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La Fabrique de l'humanité
« Il n'y a aucune raison valable pour que les sociétés humaines ne soient expliquées et décrites avec la même précision que les autres mécanismes de la nature. »
Pourquoi y a-t-il des conflits entre les groupes humains ? Pourquoi les gens accordent-ils du crédit aux rumeurs ? Pourquoi y a-t-il des religions ? Les sociétés peuvent-elles être justes ? Comment expliquer la morale ? Comment sont organisées les familles humaines ? Qu'est-ce que le genre ? Comment les êtres humains peuvent-ils comprendre l'économie ?
Au-delà des antagonismes inné/acquis et nature/culture et des théories usuelles sur la religion, le genre, l'économie ou encore la politique, Pascal Boyer s'appuie sur les récentes découvertes de la biologie de l'évolution, de la génétique, de la psychologie et d'autres champs de recherche pour déconstruire nos croyances. Il nous livre ainsi une toute nouvelle approche de la transmission culturelle et de la mémoire collective, et une analyse novatrice des mécanismes qui poussent l'être humain à vivre en société et à coopérer.
Pourquoi y a-t-il des conflits entre les groupes humains ? Pourquoi les gens accordent-ils du crédit aux rumeurs ? Pourquoi y a-t-il des religions ? Les sociétés peuvent-elles être justes ? Comment expliquer la morale ? Comment sont organisées les familles humaines ? Qu'est-ce que le genre ? Comment les êtres humains peuvent-ils comprendre l'économie ?
Au-delà des antagonismes inné/acquis et nature/culture et des théories usuelles sur la religion, le genre, l'économie ou encore la politique, Pascal Boyer s'appuie sur les récentes découvertes de la biologie de l'évolution, de la génétique, de la psychologie et d'autres champs de recherche pour déconstruire nos croyances. Il nous livre ainsi une toute nouvelle approche de la transmission culturelle et de la mémoire collective, et une analyse novatrice des mécanismes qui poussent l'être humain à vivre en société et à coopérer.
528 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Published November 2, 2023
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About the author
Pascal Boyer
19 books89 followersPascal Robert Boyer is an American anthropologist of French origin, mostly known for his work in the cognitive science of religion. He taught at the University of Cambridge for eight years, before taking up the position of Henry Luce Professor of Individual and Collective Memory at Washington University in St. Louis, where he teaches classes on psychology and anthropology. He was a Guggenheim Fellow and a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the University of Lyon, France. He studied philosophy and anthropology at University of Paris and Cambridge, with Jack Goody, working on memory constraints on the transmission of oral literature
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November 22, 2018
In Minds Make Societies, Boyer sets out to discuss six problems in light of research primarily in evolutionary biology and psychology.
[1] What is the root of conflict: “[W]e make sense of very diverse, occasionally paradoxical behaviors in terms of evolved capacities for coalition building and coalitional defense…. [T]he evolved systems trigger very powerful motivations… the outcomes of these unconscious computations take the form of pride, suspicion, rage, or hatred” (p. 65).
[2] What is information for: “[E]pistemic value is not the only factor that motivates humans to spread information. The need to be seen as a reliable source, the requirement to detect threat information, the urge to recruit others in collective action… are powerful factors. As they are not directly affected by the value of the information transmitted, junk culture is in some conditions both epistemically disastrous and evolutionarily advantageous” (p. 92).
[3] Why are there religions: “[R]esearch requires that we leave aside incoherent terms like religion…. [T]he fact that religions are central to the institutions of many large-scale societies does not imply that it is special in cognitive or evolutionary terms….
“[I]ncreased security favors indifference to religion, that some prosperity is required for spiritual interests, that coalitional recruitment is among the strongest forces in social interaction” (pp. 120, 124).
[4] What is the natural family: “[H]umans had a moderate but real amount of sexual competition. More important, long-term, intensive paternal investment is a characteristic of human pairs. This would predict a general amount of mate guarding in humans” (p. 156).
[5] How can societies be just: “Ownership intuitions result in a vigorous defense of what we extracted from the environment, and a robust motivation to help others guard what they extracted against intruders. Our free-rider detection system delivers a powerful desire to curb the activities of cheaters….” (p. 200).
[6] Can human minds understand society: “Obviously, the study of the political mind does not by itself translate into policy recommendations. But it could help us bypass our entrenched notions of how societies work, our folk sociology. It could also lead to a different vision of the political debate, one where we can use what we know of evolved human capacities and dispositions – … the motivation to form coalitions, the disposition to form families, the propensity to strange beliefs, the urge to invest in kin and offspring, and the capacity for extensive cooperation” (p. 244).
Boyer is fully aware of the danger in using the findings of biology and psychology to justify social conventions and prejudices (e.g., patriarchy, racism, eugenics, economic models, among other things). He emphasizes that evolution is not destiny. The human animal is the product of myriad evolutionary pressures that generate both cooperative and selfish behaviors. We can be masters of our fate to the extent that we promote policies and institutions that foster our better natures.
I would recommend Minds Make Societies. It can be a dense read but, as Boyer laments, the issues can’t be reduced to bullet points or mathematical formulae. Human motivations are complex, nearly opaque, but we are beginning to understand the “whys” of them. That these data can be (and have been) manipulated to justify some of the worst evils in human history is the great danger but not an inevitable one.
[1] What is the root of conflict: “[W]e make sense of very diverse, occasionally paradoxical behaviors in terms of evolved capacities for coalition building and coalitional defense…. [T]he evolved systems trigger very powerful motivations… the outcomes of these unconscious computations take the form of pride, suspicion, rage, or hatred” (p. 65).
[2] What is information for: “[E]pistemic value is not the only factor that motivates humans to spread information. The need to be seen as a reliable source, the requirement to detect threat information, the urge to recruit others in collective action… are powerful factors. As they are not directly affected by the value of the information transmitted, junk culture is in some conditions both epistemically disastrous and evolutionarily advantageous” (p. 92).
[3] Why are there religions: “[R]esearch requires that we leave aside incoherent terms like religion…. [T]he fact that religions are central to the institutions of many large-scale societies does not imply that it is special in cognitive or evolutionary terms….
“[I]ncreased security favors indifference to religion, that some prosperity is required for spiritual interests, that coalitional recruitment is among the strongest forces in social interaction” (pp. 120, 124).
[4] What is the natural family: “[H]umans had a moderate but real amount of sexual competition. More important, long-term, intensive paternal investment is a characteristic of human pairs. This would predict a general amount of mate guarding in humans” (p. 156).
[5] How can societies be just: “Ownership intuitions result in a vigorous defense of what we extracted from the environment, and a robust motivation to help others guard what they extracted against intruders. Our free-rider detection system delivers a powerful desire to curb the activities of cheaters….” (p. 200).
[6] Can human minds understand society: “Obviously, the study of the political mind does not by itself translate into policy recommendations. But it could help us bypass our entrenched notions of how societies work, our folk sociology. It could also lead to a different vision of the political debate, one where we can use what we know of evolved human capacities and dispositions – … the motivation to form coalitions, the disposition to form families, the propensity to strange beliefs, the urge to invest in kin and offspring, and the capacity for extensive cooperation” (p. 244).
Boyer is fully aware of the danger in using the findings of biology and psychology to justify social conventions and prejudices (e.g., patriarchy, racism, eugenics, economic models, among other things). He emphasizes that evolution is not destiny. The human animal is the product of myriad evolutionary pressures that generate both cooperative and selfish behaviors. We can be masters of our fate to the extent that we promote policies and institutions that foster our better natures.
I would recommend Minds Make Societies. It can be a dense read but, as Boyer laments, the issues can’t be reduced to bullet points or mathematical formulae. Human motivations are complex, nearly opaque, but we are beginning to understand the “whys” of them. That these data can be (and have been) manipulated to justify some of the worst evils in human history is the great danger but not an inevitable one.
September 13, 2018
An interesting book that sets out to systematically identify the reason why many of our social practices have come into existence today - from religious affiliations to fairness in treating others. The narrative weaves between the make up of the human mind and how that has resulted in shaping our social structures today.
February 8, 2020
Academically rigorous, but accessible to the general reader.
The principal argument of the book is that society is the way it is because of how human minds work. The various cognitive processes, for which experimental evidence is accumulating, explains both the common and variable features of social phenomena such as religion, ritual, belief, politics, ethnic identity and groupishness, gender roles and morality.
A central idea is that you cannot find out why people believe in certain things (eg that ghosts exist or that different ethnic groups are essentially different) just by asking them. Much of the cognitive processing that produces our beliefs and norms takes place below the level of conscious awareness by systems created by natural selection. Also, different aspects of those beliefs and perceptions are dealt with by separate cognitive systems that don't necessarily communicate with each other. Therefore, when people are asked to explain their beliefs, they don't always provide accounts that make perfect sense. Their explanations are post-hoc rationalisations that attempt to impose coherence on the incompatible output of different cognitive systems.
It is taken for granted that the way our minds work is a result of 2 million years of evolution, most of which took place during the millennia that Homo sapiens lived by hunter-gathering in small, related bands and tribes.
This book is very interdisciplinary. It is basically saying that in order to understand society, you first need to understand a lot about individual psychology, and a little about hominid evolution. This generates an understanding of the sorts of cognitive biases and predispositions we have. It indicates why some kinds of beliefs and ritual practices are widespread and others are not.
Boyer is primarily an anthropologist and so the book contains many examples of beliefs and practices in small scale societies. The strongest chapters are those that deal with religion and ethnic identity, where Boyer is in his element. The chapters on politics and economics are (in my view) not so strong and I felt that he revealed his own political bias somewhat here. For example, he discusses the economic advantages of the division of labour, without considering the psychological disadvantages. Also, when discussing the idea of redistribution he says 'some people may contribute a lot more than others but receive only a little more'. But of course, some people contribute nothing and get much, while others contribute every waking hour and receive nothing (eg carers).
However, this is a minor criticism, and I would expect any book that ranges over so many topics to contain one or two dubious statements or generalisations. His main point in these chapters was to show that while humans the world over have a 'natural' sense of fairness that generates outrage when breached. Their interpretation of what constitutes a fair or unfair circumstance varies however - along political lines.
Overall, the book is an easier read, with less repetition, than Boyer's previous book Religion Explained. Indeed, the central thesis of the earlier book is summarised in Chapter 3 of this one (so, no need to read Religion Explained really).
The bibliography is huge and up to date, so very useful if you are inclined to read around this fascinating subject.
The principal argument of the book is that society is the way it is because of how human minds work. The various cognitive processes, for which experimental evidence is accumulating, explains both the common and variable features of social phenomena such as religion, ritual, belief, politics, ethnic identity and groupishness, gender roles and morality.
A central idea is that you cannot find out why people believe in certain things (eg that ghosts exist or that different ethnic groups are essentially different) just by asking them. Much of the cognitive processing that produces our beliefs and norms takes place below the level of conscious awareness by systems created by natural selection. Also, different aspects of those beliefs and perceptions are dealt with by separate cognitive systems that don't necessarily communicate with each other. Therefore, when people are asked to explain their beliefs, they don't always provide accounts that make perfect sense. Their explanations are post-hoc rationalisations that attempt to impose coherence on the incompatible output of different cognitive systems.
It is taken for granted that the way our minds work is a result of 2 million years of evolution, most of which took place during the millennia that Homo sapiens lived by hunter-gathering in small, related bands and tribes.
This book is very interdisciplinary. It is basically saying that in order to understand society, you first need to understand a lot about individual psychology, and a little about hominid evolution. This generates an understanding of the sorts of cognitive biases and predispositions we have. It indicates why some kinds of beliefs and ritual practices are widespread and others are not.
