OBSERVATION LEARNING
Very likely the refinement of observation learning accompanied and accelerated the emergence of culture and behavioral change. This capacity also appears to have origins in the remote past: it is observed, for example, among living orangutans.41 Observing how others behave and accomplish tasks often improves an observer’s subsequent performance.42 Such learning also may be a source of belief transmission.43 Young children seem to recognize this as they observe and imitate their older siblings and friends. And observing how others do things is a standard feature of today’s trade schools. As groups increased in size and knowledge, the “learning yield” from observation likely increased significantly.
What is learned by observation is direct evidence. Hearing what others have observed or do is indirect evidence. Compared to direct evidence, indirect evidence is more vulnerable to misinterpretation under conditions of limited language and conceptual capacities. Thus, early on, the number of beliefs built from direct evidence probably exceeded those based on indirect evidence.
It is also worth considering the possibility that some features of human behavior were learned from observing other species. Chimpanzees are known to use sticks to poke into anthills to collect ants for eating. They crack nuts with rocks. They organize their groups hierarchically and defend their territories. Wild dogs and hyenas hunt in packs just as early hunters are thought to have done. Birds store food for the winter, and some species of monkeys wash their food prior to its consumption.
EMOTION
At this moment in time, we are a very cognitively biased species. We place great value in how we reason and in what we believe. We defend our beliefs and reasoning often with surprising intensity. We probably do this more often than we defend our emotions. Thus, on first pass, it may seem improbable that among our ancestors, emotion had a privileged status in the brain relative to cognition. What was felt was given greater consideration than what was thought.
Chimpanzees can serve as a model for this early emotion-cognition asymmetry. They have an emotion-based vocabulary dealing with social interaction.44 They often exhibit anger, which is associated with threats and physical fights. They have emotional responses to dangers posed by other groups of chimpanzees and predators. A reasonable guess is that, following the split of chimpanzees and our ancestors from a common source, early human ancestors had a similar emotion-based vocabulary and information processing system. A related guess is that beliefs lacked the complexity, and divides lacked the precision they would eventually achieve with the emergence of more-refined cognitive capacities and language.
Among these distant relatives, specific behaviors were likely associated with emotions such as pleasure, displeasure, pain, and boredom.45 Eating X was pleasurable and reduced the unpleasantness of hunger. Drinking water when thirsty worked the same way. Visceral change and satisfaction followed. Participating in sex was pleasing. An unanticipated encounter with a large threatening animal was frightening and to be avoided in the future.
It is important to note that many emotions have origins in locations other than the brain, although the brain processes them using a complex network of nerves radiating throughout the body. For example, indigestion begins in the gastrointestinal system. Pain may begin in the toe or in the elbow. Thirst often seems to begin in the mouth, but its origins are elsewhere. Pleasure too can begin at multiple locations, as when one sits down to relax from a day full of tension or overwork just as it can seemingly begin in the back while receiving a gentle massage. That actions associated with pleasurable feelings were repeated more than those that were unpleasant is likely. Repetitive actions suggest that memory was in place and associated with decisions. Such repetitions can be viewed as early forms of belief in the sense that belief is often associated with prediction and action. Studies of nonhuman primates are consistent with this view. They show that reward history predicts foraging behavior and that systems in the parietal cortex process the relative value of competing actions, that is, they anticipate reward versus less-reward outcomes.46
In time, emotion would find a similar place among the positive and negative physiological effects of social interactions. These are known to affect the activity of specific brain areas and brain physiology.47 For example, a serious threat by another has a direct impact on a recipient’s physiology, such as raising the recipient’s level of adrenalin; conversely, a warm smile and positive greetings do the opposite.
To state the preceding points another way, pleasant and unpleasant emotions served as primitive, largely noncognitive body-experienced indicators of the consequences of action or inaction. They are types of direct evidence and they are believable. As a result, emotion likely established its place as a key factor associated with future action.48 Further, the ratio of the emotions of pleasure and displeasure may have served as a subjective measure of well-being.49 In turn, the measure may have provided a hint about the “when” of migration: when the sense of displeasure exceeded that of pleasure, it was time to consider moving on.
To bring these points into focus as they apply today, consider how many things we do based on similar emotion-action associations and the propitious predictions to which they lead. For many, a cup of coffee in the morning is associated with the pleasurable feelings of being awake and energetic. It seems to work every morning, even though one may possess literally no knowledge of the chemistry of caffeine and its effect on the brain. Or take lovemaking, which can be delightful without a detailed understanding of what is going on in the body and brain. The same point applies to work preferences. Some people are more energetic and creative in the morning. For others, it’s the afternoon. Because it’s likely to be that way tomorrow and next week, people arrange their days accordingly.
THE COGNITIVE EXPLOSION
From the beginning of what has been characterized as Homo sapiens’ cognitive explosion—circa forty-five thousand years ago—the fundamental nuts and bolts for complex cognition, belief, and divides were present.
