Desirability of religion and the non-cognitive function of misbeliefs

1. Desirability of religion and the non-cognitive function of misbeliefs KonradTalmont-Kaminski Marie Curie-Sklodowska U., Poland

2. Background • Philosopher of science • Investigating superstitious, magical and religious beliefs and practices • As cognitive, evolved phenomena • Their relation to science and human rationality • PhD from Monash Uni, Australia • Teaching in Lublin, Poland • Fellowship at the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research

3. Background • Two developments make my approach possible • The cognitive turn • 1960’s onwards • Positing mental mechanisms to explain behaviour • Applied to religious & superstitious practices • Evolutionary explanations of human behaviour • 1970’s onwards • Ultimate vs. proximate explanations • Behaviours as adaptive, byproducts, etc. • Cultural as well as genetic evolution • Applied to religious & superstitious practices

4. Background • Cognitive Science of Religion • Pascal Boyer, Justin Barrett • Religion as byproduct • Evolutionary psychology • Massive modularity • Dual-process accounts of reasoning • Other approaches exist • Approach pursued by me • Religion as a cultural adaptation that exapts/recruits existing cognitive byproducts • Dual inheritance theory • Bounded rationality theory

5. Plan • How can misbeliefs be adaptive? • In what ways can misbeliefs be protected? • What makes certain misbeliefs plausible? • Why are some misbeliefs potentially desirable? • What effect does investigating misbeliefs have?

6. Adaptive misbeliefs • Misbeliefs can motivate adaptive behaviour • Fear of Fri 13th leads to avoiding train crash • Coincidental • Only significant if systematic • Possible systematic examples • Magical contagion • Religion

7. Adaptive misbeliefs • Magical Contagion (Paul Rozin) • Cardigan example (Bruce Hood) • Fear of ‘catching’ evil • Invisible vehicles of contagion passed by contact • Very useful given bacteria & viruses • False explanation, partly true (overgeneralised) correlation • Role of explanation? • Ideas of magical contagion motivate behaviour • Ideas of magical contagion post hoc explanation of behaviour • Studied extensively by Paul Rozin • Misbelief explained as byproduct of cognitive heuristic

8. Adaptive misbeliefs • McKay and Dennett, BBS 32.6 (2009) • The “boy who cried wolf” problem • Misbelief in the face of counterevidence • Misbelief unstable due to counterevidence • Can not be systematically adaptive • Disproved misbeliefs • Rejected • Reinterpreted • Contagion example • Belief that you can catch evil not adaptive • But, belief in contagion in general is

9. Protecting misbeliefs • Misbeliefs can be protected against counterevidence • Talmont-Kaminski, BBS 32.6 & Teorema 28.3 (2009) • Protected misbeliefs stable • Can still motivate behaviour • Three ways to protect misbeliefs • Content • Social context • Methodological context

10. Protecting misbeliefs • Content of stable misbeliefs • Avoid content in direct conflict with experience • Claim epistemic impediments • Invisibility – ghosts, Christian god • Shyness – faeries • Distant locale – dragons, Olympic gods • Shape-shifting – Olympic gods • Vagueness – New Age beliefs • Semi-propositional content (Sperber) • Holy Trinity • Apparent problem • Belief in the face of the lack of evidence

11. Protecting misbeliefs • Social context of misbeliefs • Make investigation of misbeliefs socially unacceptable • The sacred – religious and magical beliefs • Religious relics • Respecting religious beliefs above other beliefs • Disparage curiosity • Oppose rational criticism • Problem • Stultifies progress

12. Protecting misbeliefs • Methodological context of misbeliefs • Related to social context • Limit development of science • Scientific theories • Scientific methods/equipment • Scientific attitudes • Problem • Limited access to science • Not such an issue traditionally

13. Plausible misbeliefs • Why believe without evidence? • Not really a problem • Only problem with perfectly rational beings • Boundedly rational beings will have systematic biases • Why believe without evidence the things we do? • Primarily: Due to the particularities of human cognitive system • Due to the particular heuristics humans use • Secondarily: Due to function of the beliefs

14. Plausible misbeliefs • By-products of cognitive heuristics • Type I errors (Skinner) • Error Management Theory (Haselton) • Smoke alarm principle • Magical contagion (Rozin) • Contagion heuristic • Cognitive science of religion • Minimally counterintuitive concepts (Boyer) • Hyperactive agency detection device (Guthrie) • Enormous scope for further empirical research

15. Desirability of misbeliefs • What, if anything, is the function of misbeliefs? • Not to accurately represent the world • Protecting against disconfirmation ensures truth of a belief is coincidental • Allows noncognitive functions to determine popularity of belief • Function must depend upon the behaviour motivated by the belief

16. Desirability of misbeliefs • Several possibilities • Adaptive for individuals • Costly-signalling (Sosis) • Adaptive for groups • Prosocial behaviour (D. S. Wilson) • Adaptive for beliefs • Memetic virus (Dawkins, Blackmore) • Not directly functional • Simply a byproduct (Boyer)

17. Desirability of misbeliefs • Which thesis about function is correct? • Need to investigate religion to find out • Answer may be complex • Superstitions – byproducts • Religions – prosocialexaptations (ancestral traits?) • Is religion is something desirable for us? • Universally assumed by religious individuals • Dennett’s “Belief in belief” • Need to investigate religion to find out • Not necessarily even if an individual-level adaptation • Dennett’s question: Who thinks that their goal in life is to have as many kids as possible? • Issue is somewhat more complex, of course

18. Still, Dennett has a point

19. Investigating misbeliefs • Even if religious is desirable • There is a problem • Investigation of religion • Requires scientific attitude • Maintaining positive effects of religious claims • Requires maintaining belief in those claims • Which requires protecting those beliefs • Investigation of religion undermines its function • Even if that function happens to be individually desirable • But to determine if religion is desirable we must investigate it

20. Thank you KonradTalmont-Kaminskikonrad@talmont.comlublin.academia.edu/KonradTalmontKaminski McKay & Dennett, Evolution of Misbelief, BBS 32.6 (2009) Talmont-Kaminski, Effective untestability and bounded rationality help in seeing religion as adaptive misbelief, BBS 32.6 (2009) Talmont-Kaminski, Fixation of superstitious beliefs, Teorema 28.3 (2009)