WEBVTT - Ep119 "Why do brains believe in the unbelievable?" with Bruce Hood 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:10.000 Why are brains superstitious? Would you wear a nice sweater 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:14.000 that belonged to a murderer? What does this have to 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:19.360 do with mind reading or our interpretation of coincidences, or 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:23.200 why kids often need their special blanket, and what any 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:29.479 of this has to do with the brain. Welcome to 0:00:29.480 --> 0:00:33.240 Intercosmos with me David Eagelman. I'm a neuroscientist and author 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.840 at Stanford and in these episodes we dive deeply into 0:00:36.880 --> 0:00:40.320 our three pound universe to understand some of the most 0:00:40.320 --> 0:01:00.400 surprising aspects of our lives. So here's today's question. Why 0:01:00.440 --> 0:01:04.959 do so many humans across time, across geography, even across 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.200 the levels of education. Why do they believe in things 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:12.920 they can't see and that presumably are not true, like 0:01:13.520 --> 0:01:19.400 ghosts or guardian angels, or curses or telepathy, or sacred 0:01:19.480 --> 0:01:26.119 relics or vengeful gods or karma or lucky socks. Even 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:31.440 if you consider yourself totally unsuperstitious, you might still find 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.000 that you say something and then you knock on wood, 0:01:35.959 --> 0:01:39.160 or maybe you dribble the ball three times before you 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:43.360 take a basketball free throw, or maybe you would hesitate 0:01:43.480 --> 0:01:46.760 at the idea of moving into a house where a 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:50.920 murderer lived. Now this is all strange behavior, right, because 0:01:50.960 --> 0:01:53.960 if you're a total rationalist, you'd say, look, no problem 0:01:54.000 --> 0:01:59.080 moving into that house. Criminality doesn't rub off on the walls. 0:01:59.080 --> 0:02:03.440 Those are totally separate issues. But somehow it's hard to 0:02:03.480 --> 0:02:07.760 move into that house. We see examples of superstitious behavior 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:11.480 around us all the time. The tennis player John McEnroe, 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:14.560 he would always refuse to step on the white lines 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:19.160 of a tennis court between points. People cross their fingers, 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:23.640 They avoid walking under ladders, they avoid black cats. So 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:28.840 it probably won't surprise you that surveys consistently show that 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:33.320 belief in the supernatural is alive and well even in 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:38.880 highly secular, scientifically advanced societies. In the United States, a 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:44.120 majority of people believe in angels sixty nine percent according 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:47.240 to Gallup polls, And by the way, that's way more 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.560 than believe in the Big Bang theory forty nine percent, 0:02:50.880 --> 0:02:54.640 and over twice as much as evolution by natural selections, 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:57.240 which is thirty two percent. And this is broader than 0:02:57.280 --> 0:03:01.959 just the influence of religion. More generally, people believe in fate, 0:03:02.280 --> 0:03:08.280 in manifesting energy, in spiritual healing, in meaningful coincidences, and 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:13.320 This all forms part of a rich, persistent global pattern 0:03:13.520 --> 0:03:18.880 of supernatural thought. So where does this all come from? 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:25.200 This question about supernatural thinking has long fascinated scientists and philosophers. 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:29.560 Some people answer this in a social lens, for example, 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:33.440 that beliefs bind groups, and some researchers point to the 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:38.360 psychological benefits, like belief gives us a sense of control 0:03:38.520 --> 0:03:41.640 in an unpredictable world. But there's also a deeper clue, 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:43.800 and it has to do with the fact that the 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:49.040 foundation of our supernatural beliefs is not taught to us. 0:03:49.120 --> 0:03:54.520 It arises spontaneously. Our brains generate them over and over 0:03:54.960 --> 0:04:01.080 from early childhood without instruction. Across cultures. The details change, 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:08.560 but the need to reach for invisible explanations is a constant. Why. Well, 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:12.640 it's because we don't see the world like we're passive 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:18.479 recorders of reality. Instead, we are pattern makers. We fill 0:04:18.600 --> 0:04:23.040 the world with meaning. Our brains take incomplete data and 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:28.359 they infer causes. We hear rustling leaves in the forest 0:04:28.440 --> 0:04:31.839 and we attribute agency. We hear a story about a 0:04:31.960 --> 0:04:36.000 murderer's house and we attribute some essence to it. We 0:04:36.080 --> 0:04:40.720 see a coincidence and we mark it up to destiny. 