I have a question for you: Are you religious? Please raise your hand right now if you think of yourself as a religious person. Let's see, I'd say about three or four percent. I had no idea there were so many believers at a TED Conference. (Laughter) Okay, here's another question: Do you think of yourself as spiritual in any way, shape or form? Raise your hand. Okay, that's the majority.
Imam pitanje za vas: Jeste li religiozni? Molim da sada podignete ruku, ako se smatrate religioznom osobom. Da vidimo, rekao bih da vas je tri ili četiri posto. Nisam imao pojma da imamo toliko vjernika na TEDovoj konferenciji. (Smijeh) U redu, evo još jednog pitanja: Smatrate li se duhovnim osobama na bilo koji način, u bilo kojem obliku ili formi? Podignite ruku. U redu, to je većina.
My Talk today is about the main reason, or one of the main reasons, why most people consider themselves to be spiritual in some way, shape or form. My Talk today is about self-transcendence. It's just a basic fact about being human that sometimes the self seems to just melt away. And when that happens, the feeling is ecstatic and we reach for metaphors of up and down to explain these feelings. We talk about being uplifted or elevated.
Moj je današnji govor o glavnom razlogu ili jednom od glavnih razloga zašto većina ljudi sebe smatra duhovnim osobama na neki način, u nekom obliku ili formi. Moj je današnji govor o samouzvišenju. To je osnovna činjenica ljudskosti da se ono 'ja' ponekad jednostavno izgubi. A kada se to dogodi, osjećamo se ushićeno i posežemo za metaforama dobrog i lošeg kako bismo objasnili te osjećaje. Govorimo o uzvišenju ili uzdizanju.
Now it's really hard to think about anything abstract like this without a good concrete metaphor. So here's the metaphor I'm offering today. Think about the mind as being like a house with many rooms, most of which we're very familiar with. But sometimes it's as though a doorway appears from out of nowhere and it opens onto a staircase. We climb the staircase and experience a state of altered consciousness.
Veoma je teško razmišljati o bilo čemu apstraktnom poput ovog bez neke dobre, konkretne metafore. Ovdje je metafora koju vam danas nudim. Razmislite o umu na način kao da ste u kući s mnogo soba, s kojima smo većinom upoznati. Ali ponekad se čini kao da nam se vrata pojave niotkuda i odvedu nas do stubišta. Uspemo se stubama i doživimo stanje izmijenjene svijesti.
In 1902, the great American psychologist William James wrote about the many varieties of religious experience. He collected all kinds of case studies. He quoted the words of all kinds of people who'd had a variety of these experiences. One of the most exciting to me is this young man, Stephen Bradley, had an encounter, he thought, with Jesus in 1820. And here's what Bradley said about it.
1902. godine, veliki američki psiholog William James pisao je o mnogim raznovrsnostima religijskog iskustva. Skupio je razne vrste studija slučaja. Citirao je riječi raznih vrsta ljudi koji su imali raznolike vrste takvih iskustava. Jedno od meni najuzbudljivijih je ovaj mladić, Stephen Bradley, on se susreo, bar je tako mislio, s Isusom 1820. godine. I evo što je Bradley rekao o tome.
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(Video) Stephen Bradley: I thought I saw the savior in human shape for about one second in the room, with arms extended, appearing to say to me, "Come." The next day I rejoiced with trembling. My happiness was so great that I said I wanted to die. This world had no place in my affections. Previous to this time, I was very selfish and self-righteous. But now I desired the welfare of all mankind and could, with a feeling heart, forgive my worst enemies.
(Video) Stephen Bradley: Mislio sam da sam na sekundu u sobi vidio Spasitelja u ljudskom obliku s raširenim rukama, kako mi se pojavljuje i govori, „Dođi.“ Sljedećeg sam se dana radovao drhteći. Moja je sreća bila toliko velika da sam rekao da želim umrijeti. U ovom svijetu nije bilo mjesta za moje uzbuđenje. Prije toga, bio sam jako sebičan i svojeglav. Ali sada sam želio blagostanje za cijelo čovječanstvo i mogao bih, s osjećajnim srcem, oprostiti najljućim neprijateljima.
