I'm pretty dubious -- less about the evolutionary benefit of religion than about the infinite-loop theory. There are several holes here.
First, this statement:
If the mind *is* like a program, then the mind must be subject to the same sorts of problems that programs face. Such as, for example, infinite loops.
just plain doesn't follow. Not all programs hit infinite loops, nor even all architectures. If the brain was a straightforward Von Neumann machine I might buy the idea, but it's pretty clear by now that it follows a very different connectionist architecture, and there's no particular evidence that these sorts of machines are terribly prone to infinite loops.
Second, it presumes the circumstances of a religious experience, and that presumption matches neither much of the anecdotal evidence I've heard, nor indeed personal experience. You see, I've *had* a religious experience. The circumstances weren't appropriate for a public thread, and suffice it to say that it kind of washed off after a while, but it was quite intense at the time. And it had *nothing* to do with this sort of infinite-loop scenario that you postulate. It had a *great* deal to do with personal anxiety and ego issues, but those simply weren't in the looped mode. (A mode which, I should note, I'm quite prone to and familiar with.)
Similarly, it isn't clear to me that religious experiences tend to come from this sort of deep focused contemplation. Most that I can think of are more of the "Constantine on the road" sort -- perhaps related to some deep-seated questions, but nothing terribly intentional.
Your points about religious fervor and evolutionary fitness are plausible, and I could believe they have a statistical benefit. But that's unrelated to the infinite-loop thing -- that simply says that evolution selects for a modest fraction of the population to be particularly susceptible to religious experience.
It *is* reasonable to say that God is often the endpoint of metaphysical contemplation, but that doesn't require bolt-from-the-blue style religious experience. It's easy to wind up there as the hand-waving solution to the Turtles problem, more from intellectual laziness than anything else. And, frankly, humans are pattern-matching creatures. The things we make can all be attributed to purposeful intent, so of *course* we tend to assume the same for the things we didn't create. And once the idea is set up, it meshes sufficiently well that it becomes a proper self-perpetuating meme...
no subject
First, this statement:
If the mind *is* like a program, then the mind must be subject to the same sorts of problems that programs face. Such as, for example, infinite loops.
just plain doesn't follow. Not all programs hit infinite loops, nor even all architectures. If the brain was a straightforward Von Neumann machine I might buy the idea, but it's pretty clear by now that it follows a very different connectionist architecture, and there's no particular evidence that these sorts of machines are terribly prone to infinite loops.
Second, it presumes the circumstances of a religious experience, and that presumption matches neither much of the anecdotal evidence I've heard, nor indeed personal experience. You see, I've *had* a religious experience. The circumstances weren't appropriate for a public thread, and suffice it to say that it kind of washed off after a while, but it was quite intense at the time. And it had *nothing* to do with this sort of infinite-loop scenario that you postulate. It had a *great* deal to do with personal anxiety and ego issues, but those simply weren't in the looped mode. (A mode which, I should note, I'm quite prone to and familiar with.)
Similarly, it isn't clear to me that religious experiences tend to come from this sort of deep focused contemplation. Most that I can think of are more of the "Constantine on the road" sort -- perhaps related to some deep-seated questions, but nothing terribly intentional.
Your points about religious fervor and evolutionary fitness are plausible, and I could believe they have a statistical benefit. But that's unrelated to the infinite-loop thing -- that simply says that evolution selects for a modest fraction of the population to be particularly susceptible to religious experience.
It *is* reasonable to say that God is often the endpoint of metaphysical contemplation, but that doesn't require bolt-from-the-blue style religious experience. It's easy to wind up there as the hand-waving solution to the Turtles problem, more from intellectual laziness than anything else. And, frankly, humans are pattern-matching creatures. The things we make can all be attributed to purposeful intent, so of *course* we tend to assume the same for the things we didn't create. And once the idea is set up, it meshes sufficiently well that it becomes a proper self-perpetuating meme...