don't leave the grieved one behind...

Originally derived inspiration to write this while I was creating my previous post.

In almost all of the cultures today funerals are conducted when someone passes away. This is a phenomenon which is as old as humanity itself. They are conducted in different styles; each of them are closely connected to religious beliefs that that culture shares.

I recommend that those who have lost someone dear recently not hang around to read the remainder of this post.

Burial practices!

Every popular human civilization that ever existed on earth had them. And because of cultural diversity, these practises were all different from other civilizations. For the human species almost all practices show a pattern wherein the body of the deceased individual is ornate with food, or, clothing, jewels, etc, and then disposed.

The existence of such practices kind of proves the fact that the human species are aware of death. But other animals in the wild do exhibit such awareness!

However, the degree to which they exhibit awareness is somewhat confusing or misleading. The above picture shows a bird "mourning" the death of its mate. But the fact is we don't know if its really mourning, because mourning is what we "humans" would do. When "humans" try to empathize with the above picture, what we'd probably do is mourn.

The psychological term for this behaviour is pareidolia. However, people might also call this as a side effect of anthropomorphism. This is one of the reasons why we'd always unconsciously associate an emotion with the following pic:

Getting back on track: imagine that the victim bird in the earlier pic was the victim of a stampede or an attack by a predator. Imagine that the threat that killed the bird still persists in some way; the predator is somewhat nearby, or the stampede hasn't ended. It is actually dangerous for the other bird to linger around. And staying around the deceased individual wouldn't help either - because it can decompose and increase the chances of the other bird contracting diseases.

These arguments apply to our primitive evolutionary counterparts too. But then why do we still have such practices when, you objectively look at it, it is kind of disadvantageous to the survival of the individual?

To answer this puzzle: you can draw references by observing what actually happens during funerals and figure it out. But fundamentally you'd need to understand the dynamics of group survival. In other words, what it means surviving in a "pack".

Pack formations had the distinct advantage of showing up in numbers. Hunting in numbers proved relatively better success rates in getting food. Similarly warding off threats also was relatively successful when there were more individuals to defend. So hence pack formations were a kind of behaviour that got naturally selected. But pack formations slowly lead to socialization between individuals. These kind of socializations kind of make it difficult to answer one question...why we mourn?

Now imagine a small pack. Say that only two individuals know how to hunt; assume they were relatively successful at it too. Now what happens to one individual when the other one has met with some misfortune and passes away? For whatever reason he/she might mourn.

But what about the other surviving members in the group?

Even they might mourn, but what they'd really need is the realization that they need to move on in order to survive. So one of them takes the call, tries to motivate the other to move on. Such sort of gestures are really crucial if the group's primary mode of survival was hunting. Previously two individuals were skilled at it; now one only of them remains. If the skilled individual was the one which was mourning, the whole group becomes challenged in one sense. Hence one of the members in the group takes the responsibility of bringing the grieved one out of shock, so that their chances of survival are relatively increased. Hence they may actually perform simple rituals to pay respect to the deceased individual. The primary focus of such an act was to make everyone move on with surviving.

Over time these simple rituals became more complicated because the number of individuals in the group increased...the population exploded...people settled down with the discovery of agriculture...societies formed...politics emerged...and then history happened.

Interesting links associated with this post: http://bitly.com/bundles/deostroll/u

Rituals

What are the most celebrated events all over the world?

If I were to ask you this the answers I'd expect are: New Year, Christmas, and probably a host of national holidays. But you do know every second you breathe someone dies, and someone is born. Perhaps I would have misguided you by using the word “celebrated”. There is always some “sense” with which I use words out here. In my defense, other popular personalities use it too – like Shakespear, Hemingway, or Tennyson. Else English Literature would have been extinct a long time ago.

Childbirth and Death are really old phenomenons; older than marriage. Many cultures hold rituals to commemorate both. Scientifically speaking people are born in the same manner, and they die in the same manner (more or less) (biologically speaking). Then why would different cultures have different rituals for each of these?

The fact we must importantly observe here is that a “culture” almost always “has” a ritual. Why?! What is the necessity? Scientists who have observed animals say that they do exhibit some crude form ritual practice. This may also be a basic answer as to why "we" have these ritual practices. But most importantly this sheds light to the fact that we are an emotional species. Some scientists today quote this as one of the reasons to explain why religions, cultures, and all those sacred religious practices exist. Its hard to imagine what would have happened if we were not emotional beings. This was a necessary part in our survival saga.

Here are a bundle of links to articles related to this article.

People don't often die...

The title is not meant to be ironic or sarcastic. Every second someone or the other dies around the world for some reason. If you look at the title with this perspective you might feel it is kind of negative, but it is not. It is actually something interesting. Look at it from another angle.

Have you ever heard of any living species committing mass suicide?

Well, lemming rats are known to die in unison; they are reported to simply jump into the ocean. But even that has a reason:

Humans have actually observed this phenomenon so long ago and it has been handed down to many generations as a legend: The Pied Piper of Hamelin. But people might be more familiar with this tv commercial which is based on that legend:

The point is its rare to see any species commit suicide in large numbers. However, if you have heard of such a case, I bet it is infrequent and, the numbers of individuals who die form an insignificant percentage of the whole population. You probably would have heard of the phrase "survival of the fittest"; this whole post revolves around one word in that - "survival".

The question you should be asking is why are we designed to survive?

For human beings although death is an inevitable part of life, no one lives life thinking they will die the next day. But a less observed fact is that our body is a fortress in itself to a degree. There are so many mechanisms which are kind of pre-wired without which our "survival" would have otherwise a challenge in an evolutionary sense. Humans have come a long way on the road of evolution...each turn has had its impacts as a result of which we are alive today. It may be misleading to believe it was merely because of "those impacts", but the inevitable fact is we still survive today.

I'll leave you to figure out the answer to the question I've opened. After all that is the point of this whole blog...

Last updated: 19th March 2013