Boyer is primarily an anthropologist and so the book contains many examples of beliefs and practices in small scale societies. The strongest chapters are those that deal with religion and ethnic identity, where Boyer is in his element. The chapters on politics and economics are (in my view) not so strong and I felt that he revealed his own political bias somewhat here. For example, he discusses the economic advantages of the division of labour, without considering the psychological disadvantages. Also, when discussing the idea of redistribution he says 'some people may contribute a lot more than others but receive only a little more'. But of course, some people contribute nothing and get much, while others contribute every waking hour and receive nothing (eg carers).
However, this is a minor criticism, and I would expect any book that ranges over so many topics to contain one or two dubious statements or generalisations. His main point in these chapters was to show that while humans the world over have a 'natural' sense of fairness that generates outrage when breached. Their interpretation of what constitutes a fair or unfair circumstance varies however - along political lines.
Overall, the book is an easier read, with less repetition, than Boyer's previous book Religion Explained. Indeed, the central thesis of the earlier book is summarised in Chapter 3 of this one (so, no need to read Religion Explained really).
The bibliography is huge and up to date, so very useful if you are inclined to read around this fascinating subject.
June 7, 2022
One of the most intellectual things one could ever read. Literally. This one is about cognition, human cognition.
There are more and more biases that nowadays social scientists are starting to comprehend. There's for example a "content bias" that explains why -low quality information- is easy to acquire and spread than -technical and high quality info (science)-. To me that is what explains terraplanism, CRT and the other woke bullshit concerning lgbtq and the other hundred genders.
Boyer explains human cognition in six questions, that go from coalitions, to sex, religion and communication, even politics. This kind of books really, really help you understand many aspects of social life; evolutionary lensing can deeply go through what cannot be seen, the -abyssal psychology- that creates civilization.
We are the product (and still are) of millions of years of evolution. Our brains are the same, yet we have technology. Technology is not a product, a natural product. Cellphones, internet, are novelties, just like foam shoes and protein shakes. Our whole world has changed and is not the same in which we developed ourselves, specially our brains. Porn exists nowadays, and even at a more dangerous rate simply because male brains remain the same, but internet, HQ cameras and search engines are relatively new. If there's a new kind of technology, porn will adapt to that (im using porn because it is a simple example, I could use hamburgers instead but I'll have to talk about fast food and the chemical that helps us cook nowadays), not because of patriarchy or capitalism, porn will remain because of the way our male brains are created. Im saying "male" because sex drive in men is way higher than in women, no matter what idelogy tries to impose.
Talking about cognition has an evolutionary taste, because that word implies how the information of a certain environment is used by the brain of certain species; the environment evolves and is linked to human development (genetics and the whole thing).
Let's give Pascal Boyer a chance, and enjoy this book. Makes you even more human to comprehend why we behave the way we do.
There are more and more biases that nowadays social scientists are starting to comprehend. There's for example a "content bias" that explains why -low quality information- is easy to acquire and spread than -technical and high quality info (science)-. To me that is what explains terraplanism, CRT and the other woke bullshit concerning lgbtq and the other hundred genders.
Boyer explains human cognition in six questions, that go from coalitions, to sex, religion and communication, even politics. This kind of books really, really help you understand many aspects of social life; evolutionary lensing can deeply go through what cannot be seen, the -abyssal psychology- that creates civilization.
We are the product (and still are) of millions of years of evolution. Our brains are the same, yet we have technology. Technology is not a product, a natural product. Cellphones, internet, are novelties, just like foam shoes and protein shakes. Our whole world has changed and is not the same in which we developed ourselves, specially our brains. Porn exists nowadays, and even at a more dangerous rate simply because male brains remain the same, but internet, HQ cameras and search engines are relatively new. If there's a new kind of technology, porn will adapt to that (im using porn because it is a simple example, I could use hamburgers instead but I'll have to talk about fast food and the chemical that helps us cook nowadays), not because of patriarchy or capitalism, porn will remain because of the way our male brains are created. Im saying "male" because sex drive in men is way higher than in women, no matter what idelogy tries to impose.
Talking about cognition has an evolutionary taste, because that word implies how the information of a certain environment is used by the brain of certain species; the environment evolves and is linked to human development (genetics and the whole thing).
Let's give Pascal Boyer a chance, and enjoy this book. Makes you even more human to comprehend why we behave the way we do.
February 8, 2020
Full review available in Anthropologica 16(2), 2019, https://www.utpjournals.press/doi/abs...
Pascal Boyer s'est imposé au monde académique et à l'attention générale par une analyse cognitive des concepts surnaturels, liant leur émergence et leur attrait à une combinaison de violation modérée et de confirmation des réglages de mécanismes tels la détection d'agence, la lecture d'intention et l'échange social (Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought). Il élargit à présent l’analyse à d'autres dimensions, approchées par voie de synthèse de recherches multidisciplinaires, qu’il présente comme autant de questions en quête d'une science sociale naturalisée : Quelle est l'origine des conflits ethniques? Pourquoi succombons-nous aux rumeurs? Pourquoi, à partir d'une période récente, y a-t-il des religions ? Quelle est la famille naturelle? Une société peut-elle être juste ?
Pascal Boyer s'est imposé au monde académique et à l'attention générale par une analyse cognitive des concepts surnaturels, liant leur émergence et leur attrait à une combinaison de violation modérée et de confirmation des réglages de mécanismes tels la détection d'agence, la lecture d'intention et l'échange social (Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought). Il élargit à présent l’analyse à d'autres dimensions, approchées par voie de synthèse de recherches multidisciplinaires, qu’il présente comme autant de questions en quête d'une science sociale naturalisée : Quelle est l'origine des conflits ethniques? Pourquoi succombons-nous aux rumeurs? Pourquoi, à partir d'une période récente, y a-t-il des religions ? Quelle est la famille naturelle? Une société peut-elle être juste ?
June 25, 2025
Reread the book. Made more sense the second time probably because I had read many other books since I read this first time.
Nice book on how the cognitive intuitive inference systems affect the society. But this is not a tutorial on cognitive science.
Nice book on how the cognitive intuitive inference systems affect the society. But this is not a tutorial on cognitive science.
July 7, 2018
Incredible perspective - skeptical, pragmatic, first principles thinking. More valuable as a demonstration of how to think than for any specific social insight (although there are some good ones in here).
July 16, 2018
Fascinating in its scope, but often frustrating to read due to its unnecessarily complicated language.
July 4, 2020
أخيرًا وبعد 3 شهور أنهيت هذا الكتاب..
الكتاب من عنوانه يبين غرضه ونظرية الكاتب الأساسية: وهي كيف يمكن من خلال فهم عمليات وأواليات عمل العقل والإدراك البشري للأفراد فهم كيفية عمل وتكون الجماعات والمجتمعات والهياكل الاجتماعية، وهي فكرة كامنة لدي منذ زمن وإن كانت تعدلت كثيرًا.
مبدأيًا الكتاب فيه الكثير من التكرار والحشو وأعتقد أنه كان بإمكانه اختصار الكثير من مناقشاته ولعل سبب إطالته هو أنه يحاول السير خطوة بخطوة وتحليل كل خطوة يقوم بها، ولكن بسبب أسلوبه غير المشوق بصراحة فقد كانت قراءة بعض الفصول منهكة ناهيك أ�� مناقشة المواضيع تختلف عن عناوين الفصول أو على الأقل تختلف عما يتوقعه القارئ (للأمانة لم أنه كل الفصول، آخر فصلين لم أقرأهما بسبب هذه الملاحظات ولأن الكتاب لم يكن كما توقعته)
المهم، بالعودة لنظرية الكتاب فالكاتب هو باسكال بوير عالم نفس تطوري وعالم أنثروبولوجيا ويقدم في هذا الكتاب طرحًا لتطوير علم الأنثروبولوجيا والإنسانيات عمومًا عن طريق الاستفادة وربط العلوم ببعض، فالكتاب مليء بالأبحاث والكتابات النفسية والتطورية الأحيائية واللسانيات وعلوم الأعصاب. وفكرة الكاتب هي نقض الثنائية المشهورية في العلوم بين "الطبيعة" و"التربية" (nature vs. nurture)
أو بين الطبيعة والثقافة ويكاد يكون الكتاب كله تفصيلًا لهذه الفكرة. فبعد أن بتطرق لفكرة "الماهوية" (أن هناك شيئًا ما في العالم الخارجي يدعى "بيئة" وشيء آخر منفصل يدعى "ثقافة" وينقضها ثم يعود لنفس النقض في الخاتمة، يبين وجهة نظره في أن المجالين متداخلان بشكل كبير وما هو "طبيعي" يشكل "ثقافتنا" وما هو "ثقافي" يقوم بدوره بالتأثير في بيئاتنا ومحيطنا.
ينتقد الكاتب أيضًا الخوف من الاختزالية في العلوم ويدعو إلى "اختزالية صحية"، فلا يزال العلماء بالأخص في مجال العلوم الإجتماعية متخوفين من حشر علوم الأحياء والأعصاب والنفس في مجالاتهم خوفًا من "الاختزالية" reductionism لكن ذلك بالنسبة للكاتب عرقل البحث العلمي عن المجتمعات البشرية بسبب اقتصار تلك المجالات على منهجيات معينة وعدم الاستفادة من مجالات وعلوم أخرى ويرجع ذلك بنسبة ما إلى الفصل المنهجي الذي قام به بعض مؤسسي علم الاجتماع مثل إميل دوركايم حين فصل بين "البيولوجيا" و"السوسيولوجيا"
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مقدمة الكتاب عبقرية وهي تعتبر مقدمة منهجية لما سيقوم به الكاتب ويقدم فيها 3 قواعد تحت عنوان "المجتمعات البشرية عبر منظار الطبيعة":
1- لاحظ غرابة المعتاد:
حسب نصيحة الاقتصادي بول سيبرايت: "علينا أن ننظر إلى عاداتنا البشرية من جهة نظر حيوانات أخرى"؛ الغوريلا مثلًا ستتعجب من أن قائد الجماعات البشرية ليس دائمًا أقواها عضليًا وكيف أن بعض القادة يفتقرون للقوة الجسمانية. يطرح الكاتب هنا فكرة أساسية في الكتاب وهي قدرة نظرية التطور على تفسير عادات إنسانية كثيرة (حبنا للسكر، حبنا للجنس، حبنا لصحبة الناس المصحكين، إلخ) بل إن الإجابات "البدهية" على هذه الأسئلة تقلب السبب والمسبب (نحن نحب السكر ليس لأن طعمه حلو، بل هو طعمه حلو بالنسبة لنا لأننا تطوريًا كنا نحتاجه في بيئات الإنسان الأول، وهكذا).
في فقرة تالية يوضح مقدمة مهمة لفهم هذا التفسير وهي أن إدراك المعلومات المتوفرة في البيئة يحتاج إلى إمكانية لرصدها، المعلومات موجودة لكننا ربما لا نتمكن من رصدها
Information is there only if you have the right detection system
2- Information requires evolved detection، المعرفة تحتاج إدراكًا متطورًا
في هذه الفقرة يقدم الكاتب فكرته عن عدم وجود شيء اسمه "بيئة"، هناك فقط بيئات معينة من وجهة نظر مخلوقات مختلفة. بعض الطيور تعدل من مواسم تزاوجها وروتينها اليومي بناءً على عدد ساعات الشمس في اليوم وبالتالي فمدة الصباح في يوم معين يشكل جزءًا من بيئة هذا الطائر ويكون مدركًا له بشكل كبير في حين أن كائنات كثيرة اخرى ربما لا تدرك هذا الفرق في عدد ساعات الصباح أصلًا.