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:44.400 As we're going to see today, this sort of superstitious 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:48.880 thinking is actually a useful feature of the brain. All 0:04:48.920 --> 0:04:51.120 this starts to make a lot more sense from the 0:04:51.320 --> 0:04:56.240 neuroscience point of view, because these beliefs are natural outcomes 0:04:56.360 --> 0:04:59.919 of how human minds work. So today's episode is about this, 0:05:00.000 --> 0:05:06.119 this strange and fascinating corner of our cognition, the super sense. 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:10.560 Super sense is a term coined by the developmental psychologist 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:14.719 Bruce Hood, who noticed something curious in his research with children, 0:05:15.120 --> 0:05:20.120 even very young kids, before they're deeply exposed to cultural teachings, 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:27.040 they show supernatural thinking. They believe that people have invisible essences, 0:05:27.480 --> 0:05:33.080 they recoil from bad objects, They believe in mind over matter, 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:38.720 or that thoughts can influence events. These behaviors emerge early 0:05:38.920 --> 0:05:43.719 and automatically, so Bruce wrote a book called Supersense, Why 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:48.279 We Believe in the Unbelievable, in which he explores why 0:05:48.360 --> 0:05:53.560 our brains are so naturally inclined toward the mystical, the magical, 0:05:53.720 --> 0:05:57.880 the metaphysical. In the book, he digs into the biology 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:03.880 of belief, the brain mechanisms that underlie superstition and magical thinking, 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:09.280 and spiritual conviction. Why world class athletes have their rituals. 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:13.320 Why the belief that everything happens for a reason is 0:06:13.360 --> 0:06:17.560 so hard to shake. Why you wouldn't accept a heart 0:06:17.600 --> 0:06:22.000 transplant from a death row inmate. So the question is 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:24.840 why are these patterns so persistent and what do they 0:06:24.880 --> 0:06:27.600 reveal about the human brain. So today we're going to 0:06:27.640 --> 0:06:31.440 examine what happens when our ancient circuitry collides with the 0:06:31.440 --> 0:06:36.040 modern world and why, even in an age of satellites 0:06:36.120 --> 0:06:41.839 and particle accelerators, the supernatural never really goes away. So 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:49.599 here's my conversation with Bruce Hood. Okay, so, Bruce, you've 0:06:49.640 --> 0:06:54.400 been intrigued by supernatural thinking. People often believe things that 0:06:54.480 --> 0:06:57.840 defy rationality. So let's start with some examples of. 0:06:57.800 --> 0:07:04.240 That, so familiar ones of ghosts and spirits, which form 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:07.160 the basis of a lot of storytelling in our culture. 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.520 But I'm also interested in the more obscure things, like 0:07:12.040 --> 0:07:14.720 the rituals that people often engage in. That they might 0:07:14.760 --> 0:07:17.800 have special things that they do sports rituals I think 0:07:17.840 --> 0:07:20.120 are fascinating, that people have to touch certain things or 0:07:20.120 --> 0:07:23.760 wear certain clothes. And then there are more obscure things 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.440 like this sense of being stared at most people think 0:07:26.760 --> 0:07:28.760 they can tell where they're being watched, and that's an 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:31.440 interesting one because that doesn't sound supernatural to a lot 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.920 of people. But when you consider it from a scientific perspective, 0:07:35.320 --> 0:07:37.800 then it's not really easy to understand how that could 0:07:37.840 --> 0:07:41.040 be done by any natural process. So really it's all 0:07:41.040 --> 0:07:43.920 those sorts of things which, in the cold light a 0:07:44.000 --> 0:07:46.560 day and you look at them through the scrutiny of 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:48.440 a scientific lens don't stand up. 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:51.360 So anything like that is in the category. 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:54.080 And when you look at things like that, you realize, wow, 0:07:54.080 --> 0:07:56.560 this actually cuts across cultures and as far as we 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:00.160 can tell, across time as well. Right, everybody seems to 0:08:00.200 --> 0:08:01.400 do this, Yes. 