A fractal derived theory of religion: survival
Religion an Emergent Fractal Structure Formed From the Life Force Survival.
Blair D. Macdonald
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 survive. By the
developed human brain, survival must be managed 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 also.
1
Introduction
The fractal, far from being only interesting images, and
complex mathematics, is also – as I am personally discovering – an instrument
of great insight; one that I am finding 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 on 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 too, the likes of
religion? The answer – I find – is yes.
As a (fractal) thinker, I see
patterns, and enjoy deciphering these patterns: religion is a pattern. I
am not the first to attempt an explanation of religion. To me, a fractal
explanation of religion, is an academic question that needs to be addressed,
this time in terms of insights from the fractal. I have discussed my theory
with a number of 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, along with clouds, and waves are often quoted as the 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 to me, it is more interesting to spot what is not fractal, than what is. I hope that sound's familiar to the scientist reading. So even religions have a branching, hierarchy, evolutionary nature. They also fit same but different.
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, along with clouds, and waves are often quoted as the 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 to me, it is more interesting to spot what is not fractal, than what is. I hope that sound's familiar to the scientist reading. So even religions have a branching, hierarchy, evolutionary nature. They also fit 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 or a tree structure as a
religion 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, but trees – particularly – offer obvious
repeating 'fractal' pattern, and they have clear causality. As a
matter of interest, it was being among trees where I was inspired to think
about this religious explanation. The
explanation I come to should be scale invariant; that is not be constrained to
only religions as we know them, but also secular religions –even religions
amoungst 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’ is to account for all the different variety of trees that exist now, and that have ever existed.
It is to view all the different plants 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 forming 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 of
the tree type structures that have ever existed throughout time. The cause should be a universal cause.
The standard explanation is sun-light: energy from the sun. Trees
are plants: reaching to 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 are 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 un-natural
(nature or cultural). More on this later because it is an important factor.
Religions, like the trees, have a structure that repeats
– here and now. Humans have evolved religious structures that have formed into
– just like with the plants – a few dominant kinds or types.
1.5
Cause?
The cause for religion(s) will something – just as light
causes plants to form trees – be present in all religions. It will be something
common to them all, and will make 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. And, it
should exist so as to repeat attributes common 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 dealt – the
‘strongest’ of all life forces shared among all living things. Everything, in
someway or other, ‘clings’ to life, strives, and fights to
survive – and often (almost always) at high cost. Even things non-living –
machines, brands, and even ideas – all seem to strive to survive; even if (in
the context of humans) 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 about 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 survival 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, 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 human’s walked past the dead of their own, and that
that changed at sometime in our near past: where instead of walking past our
dead, as other animals do (today), they stopped and buried the their own dead,
practiced 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 to survival –
religion is to survival. It is a manifestation of survive.
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 them selves, there is no
after-life, 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 likes of the massive health
system budgets we have today in our modern world. Like the Pyramid’s of Egypt,
and other religions sites, it is survival at all costs.
My next entry will deal with survival in the secular
would, and reveal a convergence (just as the plants have) in science itself.
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