JH: So note how Bradley's petty, moralistic self just dies on the way up the staircase. And on this higher level he becomes loving and forgiving. The world's many religions have found so many ways to help people climb the staircase. Some shut down the self using meditation. Others use psychedelic drugs. This is from a 16th century Aztec scroll showing a man about to eat a psilocybin mushroom and at the same moment get yanked up the staircase by a god. Others use dancing, spinning and circling to promote self-transcendence. But you don't need a religion to get you through the staircase. Lots of people find self-transcendence in nature. Others overcome their self at raves.
JH: Primijetite kako Bradleyevo sitničavo i moralno ja jednostavno umire tamo na stubištu. I na toj višoj razini on postaje nježan i prašta. Mnoge svjetske religije pronašle su toliko načina kako bi pomogle ljudima da se popnu uz stepenice. Neke ugase 'ja' koristeći meditaciju. Druge koriste psihodelične droge. Ovdje na astečkim zapisima iz 16. stoljeća vidimo čovjeka koji se sprema pojesti psilocibin gljivu (magičnu gljivu) i u istom trenutku ga bog povlači sa stepenica. Druge koriste ples, rotiranje i vrtnju kako bi promovirale samouzvišenje. Ali ne trebate religiju kako biste prošli stubama. Mnogo ljudi pronalazi samouzvišenje u prirodi. Ostali nadjačaju svoje ja pomoću bijesa.
But here's the weirdest place of all: war. So many books about war say the same thing, that nothing brings people together like war. And that bringing them together opens up the possibility of extraordinary self-transcendent experiences. I'm going to play for you an excerpt from this book by Glenn Gray. Gray was a soldier in the American army in World War II. And after the war he interviewed a lot of other soldiers and wrote about the experience of men in battle. Here's a key passage where he basically describes the staircase.
Ali postoji najčudnije mjesto od svih: rat. Tolike knjige o ratu govore istu stvar, da ništa ne zbližava ljude tako kao rat. I to zbližavanje otvara mogućnost izvanrednih samouzvišenih iskustava. Pustit ću vam odlomak iz ove knjige Glenna Graya. Gray je bio vojnik američke vojske u Drugom svjetskom ratu. Nakon rata intervjuirao je mnogo drugih vojnika i pisao o iskustvu muškaraca u bitkama. Ovo je ključan odlomak u kojem zapravo opisuje stubište.
(Video) Glenn Gray: Many veterans will admit that the experience of communal effort in battle has been the high point of their lives. "I" passes insensibly into a "we," "my" becomes "our" and individual faith loses its central importance. I believe that it is nothing less than the assurance of immortality that makes self-sacrifice at these moments so relatively easy. I may fall, but I do not die, for that which is real in me goes forward and lives on in the comrades for whom I gave up my life.
(Video) Glenn Gray: Mnogi će veterani priznati da je iskustvo zajedničkog napora u bitci bio vrhunac njihovih života. 'Ja' neprimjetno prelazi u 'mi', 'moje' postaje 'naše' i pojedinačna vjera gubi svoju središnju važnost. Vjerujem da to nije ništa manje od uvjerenja o besmrtnosti koje vlastito žrtvovanje čini u tim trenucima tako relativno lakim. Mogu pasti, ali neću umrijeti zbog onoga što je stvarno u meni i ide naprijed i nastavlja živjeti u drugovima za koje sam dao život.
JH: So what all of these cases have in common is that the self seems to thin out, or melt away, and it feels good, it feels really good, in a way totally unlike anything we feel in our normal lives. It feels somehow uplifting. This idea that we move up was central in the writing of the great French sociologist Emile Durkheim. Durkheim even called us Homo duplex, or two-level man. The lower level he called the level of the profane. Now profane is the opposite of sacred. It just means ordinary or common. And in our ordinary lives we exist as individuals. We want to satisfy our individual desires. We pursue our individual goals. But sometimes something happens that triggers a phase change. Individuals unite into a team, a movement or a nation, which is far more than the sum of its parts.
JH: Dakle, ono što svi ovi slučajevi imaju zajedničko je to da se čini kako se ja stanjilo ili istopilo i čini se dobrim, čini se jako dobro na način potpuno netipičan ičemu što osjećamo u svojim svakodnevnim životima. Čini se nekako uzvišenim. Ova ideja s kojom idemo dalje bila je centar pisanja velikog francuskog sociologa Emila Durkheima. Durkheim nas je čak nazvao Homo duplexima ili ljudima s dvije razine. Nižu razinu nazvao je razinom svjetovnosti. Svjetovno je suprotno svetom. To jednostavno znači uobičajeno ili sveopće. A u našim svakodnevnim životima postojimo kao pojedinci. Želimo zadovoljiti vlastite želje. Slijedimo vlastite ciljeve. Ali ponekad se dogodi nešto što aktivira fazu promjene. Pojedinci se udruže u ekipe, pokret ili naciju što je mnogo više od zbroja njezinih dijelova.