How cognitive systems evolved is still an unanswered question.50 But clearly the precursors of these systems were undergoing change and refinement long before forty-five thousand years ago.51 In time, they would overshadow the primacy of emotion-belief and emotion-action connections—recall that Descartes said, “I think, therefore I am,” not, “I feel, therefore I am.” There are steps preceding the explosion that seem likely, such as the brain developing capacities to imagine and rehearse before speaking.52 The capacity to categorize information, such as identifying dangerous and non-dangerous animals or plants, is also likely. Developing inferences about the intentions of others by evaluating their actions is yet another example. That nonhuman primates have many of these capacities hints again at their possible ancient history. As the explosion unfolded, it is likely that our ancestors could plan well ahead in time, think and speak in long and nested sentences, evaluate the utility of behavior, and believe in ways similar to people today.
The cognitive explosion was the outcome of thousands of minor steps in evolution leading to a highly sophisticated brain that is efficient in a variety of functions, such as remembering, planning, decision making, believing, creating and responding to music, and, at times, estimating risk.53 Most important for this book, these functions often seem to operate independently and compete with each other. That this is the case is suggested by the frequency with which our emotion and cognitive systems are responsible for beliefs that are associated with actions that backfire and divides that misinform. Emotion often overrides reason and cognition and vice versa—they are intertwined.54
MIGRATION OUT OF AFRICA
The prevailing view among today’s scholars of human evolution is that anatomically modern humans evolved somewhere between 200,000 and 160,000 years ago.55 At some time, circa 100,000 to 60,000 years ago, they began migrating out of Africa, although what route or routes they took is currently a topic of debate.56 With migration, social and environmental knowledge would increase and cul
ture would notch up in complexity.
Dispersion out of Africa to different environments meant a parallel dispersion of beliefs and divides. Different subgroups of Homo sapiens were changing in response to different demographic challenges. Genetic changes followed.57 Beliefs and divides would not necessarily get simpler: the greater the variety of experience and knowledge, the greater the potential for different beliefs and divides.
Despite the many mishaps that befell individuals and groups, our ancestors would eventually occupy all the major ecosystems and landmasses of the world.58 The refinement of capacities dealing with the manufacture of material goods continued in parallel. For example, changes in tool manufacturing track over the centuries from millions of years ago to forty-five thousand years ago, at which time, there occurred an exponential increase in their complexity.59 A rapid increase in computational capacities—essentially, “intelligence”—may explain this surge in cultural and creative complexity, although rapid changes are rare in recent human evolution.60 (An alternative interpretation for the explosion is introduced in chapters yet to come.) Through these changes, natural selection continued as indicated by recent genetic studies that suggest that humans have undergone detectable genetic change since the end of the last ice age some ten thousand years ago. Indeed, even today there may be continuing genetic divergence among remotely located groups due to the selection effects of different physical and social environments.61
This brief and speculative review has been aimed at identifying antecedent features of brain, behavior, and contexts associated with the evolution of belief and divides. Our ancestors evolved due to natural selection, encountering novel environments, and developing culture. Capacities to connect specific actions with emotions of pleasure and displeasure appear to have been active before the refinement of capacities we normally refer to as cognitive. With time, this relationship has reversed. An increase in computational capacities may explain the increase in the complexity of culture and creativity that occurred some forty-five thousand years ago.
Four days after sending a draft of this chapter, Greg’s e-mail arrived.
Hi Michael,
The chapter is fascinating but, as you no doubt suspect, I have questions. But first, some of my experiences, which map to your text. I agree that imaginings and beliefs often “pop” into one’s head. Moreover, when I try to figure out what might have caused them I usually fail. I distinguish such moments from what I would call associations. If in walking past a café I imagine that it would be delightful to be sitting there having a conversation with you, that’s an association—I wouldn’t have imagined it unless I passed the café. Such imaginings contrast with head-popping when there is no obvious stimulus—for example, the other day I was walking through the countryside, enjoying the scenery, and out of nowhere I imagined a fix to my 1937 Chevrolet, which is stored in a garage in Boston. Much the same is true with beliefs. They too pop into my head and often at odd times. Usually these are not beliefs that I develop after carefully attending to evidence or, in many instances, ever thought of before.
It’s your distinction between ambiguity and uncertainty that troubles me most. I have read and reread what you’ve said. I’m still uneasy. They seem to overlap more than they are separate. Could they be examples of false categories?
Still, as said, overall a fascinating and very informative chapter —so go with it.
Regards,
Greg
EVOLVED BRAIN SYSTEMS
Belief and divides are products of brain systems that have been undergoing change and refinement for millions of years. A similar history is likely for imagining, mirroring (replicating the brain activities of others), Theory of mind (reading others’ brain states), attributing (assigning attributes to persons and events), and triggering (events initiate specific brain states). Alone or in combinations, they are in part responsible for beliefs and divides. Imaginings, belief, ambiguity, and uncertainty are the topics of this chapter. Mirroring, Theory of mind, attributing, and triggering are discussed in chapters that follow.
