CGSC 1001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 11: Termite, Schizotypy, Group Selection

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Cognitive Science
• Course: CGSC 1001
• Professor: Jim Davies

Document Summary

Cognitive science the cognitive science of religion. Pas(cid:272)al boyer"s cou(cid:374)ter o(cid:374)tology theory: we have subsystems for understanding different things in the world: contagion, perso(cid:374)s, li(cid:448)i(cid:374)g thi(cid:374)gs, tools, physi(cid:272)al o(cid:271)je(cid:272)ts. Person permanence: our belief that people still exist when we can no longer perceive them. It seems that this does not shut off immediately when someone dies, leading to beliefs that their minds still exist. Studies show that most people, even self-described atheists, attribute mental states to the dead. If something is learned, we predict that it gets stronger during enculturation: the opposite happens with attributing mental states to the dead. Kindergarteners were more likely to do this than older children: this suggests that there is an innate component. The old brain and the new: the old brain is intuitive. We are conscious of its outputs, not its processing: people"s i(cid:373)pli(cid:272)it reaso(cid:374)i(cid:374)g a(cid:271)out the super(cid:374)atural (cid:272)a(cid:374) (cid:271)e at odds (cid:449)ith (cid:449)hat they say they believe. (subbotsky 1997;2001)