يناقش الكاتب كيف أن هذه القاعدة تتأثر أيضًا بتاريخ المجتمع والنوع وتشكل جزءًا مهمًا من عمليات إدراكنا، البشر -حتى الأطفال منهم- يستطيعون تمييز الاتجاه الذي ينظر إليه احدهم عن طريق النظر إلى عينيه وتحديد مكان البؤبؤ والحدقة والبياض، وهذا يشتمل ما-قبليات عن أن هناك خطًا مستقيمًا بين العين والجسم وأن هذا الخط لن يعبر من خلال أجسلم صلبة مثلًا. يمكن للكلاب -بسبب تاريخها التطوري مع البشر- أن تحدد أيضًا أين ينظر البشر لأنهما شاركا البشر في الرعي والصيد حيث كانت تلك المهارة مهمة، بينما كان من الصعب جدًا على الشمبانزي أن يفهم اتجاه رؤية البشر - لأنهم ببساطة لم يمارسوا أنشطة تعاونية مع البشر (نفس الحال مع القطط بالمناسبة (.
الشاهد: بالضبط لأن لدينا آليات إدراك مناسبة تعمل بانسيابية دون أن نعي بها، يكون وجودها غير مرئي بالنسبة إلينا. هذه النظرة تجعلنا نظن أن هناك معلومات في العالم الخارجي بانتظارنا لكي نحصلها -ضرب من الواقعية الساذجة كما يعبر الكاتب.
3- وهي نقطة خطيرة:
لا تؤنسن البشر
Don't anthropomorphize humans!
باختصار شديد فالكاتب بناءً على النقاط السابقة يقرر أن هناك عوامل وقوانين غير خاضعة للنوايا تعمل في العالم - نظرية جبرية إلى حد كبير-، فالأشجار تنمو والأنهار تجري لكن ليس لأنها تريد ذلك. ومع تطور العلم أزيحت الأنسنة والحيوية (التعامل مع الطبيعة كأنها كائنات لها إرادة) جانبًا. وينتقد الكاتب أن هذه النظرة للتاريخ البشري (أنسنته) هي ما يعيق تكوين علم حقيقي لدراسة الأفعال الإنسانية. انتقاد الكاتب أننا نظن أن الأفعال البشرية محكومة بإرادة بشرية، وأن البشر يمكنهم فهم وإدراك هذه الإرادة، ويمكنهم التعبير عنها. طبعًا ينبه إلى أنه خلال التعامل اليومي والعادي مع الناس فيجب احترام إرادتهم وتفضيلاتهم وأن هذا أساس الأخلاق اليومية بالطبع، لكن ليس في مجال دراستهم علميًا.
"المشكلة هي أننا كبشر نعتقد أننا نعرف أصلًا كيف يعمل تفكيرنا. مثلًا، نعتقد -دون الإفصاح بذلك بالضرورة- أن التفكير يقع في معالج مركزي حيث تقيّم الافكار المختلفة -الشبيهة بتلك التي نعيشها بشكل واعٍ- وتدمج مع المشاعر لتقدم إرادة وخطط للعمل. نظرية العقل "البدهية\البدائية" هذه تفيدنا في الحياة اليومية (مثلًا، نحن نقول أن الكمبيوتر أرسل لي إشعارًا أو أنه لا يريد أن يعمل، في حين أننا إذا أردنا تحليل ومعالجة أسباب هذه "الأفعال" فسنستعمل مفردات مختلفة تمامًا.) أنسنة البشر بهذه الطريقة حسب الكاتب توقعنا في فخ عمى إدراكي، -وهي فكرة لدي منذ زمن بعيد-: فالعقل والإدراك البشري يعمل عن طريق آليات وعمليات متعددة -حتى في أبسط الأفعال اليومية-، وكل تلك العمليات متخصصة في مجال معلومات معين وتحفز وتعمل بناءً على محفزات مختلفة.
(بمعنىً آخر، بناءً على المقدمات السابقة، فالإدراك البشري غير واعٍ بكل العمليات والتفاصيل والعوامل التي يتعامل معها، وبالتالي هو غير واعٍ بكل ما يشكل تفكيره وأفعاله وربما تكون هذه الأفعال مبنية على عوامل ومؤثرات لا يعيها الفرد، أو على رأي هبة رؤوف عزت: "المشاكل اللاواعية التي تشكل الوعي")
4- تخطى أشباح النظريات الماضية
يحاول هنا أن يزيح أشباح وركام تصورات ونظريات سابقة، مثل ثانئية "البيئة\الثقافة" أو "التربية\الطبيعة" والنظرة الشائعة عن علم الجينات أن هناك جين ما معين يؤدي إلى فعل ما، أو فكرة أنه ما دام هناك صفة ما تم اكتسابها عن طريق التطور فهذا يعني أن ها "جينية" أو وراثية.
يقوم الكاتب بمناقشة 6 أسئلة:
لماذا نشكل الجماعات ونتعاون ونتصارع؟
لماذا تنتشر الشائعات والمعلومات الخاطئة؟
لماذا يوجد الدين؟
كيف يمكن للمجتمعات ان تكون عادلة؟
ما هي الأسرة؟
هل يمكننا فهم المجتمعات البشرية؟
في كل فصل (أو الأربعة الذين قرأتهم على الأقل) يناقش من وجهة نظر تطورية كيف يعمل العقل البشري وكيف تنشأ نظم اجتماعية اكثر تعقيدًا والعلاقة بين الاثنين وكيف يساهم هذا الاشتباك بين إدراكنا وبين العالم في تكوين الجماعات أو في انتشار الشائعات أو في وجود الدن أو في الاحساس بعدم العدل، طبعًا هناك ملاحظات عديدة على هذه الفصول، منها أنه يميل بشكلٍ ما إلى اختزال وتبسيط بعض الظواهر(مثل الدين)، لكنه يقدم وجهة نظر جديدة ومثيرة جدًا في بعض الفصول (مثلًا، يرفض فكرة أنالبشر يسهل خداعهم -الفصل 2-، وأن تاريخ الأديان عامةً ليس مشابهًا لما نتصوره اليوم "كدين").
خاتمة الكتاب تقع في حوالي 30 صفحة وهي شبه مراجعة وتفصيل أكثر لنظرية الكاتب عن تعقيد عملية الإدراك والتفكير البشري.
كنت أتمنى أن أحد مناقشة أو ندوة ما للكاتب يتحدث فيها عن فصول الكتاب، هو كتاب مثير جدًا للتفكير لكنه منهك جدًا ولو كنت أستطيع الاحتفاظ بالكتاب لفترة أطول لكنت كتبت مراجعة أطول :D
الكتاب من عنوانه يبين غرضه ونظرية الكاتب الأساسية: وهي كيف يمكن من خلال فهم عمليات وأواليات عمل العقل والإدراك البشري للأفراد فهم كيفية عمل وتكون الجماعات والمجتمعات والهياكل الاجتماعية، وهي فكرة كامنة لدي منذ زمن وإن كانت تعدلت كثيرًا.
مبدأيًا الكتاب فيه الكثير من التكرار والحشو وأعتقد أنه كان بإمكانه اختصار الكثير من مناقشاته ولعل سبب إطالته هو أنه يحاول السير خطوة بخطوة وتحليل كل خطوة يقوم بها، ولكن بسبب أسلوبه غير المشوق بصراحة فقد كانت قراءة بعض الفصول منهكة ناهيك أ�� مناقشة المواضيع تختلف عن عناوين الفصول أو على الأقل تختلف عما يتوقعه القارئ (للأمانة لم أنه كل الفصول، آخر فصلين لم أقرأهما بسبب هذه الملاحظات ولأن الكتاب لم يكن كما توقعته)
المهم، بالعودة لنظرية الكتاب فالكاتب هو باسكال بوير عالم نفس تطوري وعالم أنثروبولوجيا ويقدم في هذا الكتاب طرحًا لتطوير علم الأنثروبولوجيا والإنسانيات عمومًا عن طريق الاستفادة وربط العلوم ببعض، فالكتاب مليء بالأبحاث والكتابات النفسية والتطورية الأحيائية واللسانيات وعلوم الأعصاب. وفكرة الكاتب هي نقض الثنائية المشهورية في العلوم بين "الطبيعة" و"التربية" (nature vs. nurture)
أو بين الطبيعة والثقافة ويكاد يكون الكتاب كله تفصيلًا لهذه الفكرة. فبعد أن بتطرق لفكرة "الماهوية" (أن هناك شيئًا ما في العالم الخارجي يدعى "بيئة" وشيء آخر منفصل يدعى "ثقافة" وينقضها ثم يعود لنفس النقض في الخاتمة، يبين وجهة نظره في أن المجالين متداخلان بشكل كبير وما هو "طبيعي" يشكل "ثقافتنا" وما هو "ثقافي" يقوم بدوره بالتأثير في بيئاتنا ومحيطنا.
ينتقد الكاتب أيضًا الخوف من الاختزالية في العلوم ويدعو إلى "اختزالية صحية"، فلا يزال العلماء بالأخص في مجال العلوم الإجتماعية متخوفين من حشر علوم الأحياء والأعصاب والنفس في مجالاتهم خوفًا من "الاختزالية" reductionism لكن ذلك بالنسبة للكاتب عرقل البحث العلمي عن المجتمعات البشرية بسبب اقتصار تلك المجالات على منهجيات معينة وعدم الاستفادة من مجالات وعلوم أخرى ويرجع ذلك بنسبة ما إلى الفصل المنهجي الذي قام به بعض مؤسسي علم الاجتماع مثل إميل دوركايم حين فصل بين "البيولوجيا" و"السوسيولوجيا"
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مقدمة الكتاب عبقرية وهي تعتبر مقدمة منهجية لما سيقوم به الكاتب ويقدم فيها 3 قواعد تحت عنوان "المجتمعات البشرية عبر منظار الطبيعة":
1- لاحظ غرابة المعتاد:
حسب نصيحة الاقتصادي بول سيبرايت: "علينا أن ننظر إلى عاداتنا البشرية من جهة نظر حيوانات أخرى"؛ الغوريلا مثلًا ستتعجب من أن قائد الجماعات البشرية ليس دائمًا أقواها عضليًا وكيف أن بعض القادة يفتقرون للقوة الجسمانية. يطرح الكاتب هنا فكرة أساسية في الكتاب وهي قدرة نظرية التطور على تفسير عادات إنسانية كثيرة (حبنا للسكر، حبنا للجنس، حبنا لصحبة الناس المصحكين، إلخ) بل إن الإجابات "البدهية" على هذه الأسئلة تقلب السبب والمسبب (نحن نحب السكر ليس لأن طعمه حلو، بل هو طعمه حلو بالنسبة لنا لأننا تطوريًا كنا نحتاجه في بيئات الإنسان الأول، وهكذا).
في فقرة تالية يوضح مقدمة مهمة لفهم هذا التفسير وهي أن إدراك المعلومات المتوفرة في البيئة يحتاج إلى إمكانية لرصدها، المعلومات موجودة لكننا ربما لا نتمكن من رصدها
Information is there only if you have the right detection system
2- Information requires evolved detection، المعرفة تحتاج إدراكًا متطورًا
في هذه الفقرة يقدم الكاتب فكرته عن عدم وجود شيء اسمه "بيئة"، هناك فقط بيئات معينة من وجهة نظر مخلوقات مختلفة. بعض الطيور تعدل من مواسم تزاوجها وروتينها اليومي بناءً على عدد ساعات الشمس في اليوم وبالتالي فمدة الصباح في يوم معين يشكل جزءًا من بيئة هذا الطائر ويكون مدركًا له بشكل كبير في حين أن كائنات كثيرة اخرى ربما لا تدرك هذا الفرق في عدد ساعات الصباح أصلًا.
