Pattern recognition and belief in God

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Here is a nice article about the relationship between pattern recognition abilities and belief in God. 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200909085942.htm

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Individuals who can unconsciously predict complex patterns, an ability called implicit pattern learning, are likely to hold stronger beliefs that there is a god who creates patterns of events in the universe, according to neuroscientists at Georgetown University.

Our hypothesis is that people whose brains are good at subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment may ascribe those patterns to the hand of a higher power," he adds.

if children are unconsciously picking up on patterns in the environment, their belief is more likely to increase as they grow up, even if they are in a nonreligious household.

"A brain that is more predisposed to implicit pattern learning may be more inclined to believe in a god no matter where in the world that brain happens to find itself, or in which religious context," Green adds,

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Cheers.

Sriram

[Sriram]

I have been convinced for a long time that atheists probably lack some natural faculty that predisposes them to atheism.  This is probably it!

[torridon]

I have been convinced for a long time that atheists probably lack some natural faculty that predisposes them to atheism.  This is probably it!

The research seems entirely plausible to me.  I think we all pick up and build whatever biases we have subconsciously as we go through life.  Many people are subconsciously racist, for instance, without really realising it. Religious beliefs are very much like that, people don't argue themselves into a religious belief through intellectual enquiry, rather, the beliefs grow in strength over time as their minds continually pick up signals that are interpreted in the light of confirmation bias subconsiously.  This research says nothing about which beliefs are correct, it is merely about how minds work, and some people are more disposed to accumulate subliminal patterns whereas other people are more disposed to top down analytical thinking.

[Sriram]

The research seems entirely plausible to me.  I think we all pick up and build whatever biases we have subconsciously as we go through life.  Many people are subconsciously racist, for instance, without really realising it. Religious beliefs are very much like that, people don't argue themselves into a religious belief through intellectual enquiry, rather, the beliefs grow in strength over time as their minds continually pick up signals that are interpreted in the light of confirmation bias subconsiously.  This research says nothing about which beliefs are correct, it is merely about how minds work, and some people are more disposed to accumulate subliminal patterns whereas other people are more disposed to top down analytical thinking.

This is not about confirmation bias at all.  If a person, as he grows up, is able to discern hidden and subtle patterns in his life and environment...he grows to believe that there are unseen forces and causes that are behind it.....even in households without any religious beliefs.   People who do not discern such subtle patterns accept only explicit patterns that are seen and sensed externally.

[Gordon]

The study also says this:

The U.S. section of the study enrolled a predominantly Christian group of 199 participants from Washington, D.C. The Afghanistan section of the study enrolled a group of 149 Muslim participants in Kabul.

This does raise the issue of these cohorts having a pre-existing religious bias for reasons that are wholly separate from their tendency towards pattern recognition. Moreover, presumably the arrangements of dots that appeared (and disappeared) related to the shapes of well known objects and I'd imagine those with a pattern recognition trait might easily identify the shapes of the familiar such as, say, kettles, fish or geometric shapes: but what patterns these people might be 'detecting' that indicates to them at the presence of the divine is clearly a different matter, and isn't addressed.

The study, to be fair, doesn't go this far though by saying:

This is not a study about whether God exists, this is a study about why and how brains come to believe in gods. Our hypothesis is that people whose brains are good at subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment may ascribe those patterns to the hand of a higher power,

   

It seems to me that the elephant in the room here might be the risk that some have a tendency to see patterns where there are none, which could predispose them towards unfounded beliefs that involve personal traits, cultural patterns and their pre-existing biases and we know that those being studied here may have had a pre-existing religious biases: and nothing is said about there being a control group that have no pre-existing religious biases.

So, that they can discern some patterns that, presumably, relate to known objects/shapes (else how would it be known that they are correctly identifying patterns of dots) says nothing about what patterns might cause them to think they have 'detected' some sort of supernatural agency. 

[Outrider]

I have been convinced for a long time that atheists probably lack some natural faculty that predisposes them to atheism.  This is probably it!

The human tendency to identify patterns is well-established, there's a wealth of research to show probable evolutionary benefits to it, and to show that the tendency towards type 1 errors (false positives: identifying a pattern where none exists) is a more successful evolutionary trait in most instances to type 2 errors (false negatives: spotting no pattern when there is one).

As such, it's at least as likely that theists are falling foul of type 1 errors in finding gods which aren't there as it is atheists are somehow 'lacking' something when they fail to believe claims of things for which there is insufficient evidence.

O.

[torridon]

This is not about confirmation bias at all.  If a person, as he grows up, is able to discern hidden and subtle patterns in his life and environment...he grows to believe that there are unseen forces and causes that are behind it.....even in households without any religious beliefs.   People who do not discern such subtle patterns accept only explicit patterns that are seen and sensed externally.