Durkheim called this level the level of the sacred because he believed that the function of religion was to unite people into a group, into a moral community. Durkheim believed that anything that unites us takes on an air of sacredness. And once people circle around some sacred object or value, they'll then work as a team and fight to defend it. Durkheim wrote about a set of intense collective emotions that accomplish this miracle of E pluribus unum, of making a group out of individuals. Think of the collective joy in Britain on the day World War II ended. Think of the collective anger in Tahrir Square, which brought down a dictator. And think of the collective grief in the United States that we all felt, that brought us all together, after 9/11.
Durkheim je nazvao ovu razinu, razinom svetosti, zato što je vjerovao da je funkcija religije sjediniti ljude u grupu, u moralnu zajednicu. Durkheim je vjerovao da sve što nas sjedinjuje zadobiva oznaku svetosti. A jednom kad ljudi krenu kružiti s nekim svetim predmetom ili vrijednošću, onda će raditi kao grupa ne bi li se borili da to zaštite. Durkheim je pisao o skupu intenzivnih zbirnih osjećaja koji postižu ovo čudo E pluribus unum, stvaranja grupe od pojedinaca. Razmislite o kolektivnoj sreći u Britaniji onog dana kada je završio II. svjetski rat. Razmislite o kolektivnom bijesu na trgu Tahrir koji je svrgnuo diktatora. I razmislite o kolektivnoj žalosti u Sjedinjenim Američkim Državama koju smo svi osjetili, koja nas je sve ujedinila nakon 11. rujna.
So let me summarize where we are. I'm saying that the capacity for self-transcendence is just a basic part of being human. I'm offering the metaphor of a staircase in the mind. I'm saying we are Homo duplex and this staircase takes us up from the profane level to the level of the sacred. When we climb that staircase, self-interest fades away, we become just much less self-interested, and we feel as though we are better, nobler and somehow uplifted.
Dopustite mi da rezimiram gdje smo. Mislim kako je kapacitet za samouzvišenjem samo osnovni dio ljudskosti. Nudim vam metaforu stubišta u umu. Kažem vam da smo Homo duplexi i da nas ovo stubište vodi od svjetovne razine do razine svetosti. Kad se popnemo tim stubama, vlastiti interesi blijede, postajemo mnogo manje zainteresirani za sebe i osjećamo se bolje, plemenitije i nekako uzvišenije.
So here's the million-dollar question for social scientists like me: Is the staircase a feature of our evolutionary design? Is it a product of natural selection, like our hands? Or is it a bug, a mistake in the system -- this religious stuff is just something that happens when the wires cross in the brain -- Jill has a stroke and she has this religious experience, it's just a mistake?
Ovdje je pitanje vrijedno milijun dolara za društvene znanstvenike poput mene: Je li stubište obilježje našeg evolucijskog plana? Je li to proizvod prirodne selekcije poput naših ruku? Ili je to kvar, greška u sustavu – jesu li te religiozne stvari samo nešto što se događa kad se žice prepletu u mozgu – Jill doživi moždani udar i istovremeno doživi religiozno iskustvo, je li to samo greška?
Well many scientists who study religion take this view. The New Atheists, for example, argue that religion is a set of memes, sort of parasitic memes, that get inside our minds and make us do all kinds of crazy religious stuff, self-destructive stuff, like suicide bombing. And after all, how could it ever be good for us to lose ourselves? How could it ever be adaptive for any organism to overcome self-interest? Well let me show you.
Mnogi znanstvenici koji proučavaju religiju zauzimaju ovo stajalište. Novi ateisti, na primjer, raspravljaju kako je religija skup trendova, na neki način parazitskih trendova, koji ulaze u naše umove i tjeraju nas da radimo razne vrste ludih religioznih stvari, stvari koje nas samouništavaju, poput samoubilačkih bombi. I nakon svega, kako bi ikada za nas moglo biti dobro da izgubimo sami sebe? Kako bi ikada moglo biti prilagodljivo za bilo koji organizam da nadjača svoje interese? Pa, dopustite da vam pokažem.
