"David Knipe"  wrote in message
news:aq4h3i$5ti$1{at}darwin.ediacara.org...

> Why does behaving in a certain way require certain beliefs?


A small, but up-the-nose and unpleasant, selection of examples to illustrate
the possible role of beliefs is, that the killings of other people the ways
that it happened in e.g. Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Campuchea, and Germany (not to
mention any of the current examples) may not have eventuated -- even though
these cultures caused a significant accumulation of CURSES in its people's
brains whilst they were infants and children (one symptom of "Conditioned-in
Unconscious Rendered Stressors Effecting Symptoms" being a tendency to
especially easily hate people other than those very people or specific
circumstances who put the CURSES there) -- had there NOT ALSO existed a
hate-focusing/superiority-asserting demagogical tradition in these cultures.

You could also have asked this counterpointed and more poignant question:

Why does the evolved capacity to NOT behave in certain ways, and to be
selectively UNCONSCIOUS about certain aspects of What Is going on, require
certain beliefs?



(By the way this question has a relatively simple and potentially
excEPTionally potent evolution-theoretical answer! However, you as much as
us humans in general, are not likely to want and be able to fully know it,
even if or when you see it!)


> Couldn't
> we just have evolved into being better at disguising our beliefs, and
> behaving as if we believed something different? Surely this would be
> an advantage in certain circumstances. For example, someone might
> pretend not to know about the tribal leader's one weakness (thus
> avoiding the inconvenience of being perceived as a threat) but then
> turn on him at an opportune moment.


Nothing new or speculative about that! this is at least in part precisely
what we have evolved into!  Were you born yesterday?

Peter
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