Wot Outrider said, I think.  Confirmation bias is a thing, a human universal affecting us all to some or other degree, and it happens largely subliminally. Agent detection is also a thing, a universal cognitive bias that predisposes us to ascribe patterns to some hidden intentionality. We are all subject to these things in some or other degree. People who have a stronger faculty for subliminal pattern detection combined with a stronger disposition to agent detection are the people who will develop religious beliefs, irrespective of their upbringing, education, culture.

[bluehillside Retd.]

Sriram,

This is not about confirmation bias at all.  If a person, as he grows up, is able to discern hidden and subtle patterns in his life and environment...

Yes it is. “Discerning” “hidden and subtle” patterns tells you nothing about whether those patterns are actually there. Inadequate sample size for example will sometimes indicate an apparent pattern that, when the sample size is increased, turns out to be just noise.   

…he grows to believe that there are unseen forces and causes that are behind it....

Yes, people will sometime impute deliberative causal agencies without good reason.

…even in households without any religious beliefs.

Once someone has decided without good reason that there is a deliberative causal agency at play, the religious belief of the household tends to provide the ready-made peg on which to hang that belief: Christians think it’s the Christian god, Amazonian tribespeople think it’s the tree spirits etc 

People who do not discern such subtle patterns accept only explicit patterns that are seen and sensed externally.

How would anyone “see and sense” something internally?   

[ippy]

Hi everyone,

Here is a nice article about the relationship between pattern recognition abilities and belief in God. 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200909085942.htm

************
Individuals who can unconsciously predict complex patterns, an ability called implicit pattern learning, are likely to hold stronger beliefs that there is a god who creates patterns of events in the universe, according to neuroscientists at Georgetown University.

Our hypothesis is that people whose brains are good at subconsciously discerning patterns in their environment may ascribe those patterns to the hand of a higher power," he adds.

if children are unconsciously picking up on patterns in the environment, their belief is more likely to increase as they grow up, even if they are in a nonreligious household.

"A brain that is more predisposed to implicit pattern learning may be more inclined to believe in a god no matter where in the world that brain happens to find itself, or in which religious context," Green adds,

************

Cheers.

Sriram

I can only see this post of yours Sriram, is just your good self going off and clutching at straws again.

This is often caused by the tendency present in most cultures where everyday life isn't enough and some have this need to pass on that, there's something more to life out there to be found by a sort of Mr Magic if you like, responsible for all of those as yet unexplained mysteries.

Our brains do work in what seems to me to be remarkable ways, for example, I wear a hearing aids on both ears and due to their size the sound they bang out in the frequency that is inaudible to me is rather a tinny sound that will always sound tinny no matter what but in spite of that the lump of grey stuff residing between my ears does something with the tinny sound and turns it into what sounds to me a fully rounded approximation of whatever it thinks I should be hearing and it does this without any input from myself.

On knowing about the above I've taken note that they do sound tinny for the briefest of moments every morning when I first switch them on, just before Mr Brain takes over.

Could there be something similar going on with your unconscious predictions of complex patterns ability called implicit pattern learning?

I would think this possibility is far more likely than anything magical or supernatural going on?

Regards, ippy.

[Enki]

I have been convinced for a long time that atheists probably lack some natural faculty that predisposes them to atheism.  This is probably it!

The propensity to discern patterns, both real and imagined, has long been known as a human characteristic, from the conjuring up of patterns seen in the flickering flames of a coal fire to the useful creation of constellations in the night sky and all the way through to the pattern regularity of mathematics such that mathematics has been called  a science of patterns. As Outrider clearly states the abilty to discern patterns is clearly of evolutionary value.

However, although interesting, I think it is useful to bear in mind that the research that you link to comes from a source which decribes itself as "The largest, most prominent Catholic medical center in the country", and that the cohorts it relies upon on its research come from two predominately religious groups, one Christian the other Muslim. The aim of its findings therefore is to show if there is a linkage between inherent pattern finding abilities between two disparate religious groups. This says nothing at all about pattern finding abilities in other groups(E.g. mathematicians, atheists, chess players, artists).

Hence I find that your convictions about atheists to be a more than a little presumptive and possibly a sign of your underlying bias.

[Sriram]

Hi everyone,

Conscious recognition of patterns is one thing and unconscious recognition of patterns is another thing. This involves sensing and discerning subtle causes and patterns in our own lives from childhood to present.

We must remember that unconscious processes are more powerful and overwhelming than conscious ones. In fact, most if not all, conscious processes involve unconscious processes and unconscious decision making. 

