[bluekeybox]

"Then they insist that there are special people who can see - if only dimly - through this veil."

I have this pet theory (hey, maybe it's another intellectual black hole) that all religious, mystical, and irrational beliefs derive from this: we human brains have this property (either innate or easily acquired due to existing structure) that leads us to worship other individuals. By "worship" I mean trust without doubt and with unreasonable admiration. I think that the following phenomena are all manifestations of this same property: (1) religious thinking, (2) romantic love, (3) pop culture/culture of cool, (4) family ties. The third and the fourth one would be the most self-aware forms of this type of thinking, but the first two (the first one especially) can take on forms of the self-sustaining "black holes" mentioned in the post.

TL;DR: our idols are within us.

[cschwarm]

I would say you're mixing two different things: (1) irrational beliefs, and (2) worship. Belief in homeopathy, psychic powers, alien abductions are examples for (1), but lack (2).

There is good evidence that we're predisposed for (1): Our brains seem to have "interpreters", located mostly in the left brain hemisphere, that are trying to make "sense" from the input (Gazzaniga, M.S.: The Ethical Brain, 2005).

There are two situations when this gets more obvious:

1. When the brain input (or the brain connections) is partially broken. For instance, if one shows split-brain patients the word "Walk" so that only right brain hemisphere notes it, they stand up and walk. When asked why they did what they just did, they often come up with an ad hoc explanation: "I just wanted go get a coke." This is the interpreter working, trying to make sense from the fact that the person just stood up although the interpreter had no signal from other parts of the brain about possible reasons.

2. When the brain input is "unexpected". In psychology, so-called "non-deterministic" (or non-contingent) experiments make the participant believe she can influence the results or reactions of a setting, although, in fact, she can not. In such situations, humans also come up with explanations even if there's nothing to explain. In other words, they are trying to make sense out of non-sense input. These experiments go back to B.F. Skinner who was able to induce superstitious behavior in pigeons. [1]

What's interesting is how resistant some of these beliefs are. Generally speaking, the more effort is put into an explanation, the more resistant to change.

Worship, on the other hand, seems to be a more complex and special kind of belief. It's not just trust without doubt or unreasonable admiration, but also magical thinking: the idea to be able to influence reality by appealing to a powerful being.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B._F._Skinner#Superstition_in_t...

[bluekeybox]

Thanks for the response, that was interesting, especially the superstition in pigeons link. When I wrote about magical thinking, I was more concerned about worship than the kind of superstition you describe; I wasn't very clear about that (I'm not a neuroscientist). What you were trying to describe seems to be how brain generates rationalizations for events. My opinion is that the these rationalizations you describe as "magical thinking" are in fact the same type of thought process that also occurs on much higher levels, when scientists generate hypotheses for example -- except that expert scientists have far more experience to "ground" these rationalizations correctly (i.e. on evidence that is empirical and can be replicated and validated).

Although the rationalizations you describe are probably the origin for many magical beliefs, my opinion is that those beliefs don't perpetuate/last very long unless they are also associated with worship of some type. My observation was that most forms of religion and mysticism are concerned about "soul" or some other supposedly magical property of humans. Homeopathy is probably one of the few types of magical thinking that doesn't really concern itself with human beings as being special, but I think that most other types do.

I don't consider worship to be a very complex phenomenon -- I think that it is simply an innate or readily acquired (at early stages of development) mechanism that triggers intense pleasure when confronted with individuals or objects that possess many desired characteristics (above a certain threshold). When combined with rationalizing magical thinking you describe, worship results in us placing unreasonable trust in the individuals/objects possessing those characteristics.

[mikk0j]

I like what your pet theory states. For me, it highlights the bigger question: _why_ do we have this propensity to "trust without doubt"?

My pet theory for that is based on risk-avoidance and (behavioural) rational choice theory. When we try to figure out the world in order to effectively interact with it, uncertainty is a huge problem. It is primarily a cognitive processing problem: if you don't know what it going on and what you should or can do about it, you are cognitively stuck and cannot take action. This increases our perception of risk, and possibly real risk too due to our cognitive machinery being engaged and confused.

Unconditional belief to the rescue! If there is something that we can trust without doubt, whatever the rationale behind it might be, it sounds appealing - even if the belief is mistaken, it frees up the cognitive machinery. The more abstract or unfalsifiable a belief, the easier it is to completely trust it and believe in it.

<troll>Cue religion, UFOs, nationalism, horoscopes, communism, homeopathy, libertarianism, rational choice theory, karma.</troll>

[bluekeybox]

Religion, UFOs, horoscopes, karma: belief that human beings or other types of vaguely humanoid intelligent beings (aliens, angels etc) are special and possess special powers; rooted in propensity to worship individuals.

Other things you list --- those probably originate in our desire to rationalize everything that probably has to do with our need to win arguments.

[zwieback]

Like the "God gene"?

I think your #4 may actually be rooted in evolution - there's some evolutionary advantage in family ties.

[bluekeybox]

Yes except the God gene hypothesis posits that we evolved to worship something (anything really), while I believe that we evolved to worship specifically other individuals (and God is just a byproduct of abstract thought combined with propensity for belief in magic powers of certain individuals).

The #2 and #4 were probably the driving factors (selected for by evolutionary pressure) for structuring the brain such that #1 and #3 also became possible as consequences. I don't literally believe in the God gene because I think that religious and mystical thinking are simply corollaries to possessing a brain structured for belief in magical power of other (attractive or otherwise powerful or desirable) individuals or even objects (idols).

I like to imagine this as nodes on a network where nodes are individuals/objects and each connection is a desired property linking the individual/object to other desired individuals/objects. Obviously, some nodes will be more connected than others. Our brains interpret (scan) this network, and past a certain threshold (with very densely connected nodes -- associated with many desired characteristics), religious/magical thinking is triggered such that our brains are led to believe that the very densely connected nodes are so powerful they are out of this world.

I thought about this long enough that I no longer find religious thinking perplexing even though I am a staunch atheist. Some people understand/understood how to trigger this religious response -- those people are/were prophets, founders of religions (Hubbard etc.) and, believe it or not, pop stars and certain state leaders... This is also why I think there is a serious danger that a strong AI may learn to exploit this bug in our brain...

[kylemaxwell]

That's essentially a very literal interpretation of the phrase "cult of personality."

[bluekeybox]

Correct, except I see cult of personality (usually mentioned in context of pop culture idols or state leaders) as a wider pattern (including family members, imaginary gods, and romantic interests); my hypothesis is that cult of personality-related traits first evolved as a way to ease building of trust between individuals -- starting as early as children trusting their parents to bring food etc. -- and also as one of primary ways in which potential mates were sought out. When this propensity to imagining other individuals as possessing magical powers was combined with abstract thought, creation of totems, idols, and gods followed. Some smarter individuals probably eventually grasped the potential that control of this process would bring and created organized religion. It seems to me that Abrahamic-type religion (single god, typically imagined as an old man) arose concordantly with the establishment of agriculture, during a time when a settled lifestyle shifted generational power balance towards the elderly who then attempted to perpetuate its influence using organized religion.