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.400 And that's exactly one of the interesting things which suggests 0:08:04.400 --> 0:08:07.920 it might be universal. Whenever you find aspects of human 0:08:07.960 --> 0:08:11.720 behavior in different cultures that strongly suggests that it might 0:08:11.760 --> 0:08:14.680 be something to do with our biology, rather than being 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:19.360 entirely culturally specific. There are, of course very specific cultural 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:22.880 supernatural beliefs, but if you look at them more closely, 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:25.400 you can see that they're very often based on the 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.280 very same premise. So for example, life after death, souls 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:32.319 and spirits and ghosts, you'll find it just about every culture. 0:08:32.520 --> 0:08:37.280 And so you categorize this under the umbrella term supersense. 0:08:37.440 --> 0:08:40.280 So give us give us understanding of what this means. 0:08:40.800 --> 0:08:44.840 Well, the super sense term, it was really the almost 0:08:45.160 --> 0:08:48.360 appealing to the intuitive nature, that these things seem like 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:51.360 they're something you can detect, or that they feel real. 0:08:51.800 --> 0:08:53.800 I mean, this is the important point for many people 0:08:53.840 --> 0:08:55.920 when you ask them, why do you believe in these things? 0:08:55.920 --> 0:08:58.319 They say, well, I've had experience of it, or I've 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.560 had that sense of being watched, or I've sensed the 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.200 presence of people in houses or ghosts or whatever, that 0:09:04.480 --> 0:09:08.360 uncanny kind of sense of reality. And so I wanted 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:11.400 to capture the supernatural term, but also a sense in 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:14.760 which these things feel correct, because ultimately in the book, 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:17.720 I argue that they really all really come from an 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.480 intuitive way of thinking, as we have as children. 0:09:21.440 --> 0:09:25.280 And so this supernatural thinking, you argue that this is 0:09:25.440 --> 0:09:29.160 rooted in our deep mental architecture. 0:09:29.559 --> 0:09:38.040 So for me, supernatural phenomenon include anything like energies, forces, causes, entities, 0:09:38.960 --> 0:09:43.560 anything which people use to explain the experiences that they've had. 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:46.880 So that also includes all the religious ones, but I'm 0:09:46.920 --> 0:09:49.559 also more interested in the ones which are not obviously 0:09:50.200 --> 0:09:53.600 derived from pure religion, and that includes everything else I 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:57.760 mentioned earlier, like superstitious rituals and personal kind of you know, 0:09:58.120 --> 0:10:01.000 our attachment to objects and sentiments, mentality. These are things 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:03.800 which I find fascinating because I think they evoke the 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:07.600 same sort of underlying mechanisms, and those mechanisms really come 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:09.680 from a brain which evolved to make sense of the world, 0:10:09.720 --> 0:10:12.520 and you can see this operating in children. I began 0:10:12.520 --> 0:10:15.160 as a developmental psychologists, and so I've always been fascinated 0:10:15.440 --> 0:10:17.160 in the way that children makes sense of the world. 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:20.199 So we talk about them having intuitive theories, which are 0:10:20.360 --> 0:10:24.800 ways of understanding the world evoking causal mechanisms that are 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:28.200 not taught formally, and that's the important point. These are 0:10:28.240 --> 0:10:31.200 things that children spontaneously come up with as their own 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:34.360 explanations for why the world is the way they are. So, 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:38.600 for example, when it comes to making a distinction between 0:10:38.720 --> 0:10:42.439 living and non living things, they spontaneously think there must 0:10:42.480 --> 0:10:44.280 be some sort of energy or life force in a 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:47.600 living thing which gives it sort of autonomy and self 0:10:47.600 --> 0:10:50.800 propelled motions, as opposed to more inert things like. 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:52.920 Objects and wooden blocks and stuff like that. 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.160 So Jiennal already starting to draw a distinction between the 0:10:55.160 --> 0:10:57.640 biological and non biological in the way that they think 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.760 about that. And once they've made that distinction, they then 0:11:00.840 --> 0:11:03.760 also start to evoke the notions of intentionality. They start 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:07.920 to infirm minds having causes for making things do the 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:11.360 things they do. And that's the beginnings of mind body dualism, 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:14.920 which is a philosophical position, and that I think is 0:11:14.960 --> 0:11:16.959 also the basis for a lot of beliefs in. 