In "The Descent of Man," Charles Darwin wrote a great deal about the evolution of morality -- where did it come from, why do we have it. Darwin noted that many of our virtues are of very little use to ourselves, but they're of great use to our groups. He wrote about the scenario in which two tribes of early humans would have come in contact and competition. He said, "If the one tribe included a great number of courageous, sympathetic and faithful members who are always ready to aid and defend each other, this tribe would succeed better and conquer the other." He went on to say that "Selfish and contentious people will not cohere, and without coherence nothing can be effected." In other words, Charles Darwin believed in group selection.
U 'Podrijetlu vrsta', Charles Darwin puno je pisao o evoluciji moralnosti – odakle dolazi i zašto je imamo. Darwin je primijetio da mnogo naših osobina ima slabu korist za nas same, ali su od velike koristi za naše grupe. Pisao je o scenariju u kojem bi dva plemena ranog čovječanstva došla u kontakt i natjecali bi se. Rekao je, „Ako bi jedno pleme imalo velik broj odvažnih, suosjećajnih i vjernih članova koji su uvijek spremni pomoći i braniti jedni druge, to bi pleme bilo uspješnije i pobijedilo bi ostale.“ Nastavio je govoreći kako „Sebični i svadljivi ljudi ne žele se povezati, a bez povezanosti ništa se ne može izvršiti.“ Drugim riječima, Charles Darwin vjerovao je u grupnu selekciju.
Now this idea has been very controversial for the last 40 years, but it's about to make a major comeback this year, especially after E.O. Wilson's book comes out in April, making a very strong case that we, and several other species, are products of group selection. But really the way to think about this is as multilevel selection.
Ta je ideja bila jako kontroverzna zadnjih 40 godina, ali očekuje ju veliki povratak ove godine, posebice nakon što u travnju izađe knjiga E. O. Wilsona, koja snažno dokazuje kako smo mi i nekoliko drugih vrsta proizvod grupne selekcije. Ali zaista, način na koji treba o tome razmišljati je kao da je to selekcija na više razina.
So look at it this way: You've got competition going on within groups and across groups. So here's a group of guys on a college crew team. Within this team there's competition. There are guys competing with each other. The slowest rowers, the weakest rowers, are going to get cut from the team. And only a few of these guys are going to go on in the sport. Maybe one of them will make it to the Olympics. So within the team, their interests are actually pitted against each other. And sometimes it would be advantageous for one of these guys to try to sabotage the other guys. Maybe he'll badmouth his chief rival to the coach. But while that competition is going on within the boat, this competition is going on across boats. And once you put these guys in a boat competing with another boat, now they've got no choice but to cooperate because they're all in the same boat. They can only win if they all pull together as a team. I mean, these things sound trite, but they are deep evolutionary truths.
Gledajte na to na ovaj način: Imate natjecanje unutar grupa i među grupama. Ovdje je grupa mladića u fakultetskoj veslačkoj ekipi. Unutar ove je ekipe natjecanje. Dečki se natječu jedni s drugima. Najsporiji veslači i najslabiji veslači bit će izbačeni iz ekipe. A samo nekoliko će ih ići dalje. Možda će jedan od njih doći do Olimpijade. Dakle, unutar ekipe njihovi interesi su zapravo suprotstavljeni jedni drugima. A ponekad bi bilo korisno za jednog od njih da pokuša sabotirati druge. Možda će ogovarati svog glavnog suparnika treneru. Ali dok se to natjecanje odvija unutar čamca, ovo natjecanje kreće među čamcima. I jednom kad ove dečke stavite u čamac koji se natječe s drugim čamcem, sada nemaju izbora nego da surađuju jer su u istom čamcu. Mogu pobijediti jedino ako surađuju kao ekipa. Hoću reći, ove stvari zvuče banalno, ali to su duboke evolucijske istine.
The main argument against group selection has always been that, well sure, it would be nice to have a group of cooperators, but as soon as you have a group of cooperators, they're just going to get taken over by free-riders, individuals that are going to exploit the hard work of the others. Let me illustrate this for you. Suppose we've got a group of little organisms -- they can be bacteria, they can be hamsters; it doesn't matter what -- and let's suppose that this little group here, they evolved to be cooperative. Well that's great. They graze, they defend each other, they work together, they generate wealth. And as you'll see in this simulation, as they interact they gain points, as it were, they grow, and when they've doubled in size, you'll see them split, and that's how they reproduce and the population grows.