يناقش الكاتب كيف أن هذه القاعدة تتأثر أيضًا بتاريخ المجتمع والنوع وتشكل جزءًا مهمًا من عمليات إدراكنا، البشر -حتى الأطفال منهم- يستطيعون تمييز الاتجاه الذي ينظر إليه احدهم عن طريق النظر إلى عينيه وتحديد مكان البؤبؤ والحدقة والبياض، وهذا يشتمل ما-قبليات عن أن هناك خطًا مستقيمًا بين العين والجسم وأن هذا الخط لن يعبر من خلال أجسلم صلبة مثلًا. يمكن للكلاب -بسبب تاريخها التطوري مع البشر- أن تحدد أيضًا أين ينظر البشر لأنهما شاركا البشر في الرعي والصيد حيث كانت تلك المهارة مهمة، بينما كان من الصعب جدًا على الشمبانزي أن يفهم اتجاه رؤية البشر - لأنهم ببساطة لم يمارسوا أنشطة تعاونية مع البشر (نفس الحال مع القطط بالمناسبة (.
الشاهد: بالضبط لأن لدينا آليات إدراك مناسبة تعمل بانسيابية دون أن نعي بها، يكون وجودها غير مرئي بالنسبة إلينا. هذه النظرة تجعلنا نظن أن هناك معلومات في العالم الخارجي بانتظارنا لكي نحصلها -ضرب من الواقعية الساذجة كما يعبر الكاتب.
3- وهي نقطة خطيرة:
لا تؤنسن البشر
Don't anthropomorphize humans!
باختصار شديد فالكاتب بناءً على النقاط السابقة يقرر أن هناك عوامل وقوانين غير خاضعة للنوايا تعمل في العالم - نظرية جبرية إلى حد كبير-، فالأشجار تنمو والأنهار تجري لكن ليس لأنها تريد ذلك. ومع تطور العلم أزيحت الأنسنة والحيوية (التعامل مع الطبيعة كأنها كائنات لها إرادة) جانبًا. وينتقد الكاتب أن هذه النظرة للتاريخ البشري (أنسنته) هي ما يعيق تكوين علم حقيقي لدراسة الأفعال الإنسانية. انتقاد الكاتب أننا نظن أن الأفعال البشرية محكومة بإرادة بشرية، وأن البشر يمكنهم فهم وإدراك هذه الإرادة، ويمكنهم التعبير عنها. طبعًا ينبه إلى أنه خلال التعامل اليومي والعادي مع الناس فيجب احترام إرادتهم وتفضيلاتهم وأن هذا أساس الأخلاق اليومية بالطبع، لكن ليس في مجال دراستهم علميًا.
"المشكلة هي أننا كبشر نعتقد أننا نعرف أصلًا كيف يعمل تفكيرنا. مثلًا، نعتقد -دون الإفصاح بذلك بالضرورة- أن التفكير يقع في معالج مركزي حيث تقيّم الافكار المختلفة -الشبيهة بتلك التي نعيشها بشكل واعٍ- وتدمج مع المشاعر لتقدم إرادة وخطط للعمل. نظرية العقل "البدهية\البدائية" هذه تفيدنا في الحياة اليومية (مثلًا، نحن نقول أن الكمبيوتر أرسل لي إشعارًا أو أنه لا يريد أن يعمل، في حين أننا إذا أردنا تحليل ومعالجة أسباب هذه "الأفعال" فسنستعمل مفردات مختلفة تمامًا.) أنسنة البشر بهذه الطريقة حسب الكاتب توقعنا في فخ عمى إدراكي، -وهي فكرة لدي منذ زمن بعيد-: فالعقل والإدراك البشري يعمل عن طريق آليات وعمليات متعددة -حتى في أبسط الأفعال اليومية-، وكل تلك العمليات متخصصة في مجال معلومات معين وتحفز وتعمل بناءً على محفزات مختلفة.
(بمعنىً آخر، بناءً على المقدمات السابقة، فالإدراك البشري غير واعٍ بكل العمليات والتفاصيل والعوامل التي يتعامل معها، وبالتالي هو غير واعٍ بكل ما يشكل تفكيره وأفعاله وربما تكون هذه الأفعال مبنية على عوامل ومؤثرات لا يعيها الفرد، أو على رأي هبة رؤوف عزت: "المشاكل اللاواعية التي تشكل الوعي")
4- تخطى أشباح النظريات الماضية
يحاول هنا أن يزيح أشباح وركام تصورات ونظريات سابقة، مثل ثانئية "البيئة\الثقافة" أو "التربية\الطبيعة" والنظرة الشائعة عن علم الجينات أن هناك جين ما معين يؤدي إلى فعل ما، أو فكرة أنه ما دام هناك صفة ما تم اكتسابها عن طريق التطور فهذا يعني أن ها "جينية" أو وراثية.
يقوم الكاتب بمناقشة 6 أسئلة:
لماذا نشكل الجماعات ونتعاون ونتصارع؟
لماذا تنتشر الشائعات والمعلومات الخاطئة؟
لماذا يوجد الدين؟
كيف يمكن للمجتمعات ان تكون عادلة؟
ما هي الأسرة؟
هل يمكننا فهم المجتمعات البشرية؟
في كل فصل (أو الأربعة الذين قرأتهم على الأقل) يناقش من وجهة نظر تطورية كيف يعمل العقل البشري وكيف تنشأ نظم اجتماعية اكثر تعقيدًا والعلاقة بين الاثنين وكيف يساهم هذا الاشتباك بين إدراكنا وبين العالم في تكوين الجماعات أو في انتشار الشائعات أو في وجود الدن أو في الاحساس بعدم العدل، طبعًا هناك ملاحظات عديدة على هذه الفصول، منها أنه يميل بشكلٍ ما إلى اختزال وتبسيط بعض الظواهر(مثل الدين)، لكنه يقدم وجهة نظر جديدة ومثيرة جدًا في بعض الفصول (مثلًا، يرفض فكرة أنالبشر يسهل خداعهم -الفصل 2-، وأن تاريخ الأديان عامةً ليس مشابهًا لما نتصوره اليوم "كدين").
خاتمة الكتاب تقع في حوالي 30 صفحة وهي شبه مراجعة وتفصيل أكثر لنظرية الكاتب عن تعقيد عملية الإدراك والتفكير البشري.
كنت أتمنى أن أحد مناقشة أو ندوة ما للكاتب يتحدث فيها عن فصول الكتاب، هو كتاب مثير جدًا للتفكير لكنه منهك جدًا ولو كنت أستطيع الاحتفاظ بالكتاب لفترة أطول لكنت كتبت مراجعة أطول :D
November 26, 2018
In “Minds Make Societies” Pascal Boyer takes an approach similar to Jon Elster in “Explaining Social Behavior” – recognize from the start that social science is hard, and then use examples from various domains to shed light on aspects of observed behavior. Arguably, the ultimate goal of social science should be explanation, not prediction. To that effect Elster concentrated on identifying mechanisms, however imperfect, that lead to behavior and then categorized conditions under which a mechanism works or fails.
Elster’s book is fantastic, but he was wise enough to mostly restrict himself to individual behavior, and even there it can get hairy quite rapidly. Elster’s examples of collective behavior are almost exclusively reserved for illustrations of failures of explanatory framework.
Pascal Boyer shoots for society-level dynamics, so his starting point is group behavior - ballsy! In each chapter he reaches into a new area (religion, information, family, markets) and attempts an explanation in terms of often-subconscious cognitive computations which are bread and butter of cognitive anthropology.
Of course, Boyer is aware that nature, nurture, culture and evolution will all have an effect here, but the man is bold – he states that purely “cultural” explanations are unsatisfactory, as are purely “evolutionary” or “genetic” explanations – as such it is meaningless to talk about nature or culture!
Great, so Boyer saws off ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ out of his vocabulary, and spends 300 pages redefining them on his own terms through cognitive computations. Yeah… Predictably a large chunk of the book is a disaster, despite the fact that many ideas are actually pretty good. So overall, what is interesting in the book is better covered elsewhere, while the original parts are a self-inflicted mess.
Elster’s book is fantastic, but he was wise enough to mostly restrict himself to individual behavior, and even there it can get hairy quite rapidly. Elster’s examples of collective behavior are almost exclusively reserved for illustrations of failures of explanatory framework.
Pascal Boyer shoots for society-level dynamics, so his starting point is group behavior - ballsy! In each chapter he reaches into a new area (religion, information, family, markets) and attempts an explanation in terms of often-subconscious cognitive computations which are bread and butter of cognitive anthropology.
Of course, Boyer is aware that nature, nurture, culture and evolution will all have an effect here, but the man is bold – he states that purely “cultural” explanations are unsatisfactory, as are purely “evolutionary” or “genetic” explanations – as such it is meaningless to talk about nature or culture!
Great, so Boyer saws off ‘nature’ and ‘nurture’ out of his vocabulary, and spends 300 pages redefining them on his own terms through cognitive computations. Yeah… Predictably a large chunk of the book is a disaster, despite the fact that many ideas are actually pretty good. So overall, what is interesting in the book is better covered elsewhere, while the original parts are a self-inflicted mess.
February 8, 2021
This has to be one of the most underrated books I've ever read, and I'm upset with myself that it took me so long to read it. Pascal Boyer takes a completely unique perspective with his theories about how minds create societies through the lens of evolutionary psychology. I've read many books on this subject, but Boyer offered something fresh with this one. He dives into topics about in-group cooperation, tribalism, why minds create religions, and so much more. I think what I loved the most about this book is that each chapter starts with a series of questions that really get your wheels turning about human behavior. Throughout the book, Boyer isn't cocky about his theories, either. He takes a humble approach that helps us start thinking in new ways, and I absolutely loved it.
July 12, 2022
I read the minimum 70% that was necessary for a book club and it was an unpleasant experience.
A clear writing is not the selling point of the book. The author threw in a lot of facts and his own speculations into this book. Some of the research results he mentioned are unconvincing because he just writes a bunch of them, gives the sources and doesn't even give the summary of how the research was done. An ideal reader would probably go and open those articles (if they are not behind a paywall), but I am not an ideal reader, I am reading the book in my free time, so I did not fetch all those articles to check them. So I ended up eating a soup of unconvincing research results at the end.
I got lured to read this book, because the table of content was promising, the introduction was a good marketing, but that's it, that's where the shiny parts of the book end.
It could be a potentially good read for a person who is already knowledgeable in the field and want to read Boyer's view, but that is probably a small set of people.
A clear writing is not the selling point of the book. The author threw in a lot of facts and his own speculations into this book. Some of the research results he mentioned are unconvincing because he just writes a bunch of them, gives the sources and doesn't even give the summary of how the research was done. An ideal reader would probably go and open those articles (if they are not behind a paywall), but I am not an ideal reader, I am reading the book in my free time, so I did not fetch all those articles to check them. So I ended up eating a soup of unconvincing research results at the end.
I got lured to read this book, because the table of content was promising, the introduction was a good marketing, but that's it, that's where the shiny parts of the book end.
It could be a potentially good read for a person who is already knowledgeable in the field and want to read Boyer's view, but that is probably a small set of people.
January 1, 2019
"Evolution designed..." is not a useful bi-gram. 🙄
May 11, 2021
Osea, supongo que el libro hubiera estado mejor si le hubiera puesto atención.
Pero todo fue blah blah, psicología evolutiva, blah blah.
Es de esos libros que terminas por que empezaste. La teoría principal de los autores es que los elementos fundamentales de la sociedad - lenguaje, religión, relaciones comerciales, familia - surgen como producto de nuestras adaptaciones cognitivas. Como percibimos al mundo lleva directamente a como interactuamos con el.
Pero luego el autor se pone a repetir teorías taaaaaan gastadas en psicología evolutiva que me hizo preguntarme si no había leido ya el libro.