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:19.720 The body and mind being separate. 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:22.320 And if that's the case, then well, once the body's gone, 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:24.640 maybe the mind continues to exists, and therefore you have 0:11:24.679 --> 0:11:27.880 the basis of spirit, souls, and ghosts and the afterlife. 0:11:28.120 --> 0:11:31.160 So in kind of understanding the world around them, children 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:34.760 are evoking the kind of causal mechanisms or intuitive theories 0:11:34.960 --> 0:11:39.520 which lay the foundation for what can become adult supernatural beliefs. 0:11:39.679 --> 0:11:42.400 And I think that's the way that religions actually are working, 0:11:42.480 --> 0:11:45.560 is that they kind of operate or their successful because 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:50.079 they tap into what our inclinations about what could be possible, ghosts, 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:51.760 life after death, and so on. 0:12:08.840 --> 0:12:11.800 So the idea is you think, look, here's a living object, 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:16.520 but there's a mental state that's different. And so when 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:21.679 Grandma passes away, she still exists even though her body 0:12:22.000 --> 0:12:26.160 is buried. Right, this is what dualism means. We have 0:12:26.320 --> 0:12:28.840 the mental and the physical being separate, whereas the view 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.680 of modern neuroscience is that these things are linked. The 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:34.920 reason that's the view of modern neuroscience is because anytime 0:12:35.320 --> 0:12:38.080 a person gets damage to the brain let's say, stroke, 0:12:38.120 --> 0:12:40.640 at tumor traumatic brain injury, things like that, we see 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:44.520 very specific changes in who they are based on what's 0:12:44.559 --> 0:12:45.559 happened with the brain. 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:48.760 As Pinker put it very aptly, said, the mind is 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.079 what the brain does. So it's a sort of I 0:12:51.160 --> 0:12:53.640 hate the analogies of software and hardware, but yeah, the 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:57.240 mind is the operating system in many ways. And your science, 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.760 as you say, tells us that if you damage or 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:02.800 disease the brain or drug it, I'll change the concepts 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:06.199 of the content of the mind. But the general point 0:13:06.320 --> 0:13:10.120 is that most people would assume that the mind is 0:13:10.160 --> 0:13:13.200 separate to the body, but neuroscientists tend to sort of 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.240 be more materialistic about that process. But let's just assume 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:18.280 that you've gone for the mind being separate from the body. 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:21.400 Then once the body's gone, then if you don't see 0:13:21.400 --> 0:13:23.560 it as being tethered to the body. Then that allows 0:13:23.559 --> 0:13:25.440 for a whole lot of beliefs. So it could be 0:13:25.480 --> 0:13:28.080 things like astral planing, you know, leaving your body and 0:13:28.200 --> 0:13:31.200 traveling around the world, or projection, all the sorts of 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:35.440 things that people readily acknowledge or identify with as being 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.640 phenomena that they think they've experienced. So there's a whole 0:13:38.679 --> 0:13:40.920 lot of you know, there are a lot of natural 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:44.160 phenomena that people reinterpret us supernatural. It's not to say 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.040 that these things couldn't possibly happen. I mean, for example, 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:52.160 take telepathy. Telepathy in its current state, we would argue, well, 0:13:53.000 --> 0:13:56.560 being able to read someone's mind without technology would be 0:13:56.559 --> 0:14:01.079 a supernatural ability. But you know, you've worked with human interfaces, 0:14:01.080 --> 0:14:03.559 it won't be long before you can actually start to 0:14:03.640 --> 0:14:05.920 read the output of the brain, and maybe that could 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:09.040 be transmitted to another person and effect you could read 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:12.480 minds at a distance. So it's not impossible, but at 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:15.280 the moment it's just not as improbable given our current 0:14:15.360 --> 0:14:18.000 understanding of the technology and our scientific theories. 0:14:18.280 --> 0:14:21.440 Okay, so we just cover an intuitive dualism, this idea 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:23.720 that mind and body are separate. What else is bearing 0:14:23.800 --> 0:14:29.120 in our cognitive architecture such that that leads to supernatural beliefs. 