Glavni argument protiv grupne selekcije uvijek je bio da, pa sigurno, bilo bi lijepo imati grupu suradnika, ali čim imate grupu suradnika, bit će preuzeti od strane solo igrača, pojedinaca koji će iskoristiti težak rad drugih. Da vam to ilustriram. Pretpostavimo da imamo grupu malih organizama – mogu biti bakterije, mogu biti hrčci; nije bitno što su – i pretpostavimo da ova mala grupa ovdje, da su evoluirali do surađivanja. Pa, to je sjajno. Oni padaju, brane jedni druge, rade skupa, proizvode obilje. Kao što vidite na ovoj simulaciji, kako surađuju, tako dobivaju bodove, takoreći rastu, a kad udvostruče svoju veličinu vidjet ćete kako se razdvajaju i tako se reproduciraju i populacija raste.
But suppose then that one of them mutates. There's a mutation in the gene and one of them mutates to follow a selfish strategy. It takes advantage of the others. And so when a green interacts with a blue, you'll see the green gets larger and the blue gets smaller. So here's how things play out. We start with just one green, and as it interacts it gains wealth or points or food. And in short order, the cooperators are done for. The free-riders have taken over. If a group cannot solve the free-rider problem then it cannot reap the benefits of cooperation and group selection cannot get started.
Ali pretpostavimo da jedan od njih mutira. Imamo mutaciju u genu i jedan od njih mutira tako da slijedi sebičnu strategiju. Iskorištava ostale. I onda kada zeleni komunicira s plavim, vidjet ćete da zeleni postaje veći, a plavi postaje manji. Evo kako se stvari odigravaju. Počinjemo samo s jednim zelenim i kako on komunicira dobiva bogatstvo ili bodove ili hranu. I u kratkom vremenu, suradnici su gotovi. Solo igrači su preuzeli. Ako grupa ne može riješiti problem solo igrača onda ne može ubrati korist suradnje i grupna selekcija ne može početi.
But there are solutions to the free-rider problem. It's not that hard a problem. In fact, nature has solved it many, many times. And nature's favorite solution is to put everyone in the same boat. For example, why is it that the mitochondria in every cell has its own DNA, totally separate from the DNA in the nucleus? It's because they used to be separate free-living bacteria and they came together and became a superorganism. Somehow or other -- maybe one swallowed another; we'll never know exactly why -- but once they got a membrane around them, they were all in the same membrane, now all the wealth-created division of labor, all the greatness created by cooperation, stays locked inside the membrane and we've got a superorganism.
Ali postoji rješenje za problem solo igrača. Nije to tako težak problem. Zapravo, priroda ga je riješila mnogo, mnogo puta. A najdraže rješenje prirode je da stavi sve u isti čamac. Na primjer, zašto mitohondrij u svakoj stanici ima svoju DNK, potpuno odvojenu od DNK u jezgri? To je zato što su one bile odvojene slobodne bakterije i spojile su se i postale superorganizam. Na ovaj ili onaj način – možda je jedna progutala drugu; nikad točno nećemo znati zašto – ali jednom kad imaju membranu oko sebe, sve su u istoj membrani, sad svo obilje stvoreno podijeljenim radom i sva veličina stvorena suradnjom ostaje zaključana unutar membrane i imamo superorganizam.
And now let's rerun the simulation putting one of these superorganisms into a population of free-riders, of defectors, of cheaters and look what happens. A superorganism can basically take what it wants. It's so big and powerful and efficient that it can take resources from the greens, from the defectors, the cheaters. And pretty soon the whole population is actually composed of these new superorganisms. What I've shown you here is sometimes called a major transition in evolutionary history. Darwin's laws don't change, but now there's a new kind of player on the field and things begin to look very different.
A sada pogledajmo simulaciju kako izgleda kada jedan ovakav superorganizam stavimo u populaciju solo igrača, dezertera i varalica i vidimo što se događa. Superorganizam u osnovi uzima ono što želi. Tako je velik, moćan i učinkovit da može uzimati sredstva od zelenih, od dezertera, varalica. I vrlo brzo je cijela populacija zapravo složena od tih novih superorganizama. Ovo što vam ovdje pokazujem je nešto što se zove velika tranzicija u evolucijskoj povijesti. Darwinovi zakoni se ne mijenjaju, ali sada imamo novu vrstu igrača na polju i stvari počinju izgledati bitno drugačije.
