A fractal derived theory of religion: survival

Religion is an Emergent Fractal  Structure Formed From the Life Force Survival.
Blair D. Macdonald

First Posted:  2013 -5 -7

Update: 2015- 12- 18

Absract

This paper addresses a possible cause of religion or secular belief. It suggests it is an advanced, evolved manifestation of the life force survival. The developed human brain manages survival for—and in—the afterlife. The human mind can imagine the afterlife and so must survive; religions have evolved to meet this demand. This survival theory may also explain secular religions.

1        Introduction

The fractal, far from being only exciting images and complex mathematics, is also – as I am personally discovering – an instrument of great insight that complements science and its ‘mission’ to understand and explain the workings of the universe. I have been attempting to decipher and understand this instrument; from classical economics to evolution, and even in quantum mechanics and the expanding universe, the fractal has not yet failed with its insight. So, could it also help us explain and understand other more humanistic issues, such as the likes of religion? The answer – I find – is yes.

As a (fractal) thinker, I see patterns and enjoy deciphering them: religion is a pattern.  I am not the first to attempt an explanation of religion. A fractal explanation of religion is an academic question that needs to be addressed, this time regarding insights from the fractal. I have discussed my theory with several people and have always gained their interest; now the question is, can I write it as a blog entry and make it convincing enough to you?

1.1      The Fractal and Survival

Firstly, what is a fractal, and what does it have to offer us to help explain religion – beyond being the often quoted ‘thumbprint of God’?
A fractal (in brief) is a type of geometry; it is a structure that is characterised by the ‘same’ but ‘different’ – at all scales. They emerge from the repeating of a ‘simple’ rule. Trees, clouds, and waves are often quoted as classic examples. Fractal shapes are – literally – found everywhere and are from the insights they deliver – what I believe to be – the foundation of what is called science. They are so universal that it is more interesting to spot what is not fractal than what is. I hope that sounds familiar to the scientist reading. So, even religions have a branching, hierarchy, and evolutionary nature. They also fit the same but different.

1.2      What is religion, and what causes religion (or a religion)?

To help answer and understand the question: what is religion, and what causes religion (or a religion)? I have chosen the common tree to ‘stand’ as my fractal object, so you can think of a tree structure as a religious structure.  It does not need to necessarily be a tree or trees, as the universal nature of fractals suggests that I could have easily chosen any other pattern. Still, trees – particularly – offer obvious repeating 'fractal' patterns, and they have clear causality. As a matter of interest, it was among trees that I was inspired to think about this religious explanation.  The explanation I come to should be scale invariant; that is, not to be constrained to only religions as we know them, but also secular religions –even religions among science.

1.3      What is a tree? 

Using the above fractal definition (same but different at all scales), the ‘same’ component in this fractal definition, in the tree’s primarily emergent ‘branching/standing structure of plants, and the ‘different’ accounts for all the different variety of trees that exist now, and that have ever lived. 
It is to view all the different plant types: the conifers, the mosses, lycopods, and so on, and most recently, the flowering plants. They have all repeated the same basic (tree) structure and, in so doing, formed what we term – in my case, the English language, in a four-letter word – a tree.

1.4      What causes a tree (structure)?

So we have structure, but what is it that causes the tree – where did they come from? Sorry, God is not an answer.  The cause for such a thing should not only be relevant to a tree type standing now but also be for all tree types or any tree-type structures that have ever existed.  The cause should be a universal cause.

The standard explanation is sunlight: energy from the sun. Trees are plants: reaching the light and, in so doing, forming trees. There are numerous references to this, including the BBC’s The Life of Plants. “Plants have evolved woody stems to support and raise their productive parts to where it is most productive.” I can hear David Attenborough’s voice within me: “They grow high above their other competitors, where they have – at least in the short term, and the long term when they evolve with this adaptation – an advantage over their competition.

Through this (causal) light, we see that all the plant types have achieved this same outcome and are what is termed an evolutionary convergence, of which examples abound ‘in the natural world’* and include winged flight.

* I put the natural world in inverted commas because, as a fractal thinker, I cannot distinguish between natural and unnatural (nature or cultural). More on this later because it is an essential factor.

Religions, like trees, have a structure that repeats here and now. Humans have evolved religious structures that have formed into a few dominant kinds or types, just like plants.

1.5      Cause?

The religion cause (s) will something – just as light causes plants to form trees – be present in all religions. It will be something common to them all, making them what they are. Without this, they won’t be.  More than this, my cause for religion will also be able to be reduced to something universal, something actually common in everything and everywhere, and it is not a deity. It will be timeless, shared by the living and (importantly) by the non-living. It should exist to repeat attributes common to or like religion outside the context of what we think of as religion – it will converge. Just as plants have many types or species, religion will also show up in places we would never expect – in our case, the secular world, where there are no deities as such. This is something I will return to later.

1.6      It is survival – it is to survive

Through the fractal, I have reasoned that the cause of religion is the life force to live: it is survival – it is to survive.

Fundamental, primal to our needs, instinctive, and intuitive are just some words to describe this – what is without a deal – the ‘strongest’ of all life forces shared among all living things. Everything, in some way or other, ‘clings’ to life, strives, and fights to survive – and often (almost always) at a high cost. Even things non-living – machines, brands, and ideas – all seem to strive to survive, even if (in the context of humans) it is done through us humans. Take away this instinct – this life force – and we have (maybe) nothing. 

What happens when this law (of nature), or this drive for survival (call it that), is ‘run through’ (so to speak) or amplified by a higher processing-power brain: the likes of the newly evolved higher thinking human brain? A brain that can – as far as we know, and (maybe) uniquely to humans – do what no other animal has ever done, it can imagine. It has a brain power that can actually imagine survival, but that is not as important to my argument as the thought that it can now imagine or think about what it is not to survive. It can think and imagine about death – it can now think and imagine about after death.  Humans can, combining the two together (imagination and death) think about a void, emptiness – an after-life. The nature of survival is so hardwired, so strong a force, that this after-life cannot be perceived empty, it cannot be a void – the dead must survive, in death we survive. And so to accommodate this totally new space and survive in it, totally new ways have to be developed/evolved to do just that – survive in it and make it safe to survive in. Over time, cultures developed ‘institutions’ to deal with this ‘new’ space and the structure that developed what we call religion.

Other animals strive to survive, too, so why aren’t these other animals religious? Through this ‘survival’ theory, technically, they could be, given they had the brainpower we have, so maybe, too, they would practice a form of religion.

To back this up, it is known that there was a time in our evolutionary past when humans walked past the dead of their own and that that changed at some point in our near past: instead of walking past our dead, as other animals do (today), they stopped and buried their own dead, practised ceremony, and thought about their dead as surviving—in new places, in the heavens, for eternity.

Religion is an innate emergence from this rule to survive. Just as bling and other display items are to sexuality—another fundamental life force associated with survival—religion is to survival. It is a manifestation of survival.

To finish off with, this life force of survival is so strong, so much part of us, so primal, that one doesn’t need a religious institution to think such thoughts. In my experience, it takes a (mentally) very strong person to fight this fundamental instinct – to tell themselves there is no afterlife and that we are just, as we have recently learnt stardust. Even those who have separated themselves from religion – self-confessed seculars – often think that we go somewhere, not to heaven as such, but somewhere. It is a very powerful force.

We are so wired to survive and are prepared to pay for our survival. This theory may also explain the massive health system budgets we have today in our modern world. Like the Pyramids of Egypt and other religious sites, it is survival at all costs.

My next entry will deal with survival in the secular world and reveal a convergence (just as the plants have) in science itself.