Do you ever wonder where certain customs come from?

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I'm not sure if anyone else out there does this...but I find myself doing daily activities wondering to myself where certain customs come from. For instance, who thought it would be a good idea to piss in a toilet bowl as opposed to something else? Why do we shake hands (not the current meaning of it) and when did it start? Socks...when did those begin to take hold as a something we put on daily? I don't know why, but as I conduct my daily activities, I often wonder these things. Odd...I know.

If anyone else is like me, what do you think about?

Yeah, I'm like this too. I am more fascinatinated by the things that other people do.........like culturally,religiosly, different sexes, the different foods people eat, how they bring their kids up. All that extremely mundane type of stuff that interests me because I would not have a change to learn in my day to day life and because it actually shapes other peoples lives.

I sometimes wonder about this too, but figure it's due to a subconscious choice to copy what other people do.

I am amazed by how many things we take for granted came from Arab cultures. Math and logic as we know them came from the Arabs. "Algebra" and "algorithm" are words from the Arabic language.

The Spanish language has a lot of loan words that come from the Arabic language.

The Arabs gave us logic? That's weird, since they don't seem to be very logical, at least modern ones aren't. It's hard to believe that the same people who gave us Wahhabism also gave us logic. The two would seem to be mutually exclusive.

interesting, this is the second time i've read this in as many days. from different people both above average intelligence. a pattern emerges

conformity may be one of the reasons people continue these traditions but it can't be the reason why they start. who did the first person to do it copy?

Human beings mimic unconsciously, whether conformity may play a role or not. I don't know about anyone else, but I wonder who the first person was to start the copying process, or have we always done it? Is it in our genetic structure to copy or was it all just a habit picked up by someone that caught hold? Sometimes...i think too much...

it's worth thinking about don't worry

check out the starlings.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIzlcH2q6Vo[/youtube]

they do this to make it harder for predators, safety in numbers. they don't tell each other where they are going though. groupthink keeps them together

been hearing a lot about mirror neurons recently and apparently that's where the basis of the behaviour comes from. doing the same thing as the person next to you is very important if the person next to you is running away from a lion you haven't seen.

there are social advantages to doing the same as everyone else too as we all know. apparently people on the spectrum either lack or have less of these mirror neurons

very few things happen randomly or just because, maybe nothing but I don't know about that. everything that humans do there is a reason behind it.

Hokay den -

Shaking hands - from the Middle Ages, it demonstrated you didn't have a knife you were going to plunge into the person you were being introduced to (useless fact - the medial nerve is between the thumb and pointing finger; pressing down slightly on this while shaking makes a person feel better)

Toilet bowls - form follows function. It was invented by John Crapper (I kid you not), and the design allows flushing out the waste; the semicircular pipe keeps a measure of water inside, so you don't smell what's 'gone before'

Socks - have been around for quite awhile; Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, etc., wore them in various forms. They keep your feet warm in the winter, and cut down on chafing from your boots.

There are actually a fair number of 'histories of mundane objects'; paper clips, shoes, etc. You can probably find some in a used book store. I'm a repository of useless info...

In India and other parts of the world they actually use their hands, and some water, to wipe their bum as opposed to using toilet paper...

That's both interesting and disgusting...

Apparently, that's what they think of the use of toilet paper, too.

I suppose my natural rebuttal to that would be "That's odd", but I guess if I grew up believing it not to be, then yes, toilet paper would be different to me too.

It's amazing to watch people from other countries do things, how they do things, and their traditions and all. This world is filled with so much variety. It's a shame most people can't open their eyes to observe it all.

OP, you might be interested in evolutionary psychology - it's often a bit far-fetched (a lot even) but still, they try to explain a lot of things and a lot of it sounds plausible.

as to customs - I often wonder how ties got invented. I mean, it's such a ridiculous idea to have a strip of material tied around one's neck!