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.640 Okay, so my favorite is essentialism. This is something that 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:35.560 I've I continue to think about. It's something that I've 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:40.160 done research upon. Essentialism is that once you form an 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:44.520 emotional attachment to an item, you essentialize it. And that 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:46.680 can be you know, it can be an object, it 0:14:46.680 --> 0:14:49.640 can be a possession, that can be another person even 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:53.800 But the point is essentialism is evoking a core identity 0:14:54.160 --> 0:14:57.360 sort of if you like, a metaphysical property to a 0:14:57.360 --> 0:14:59.960 physical entity that gives it its unique identity. 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.560 So give us an example. Just everyone understands what centialism is. 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:04.080 Okay. 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.320 One of my daughters formed a very emotional attachment to 0:15:07.840 --> 0:15:10.960 a her blanket as she calls it, and I've heard 0:15:11.000 --> 0:15:13.720 it's not uncommon. About two thirds of children in the 0:15:13.760 --> 0:15:17.360 West form a strong emotional attachment to a teddy bear 0:15:17.480 --> 0:15:20.520 or a blanket. Now, what starts off, I think is 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:23.760 a simple sensory support thing that helps them to get 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:25.840 off of sleep at night and add some sort of 0:15:25.880 --> 0:15:28.640 security if you like this, sometimes called security blankets. 0:15:29.720 --> 0:15:30.800 These objects soon. 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:34.800 Become irreplaceable and they're anthropomorphized. In other words, children treat 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.120 them as if they are entities which have thoughts and 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.520 feelings and get lonely. We did an experiment that children 0:15:40.520 --> 0:15:43.200 who had attachment objects mentalized them. They thought that they 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:47.080 had mental states, and what makes them essentialize is that 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.840 they're irreplaceable. So we did other experiments with Paul Bloom, 0:15:50.920 --> 0:15:53.640 the psychologists, where we create this illusion where we could 0:15:53.720 --> 0:15:58.640 duplicate any object, a toy or a blanket or anything, 0:15:59.040 --> 0:16:00.800 and we asked the children whether or not. 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:02.120 They were different or not. 0:16:02.840 --> 0:16:06.000 And children were very happy for any object, any of 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.640 their favorite toys, to be duplicated. But once you offered 0:16:09.640 --> 0:16:14.000 the opportunity to put their blanket, their unique sentimental object, 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:16.520 into a machine which appears to duplicate it, they were 0:16:16.560 --> 0:16:19.160 really distressed by that. And I think that speaks to 0:16:19.240 --> 0:16:21.600 the idea that they didn't like the idea that you 0:16:21.640 --> 0:16:26.640 could somehow, you know, copy something which is authentic, and 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:30.240 that is actually a behavior which manifests in adults. When 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:32.160 you think about the value that we placed on authentic 0:16:32.200 --> 0:16:32.720 objects and. 0:16:32.760 --> 0:16:33.440 Works of art. 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:38.360 A work of art is valuable by its providence, by 0:16:38.440 --> 0:16:41.520 its authenticity, by its origins. And if you had two 0:16:41.560 --> 0:16:43.840 identical works of art that you couldn't tell the difference 0:16:43.920 --> 0:16:47.640 between That would be really difficult for someone who really 0:16:47.680 --> 0:16:50.400 has an emotional attachment to the original. So I think 0:16:50.400 --> 0:16:56.680 it's a connection between are processing about objects and identity 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:00.360 and this emotional tag that we add to it, like 0:17:00.400 --> 0:17:04.200 this internal metaphysical property which makes it unique and irreplaceable. 0:17:05.640 --> 0:17:08.280 So give us you've got a great example about a 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:10.240 cardigan sweater. Give us that example. 0:17:10.600 --> 0:17:13.760 So I think one of the best demonstrations, if you like, 0:17:14.040 --> 0:17:18.919 of central reasoning is the contagion effect. So if I 0:17:19.040 --> 0:17:23.080 was to offer you a cardigan sweater and say, David, 0:17:23.080 --> 0:17:26.120 would you put this on for twenty dollars, you probably say, yeah, sure, 0:17:26.160 --> 0:17:28.959 twenty dollars, I'll put it on, depending how how much 0:17:29.040 --> 0:17:31.320 you need the twenty dollars. If I then say it 0:17:31.320 --> 0:17:34.080 to you, well, would you still put this cardigan on 0:17:34.160 --> 0:17:37.280 if you knew it belonged to Jeffrey Dahmer or Fred 0:17:37.320 --> 0:17:39.919 West or whatever cereal curry you can think of? And 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:43.600 then immediately people feel a revulsion and repugnance, a kind 0:17:43.600 --> 0:17:46.280 of sense of disgust and the idea of coming into 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:50.080 physical contact with a cardigan as if it somehow contains 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:53.120 the essence of the former murderer. So I think that's 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:58.200 a fascinating demonstration that people evoke all sorts of ideas 0:17:58.280 --> 0:18:03.560 or metaphysical notions about E manifesting or contaminating the physical world. 