These unconscious processes themselves constitute hidden forces and hidden motivations beyond our conscious awareness. Combining this phenomenon with the concepts of panpsychism and cosmopsychism....makes the idea of an Agent more intriguing and compulsive.

Cheers.

Sriram 

[torridon]

Hi everyone,

Conscious recognition of patterns is one thing and unconscious recognition of patterns is another thing. This involves sensing and discerning subtle causes and patterns in our own lives from childhood to present.

We must remember that unconscious processes are more powerful and overwhelming than conscious ones. In fact, most if not all, conscious processes involve unconscious processes and unconscious decision making. 

These unconscious processes themselves constitute hidden forces and hidden motivations beyond our conscious awareness. Combining this phenomenon with the concepts of panpsychism and cosmopsychism....makes the idea of an Agent more intriguing and compulsive.

Cheers.

Sriram

The understanding that most of mind is not conscious most of the time does nothing to validate dualism; that is called clutching at straws.  Mind would not be viable any other way.

[ProfessorDavey]

The propensity to discern patterns, both real and imagined, has long been known as a human characteristic, from the conjuring up of patterns seen in the flickering flames of a coal fire to the useful creation of constellations in the night sky and all the way through to the pattern regularity of mathematics such that mathematics has been called  a science of patterns. As Outrider clearly states the abilty to discern patterns is clearly of evolutionary value.

Absolutely - and I've no doubt that the propensity to see patterns isn't the same in all people, but critically also that a propensity to see patterns involves both real patterns but also imaginary patterns as enki suggests. And typically throughout human existence those 'imaginary' patterns tend to be anthropomorphised - effectively seeing or creating pattern that resonate with, or are useful to humans. So we see the man in the moon, we see a face in a cloud formation - we don't see imaginary patterns that have no relevance to human existence.

So I'm not surprised that those people with a greater propensity to see real or imagined patterns may also have a greater propensity to believe in god. Whether that is merely correlation rather than causation is not demonstrated. Nor is whether this is inherently learned behaviour (one thing that is beyond doubt is that religiosity is learned behaviour as children brought up without being taught to be religious almost never are as adults and very few people stray far from the religion they were brought up in).

[Owlswing]

Absolutely - and I've no doubt that the propensity to see patterns isn't the same in all people, but critically also that a propensity to see patterns involves both real patterns but also imaginary patterns as enki suggests. And typically throughout human existence, those 'imaginary' patterns tend to be anthropomorphised - effectively seeing or creating a pattern that resonates with or are useful to humans. So we see the man in the moon, we see a face in a cloud formation - we don't see imaginary patterns that have no relevance to human existence.

So I'm not surprised that those people with a greater propensity to see real or imagined patterns may also have a greater propensity to believe in god. Whether that is merely correlation rather than causation is not considered. Nor is whether this is inherently learned behaviour (one thing that is beyond doubt is that religiosity is learned behaviour as children brought up without being taught to be religious almost never are as adults and very few people stray far from the religion they were brought up in).

 Funny, but in my personal experience, most Pagans are lapsed Christians and the most common reason given is that it, Chritianity, is discredited in its origins and its dognmatic refusal to see the errors in its history as taken from the Bible.

[Enki]

Hi everyone,

Conscious recognition of patterns is one thing and unconscious recognition of patterns is another thing. This involves sensing and discerning subtle causes and patterns in our own lives from childhood to present.

We must remember that unconscious processes are more powerful and overwhelming than conscious ones. In fact, most if not all, conscious processes involve unconscious processes and unconscious decision making. 

These unconscious processes themselves constitute hidden forces and hidden motivations beyond our conscious awareness. Combining this phenomenon with the concepts of panpsychism and cosmopsychism....makes the idea of an Agent more intriguing and compulsive.

Cheers.

Sriram

Glad to see that you at least accept that the unconscious/sub-conscious mind has a major part to play in defining our thoughts and actions. This, of course, is backed up by a great deal of experimental evidence. It is a moot point as to whether any patterns consciously recognised have already gone through this unconscious/sub-conscious process first of course.

However your last paragraph hints again at your own particular bias as there is no evidence whatever for panpsychism or cosmopsychism, and as the ability to sense patterns(either real or imagined) seems to be a natural evolutionary trait in human beings, the idea that sensing patterns is linked to either of these two 'isms' is pure conjecture on your part. I certainly don't find your idea of an Agent at all intriguing and certainly not 'compulsive'. I'm not sure why you would, unless you had a disposition to find anything, however vague and ill defined, and try to make it fit a deeply held, cherished position.

[Sriram]

Merely saying that something is an evolutionary trait does not take away the factor of Intelligence and purpose behind it.

