Ovazor

Nothing to be recognised, because it's a false positive (if there was a pattern, it wouldn't lead to an counterfactual belief but to knowledge of how the world works). You are missing the fact that the event of (incorrectly) recognising a supernatural pattern instantly creates "proof" to the belief: a subjective personal experience. And subjective personal experiences tend to be for most people very convincing "proof". The belief is further reinforced by subconscious "count the hits and ignore the misses" -process as the person puts his superstition to further test.

That's because as far it is known, only humans are capable of abstact thought. But if animals without abstract thinking can pick up what stringly seems to be superstitions and develope "magic" rituals, wouldn't it be logical to assume that our tendency to do them might have roots on similar attributes.

No, but they are side-effects of other attributes which are necessary or at least beneficial to our survival.

No, because it's not easy to trust science rather than oneself. It can be hard to admit how easily we can be deceived.

Its the difference between knowing from being taught and knowing from subjective experience. Our minds are heavily biased in the favour of the later.

Bumble Bee Tuna

when I was taking Psych 101, we learned about these birds with classical conditioning. The birds were placed somewhere where they got a piece of food every ten minutes or so. They would just be going about their business and a food pellet would come out. They would attribute the cause to whatever they had just done- cocked their head a certain way, took a step, whatever. Then as more and more pellets came more and more random movements would become a part of their food dance. Eventually they had very elaborate dances they did because they thought it would get them food.

-B

RBH

That's more or less correct, except that it wasn't a classical conditioning procedure. Food arrived in a Skinner box (an apparatus normally used for operant conditioning) at random intervals, and (as BBT reported) some (not all) of the pigeons apparently associated the arrival of food with whatever behaviors they were performing just prior to that arrival. In a few pigeons that behavior became pretty elaborate, and was performed repetitively until a food pellet (still delivered randomly) appeared. (I can imagine a pigeon saying to an unbelieving peer: "See! I told you dancing counter-clockwise works! You clockwise dancers don't know how to influence the food pellet god!")

A couple of caveats: the original sample was pretty small (8 pigeons, IIRC), and I have never seen a replication.

RBH

Vampyric

I don't suppose you have a link or reference for the pigeon stuff you can put up? I would be really interested in reading it for myself some time.

Viking

When you combine pattern recognition with a powerful imagination, all sorts of things are possible, yet both no doubt have useful features related to survival.

Years ago my wife and I were canoeing around the thousands of lakes that make up the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in northern Minnesota. It was late fall, and we were following a meandering wilderness river and dozens of lakes in a 45 degree drizzle for nearly 10 hours.

Our destination was a lake called something like Rove Lake, where there were several campsites. After leaving Octopus Lake, named for its many arms, we knew we should be close.

Finally, we saw a small post that said "Rove Lake" and carried the canoe and packs over the portage into the lake (they have since removed all signs from the BWCA.) Anyway, I soon realized that we were NOT in Rove Lake. The shape was wrong, there were no campsites etc. At the same time, I noticed my wife was in the early stages of hypothermia - common in those conditions. I immediately put ashore at the portage and just set up our tent right there, started a fire, and cooked a pot of stew to warm up my wife.

The next morning I dug out the compass and we went back across the portage to where we came into the lake. The sign said "Granite Lake" not "Rove Lake!" Both of us had wanted to see Rove Lake so bad, we convinced ourselves that we had. What had happened, by the way, is that when we were in Octopus Lake, searching for the portage in the many arms, we ended up going back out on the same portage over which we had entered, and did not recognize it.

It was shocking to realize that if you want to see something bad enough, your brain will help you see it. Just a little story that I think illustrates my point.

Red Expendable

That makes sense, and I think I understand how the pattern recognition fits in with belief.

Thanks for the posts!

RedEx