Now this transition was not a one-time freak of nature that just happened with some bacteria. It happened again about 120 or a 140 million years ago when some solitary wasps began creating little simple, primitive nests, or hives. Once several wasps were all together in the same hive, they had no choice but to cooperate, because pretty soon they were locked into competition with other hives. And the most cohesive hives won, just as Darwin said.
Ova tranzicija nije bila samo jedan čudan slučaj prirode koji se dogodio s nekom bakterijom. Dogodio se ponovo prije oko 120 ili 140 milijuna godina kada je neka usamljena osa počela stvarati mala, jednostavna, primitivna skrovišta iliti košnice. Kada je s vremenom nekoliko osa živjelo skupa u istoj košnici, nisu imale drugog izbora nego surađivati jer su vrlo brzo bile u natjecanju s ostalim košnicama. A najpovezanije košnice pobjeđuju, baš kao što je Darwin rekao.
These early wasps gave rise to the bees and the ants that have covered the world and changed the biosphere. And it happened again, even more spectacularly, in the last half-million years when our own ancestors became cultural creatures, they came together around a hearth or a campfire, they divided labor, they began painting their bodies, they spoke their own dialects, and eventually they worshiped their own gods. Once they were all in the same tribe, they could keep the benefits of cooperation locked inside. And they unlocked the most powerful force ever known on this planet, which is human cooperation -- a force for construction and destruction.
Ove mlađahne ose iznjedrile su pčele i mrave koji su prekrili svijet i promijenili biosferu. I dogodilo se ponovno, čak i spektakularnije, u posljednjih pola milijuna godina kada su naši preci postali kulturna stvorenja, združili su se uz ognjište ili logorsku vatru, podijelili su radne zadatke, počeli su oslikavati svoja tijela, govorili su vlastitim narječjima i s vremenom su obožavali svoje vlastite bogove. Jednom kad su se svi našli u istom plemenu, mogli su zadržati korist suradnje zaključan unutar plemena. A otključali su najsnažniju silu koja nikad prije nije bila viđena na ovom planetu, a to je ljudska suradnja – sila za gradnjom i rušenjem.
Of course, human groups are nowhere near as cohesive as beehives. Human groups may look like hives for brief moments, but they tend to then break apart. We're not locked into cooperation the way bees and ants are. In fact, often, as we've seen happen in a lot of the Arab Spring revolts, often those divisions are along religious lines. Nonetheless, when people do come together and put themselves all into the same movement, they can move mountains.
Naravno, ljudske grupe nisu ni približno povezane poput košnica. Ljudske grupe mogu nakratko izgledati poput košnica, ali naginju raspadanju. Nismo zaključani u suradnje na način kao što su pčele i mravi. Zapravo, često, kao što smo imali prilike vidjeti u mnogim pobunama Arapskog proljeća, često su te podjele na religijskoj osnovi. Ipak, kad se ljudi udruže i spoje se u isti pokret, mogu pokrenuti planine.
Look at the people in these photos I've been showing you. Do you think they're there pursuing their self-interest? Or are they pursuing communal interest, which requires them to lose themselves and become simply a part of a whole?
Pogledajte ljude na ovim slikama koje vam pokazujem. Mislite li da su tamo jer traže svoju vlastitu volju? Ili traže javne interese koji od njih zahtijevaju da izgube sami sebe i jednostavno postanu dio cjeline?
Okay, so that was my Talk delivered in the standard TED way. And now I'm going to give the whole Talk over again in three minutes in a more full-spectrum sort of way.
U redu, to je bio moj govor predan na klasičan TED način. A sad ću vam dati cijeli govor ispočetka u tri minute i na način da vidite cijeli spektar.
(Music)
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(Video) Jonathan Haidt: We humans have many varieties of religious experience, as William James explained. One of the most common is climbing the secret staircase and losing ourselves. The staircase takes us from the experience of life as profane or ordinary upwards to the experience of life as sacred, or deeply interconnected. We are Homo duplex, as Durkheim explained. And we are Homo duplex because we evolved by multilevel selection, as Darwin explained. I can't be certain if the staircase is an adaptation rather than a bug, but if it is an adaptation, then the implications are profound. If it is an adaptation, then we evolved to be religious.
