineering and constructions, but if you get a dog, decompose it in its pieces and put it back together, it still lacks the magic wand of life. We had the intimate need to connect with something larger than us in time and space. God was the concept we assigned to that need. I think is actually beyond God are human centric. Looking up, we are cosmos, we are made of cosmic stuff. Looking down, we are glued to Earth (or earth). I don't think we only use God for a hierarchical solution, to validate our rank, but perhaps some of us are outliers and just don’t fit in that platform.
Until the Axial revolution of about 3500 years ago, most gods were local to a social group. For our forager ancestors, this made them VERY local, and thus typically small. Such gods cared much more that you show them loyalty than what you believed, and they weren’t very moralizing. Most gods had limited power; few were all-powerful, all-knowing, and immortal.
Interesting - does this conflict with your previous claim that belief in moralising gods, and shame at the thought of their disapproval, were part of how foragers were able to become farmers? If gods weren't like this until most of the way through the farming era, how can it have been a key enabler of that era?
Doesn't this account somewhat conflict with your views on ems being primarily treated just as labor and given minimal resources?
Wouldn't this instead suggest a world in which at least some ems are incredibly powerful and in fact the primary decision makers for society? Moreover, if we really offer them such high status and power wouldn't that suggest there would be substantial restrictions on copying and running such high status ems or possibly even all ems?
It's somewhat hard to follow exactly what you are claiming is different in the two stories. I mean in both cases you have that:1) Early people believed in non-existent spirits with supernatural powers.2) Those spirits had very high-status.3) Eventually, after the rise of farming, rulers claimed to actually be gods giving themselves that very high-status.
Is the suggested difference whether or not we actively desire to have (create?) super high-status entities? Thus, on the first account it just happened that we started to believe in entities with powers which made them high-status while in the second we had some kind of underlying drive to grant some entity super-high status and if it hadn't been spirits we would have picked something/someone else?
Yes, you are right my assumption was wrong.
The need for Gods masks our need for connection, for poetry, for magic. I love math and exact sciences, I love engineering and constructions, but if you get a dog, decompose it in its pieces and put it back together, it still lacks the magic wand of life. We had the intimate need to connect with something larger than us in time and space. God was the concept we assigned to that need. I think is actually beyond God are human centric. Looking up, we are cosmos, we are made of cosmic stuff. Looking down, we are glued to Earth (or earth). I don't think we only use God for a hierarchical solution, to validate our rank, but perhaps some of us are outliers and just don’t fit in that platform.
I'm sure it feels god-like to redefine words to boost one's argument. But no one thinks that Neo or Mr. Smith are gods.
Until the Axial revolution of about 3500 years ago, most gods were local to a social group. For our forager ancestors, this made them VERY local, and thus typically small. Such gods cared much more that you show them loyalty than what you believed, and they weren’t very moralizing. Most gods had limited power; few were all-powerful, all-knowing, and immortal.
Interesting - does this conflict with your previous claim that belief in moralising gods, and shame at the thought of their disapproval, were part of how foragers were able to become farmers? If gods weren't like this until most of the way through the farming era, how can it have been a key enabler of that era?
I don't think you've read Age of Em. In it I depict ems as the main decision makers. I don't see why that implies restrictions on copying.
Doesn't this account somewhat conflict with your views on ems being primarily treated just as labor and given minimal resources?
Wouldn't this instead suggest a world in which at least some ems are incredibly powerful and in fact the primary decision makers for society? Moreover, if we really offer them such high status and power wouldn't that suggest there would be substantial restrictions on copying and running such high status ems or possibly even all ems?
The ancients had the advantage of absence. Familiarity, proximity, and duration turn this into more fleeting fame, foibles, and follies.
Yes, a big difference is how eagerly we seek out associations with high status entities.
It's somewhat hard to follow exactly what you are claiming is different in the two stories. I mean in both cases you have that:1) Early people believed in non-existent spirits with supernatural powers.2) Those spirits had very high-status.3) Eventually, after the rise of farming, rulers claimed to actually be gods giving themselves that very high-status.
Is the suggested difference whether or not we actively desire to have (create?) super high-status entities? Thus, on the first account it just happened that we started to believe in entities with powers which made them high-status while in the second we had some kind of underlying drive to grant some entity super-high status and if it hadn't been spirits we would have picked something/someone else?