[ProfessorDavey]

Merely saying that something is an evolutionary trait does not take away the factor of Intelligence and purpose behind it.

Why is it a factor of intelligence. I think you are presupposing that god exists and therefore that those with heightened pattern recognition are therefore able to discern something real that others aren't.

Of course if god does not exist then extrapolating real pattern recognition to extend to non real patterns is hardly intelligent is it. It is quite the opposite - believing a pattern exists where there is none. I cannot see anything particularly intelligent about perceiving patterns where none exist.

[Enki]

Merely saying that something is an evolutionary trait does not take away the factor of Intelligence and purpose behind it.

An essential point about any evolutionary trait is that it can be explained without recourse to the idea of intelligence or purpose behind it. Of course this doesn't rule out the possibility that such a purpose may exist but, unless there is evidence that this is so, it lies squarely in the realm of conjecture, as I have already said.

[torridon]

Merely saying that something is an evolutionary trait does not take away the factor of Intelligence and purpose behind it.

The phrase 'evolutionary trait' pretty much does take away any notion of intelligence and purpose behind it.  Evolution is an insentient process; like sunlight or metabolism or arithmetic, it doesn't have hopes or ambitions or concerns.  You need to be sentient to have these attributes.

[Sriram]

Evolution does not mean an unintelligent, automatic process. I have already discussed about human made products...all of which evolve from simple models to complex models...but which have intelligence behind them.  Evolution is everywhere around us in terms of products, culture, civilization, ideas...and always has intelligence and purpose behind it.

Intelligence and purpose do not mean a Christian God! Most of you have Jehovah sitting in your heads and when I mention Intelligence or purpose, you imagine  a old man with a white beard waving his hands and making things happen.

That is not what I mean. Consciousness and Intelligence can be fundamental and an inherent part of the universe. Please read up on Panpsychism and cosmopsychism.  These are serious ideas being considered even by neuroscientists. It is not old school science anymore guys!

[ProfessorDavey]

These are serious ideas being considered even by neuroscientists.

Do you understand how patronising that sounds Sriram.

Neuroscientists are the people driving forward our understanding of brain function, cognition, conscious and unconscious thought processes, behaviour and psychology etc etc in leaps and bounds, not you with your mumbo jumbo.

[Sriram]

https://mindmatters.ai/2020/05/why-is-science-growing-comfortable-with-panpsychism-everything-is-conscious/

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A recent article at New Scientist treats panpsychism as a serious idea in science. That’s thanks to the growing popularity of neuroscientist Giulio Tonioni’s Integrated Information Theory (IIT):

But it’s not just New Scientist. In recent years, Scientific American has been sympathetic to panpsychism as well.

if we are to achieve a precise description of consciousness, we may have to ditch our intuitions and accept that all kinds of inanimate matter could be conscious – maybe even the universe as a whole. “This could be the beginning of a scientific revolution,” says Johannes Kleiner, a mathematician at the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy in Germany.

At one time, a science mag’s typical contributors would merely ridicule the conscious universe, convinced that science will shortly explain consciousness away anyhow.

Panpsychists need not be Darwinists, for example. That is, they need not account for human consciousness either as a trait that evolved to help ancestors of humans survive on the savannah or as a byproduct of such a trait. Bernardo Kastrup has argued explicitly, in response to Darwinist Jerry Coyne, that human consciousness cannot be a mere byproduct of human evolution because it cannot even be measured in traditional science terms.

Panpsychists need not reject evolution in principle. But Darwinism, as commonly expressed, is an outgrowth of physicalism (everything is physical). That is why Darwinian accounts of consciousness are frequently restricted to considerations of what traits helped prehuman ancestors survive.

The reasoning seems feeble at best. A life form hardly needs human consciousness to survive and the claim that human consciousness is a mere byproduct of natural selection for other purposes (cf. Coyne) is an assertion without evidence.

If IIT continues to gain a sympathetic hearing, panpsychism could become, over time, a part of normal science.

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[Gordon]

If IIT continues to gain a sympathetic hearing, panpsychism could become, over time, a part of normal science.

Or not.

Influential philosopher John Searle has given a critique of theory saying "The theory implies panpsychism" and "The problem with panpsychism is not that it is false; it does not get up to the level of being false. It is strictly speaking meaningless because no clear notion has been given to the claim.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_information_theory

[Maeght]

I have been convinced for a long time that atheists probably lack some natural faculty that predisposes them to atheism.  This is probably it!

You think the patterns are there and that you are seeing them but atheists aren't. I think the patterns aren't there and you are seeing something which isn't there. Same old same old. Gets us nowhere.

[torridon]

WB Maeght