No es que el libro sea malo supongo,es que no vi que aportara nada nuevo. Es un "yo también" en un genéro que ya cada vez se satura más y no hay avances emocionantes y nuevos.
Pero todo fue blah blah, psicología evolutiva, blah blah.
Es de esos libros que terminas por que empezaste. La teoría principal de los autores es que los elementos fundamentales de la sociedad - lenguaje, religión, relaciones comerciales, familia - surgen como producto de nuestras adaptaciones cognitivas. Como percibimos al mundo lleva directamente a como interactuamos con el.
Pero luego el autor se pone a repetir teorías taaaaaan gastadas en psicología evolutiva que me hizo preguntarme si no había leido ya el libro.
No es que el libro sea malo supongo,es que no vi que aportara nada nuevo. Es un "yo también" en un genéro que ya cada vez se satura más y no hay avances emocionantes y nuevos.
January 26, 2022
Notes on _Minds Make Societies_:
It would be so much easier to understand how our minds evolved to become uniquely human if we had other hominin species to compare ourselves to. But our closest cousins, like Neanderthals and _Homo floresiensis_, disappeared thousands of years ago. Our closest living relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) have such different social structures that comparisons with them are misleading as often as they are enlightening.
Because so many intermediate steps in our evolution are lost to us, scientists have to tease out clues from cross-cultural studies and evolutionary psychology -- plus, these days, from neuroscience and genetics.
It's clear that, somewhere along our evolutionary journey, humans acquired a "theory of mind" (i.e., the ability to understand that other people have mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions, that affect their actions). And this ability has been honed over millions of years of living in social groups. We automatically pick up cues (individual and social) and use them to infer intent.
But the automatic part makes our thinking difficult to study because we have no idea how we do it. Evolution tends to operate on a "need to know" basis since cluttering our minds with extraneous stuff -- like how we think what we think -- would just slow us down and make us less efficient (imagine trying to deal consciously with even a fraction of the output from your brain's 86 billion neurons and you can see the point).
Having a theory of mind provides enormous benefits since it allows us to predict how others will act. But we also tend to apply it indiscriminately. So people have a strong tendency to perceive conscious agents at work even when events happen by pure chance. We have trouble accepting that stuff just happens -- leaving us vulnerable to wild rumors and conspiracy theories.
We also seem to be mind-body dualists by nature, despite neuroscientists' best efforts to disabuse us of the notion. We know that actions can be caused by invisible, nonmaterial entities (ideas, beliefs, desires, judgments). But we're not conscious of the mechanisms that, for instance, turn an intention to pick up an object into the action of our arm moving to reach for it. It just seems to happen somehow (neuroscientists are working on the issue, but it's complicated).
So the default assumption seems to be that mental phenomena like thoughts exist separately from the physical world. Since we cannot access the inner workings of our brain physiology to see how we do what we do, mental states and physical actions seem to exist on separate planes. Which leads to a strong intuition that conscious souls exist independent of fully functioning brains -- even when experience suggests otherwise (devout believers and atheists are equally blank under anesthesia).
This fun, provocative book looks in detail at these and other issues, seeking to drill down into the ways that human mental processes channel our behavior toward creating the societies we live in. Even the most speculative sections are valuable because they point to rich areas for future research.
It would be so much easier to understand how our minds evolved to become uniquely human if we had other hominin species to compare ourselves to. But our closest cousins, like Neanderthals and _Homo floresiensis_, disappeared thousands of years ago. Our closest living relatives (chimpanzees and bonobos) have such different social structures that comparisons with them are misleading as often as they are enlightening.
Because so many intermediate steps in our evolution are lost to us, scientists have to tease out clues from cross-cultural studies and evolutionary psychology -- plus, these days, from neuroscience and genetics.
It's clear that, somewhere along our evolutionary journey, humans acquired a "theory of mind" (i.e., the ability to understand that other people have mental states, such as beliefs, desires, and intentions, that affect their actions). And this ability has been honed over millions of years of living in social groups. We automatically pick up cues (individual and social) and use them to infer intent.
But the automatic part makes our thinking difficult to study because we have no idea how we do it. Evolution tends to operate on a "need to know" basis since cluttering our minds with extraneous stuff -- like how we think what we think -- would just slow us down and make us less efficient (imagine trying to deal consciously with even a fraction of the output from your brain's 86 billion neurons and you can see the point).
Having a theory of mind provides enormous benefits since it allows us to predict how others will act. But we also tend to apply it indiscriminately. So people have a strong tendency to perceive conscious agents at work even when events happen by pure chance. We have trouble accepting that stuff just happens -- leaving us vulnerable to wild rumors and conspiracy theories.
We also seem to be mind-body dualists by nature, despite neuroscientists' best efforts to disabuse us of the notion. We know that actions can be caused by invisible, nonmaterial entities (ideas, beliefs, desires, judgments). But we're not conscious of the mechanisms that, for instance, turn an intention to pick up an object into the action of our arm moving to reach for it. It just seems to happen somehow (neuroscientists are working on the issue, but it's complicated).
So the default assumption seems to be that mental phenomena like thoughts exist separately from the physical world. Since we cannot access the inner workings of our brain physiology to see how we do what we do, mental states and physical actions seem to exist on separate planes. Which leads to a strong intuition that conscious souls exist independent of fully functioning brains -- even when experience suggests otherwise (devout believers and atheists are equally blank under anesthesia).
This fun, provocative book looks in detail at these and other issues, seeking to drill down into the ways that human mental processes channel our behavior toward creating the societies we live in. Even the most speculative sections are valuable because they point to rich areas for future research.
August 25, 2024
Sociologie -anthropologie éclairée par la psychologie expérimentale, par la théorie de l'évolution, par la biologie. C'est intéressant, mais extrêmement confus. Est-ce un problème de traduction ? Ce n'est pas la première fois qu'en lisant un essai américain dans ces domaines, je me retrouve avec l'impression d'un gros foutoir où je cherche les hypothèses, les démonstrations, les conclusions. Ici, l'auteur évoque souvent le côté spéculatif de ses écrits. Mais on finit par ne plus savoir ce qui est acquis ou pas. Quelques chapitres plus clairs que d'autres.
September 26, 2018
Fascinating concept of how culture and society evolve according to the same scientific principles used in biology. But I found it hard to digest and didn't understand much more of the concept after I finished it. Doubtless the fault is mine, but nevertheless.
May 16, 2021
[Imported automatically from my blog. Some formatting there may not have translated here.]
Another book I can't quite recall why I put on the get-at-library list. But I did (ILL from Boston College, thanks). And I regret to say, it wasn't for me.
The author, Pascal Boyer, is an anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist, now teaching at Washington U in St. Louis. His goal here is to offer evolution-based explanations for the puzzling behavior of human belings, around the globe and over history.
The main part of the book is organized around various questions. For example:
Why are humans so good at cooperating in small groups, but fiercely (and sometimes violently) competitive with humans outside their group? We are pretty good at accumulating information quickly and using it to make good decisions about our future. But also common are various forms of group irrationality: moral panics, investment bubbles, socialism. Why is that? Why is modern religion such a recent development in human history? We like to think that our current traditions and laws involving family life are "natural", based on our human nature. But, given the sweep of history, are they really? We seem to have notions of "fairness" and "trade" built into our brains, but just and prosperous societies have (again) only relatively recently developed. Is that just a big hairy accident, likely doomed to self-destruction? Can we, with our limited intellectual powers, claim to "understand" societies at all? They're devilishly complex!With regard to the religion one, I found myself asking: if God called Abraham only around 4,000 years ago, what was He up to for the previous 200,000 years of mankind's history? Just not paying attention? How does my local pastor explain that, anyway?
Anyway: These could be fascinating topics. Prof Boyer does his level best to make them dull.
Well, that's unfair. Probably a more accurate way of putting it: he doesn't write down to my level. Sample sentence, plucked at random (page 228):
So the force dynamics that come to mind when we think about power relations, those notions of pushing and pulling, of force and resistance, are only very awkward ways of representing large-scale interactions that are vastly more complex, and indeed too complex for our conscious representations.
Yeah, well, maybe. I got the (probably unfair) idea that Prof Boyer wrote this in French, got someone else to translate it into English.
Anyway: it's one of those "I looked at every page" books. And I learned stuff, but probably missed a lot too.
March 6, 2021
From an informative perspective, this should be a 6 star review. Boyer rang so many bells in my curiosity tower. I'm knocking it down to 4 because I found the text a little dense, and I could have used more attribution and anecdotes. That said I took more notes than with any book in years. I love the metaphor he poses at the end of the book, that helped me think about his overall thesis. Think of the way human societies form as water trickling down an uneven, inclined surface. Where we can see the water pooling in predictable pattern across different types of societies we can infer biological bases for these patterns.
Some of the specific patterns he brings up that I found most interesting:
• Human cognition is all about coalition building. We create in groups and out groups out of the flimsiest of excuses (lots of great scholarly back up here). With tribal warfare responsible for as much as 20% of the death rate among primitive males it makes sense this would be the case.
• Men became the dominant gender in human societies because they were best suited for intergroup conflict (warfare) and thus had the most skin in the game when it came to coalition management.
• What Boyer calls junk culture or low quality information (cultural ideas that don't seem to aid in biological aims at all) pervade human societies in part because of our inability to validate bad news. We are overly cautious because we don't know when danger is around.
• Personal spirituality, the way most humans think of their religious experience today (with souls and salvation) is a relatively recent innovation. The connection between emotional episodes and personal belief actually typical goes in the opposite direction most, evangelicals say, would predict. One woman who studies evangelicals characterized the society as "islands of belief in a sea of doubts." Belief is thought of as a goal not a starting point.
Some of the specific patterns he brings up that I found most interesting:
• Human cognition is all about coalition building. We create in groups and out groups out of the flimsiest of excuses (lots of great scholarly back up here). With tribal warfare responsible for as much as 20% of the death rate among primitive males it makes sense this would be the case.
• Men became the dominant gender in human societies because they were best suited for intergroup conflict (warfare) and thus had the most skin in the game when it came to coalition management.
• What Boyer calls junk culture or low quality information (cultural ideas that don't seem to aid in biological aims at all) pervade human societies in part because of our inability to validate bad news. We are overly cautious because we don't know when danger is around.
• Personal spirituality, the way most humans think of their religious experience today (with souls and salvation) is a relatively recent innovation. The connection between emotional episodes and personal belief actually typical goes in the opposite direction most, evangelicals say, would predict. One woman who studies evangelicals characterized the society as "islands of belief in a sea of doubts." Belief is thought of as a goal not a starting point.
February 1, 2021
4,5 iš 5. Labai įdomi knyga kurioje visuomenės procesai, tokie kaip religija, šeima, konfliktai, galios siekimas ar teisingumas aiškinami iš evoliucinės psichologijos ir antropologijos mokslo perspektyvos. Po kai kurių skyrių norėjosi padėti knygą į šalį, suvirškinti ką sužinojau ir su kuo nors aptarti pateiktą informaciją. Nevertinu penkiais vien dėl to, kad ne kartą, kaip man pasirodė, autoriui tvirtai užbaigti vienos ar kitos tezės aiškinimą pritrūko dviejų trijų sakinių. Na, bet gal kitiems tai neužklius.
December 23, 2018
Minds Make Societies is author Pascal Boyer’s survey of findings from anthropology, cognitive science, evolutionary psychology (and oh so much much more) posited as the fundament for an evolutionarily driven science of sociology.
Henry ford said:
‘whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right’.
Applying this clever logic and turn of phrase to the special case of this book, I posit the following:
‘If you think you’d like or hate the book based on my previous description, you’re right’.
Henry ford said:
‘whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right’.
