Oct 17 2008
RP) Perceiving Intention Behind Events
In all religions, and thus in all societies, people believe that agents unseen have intentionally generated the world we see.
– Scott Atran (1)
A developing, central component to a naturalistic understanding of religion includes the idea that humans are “hyperactively”(2) inclined to detect agents working in the world, even where there are none. Through this project I hope to couple that idea with the notion that humans are likewise predisposed to generate dominance hierarchies. My thesis is that the combination of these proclivities generates the widespread idea of an invisible, mighty alpha.
Chimpanzees, like us, develop a “theory of mind,” as it is described in psychological terms. A theory of mind (ToM) consists of the understanding that other individuals have perspectives and motives of their own. Certainly, in chimpanzees this ability is of a form quite rudimentary next to ours. Nonetheless, the phenomenon of not only inferring agency, but a human-centered intention behind that agency, is dependant upon this feature of the primate mind.
How important is the acquisition and employment of a theory of mind? Robin Dunbar flatly states, “Theory of mind is, beyond question, our most important asset.” (3)
“Most important”? Yes, if we comprehend just how crucial a theory of mind is to advanced social relationships. With a ToM, individuals are capable of responding not just to another’s visible actions, but also to what actions they anticipate. Their anticipation is built upon the intentions they infer that the involved individuals have. Intentions for future actions/events, as well as intentions that can explain otherwise puzzling previous actions. Equipped with a ToM, two dimensional social relations blossom into a third. Creatures go from awareness of their present social world to inferring what social developments might occur, based on what they “know” about the history, habitual intentions, transient motives, and unique perspective of groupmates.(4)
Certainly there is no single reason why people tend to generate ideas of supernatural agents and their realm of existence. Indeed, “…supernatural concepts are salient because they generate complex inferences — that is, because they activate many different inference systems.”(5)
What inferences do supernatural concepts rely upon? For starters (and fundamentally) that of agency (the work of invisible being) of ToM (a knowing being with its own perspective and wishes) and of a hierarchy (a more powerful being).
The real breakthrough is where fully developed third-order ToM allows us to imagine how someone who does not actually exist might respond to particular situations. In other words, we can begin to create literature, to write stories that go beyond a simple description of events.
- Robin Dunbar (6)
As far as hard evidence goes (meaning publicly affirmable), what does religion and belief consist of beyond evocative stories?
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(1) Atran, S., In God’s We Trust: The Evolutionary Landscape of Religion, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002, p. 52
(2) Dennett, D., Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, Viking, New York, 2006
(3) Dunbar, R. Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1996, p. 101
(4) “We have evolved a social primates mind that looks for purpose in everything.”
Jolly, A., Lucy’s Legacy, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1999, p. 11. Intention implies purpose.
(5) Boyer, P. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought, Basic Books, New York, 2001, p. 148
(6) Dunbar, R., p. 102
[first posted here: http://almightyalpha.blogspot.com/2008/03/perceiving-intention-behind-events.html]