0:18:03.800 --> 0:18:06.199 Now it turns out, of course, whenever I've done this, 0:18:06.359 --> 0:18:08.160 it's not a real it's not really it doesn't really 0:18:08.160 --> 0:18:10.680 belong to Jeffrey Dahmer, Fred West. But the mere mention 0:18:10.800 --> 0:18:13.399 of that is enough to make people feel disgusted. So 0:18:13.440 --> 0:18:16.000 you might say, oh, well, that's just simple association. As 0:18:16.040 --> 0:18:18.760 soon as you say the names of famous serial killers, 0:18:18.800 --> 0:18:21.280 of course people are going to feel revolted and disgusted. 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:24.399 But I think it's a really interesting counter example. So 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:28.080 for example, if I say would you hold a book, 0:18:28.240 --> 0:18:30.720 and I give you a book, a cookery book, for example, 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:33.360 you say, no problem with that cookery book. I said, 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.000 what have you discovered that actually this was the personal 0:18:36.080 --> 0:18:39.479 possession of Aldolf Hitler out of Hitler's cookery book. Then 0:18:39.480 --> 0:18:42.320 people would go, well, that's rather disgusting, that's murder billy. 0:18:42.400 --> 0:18:43.639 You don't want to have anything to do with that. 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:47.440 So it could be you could argue, well, maybe that's 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:50.399 because you've used the word of out of Hitler. But 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.400 if I was to offer you a biography of out 0:18:53.400 --> 0:18:55.560 of Hitler, then you wouldn't feel the same discuss it's 0:18:55.600 --> 0:19:00.000 the personal contact that this supposed book has had which 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:03.280 triggers this kind of intuitive notion of essentialism. And that's 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:06.520 what I find very fascinating because it explains a lot 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:10.000 of our attitudes to contamination. It explains a lot of 0:19:11.560 --> 0:19:14.640 explains a lot of prejudices about not coming into contact 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:18.400 with peoples are maintaining a certain distances is what they 0:19:18.400 --> 0:19:22.080 do in traditional Indian societies with the cast system. There's 0:19:22.119 --> 0:19:23.920 a notion in which people do not want to come 0:19:23.920 --> 0:19:26.080 into physical contact, and I think that's because of a 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:30.359 kind of naive biological theory or germ theory that they 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:31.240 think is operating. 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:34.640 So we talked about dualism and we talked about essentialism. 0:19:35.280 --> 0:19:37.680 In your book, you had one more pillar upon which 0:19:37.720 --> 0:19:39.399 supernatural thinking lies. 0:19:39.600 --> 0:19:41.760 Causal reasoning might be one of the issues, which is 0:19:41.800 --> 0:19:44.800 theological that people think things happen for a purpose, so 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:49.719 they evoke causal mechanisms, were causal determinists, so we can't 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.400 easily see randomness. In fact, the brain is not set 0:19:52.480 --> 0:19:54.320 up for this. You'll know this is neuroscientist that we 0:19:55.400 --> 0:19:59.520 invariably impose structure and order everywhere. So this explains why 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:02.840 people see patterns all the time and they infer causality. 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:05.920 And you know, if they have a dream about somebody 0:20:06.000 --> 0:20:08.520 dying and by chance the person does die, they think 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:09.440 that's a prophecy. 0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:10.760 And so people. 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:15.919 Immediately see all the coincidences as being auspicious, when in 0:20:15.920 --> 0:20:20.080 fact we're surrounded in the sea of random chance and coincidence, 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:22.320 but we only ever notice the ones which seem to 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:25.159 be sort of important or poignant, and this leads us 0:20:25.240 --> 0:20:29.000 to draw all sorts of sort of causal mechanisms about 0:20:29.080 --> 0:20:31.560 how we can predict the future and so on. So 0:20:31.560 --> 0:20:35.000 that's another example of a mechanism which is very common. 0:20:35.160 --> 0:20:37.320 We can't help but see structure. 