Applying this clever logic and turn of phrase to the special case of this book, I posit the following:
‘If you think you’d like or hate the book based on my previous description, you’re right’.
August 22, 2020
The author implies that he will offer answers to his many questions about society and how it evolved. He does not. Instead, he states the views and conclusions of many others who have researched this and related fields. He consistently fails to offer his own original research or conclusions and leaves it up to the reader to figure it out on his or her own. Very disappointing book. Do not recommend it.
September 7, 2019
Many topics with a weak narrative. Has its ups and downs.
March 19, 2024
O carte de învățat, nu doar de citit o dată!
Radu Umbreș:
“… căutați Minds Make Societies, cartea pe care o citim ca biblie a cursului de Antropologie Cognitivă la Master Antropologie SNSPA.”
Radu Umbreș:
“… căutați Minds Make Societies, cartea pe care o citim ca biblie a cursului de Antropologie Cognitivă la Master Antropologie SNSPA.”
August 21, 2021
Human societies should be described and explained with the same precision and success as the rest of nature. Before embarking on the quest, we need to consider several points. Understanding humans requires that we step aside from humanity itself, and this requires adopting an evolutionary perspective. To understand their logic, we need to understand that you can get an evolved trait without genes that specify that trait, if there is the provision of additional information in the form of stable properties in the environment (the invariant cycle of the moon triggers our sleep cycle, but sleep isn’t in our genes.) Further, there is the distinction between the umgebung and the umwelt. Humans extract all kinds of information from their umwelt because of specialised information-detecting equipment. And this equipment is there because of evolution. Learning is made possible by a whole range of mental mechanisms called intuitive inference systems or modules. Common properties of all modules = they work outside consciousness, each module is specialised, and we can understand modules best once we see them as evolved dispositions. The world is governed by physical laws, not by the intentions of agents; similarly humans are governed by physical laws, not by the intentions of agents, so in order to understand humanity, we need to stop anthropomorphising humans! Finally, we need to get rid of the ‘nature vs nurture’ divide, as it rests on an antiquated notion of inflexible genes (gene activation can be switched on and off by other genes) and a perennially changing natural world (environments have many invariant properties.) An evolved trait in not necessarily encoded in the genes, nor does it occur invariably, refuse to be modified, or remain resolute amidst a changing environment.
- WHAT IS THE ROOT OF GROUP CONFLICT? We need to consider group formation generally in evolutionary terms first. We seem to have an instinctual drive to form groups, but groupishness is not a blunt instinct to follow the herd; people behave in ways that seem to favour in-groups because they implicitly use a social exchange heuristic, a set of assumptions about how the social interaction that is presented to them is a form of reciprocal cooperation. How do humans form alliances (where several individuals collectively enhance all their welfares)? All humans rely on support from kin and nonkin in a variety of social interactions. Coalitional psychology includes an alliance-detection system, where people subconsciously measure who’s with who, who will defect/commit to the group, etc. Coalitions are competitive and require recruiting social support, which is a rival good, (the more for me, the less for you) so coalitions may seem intrinsically antagonistic. Ethnic groups are perceived in terms of competition for resources, so stereotypes are a way to justify hostility toward a competitive alliance. What drives people’s behaviour is coalitional psychology, where it seems advantageous to one’s own coalition to keep other groups in a lower-status position because of the intuition that the welfare of groups is a zero-sum game. Coalitional dynamics extend to large groups that number thousands or millions because people can signal coalitional affiliation, by dress, accent, gestures, etc. So what of inter-ethnic violence? Although, it may seem diverse, ethnic conflict takes a predictable form, the result of complex computations inside minds; it follows a script. A minor scuffle, sometimes leads to rumours that ‘they’ are planning something big. An ominous period of calm follows, after which another small incident escalates into a proper fight, with people recruiting their own in order to kill the fleeing victims. So humans attack one another; is there a universal aggressive instinct at work? Our tribal past included both intense cooperation (within groups) and trade and peace (between groups) as well as aggression for murder, looting (within and between groups). What makes humans go to war or cooperate is not stable, general, and context-free preferences for aggression or peace but a set of conditional mechanisms that weigh the value of either strategy, given the current environment. The kind of warfare included in our ancestral past was the sudden raid; kill as many males as possible, take the plunder + women + slaves back to your own camp. This primitive warfare applies also to ethnic violence and they use the same capacities and have highly similar forms. People only engage in combat when they think they have numerical advantage; and because of this, many raids are successful. This is overwhelmingly a male operation. Civil wars and ethnic riots take on predictable forms because they occur between organisms with highly similar capacities for group aggression thanks to the long past of primitive warfare. We can make sense of nationalism and ethnic rioting in terms of evolved capacities for coalition building and defence. Humans depend on group cohesion and continuity for their own individual welfare; the stakes are high, which explains why the evolved systems trigger strong motivations in the form of powerful emotions.
- WHY DO PEOPLE HOLD AND PASS ON SUCH STRANGE BELIEFS? Reason is a social tool used to bring others round to our way of thinking, and expose the invalid arguments other people use. Why do people eagerly acquire and broadcast information of low value? (Vaccines cause autism.) It was thought that the spread of rumours was a ‘search for meaning’ after the event, and adds a modicum of control to a chaotic situation. But the rumours frequently add more confusion; it explains much less than, say, an official report. So why do rumours spread and why is it important for others to ‘get on board’ with what we’re saying? Rumours are mainly about negative events and describe people intent on harming ‘us’ which leads to disaster if no action is taken. Because of our evolutionary past, humans attend to predation, intrusion, contamination, contagion, social offence, but not other threats that are more dangerous in this modern world. Threat-related information is considered credible as a precautionary measure, meaning that it is more likely to be spread. Several factors limit the spread of rumour; the plausibility of the warning (the more plausible, the more likely it can spread), precautions must not be too demanding, and the threat should be serious enough to warrant worry. Threat detection is one domain we turn down our, ordinarily tightly controlled, epistemic vigilance. We need to explain why humans have a desire to transmit certain beliefs and convince others of their factual basis. Why are these beliefs intensely moralised? The moralisation is other people’s behaviour is an excellent instrument for social coordination, which is required for collective action
- WHAT IS THE NATURAL FAMILY? It is impossible to compare ‘families’ across different cultures, because the term is of no use. Kinship can be explained by evolution. The complex brain emerged to manage social relations and allow for greater cooperation. Larger brain, larger head; humans were delivered prematurely, and mothers needed help. Altriciality led to pair-bonding; close alliance of man and woman. In all societies, there are bonds between them, with expectations of sexual exclusivity, joint investment in offspring, and sharing resources. Further, couples have strong feelings of attachment, couples involve the in-laws too, and fathers are emotionally invested in the rearing of offspring. Pairs that divided labour in a more efficient manner achieved higher fitness. But the meat for sex formula is narrow, because there is more than meat and sex. Men provide protection against other men provided that they know that the child is theirs. Attractiveness requires complex computations, because any two dimensions of attractiveness criteria may not be strongly correlated, so computations must weigh different factors simultaneously. No one cares about his fitness, so to speak, but must use proxies (0bservable cues that have been associate with higher fitness in evolutionary past) that guide him or her toward the most desirable mate. But the world over, societies stipulate norms of propriety, sexual restraint, and appropriate parenting; marriage is a package, is a yes/no affair, is for the long term, is conspicuous; why all these rules? Associating sex, economic solidarity, and the nurturing of children is a consequence of the evolution of cooperative pairs where sexual exclusivity and paternal provision increased fitness. But then, why marriage? Norms have advantageous effects in allowing people to coordinate their behaviours through communication. Marriage conveys that the married are removed from the pool of potential mates and the married have joint obligations to one another but not to anyone else. This is why marriages are so public; because each party may shirk from his/her duties, making marriage public makes signals of commitment honest and hard-to-fake, and makes desertion a blemish on one’s reputation.
- WHY ARE MEN IN CHARGE?
(I) POLITICS:Let’s look at psychology: in hunter-gatherer societies, there’s a variety of situations, from relative equality between genders of the !Kung, to the Pacific Northwest with more complex political systems and male dominance. Women’s political influence, varied as it was in foraging groups, was drastically reduced in agrarian societies, as subsistence depended on heavy work mostly provided by the men. In describing the evolutionary past, we should avoid the extremes of Hobbes and Rousseau, as the evidence suggests intensive cooperation within groups and potential conflicts between them. If that is the case, it would follow that men’s decisions were the most crucial for the survival of the band. The reality and importance of primitive warfare during our evolution suggests that male psychology is adapted for intergroup conflict and would be most suited for guiding the group to victory. And it is: men are more aggressive, have greater upper body strength, construe social relations as between groups rather than individuals, and recall events from a group standpoint as opposed to women who recall them from a personal standpoint.
(II) DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: domestic oppression consists in limiting the autonomy of women; in all places where there are such limitations, women’s sexuality is also limited. Two factors determine the intensity of mate guarding: it’s more intensive where a few males monopolise access to women and there is a risk of cuckoldry. Why do men publicly chastise women for being too ‘slutty’? There is an incentive for men to participate in boosting the fitness of other unrelated men, because those unrelated men would then boost his own fitness when he is not present.
- CAN SOCIETIES BE JUST? The question of what is a just society is construed as a question about who produces what goods, how they are distributed, and how the rules under which we interact with others may create fair or unfair differences. Evolution to the rescue, again. Cooperation between nonkin is a puzzle; the central feature that accounts for successful cooperation is the possibility to choose partners, ditch defectors, and stick with cooperators. Humans evolved in groups where they could offer and receive cooperation from different individuals; they have an interest in the behaviour of others; so one may benefit a great deal from having a reputation for honest, mutually advantageous behaviour. But what about fairness? People try to maintain fair allocations and react strongly when people take more than their ‘fair’ share. The intuition about proportional allocation may stem from partner choice; if I engage with you in some joint venture, it’s in my interest to split the benefits evenly. If I don’t split even, you’ll find someone else who will. Communal sharing and trade benefit from these intuitions. For communal sharing, we look to see who contributed how much, and dole out how rewards proportionately. For trade, there are some psychological capacities we developed that enabled us to trade with strangers: agents must measure the respective utilities and infer that one is worth losing for the other; we must represent ownership of the objects exchanged; and we must be able to detect free-riding and cheating, which occur when individuals manage to extract a benefit without paying a cost. These three cognitive systems - utility equivalence, ownership, and free-rider detection - contribute to what we expect from a transaction. We expect transactions to occur between identified agents, to be free and voluntary, and that mutually profitable interaction occurs in the context of repeated transactions. We pay attention to a whole host of information because of our evolved preferences; not only goods, their amount and value, but the identity and reputation of persons. Humans evolved a capacity not just for trade but for repeated transactions with known partners, with carefully monitored mutual goodwill. Anthropologists were right to emphasise that trade in small societies is rarely only about trade; but they erred in assuming that these additional factors were a matter of arbitrary norms or culture. People can learn local norms because underlying principles about partner choice, reputation, and fairness are part of our evolved learning systems. Trade between individuals can scale up to encompass massive territories of trade between individuals far removed. The cooperative interaction that is trade naturally tends to expand, including more and more individuals; one engine of this expansion is the division of labour. By specialising, individuals can create more, higher-quality goods at a lower price, and since they require the work of others, the expansion can continue in a virtuous circle. We do not intuitively understand the global economy, as our mental modules were crafted to deal with local and personal trade; yet we still think of the economy in terms of our evolved social exchange template. We often think of the economy as a zero-sum game, but the economy is a positive-sum game; the more you gain, the more I gain. Where do these beliefs come from? People’s economic beliefs consist in reflective beliefs or comments on their intuitions. Emporiophobia is the fear of markets, which are impersonal forces. Features of modern markets (no expectation of repeated exchange, no judgment of character needed, etc) are interpreted by our modules as threats, which leads people to fear markets. Almost everyone agrees that justice should be the organising principle of society. There are two main paths from our intuitive psychology to a conception of mass-market society. We can extend intuitions about ownership and fair exchange to the vast number of transactions of a modern economy. We find it legitimate that people be entitled to the fruit of their work, sell their goods at the price buyers will accept, etc. People are entitled to what they acquire through voluntary exchange with other free agents, the view espoused by Nozick. We can also extend intuitions about collective action and redistribution, projecting them onto society. Society is a pool of collective action to which everyone contributes and from which they may receive appropriate rewards. Society would be just if people received essential liberty and equality of opportunity, the view espoused by Rawls. Either the processes (transactions must be just, and distribution will be just) or outcomes (distributions must be fair and this will make transactions fair) are focused upon. Our conceptions of justice lead to a paradox. The wealth created by economies is not understandable by our intuitive modules, so they are seen as a windfall. This activates our communal sharing preferences which aims to redistributes the wealth, but this clashes with our effort and ownership intuitions (those who contribute more, receive more.) Policies clash between intuitive systems.
