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A New Mormon Dichotomy
Carl Zimmer has an essay in the New York Times where he describes an experiment his daughter participated in. The objective of the experiment was to compare how humans and chimpanzees learn. The upshot is this: when a treat is placed inside a clear box and the subjects (human or chimp) are shown how to open the box, but with extra superfluous steps involved, children will go through the extra steps while chimps cut to the chase and just open the box. The interpretation is that humans often learn through imitation; chimps don't.
So what's a Mormon spin to this?
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Well it strikes me that Church is a big exercise in imitation. The concept of example permeates just about everything we do. We are to act like Jesus, follow the Brethren, we have ordinances (rituals) and perform them in a certain way, we illustrate principles with stories, our scriptures and history have many examples of doing things for unknown reasons, and so forth. But we also realize that just "going through the motions" is not satisfactory and that our imitation should lead to genuine behavior and character, otherwise it is dead work.
It seems to me that imitation has advantages in that it helps us to get started on the path of gaining certain attributes and gives focus to our actions. Yet it can also be unhelpful and even harmful, even in a Church or gospel setting. Sometimes there is something to be said for the chimpanzee method of skipping the imitating and going straight for a result. A question we often face, even if we don't ordinarily think of it this way, is whether to imitate or not.
And so, allow me to add to the Mormon dichotomies: Iron Rod vs. Liahona, Internet vs. Chapel (I'm not even sure I know what that one means), and Humans vs. Chimps, or in other words, Imitators vs. Agents.
5 comments:
It's not really imitators vs. agents Jared. A person has to use agency (free will) to choose to imitate exactly or not after all. It seems to me that you are really talking about imitators vs. short-cutters. Those that follow instuctions exactly versus those that choose to try achieve the same end via shorter or more efficient methods.
The imitation is actually what allows us to develop abstract notions that then can be applied to novel situations. Monkeys can't do this. Indeed that book by Tomasello I discussed for a while focuses in on just this issue.
The parallel to ritual (both formal and informal) is interesting. I wonder if this is what church ritual does, service projects do along with the narratives of the scriptures.
Is this dichotomy more of a social thing when likened to the church? Some people don't just believe the doctrine but also buy into the culture of the church like the human child in your example. While other members don't care about what the church culture pressures him to do and just goes about his business his way like the chimp?
Would an example of this be like caffeine in soda. An imitator may abstain from such a thing because so many other members do, while the agent type may drink Coke if he wants to and not care what anyone else may be doing.
A ironic thing about this is what ever happened to monkey see - monkey do?
Geoff J,
Your point is well-taken. Maybe a different label would be better--of course my addition to the dichotomies was partially tongue-in-cheek.
Clark,
I haven't read much on cognition. I'll have to have a look through that reading club.
As for ritual, I think of Adam offering sacrifice for unknown reasons, or the law of Moses being dead to the Nephites--but they kept it anyway.
Eric,
Yes, the imitation can quickly move from learning into pressure to conform (whether it is externally or internally derived.)
I suppose that is another aspect of the tension.
I don't think it's a big secret that humans learn through imitation. I wonder if the behavior displayed in the experiment was more of an example of obedience over imitation. The child in the article did, after all, prove her ability to "short cut" the first time. Do you think that maybe having an adult figure (aka: authority figure) SHOW her how to do it the second time would suggest that she was merely trying to do it the "right" way? I can't see the same outcome being derived using an adult- as children learn largely through imitation and aim to please.
Is obedience imitation (i.e. Adam offering sacrifices)? Is tradition imitiation (Nephites and the Law of Moses)?
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