I was interested in Ian Morris's claim (Foragers, Farmers and Fossil Fuels) that in conditions where inequality is optimal (or even necessary) for the economy to function, such as was the case given the level of energy capture (i.e., the way things are produced and distributed) in certain eras, e.g., feudal, people subject to authority begrudgingly accepted it as natural, God-given order. It's not just that the exploiters continued exploiting because they thrive, it's that exploitation was built into the economic system in which everyone survived, no matter how thinly. (Today exploitation is becoming toxic and unproductive, but many people still are under the sway of a feudal mindset and rely on "natural" justifications of inequality, IMO.)

Yes, I've already read Thomas Kuhn, Joshs and I'm aware that no one operates in a cultural vacuum, in case you missed that.

Some random responses

1. There is no such thing as acting via reason alone because:
a. we are not brains in boxes - cognition and culture coevolve
b. we cannot reason without the help of emotion, as research with people who have damage to their emotional centres has shown (A and H Damasio.)

2. Cultural change occurs when the ideas of change agents (who have always existed everywhere at every time) come to be seen as potentially reasonable, as opposed to heretical, nonsensical or irrelevant, given a certain cultural climate.

3. I think we're heading to an abyss where the mafia plutocracy have just claimed power over most western democracies and ignorant macho chumps are buying their rhetoric and acting like turkeys voting for Christmas. I'm old, have no kids. But I will speak up not that it does much good. I hope not to be heartbroken by the inhumanity of these trend lines.

Earthlycohort, I don't understand the idea of deserving in this context. An expectation - or a sense of entitlement - that the attraction would be mutual?

I don't think you can answer these questions without disentangling cognition, culture, and physical chemistry. And I don't think these can be disentangled because they coevolved. Even the understanding of maternal and paternal relationships come with an inherited cultural cognitive software. What's available to us as options for our consciousness starts out there, not in between the ears. Meanwhile, could you please elaborate bullet 3? Also the last bullet seems to be an empirical question.

Joshs, Yes we all know our Thomas Kuhn. But consider the history of culture is cumulative (recently read a fascinating piece on the precursory elements to the invention of the piston engine that spanned millennia - Scientific American I think, but not sure) and yes, there may be "punctuations" in evolution , as Gould says.

For what it's worth, I'm not a proponent of naive realism and I find that archeologists and historians are far more interesting and informed about the history of culture than most philosophers who are busier grinding their axes.

I'm aware that there are many views of scientists on their models and history. Quite a good series was done by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on their Ideas program called "How to Think about Science" if you're interested. Daston on the history of objectivity is very interesting, if I recall.

Yes, there are some serious problems with science and scientism (especially reductionism), but the evidence that we're advancing scientific understanding year after year is simply undeniable. (Too bad culture is unable to keep up with the current pace. I fear we won't be able to reorganize ourselves in time. A bit like anthropogenic climate change. A singularity.)

And I don't think I gave any account of "scientific method" so I don't know how you come to think my "philosophy of scientific method" sounds outdated.

Joshs, no. Not really. There may be various tribes in science - reductionists, emergentists, various schools of thought influenced by the ideologies of the times, but scientific researchers are indisputably successful overall at testing and applying what they discover and building on the discoveriess of previous generations of scientists. Nerds rule, IMO.

Frank, I agree with your replies to Devans99. And Devans99 as I have been arguing, there is no reason to assume that if it turns out that there is an ultimate cause, it would be anything like the historically accidental concept of a monotheistic God.

Rather a different case, Bert. One can look at the historical origins of myriad metaphysical claims but we don't because after some time passes we realize they are silly or ignorant. For example, do I need a metaphysical argument to disprove that if there is a God, he would be hungry for human sacrifice, as so many people believed for so long? No, because the all-too-human origins of that idea are obvious.

Here is a list of counter examples.

I don't know how "independent" they are. Seem to be very closely related in geography and in time and in culture. How about the Aztecs, Taoism, Buddhism, various animisms, yadayadayada? As far as being logical or transcending any particular culture, you might want to consider the views of Daniel Everett - the summary and the first few pages available via the seller are worth a look, IMO.

Humans' cognitive capacity co-evolved with human culture, as it is culture that allows the brain to fully realize its capabilities. Culture is like the brain's software. (Laland, Tomasello, Donald, and others.) So I'm not sure it's perpetually inevitable that people will believe in God or something god-like, as we are becoming less religious as the mechanisms of social governance have moved from the religious domain to secular institutions of justice. Beliefs change with social organization and social organization changes with technological development. Currently I'm sure that a large portion of people still feel they live under the firmament, but more and more are starting to see we live on the planet, this "pale blue dot". What is available for us to embrace is largely an accident of where and when in history we live our short spans. If new beliefs emerge, they are built out of existing ones. (And the idea of the brain-in-a-box, the isolated mind is a product of history, discredited and soon to be discarded.)

People do argue for and against the existence of God, invoking things like the problem of evil, the evidence of the work of intelligence in nature, the necessity or irrelevance of a prime mover, etc. All I'm saying is that the idea of monotheistic God is an accident of a very brief period of recent human history, which itself is extremely brief in the context of geologic history, and although the idea of God is meaningful to some of us, it has no sense without us. What would the monotheistic God be supposed to be without us? Another useful fiction for maintaining social order, now becoming increasingly useless and even counter-productive in terms of justice and human well-being.

I was considering the typical cases made for the existence of God that involve a prime mover or intelligent cosmic design/governance. Extra-cosmic, if you like. There's no reason to assume or not assume anything extra-cosmic (although there might be good reason to think there is far more to the cosmos than our perceptual and cognitive systems are capable of grasping). But even if metaphysical objects exist, there would simply be no good reason to think of one as God, given the context of the origins of monotheism in human history. (Confess I can understand a respectful awe and reverence for the vastness of the cosmos and the mystery of existence, but I never really understood the idea of worship.)

Certain beliefs are culturally functional given certain social organizations, which differ through history and with geography depending on the nature of technology. Religion tends to justify social hierarchies and certain family and reproductive arrangements. There’s usually a lag in history between changes in technology, social organization and ideology, a clash between those who would hang back and the progressive people who actively try to advance a new worldview. A worldview that presents human beings in the context of the larger planetary history would help us beyond these these times of retrenchment and backlash to cope with the outdated narratives- tribalism, misogyny, patriarchy, dominionism (God given entitlement to dominion over nature) - that serve us and the planet very badly.