- CAN HUMAN MINDS UNDERSTAND SOCIETIES? Humans use ‘folk sociology’ to understand how society works, but this isn’t necessarily accurate. Politics isn’t transparent in modern society; to understand how minds handle large-scale decision making, we need to see that most human evolution took place in small bands of nomadic foragers; accumulation of wealth enabled the formation of social ranks and hierarchies. What is the psychology that underlies large and complex polities? Collective action is the first thing which underlies the formation of complex polities: participants in joint hunting or collective parenting care about who is involved, how much they can be trusted, and how the fruits of collective labour are distributed. But this type of coordination requires deferring immediate gratification and stemming free-riders, both limits which have been minimised by communication between agents. Hierarchies are the second thing which underlie the formation of complex polities: human hierarchies are not just relevant to the distribution of goods; they are mainly production hierarchies, ways of orchestrating different individual’s contributions, because of a difference between skill-levels, to a task. Hierarchies often congeal as a relatively permanent system; why? Why are individuals interested in gaining power? Not only because of the material benefits conferred, but mainly because of the reproductive benefits conferred. Rank is the most desired trait in males. Many seek positions of dominance because they are intrinsically desirable (proximate) and lead to higher fitness (ultimate). Human minds wish to circumvent would-be despots and so act as a balance to this desire to seek dominance. In the foraging groups in which our political psychology evolved, titles weren’t as titled as presidents, which enabled the entrenched egalitarian motivation to develop in social life. As human groups got bigger, they developed descriptions of their own societies, folk sociologies, that have several common features: groups are like agents (hence why groups can act as individuals), power is a force (power is a substance attached to some people), and social facts are things (social facts exist independently from human minds, over and above what people think of them). Intuitive psychology systems are the main resource available to us to understand social groups. But these beliefs frequently generate all sorts of incoherent inferences. More realistic descriptions of society, in terms of interactions between individuals, is simply beyond our capacities. We are condemned to use folk sociology because of the mysteries of apparent order created by the aggregation of myriad interactions that we cannot follow. Our political psychology consists of implicit processes which underlie different approaches to policy considerations. Conservative vs liberal is based on abstract values, underpinned by intuitions, and moral outlooks. Liberals think that harm and fairness are moral; conservatives think that loyalty, authority, and sanctity are also important. A major point of contention between liberals and conservatives is the role of the state. People construe the state as an agent. The spontaneous and compelling belief that the state is like an agent explains the fact that policy choice is driven by moral intuitions. Social democrats construe the state as a benevolent distributor of deserved benefits; conservatives as an exploitative partner whose resources and monopoly of violence predict unfair exchange.
- WHAT IS THE ROOT OF GROUP CONFLICT? We need to consider group formation generally in evolutionary terms first. We seem to have an instinctual drive to form groups, but groupishness is not a blunt instinct to follow the herd; people behave in ways that seem to favour in-groups because they implicitly use a social exchange heuristic, a set of assumptions about how the social interaction that is presented to them is a form of reciprocal cooperation. How do humans form alliances (where several individuals collectively enhance all their welfares)? All humans rely on support from kin and nonkin in a variety of social interactions. Coalitional psychology includes an alliance-detection system, where people subconsciously measure who’s with who, who will defect/commit to the group, etc. Coalitions are competitive and require recruiting social support, which is a rival good, (the more for me, the less for you) so coalitions may seem intrinsically antagonistic. Ethnic groups are perceived in terms of competition for resources, so stereotypes are a way to justify hostility toward a competitive alliance. What drives people’s behaviour is coalitional psychology, where it seems advantageous to one’s own coalition to keep other groups in a lower-status position because of the intuition that the welfare of groups is a zero-sum game. Coalitional dynamics extend to large groups that number thousands or millions because people can signal coalitional affiliation, by dress, accent, gestures, etc. So what of inter-ethnic violence? Although, it may seem diverse, ethnic conflict takes a predictable form, the result of complex computations inside minds; it follows a script. A minor scuffle, sometimes leads to rumours that ‘they’ are planning something big. An ominous period of calm follows, after which another small incident escalates into a proper fight, with people recruiting their own in order to kill the fleeing victims. So humans attack one another; is there a universal aggressive instinct at work? Our tribal past included both intense cooperation (within groups) and trade and peace (between groups) as well as aggression for murder, looting (within and between groups). What makes humans go to war or cooperate is not stable, general, and context-free preferences for aggression or peace but a set of conditional mechanisms that weigh the value of either strategy, given the current environment. The kind of warfare included in our ancestral past was the sudden raid; kill as many males as possible, take the plunder + women + slaves back to your own camp. This primitive warfare applies also to ethnic violence and they use the same capacities and have highly similar forms. People only engage in combat when they think they have numerical advantage; and because of this, many raids are successful. This is overwhelmingly a male operation. Civil wars and ethnic riots take on predictable forms because they occur between organisms with highly similar capacities for group aggression thanks to the long past of primitive warfare. We can make sense of nationalism and ethnic rioting in terms of evolved capacities for coalition building and defence. Humans depend on group cohesion and continuity for their own individual welfare; the stakes are high, which explains why the evolved systems trigger strong motivations in the form of powerful emotions.
- WHY DO PEOPLE HOLD AND PASS ON SUCH STRANGE BELIEFS? Reason is a social tool used to bring others round to our way of thinking, and expose the invalid arguments other people use. Why do people eagerly acquire and broadcast information of low value? (Vaccines cause autism.) It was thought that the spread of rumours was a ‘search for meaning’ after the event, and adds a modicum of control to a chaotic situation. But the rumours frequently add more confusion; it explains much less than, say, an official report. So why do rumours spread and why is it important for others to ‘get on board’ with what we’re saying? Rumours are mainly about negative events and describe people intent on harming ‘us’ which leads to disaster if no action is taken. Because of our evolutionary past, humans attend to predation, intrusion, contamination, contagion, social offence, but not other threats that are more dangerous in this modern world. Threat-related information is considered credible as a precautionary measure, meaning that it is more likely to be spread. Several factors limit the spread of rumour; the plausibility of the warning (the more plausible, the more likely it can spread), precautions must not be too demanding, and the threat should be serious enough to warrant worry. Threat detection is one domain we turn down our, ordinarily tightly controlled, epistemic vigilance. We need to explain why humans have a desire to transmit certain beliefs and convince others of their factual basis. Why are these beliefs intensely moralised? The moralisation is other people’s behaviour is an excellent instrument for social coordination, which is required for collective action
- WHAT IS THE NATURAL FAMILY? It is impossible to compare ‘families’ across different cultures, because the term is of no use. Kinship can be explained by evolution. The complex brain emerged to manage social relations and allow for greater cooperation. Larger brain, larger head; humans were delivered prematurely, and mothers needed help. Altriciality led to pair-bonding; close alliance of man and woman. In all societies, there are bonds between them, with expectations of sexual exclusivity, joint investment in offspring, and sharing resources. Further, couples have strong feelings of attachment, couples involve the in-laws too, and fathers are emotionally invested in the rearing of offspring. Pairs that divided labour in a more efficient manner achieved higher fitness. But the meat for sex formula is narrow, because there is more than meat and sex. Men provide protection against other men provided that they know that the child is theirs. Attractiveness requires complex computations, because any two dimensions of attractiveness criteria may not be strongly correlated, so computations must weigh different factors simultaneously. No one cares about his fitness, so to speak, but must use proxies (0bservable cues that have been associate with higher fitness in evolutionary past) that guide him or her toward the most desirable mate. But the world over, societies stipulate norms of propriety, sexual restraint, and appropriate parenting; marriage is a package, is a yes/no affair, is for the long term, is conspicuous; why all these rules? Associating sex, economic solidarity, and the nurturing of children is a consequence of the evolution of cooperative pairs where sexual exclusivity and paternal provision increased fitness. But then, why marriage? Norms have advantageous effects in allowing people to coordinate their behaviours through communication. Marriage conveys that the married are removed from the pool of potential mates and the married have joint obligations to one another but not to anyone else. This is why marriages are so public; because each party may shirk from his/her duties, making marriage public makes signals of commitment honest and hard-to-fake, and makes desertion a blemish on one’s reputation.
- WHY ARE MEN IN CHARGE?
(I) POLITICS:Let’s look at psychology: in hunter-gatherer societies, there’s a variety of situations, from relative equality between genders of the !Kung, to the Pacific Northwest with more complex political systems and male dominance. Women’s political influence, varied as it was in foraging groups, was drastically reduced in agrarian societies, as subsistence depended on heavy work mostly provided by the men. In describing the evolutionary past, we should avoid the extremes of Hobbes and Rousseau, as the evidence suggests intensive cooperation within groups and potential conflicts between them. If that is the case, it would follow that men’s decisions were the most crucial for the survival of the band. The reality and importance of primitive warfare during our evolution suggests that male psychology is adapted for intergroup conflict and would be most suited for guiding the group to victory. And it is: men are more aggressive, have greater upper body strength, construe social relations as between groups rather than individuals, and recall events from a group standpoint as opposed to women who recall them from a personal standpoint.
(II) DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: domestic oppression consists in limiting the autonomy of women; in all places where there are such limitations, women’s sexuality is also limited. Two factors determine the intensity of mate guarding: it’s more intensive where a few males monopolise access to women and there is a risk of cuckoldry. Why do men publicly chastise women for being too ‘slutty’? There is an incentive for men to participate in boosting the fitness of other unrelated men, because those unrelated men would then boost his own fitness when he is not present.
