Desirability of religion and the noncognitive function of misbeliefs

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Desirability of religion and the non-cognitive
function of misbeliefs

• Konrad Talmont-Kaminski (Marie Curie-Sklodowska
  U., Poland)

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Background

• Philosopher of science
• Investigating superstitious and religious beliefs
• Their relation to human rationality
• Using
• Cognitive approaches
• Evolutionary explanations of human behaviour
• Philosophy of science

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Plan

• Adaptive misbeliefs
• Protecting misbeliefs
• Plausible misbeliefs
• Desirability of misbeliefs
• Investigating misbeliefs

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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

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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 by-product of cognitive
  heuristic

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Adaptive misbeliefs

• The boy who cried wolf problem
• Misbelief in the face of counterevidence
• McKay and Dennett, BBS (forthcoming)
• Misbelief unstable due to counterevidence
• Can not be systematically adaptive
• Disproved misbeliefs
• Rejected
• Reinterpreted

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Protecting misbeliefs

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

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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
• Problem
• Belief in the face of the lack of evidence

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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 kinds
• Disparage curiosity
• Oppose rational criticism
• Problem
• Stultifies progress

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Protecting misbeliefs

• Methodological context of misbeliefs
• Related to social context
• Limit access to science
• Scientific equipment
• Scientific methods
• Scientific attitudes
• Problem
• Limited access to science
• Not an issue traditionally

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Plausible misbeliefs

• Why believe without evidence?
• Not really a problem
• Only problem with perfectly rational beings
• Why believe without evidence the things we do?
• Primarily Due to the particularities of human
  cognitive system
• Secondarily Due to function of the beliefs

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Plausible misbeliefs

• By-products of cognitive heuristics
• Type I errors (Skinner, Error Management Theory)
• Magical contagion (Rozin)
• Cognitive science of religion
• Minimally counterintuitive concepts (Boyer)
• Hyperactive agency detection device (Guthrie)

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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 other functions to determine popularity of
  belief
• Function must depend upon the behaviour motivated
  by the belief

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Desirability of misbeliefs

• Several possibilities
• Adaptive for individuals
• Costly-signalling (Sosis)
• Adaptive for groups
• Pro-social behaviour (D. S. Wilson)
• Adaptive for beliefs
• Memetic virus (Dawkins, Blackmore)
• Not directly functional
• Simply a by-product (Boyer)

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Desirability of misbeliefs

• Which thesis about function is correct?
• Need to investigate religion to find out
• Answer may be complex
• Is religion is something desirable for us?
• Universally assumed by religious individuals
• Dennetts Belief in belief
• Need to investigate religion to find out
• Not necessarily even if an individual adaptation
• Dennetts question Who thinks that their goal in
  life is to have as many kids as possible?

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Investigating misbeliefs

• 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

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Thank you

• Konrad Talmont-Kaminski
• konrad_at_talmont.com
• deisidaimon.wordpress.com
• McKay Dennett Evolution of Misbelief,
  Behavioral Brain Sciences (forthcoming)
• Talmont-Kaminski, Effective untestability and
  bounded rationality help to see religion is
  adaptive misbelief, Behavioral Brain Sciences
  (forthcoming)
• Talmont-Kaminski, Fixation of superstitious
  beliefs, Teorema 28.3