*Michael Shermer: The pattern behind self-deception

The following is a TED talk by Michael Shermer.




He discusses pattern recognition but in doing so focuses on the effect of priming and flaws in perception - similar to the duck/rabbit picture, as well as some neurochemistry - the rise in dopamine production for pattern-recognition (which is somewhat problematic as the brain does not simply produce one neurochemical at a time, others are involved in the mix). There is correlation, no doubt, but causation is far from established. He also discusses a cognitive mechanism called agency-detection, something that is predominantly mentioned in the evolutionary psychology literature. He uses these two to make a sweeping generalization about religion, superstition, and other supernatural agents. It seems that he's trying to cram the literature, which commonly takes the "religion explained" evolutionary psychology approach, into a few minutes with two types of reason-action errors, the fallibility of perception, pattern-recognition (rise and fall of dopamine), and agency. The literature he cites is there and what he talks about resonates. However, the explanation lacks a broader holistic picture of religion, supernatural agents, and beliefs. One of the major criticisms of evolutionary psychology is that it is a "just-so" story. While I tend to give the discipline more credit than simply a just-so story, and an advocate of empiricism, there is a lot more that needs to go in the mix.

One thing that can be said is that agency-detection is not equivalent to agency-ascription. Detecting agency does not entail ascribing agency and character to things i.e. anthropomorphism. He mentions the evolved capabilities and the fallibility of perception but this does not explain the creation and perpetuation of religion. Here the influence of language, the environment, emotions, and social performances e.g. rituals are excluded. Self-deception occurs but occurrence does not entail permanence or belief. Superstition, for Shermer, are behavioral patterns when uncertainty is high. However, individual behavioral patterns do not give rise to communally held beliefs. There must be some kind of consensus and formation of conventional ethos. This is also a problem of transition between accepting propositions and believing propositions as truth.