IMAGINING
When one of my sons was five, we spent a day at the local zoo. He found it delightful. The chimpanzees entertained us with their tricks. Parrots gave us advice. Giraffes were running back and forth for no obvious reason. The lion looked directly at my son and growled; after a moment of crying and hiding behind me, he recovered. We visited the aquarium, fed ducks and goats, and went for a ride on a pony. On the drive home, he asked if he could live in the zoo with the animals.
Once we were home, he went to his room and soon emerged with a picture of an animal with the body of an elephant, the head of a giraffe, fins of a fish, and feet of a duck.
“Dad, look! It’s my new friend.”
“Let’s see. You’re friend, does it have a name?” I asked.
“Boo, it’s Boo.”
“And what is it?”
“It’s my friend, Boo,” he repeated.
“Did we see an animal that looked like that at the zoo?”
“No, but he’s there.”
Imagining is an act of forming a mental image of what is not actually present or as experiencing something never before experienced. Described another way, it is an act of the brain associated with awareness of what is not currently sensed.1
Scholarly writings distinguish between imagining and belief. What is imagined is not thought to initiate action, while belief often is assumed to do so.2 On close evaluation, this distinction seldom holds up. Imaginings resemble beliefs in several ways. We know of them because we experience them. We remember them. They are products of unperceived brain systems that are active prior to the time we become aware of them.3 Their representations are assumed to have energy, mass, and location in the brain. They may be associated with action; for example, I may imagine that cleaning my disorganized garage is necessary, following which, I find a broom and a dustpan and go to work. There may be no limits to such creativity.
Imaginings differ in their content. Usually they include features of the familiar, such as envisioning the desirability of a cold drink of water when one is thirsty but no water is available or imagining a novel animal after a day at the zoo.
It is uncertain at what time during the past imagining evolved. Hints come from studies of nonhuman primates. They are known to possess problem-solving capacities and exercise strategy choice in response to both novel experimental challenges and fictive outcomes (possible rewards or punishments that have not yet been experienced).4 Other studies suggest that they possess the capacity to causally connect events that occur close together in time.5 Thus they may possess information-processing systems similar to those of humans, which means that the rudiments of these systems likely extend far back in the past.
Early imaginings might have occurred in response to natural events, such as earthquakes, floods, or eclipses. They are strong candidates for eliciting attention and leading to cause-and-effect connections among those experiencing them. Feeling the earth quake could lead to an imagined cause, such as the earth being alive. An eclipse could be conceived of as the work of an unknown entity altering solar events. Or it could work the other way; an earthquake or an eclipse could be conceived of as a cause. Subsequent events, such as an outbreak of sickness, the birth of triplets, or unusual behavior by a familiar animal, might be the imagined effects.
Biological differences in emotional and cognitive states are other possible sources as well as causes of different imaginings.6 For example, people with normally high levels of brain dopamine activity are more likely to find significance in correlations and more frequently make cause-and-effect connections compared to those with low activity levels.7 High levels of the brain chemical serotonin correlate with an optimistic outlook and possibly an above average tolerance of individual differences and day-to-day disappointments.8 Sensation seeking and impulsivity are also possibilities. Recent studies have linked these behaviors to atypical genetic profiles and above average brain dopamine activit
y.9 These behaviors may be associated with imaginings such as contemplating highly risky acts as exciting or conceiving of causal relationships, which vary from normative views of how the world works. Or, consider studies that show that when two people are watching the same event, such as a movie, their fMRI profiles are similar. However, when the movie is over and they discuss their interpretations, they often differ significantly.10 These studies not only suggest that there may be no species-characteristic way of interpreting experience but rather that individual differences in interpretations may be the rule, not the exception—so too possibly with imaginings.
Then there are mind-altering drugs. It is not known when our ancestors first experimented with these drugs. There is, however, cave art dating back at least seventy thousand years depicting social gatherings, hunting, and supernatural entities. Much of this art is thought to be the work of artists influenced by drugs that are associated with novel states of awareness.11 This possibility is consistent with what is known about brain-altering drugs, such as LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), which leads to a distorted sense of time, the presence of radiant colors, and visualizing crawling geometric patterns.12
Dreams are yet another possibility. Often they consist of parts of experiences reconfigured in novel ways similar to moments when the brain is wandering.
Differences in memory capacities also need to be considered. Many of the relatively stable features of memory storage and recall among today’s humans are likely more refined and less varied than in the past.13
Then there is a host of imaginings that remain to be explained, such as Atlantis: fact, fiction, or a mixture?
Whatever the details, the point to stress is that imaginings were experienced and interpreted. In turn, a gradually expanding library developed composed of imaginings and their interpretations. Some would become beliefs, predict future events, and become associated with behavior. Others would not.
Believing Page 15