- CAN SOCIETIES BE JUST? The question of what is a just society is construed as a question about who produces what goods, how they are distributed, and how the rules under which we interact with others may create fair or unfair differences. Evolution to the rescue, again. Cooperation between nonkin is a puzzle; the central feature that accounts for successful cooperation is the possibility to choose partners, ditch defectors, and stick with cooperators. Humans evolved in groups where they could offer and receive cooperation from different individuals; they have an interest in the behaviour of others; so one may benefit a great deal from having a reputation for honest, mutually advantageous behaviour. But what about fairness? People try to maintain fair allocations and react strongly when people take more than their ‘fair’ share. The intuition about proportional allocation may stem from partner choice; if I engage with you in some joint venture, it’s in my interest to split the benefits evenly. If I don’t split even, you’ll find someone else who will. Communal sharing and trade benefit from these intuitions. For communal sharing, we look to see who contributed how much, and dole out how rewards proportionately. For trade, there are some psychological capacities we developed that enabled us to trade with strangers: agents must measure the respective utilities and infer that one is worth losing for the other; we must represent ownership of the objects exchanged; and we must be able to detect free-riding and cheating, which occur when individuals manage to extract a benefit without paying a cost. These three cognitive systems - utility equivalence, ownership, and free-rider detection - contribute to what we expect from a transaction. We expect transactions to occur between identified agents, to be free and voluntary, and that mutually profitable interaction occurs in the context of repeated transactions. We pay attention to a whole host of information because of our evolved preferences; not only goods, their amount and value, but the identity and reputation of persons. Humans evolved a capacity not just for trade but for repeated transactions with known partners, with carefully monitored mutual goodwill. Anthropologists were right to emphasise that trade in small societies is rarely only about trade; but they erred in assuming that these additional factors were a matter of arbitrary norms or culture. People can learn local norms because underlying principles about partner choice, reputation, and fairness are part of our evolved learning systems. Trade between individuals can scale up to encompass massive territories of trade between individuals far removed. The cooperative interaction that is trade naturally tends to expand, including more and more individuals; one engine of this expansion is the division of labour. By specialising, individuals can create more, higher-quality goods at a lower price, and since they require the work of others, the expansion can continue in a virtuous circle. We do not intuitively understand the global economy, as our mental modules were crafted to deal with local and personal trade; yet we still think of the economy in terms of our evolved social exchange template. We often think of the economy as a zero-sum game, but the economy is a positive-sum game; the more you gain, the more I gain. Where do these beliefs come from? People’s economic beliefs consist in reflective beliefs or comments on their intuitions. Emporiophobia is the fear of markets, which are impersonal forces. Features of modern markets (no expectation of repeated exchange, no judgment of character needed, etc) are interpreted by our modules as threats, which leads people to fear markets. Almost everyone agrees that justice should be the organising principle of society. There are two main paths from our intuitive psychology to a conception of mass-market society. We can extend intuitions about ownership and fair exchange to the vast number of transactions of a modern economy. We find it legitimate that people be entitled to the fruit of their work, sell their goods at the price buyers will accept, etc. People are entitled to what they acquire through voluntary exchange with other free agents, the view espoused by Nozick. We can also extend intuitions about collective action and redistribution, projecting them onto society. Society is a pool of collective action to which everyone contributes and from which they may receive appropriate rewards. Society would be just if people received essential liberty and equality of opportunity, the view espoused by Rawls. Either the processes (transactions must be just, and distribution will be just) or outcomes (distributions must be fair and this will make transactions fair) are focused upon. Our conceptions of justice lead to a paradox. The wealth created by economies is not understandable by our intuitive modules, so they are seen as a windfall. This activates our communal sharing preferences which aims to redistributes the wealth, but this clashes with our effort and ownership intuitions (those who contribute more, receive more.) Policies clash between intuitive systems.
- CAN HUMAN MINDS UNDERSTAND SOCIETIES? Humans use ‘folk sociology’ to understand how society works, but this isn’t necessarily accurate. Politics isn’t transparent in modern society; to understand how minds handle large-scale decision making, we need to see that most human evolution took place in small bands of nomadic foragers; accumulation of wealth enabled the formation of social ranks and hierarchies. What is the psychology that underlies large and complex polities? Collective action is the first thing which underlies the formation of complex polities: participants in joint hunting or collective parenting care about who is involved, how much they can be trusted, and how the fruits of collective labour are distributed. But this type of coordination requires deferring immediate gratification and stemming free-riders, both limits which have been minimised by communication between agents. Hierarchies are the second thing which underlie the formation of complex polities: human hierarchies are not just relevant to the distribution of goods; they are mainly production hierarchies, ways of orchestrating different individual’s contributions, because of a difference between skill-levels, to a task. Hierarchies often congeal as a relatively permanent system; why? Why are individuals interested in gaining power? Not only because of the material benefits conferred, but mainly because of the reproductive benefits conferred. Rank is the most desired trait in males. Many seek positions of dominance because they are intrinsically desirable (proximate) and lead to higher fitness (ultimate). Human minds wish to circumvent would-be despots and so act as a balance to this desire to seek dominance. In the foraging groups in which our political psychology evolved, titles weren’t as titled as presidents, which enabled the entrenched egalitarian motivation to develop in social life. As human groups got bigger, they developed descriptions of their own societies, folk sociologies, that have several common features: groups are like agents (hence why groups can act as individuals), power is a force (power is a substance attached to some people), and social facts are things (social facts exist independently from human minds, over and above what people think of them). Intuitive psychology systems are the main resource available to us to understand social groups. But these beliefs frequently generate all sorts of incoherent inferences. More realistic descriptions of society, in terms of interactions between individuals, is simply beyond our capacities. We are condemned to use folk sociology because of the mysteries of apparent order created by the aggregation of myriad interactions that we cannot follow. Our political psychology consists of implicit processes which underlie different approaches to policy considerations. Conservative vs liberal is based on abstract values, underpinned by intuitions, and moral outlooks. Liberals think that harm and fairness are moral; conservatives think that loyalty, authority, and sanctity are also important. A major point of contention between liberals and conservatives is the role of the state. People construe the state as an agent. The spontaneous and compelling belief that the state is like an agent explains the fact that policy choice is driven by moral intuitions. Social democrats construe the state as a benevolent distributor of deserved benefits; conservatives as an exploitative partner whose resources and monopoly of violence predict unfair exchange.
September 23, 2025
One of the most intellectual things one could ever read. Literally. This one is about cognition, human cognition.
There are more and more biases that nowadays social scientists are starting to comprehend. There's for example a "content bias" that explains why -low quality information- is easy to acquire and spread than -technical and high quality info (science)-. To me that is what explains terraplanism, CRT and the other woke bullshit concerning lgbtq and the other hundred genders.
Boyer explains human cognition in six questions, that go from coalitions, to sex, religion and communication, even politics. This kind of books really, really help you understand many aspects of social life; evolutionary lensing can deeply go through what cannot be seen, the -abyssal psychology- that creates civilization.
We are the product (and still are) of millions of years of evolution. Our brains are the same, yet we have technology. Technology is not a product, a natural product. Cellphones, internet, are novelties, just like foam shoes and protein shakes. Our whole world has changed and is not the same in which we developed ourselves, specially our brains. Porn exists nowadays, and even at a more dangerous rate simply because male brains remain the same, but internet, HQ cameras and search engines are relatively new. If there's a new kind of technology, porn will adapt to that (im using porn because it is a simple example, I could use hamburgers instead but I'll have to talk about fast food and the chemical that helps us cook nowadays), not because of patriarchy or capitalism, porn will remain because of the way our male brains are created. Im saying "male" because sex drive in men is way higher than in women, no matter what idelogy tries to impose.
Talking about cognition has an evolutionary taste, because that word implies how the information of a certain environment is used by the brain of certain species; the environment evolves and is linked to human development (genetics and the whole thing).
Let's give Pascal Boyer a chance, and enjoy this book. Makes you even more human to comprehend why we behave the way we do.
There are more and more biases that nowadays social scientists are starting to comprehend. There's for example a "content bias" that explains why -low quality information- is easy to acquire and spread than -technical and high quality info (science)-. To me that is what explains terraplanism, CRT and the other woke bullshit concerning lgbtq and the other hundred genders.
Boyer explains human cognition in six questions, that go from coalitions, to sex, religion and communication, even politics. This kind of books really, really help you understand many aspects of social life; evolutionary lensing can deeply go through what cannot be seen, the -abyssal psychology- that creates civilization.
We are the product (and still are) of millions of years of evolution. Our brains are the same, yet we have technology. Technology is not a product, a natural product. Cellphones, internet, are novelties, just like foam shoes and protein shakes. Our whole world has changed and is not the same in which we developed ourselves, specially our brains. Porn exists nowadays, and even at a more dangerous rate simply because male brains remain the same, but internet, HQ cameras and search engines are relatively new. If there's a new kind of technology, porn will adapt to that (im using porn because it is a simple example, I could use hamburgers instead but I'll have to talk about fast food and the chemical that helps us cook nowadays), not because of patriarchy or capitalism, porn will remain because of the way our male brains are created. Im saying "male" because sex drive in men is way higher than in women, no matter what idelogy tries to impose.
Talking about cognition has an evolutionary taste, because that word implies how the information of a certain environment is used by the brain of certain species; the environment evolves and is linked to human development (genetics and the whole thing).
Let's give Pascal Boyer a chance, and enjoy this book. Makes you even more human to comprehend why we behave the way we do.
October 8, 2022
This book changed my life. It explains what is really happening when people get offended by one another. It explains why everyone does everything. It synthesizes modern science into something meaningful. I've been happily at peace with the world ever since I read this book over a year ago. Once you understand where all thoughts and emotions truly come from, they are much easier to deal with. Now that I understand why everyone feels the way they do, I can relax and just appreciate humans for being the beautiful creatures we are. Every day I hear, "How could they believe such a contradiction," or, "How could they be so blind to the truth." This book explains why people believe the 'truths' they do. It explains why people love to exchange conspiracy theories. It explains why people love religion. It brings the echelons of modern academic research to the masses. It is the first book of its kind (that I have read) but it will surely not be the last. We now know more about humans than most humans may ever be able to handle. I can't stop smiling about it.
November 24, 2024
انتشرت خرافة سرقة الأعضاء التناسلية في الدول الأفريقية والآسيوية منذ ما لا يقل عن ثلاثين عاماً. وفي العديد من تلك الأماكن، يذكر الناس أن أفراداً خطرين لديهم القدرة على سرقة الأعضاء التناسلية للرجل بمجرد النظر في عينيه، أو مصافحته، أو نطق كلمات سحرية معينة. ويقال أيضاً إن الأماكن المزدحمة مثل الأسواق ومحطات الحافلات هي أماكن الصيد المفضلة لهؤلاء الأشخاص الخطرين. وما يحدث عادة هو أن يصرخ شخص ما في هذه الأماكن العامة فجأة بأن عضوه التناسلي قد سُرق، مشيراً إلى فرد معين باعتباره الجاني. وسرعان ما يحيط بالمشتبه به حشد غاضب. وقد يؤدي هذا إلى إعدامه مباشرة في موقع الحدث. ومع المزيد من الحظ، يتم اقتياد السارق المفترض إلى مركز الشرطة المحلي. ورغم أن الناس على يقين من سرقة العضو الذكري، فإنهم على ثقة بنفس القدر بأن تفتيش المتهم لن يكون مجدياً، لأنه ربما تخلص من الأدلة باستخدام السحر.
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Pascal Boyer
Minds Make Societies
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
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Pascal Boyer
Minds Make Societies
Translated By #Maher_Razouk
December 6, 2022
An interesting book that uses ideas from several domains such as evolutionary biology, anthropology and basic economic theory to explain the societal structure and associated human behavior. I found it to be a thought provoking read albeit one that needs some patience and thinking. The one complaint that I have is that the ideas are a bit scattered inside the chapters and there is often a lack of a systematic progression in the development of the ideas, resulting in many long-drawn out passages where one loses the sight of the bigger picture. This is not a big issue if the reader is really invested in understanding the topics being discussed, but might be a hindrance to someone looking for a lighter introduction to such topics.
March 16, 2025
I bought this book by Mr. Boyer hoping I would get some knowledge about the minds of the conservatives in the US during our time of 2025. While the purpose of his book wasn't about this topic, I was hoping for some insite into how conservatives and libels can be so far apart in their thinking.
Finally around page 237 I started tofind a little about what I was looking for. The book was over my head for the most part, certainly not the author's fault. My son is an Anthropologist so I will be giving him this book. Long live Anthropologists, a hard profession in this current political climate.
Finally around page 237 I started tofind a little about what I was looking for. The book was over my head for the most part, certainly not the author's fault. My son is an Anthropologist so I will be giving him this book. Long live Anthropologists, a hard profession in this current political climate.
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