(Video) Jonathan Haidt: Mi ljudi imamo mnogo raznolikih religijskih iskustava, kao što je William James objasnio. Jedno od najučestalijih je penjanje po tajnom stubištu i gubljenje samih sebe. Stubište nas vodi od iskustva svjetovnog života ili uobičajenog do iskustva svetog života ili duboko međupovezanog. Mi smo Homo duplexi kako je Durkheim objasnio. A Homo duplexi smo zato što smo evoluirali na višerazinskoj selekciji, kao što je Darwin objasnio. Ne mogu biti siguran je li stubište adaptacija ili pogreška, ali ako je adaptacija, onda su implikacije dalekosežne. Ako je prilagodba, onda smo evoluirali kako bismo bili religiozni.
I don't mean that we evolved to join gigantic organized religions. Those things came along too recently. I mean that we evolved to see sacredness all around us and to join with others into teams and circle around sacred objects, people and ideas. This is why politics is so tribal. Politics is partly profane, it's partly about self-interest, but politics is also about sacredness. It's about joining with others to pursue moral ideas. It's about the eternal struggle between good and evil, and we all believe we're on the good team.
Ne mislim kako smo evoluirali da bismo se pridružili ogromnim organiziranim religijama. Te stvari su došle tek nedavno. Hoću reći da smo evoluirali kako bismo vidjeli svetost svuda oko sebe i pridružili se ostalima u ekipe i krugove oko svetih predmeta, ljudi i ideja. Iz tog je razloga politika slična plemenu. Politika je djelomično svjetovna, djelomično je vezana uz vlastite interese, ali politika je vezana i uz svetost jer tu imamo udruživanje s ostalima kako bismo razvijali moralne ideje. Imamo vječnu borbu između dobra i zla i svi vjerujemo da smo u dobroj ekipi.
And most importantly, if the staircase is real, it explains the persistent undercurrent of dissatisfaction in modern life. Because human beings are, to some extent, hivish creatures like bees. We're bees. We busted out of the hive during the Enlightenment. We broke down the old institutions and brought liberty to the oppressed. We unleashed Earth-changing creativity and generated vast wealth and comfort.
I najvažnije, ako je stubište stvarno onda ono objašnjava što je to dosljedno ispod površine nezadovoljstva modernog života. Zato što su ljudska bića, u nekoj mjeri nalik na bića iz košnice poput pčela. Mi smo pčele. Pobjegli smo iz košnice tijekom prosvjetiteljstva. Srušili smo stare institucije i donijeli slobodu potlačenima. Oslobodili smo kreativnost Zemljine promjene i stvorili veliko bogatstvo i ugodnost.
Nowadays we fly around like individual bees exulting in our freedom. But sometimes we wonder: Is this all there is? What should I do with my life? What's missing? What's missing is that we are Homo duplex, but modern, secular society was built to satisfy our lower, profane selves. It's really comfortable down here on the lower level. Come, have a seat in my home entertainment center.
Danas letimo naokolo poput individualnih pčela veličajući svoju slobodu. Ali ponekad se pitamo: Je li to sve što postoji? Što bih trebao učiniti sa svojim životom? Što nedostaje? Ono što nedostaje je to da smo Homo duplexi, ali moderno, svjetovno društvo je stvoreno da zadovolji naše niže, svjetovne 'nas'. Stvarno je ugodno ovdje dolje na nižoj razini. Dođite, sjednite u mom kućnom zabavnom centru.
One great challenge of modern life is to find the staircase amid all the clutter and then to do something good and noble once you climb to the top. I see this desire in my students at the University of Virginia. They all want to find a cause or calling that they can throw themselves into. They're all searching for their staircase. And that gives me hope because people are not purely selfish.
Jedan veliki izazov modernog života je pronaći stubište usred jurnjave i onda napraviti nešto dobro i plemenito kad se popnete do vrha. Vidim tu želju kod svojih studenata na Sveučilištu u Virginiji. Svi žele pronaći slučaj ili poziv u koji se mogu baciti. Svi traže stubište. I to mi daje nadu jer ljudi nisu potpuno sebični.
Most people long to overcome pettiness and become part of something larger. And this explains the extraordinary resonance of this simple metaphor conjured up nearly 400 years ago. "No man is an island entire of itself. Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main."
Većina ljudi žudi za tim da nadjača sitničavost i postane dio nečeg većeg. I to objašnjava izvanrednu zvučnost ove jednostavne metafore stvorene prije više od 400 godina. „Nijedan čovjek nije otok sam za sebe. Svaki čovjek je dio kontinenta, dio većine.“
JH: Thank you.
JH: Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)