0:20:36.880 --> 0:20:39.439 In order, and that's a good thing because that's one 0:20:39.440 --> 0:20:41.520 of the ways that we make inferences in the world 0:20:41.560 --> 0:20:43.160 when we see causality. 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:45.840 So give us an example of the kind of supernatural 0:20:45.880 --> 0:20:47.800 thinking that we see coming out of that. 0:20:48.280 --> 0:20:51.159 So one of the most common forms of that behavior 0:20:51.320 --> 0:20:54.719 is in sports rituals. So for example, let's say you 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.800 go into the you know, to the tennis court, and 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:01.760 you have a particularly great day so you start to say, 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:03.479 what did I do differently? And I say, oh, I 0:21:03.520 --> 0:21:06.920 was wearing that pair of socks, and you decide to 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:08.560 put them on the next sit. You don't normally wear 0:21:08.600 --> 0:21:10.240 that pair of socks, so you're trying to make sense 0:21:10.280 --> 0:21:12.320 of what happened, and you put them on another day 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:14.159 and guess what, you have another good day at tennis. 0:21:14.200 --> 0:21:16.960 And soon, very quickly that becomes a ritual and it 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:20.399 becomes shaped by operating conditioning. This is from psychology, so 0:21:20.440 --> 0:21:23.960 we know that you know animals and humans, their behavior 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:27.760 becomes shaped by reinforcement, and soon that becomes part of 0:21:27.760 --> 0:21:30.960 your ritual. And what's interesting is that actually it does 0:21:31.040 --> 0:21:33.000 work in some sense because it gives you a sense 0:21:33.040 --> 0:21:35.639 of control. If you think about it. A lot of 0:21:35.680 --> 0:21:37.840 the rituals that we have are often to do with 0:21:38.240 --> 0:21:42.360 very important life events like birth's, deaths, starting a new business, 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:44.560 all the sorts of major transitions in life. We want 0:21:44.560 --> 0:21:47.240 to try and control them, and that's why we have 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:50.680 all these additional rituals to provide a sense of control 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:53.000 over that. So, yeah, even though it may start off 0:21:53.000 --> 0:21:56.160 as a spontaneous kind of quirk, it soon becomes part 0:21:56.200 --> 0:21:59.199 of the whole habit preparing for that match, and that 0:21:59.320 --> 0:22:03.879 might prepare or give the player as the confidence. 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.600 Something that's so fascinating is that it's so difficult to 0:22:08.720 --> 0:22:12.280 shake this kind of intuitive reasoning that we do about 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:17.200 the world, even among philosophers or scientists. This is with us. 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:20.000 So as an example, I'm sure you know this question 0:22:20.119 --> 0:22:24.360 about the Star Trek transporter, which is, if I were 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:28.879 to step into the Star Trek transporter and it degrades me, 0:22:29.000 --> 0:22:32.080 it pulls me apart adam by adam, and reconstructs me 0:22:32.160 --> 0:22:33.560 on the surface of the planet. 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:34.800 Is that me? 0:22:35.520 --> 0:22:38.240 Because it's just a bunch of atoms that were put 0:22:38.280 --> 0:22:41.280 together on the surface of the planet. So did I 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:45.520 die and someone else came about? And then there's a 0:22:45.560 --> 0:22:49.479 second version of this transporter philosophical question, which is, what 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:52.440 if the transporter breaks me down into all my atoms 0:22:52.720 --> 0:22:56.720 and then shoots those atoms themselves over to the planet 0:22:56.840 --> 0:23:00.280 and then it's reconstructed. And people often feel better about 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:03.160 the second scenario because it seems like, Okay, well, they're 0:23:03.200 --> 0:23:05.560 my atoms and you're just putting them back together like 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:08.359 a jigsaw puzzle. So this is an issue of both 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:13.159 the essentialism and the dualism. But this proves really hard 0:23:13.560 --> 0:23:18.679 for us to shake these sorts of cognitive architectures that 0:23:18.680 --> 0:23:19.560 we've grown up on. 0:23:20.119 --> 0:23:22.879 Yeah, yeah, I love that example of the transporter. It builds. 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:25.840 It's actually a modern version of the Ship of Theseus, 0:23:25.880 --> 0:23:28.680 which was the parable or the story of the King 0:23:28.800 --> 0:23:31.680 of Greece. When he died, they put a ship into storage, 0:23:31.720 --> 0:23:34.760 and the shipwrights went back to look at it each year, 0:23:34.800 --> 0:23:36.760 and they noticed that some of the planks need replacing, 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:39.160 so they eventually they replace the planks to the extent 0:23:39.240 --> 0:23:43.240 eventually none of the original wood is left on show. 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:45.760 So the question is is it still the ship of Theseus? 0:23:45.800 --> 0:23:48.920