Believing

by Michael McGuire

  6. Jeannerod, “Consciousness of Action as an Embodied Consciousness.”

  7. S. Pockett, “The Neuroscience of Movement,” in Pockett, Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?, pp. 9–24.

  8. Burton, On Being Certain; see also Jeannerod, “Conciousness of Action as an Embodied Consciousness.”

  9. B. Libert, “Time of Conscious Intention to Act in Relation to Onset of Cerebral Activity (Readiness-Potential): The Unconscious Initiation of a Freely Voluntary Act,” Brain 106 (1983): 1216–28; see also D. M. Eagleman, “The Where and When of Intention,” Science 303 (2004): 1144–46; M. Desmurget et al., “Movement Intention after Parietal Cortex Stimulation in Humans,” Science 324 (2009): 811–13; and P. Haggard, “The Sources of Human Volition,” Science 324 (2009): 731–33.

  10. R. Menary, ed., The Extended Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2010).

  11. G. D. Stuber et al., “Reward-Predictive Cues Enhance Excitatory Synaptic Strength onto Midbrain Dopamine Neurons,” Science 321 (2008): 1690–92; see also G. D. Stuber et al., “Excitatory Transmission from the Amygdala to Nucleus Accumbens Facilitates Reward Seeking,” Nature 475 (2011): 377–80; K. Matsumoto et al., “Neuronal Correlates of Goal-Based Motor Selection in the Prefrontal Cortex,” Science 301 (2003): 229–32; and S. B. Flagel et al., “A Selective Role for Dopamine in Stimulus-Reward Learning,” Nature 469 (2011): 53–57.

  12. P. Cisek and J. F. Kalaska, “Neural Correlates of Mental Rehearsal in Dorsal Premotor Cortex,” Nature 431 (2004): 993–96; M. R. Roesch and C. R. Olson, “Neuronal Activity Related to Reward Value and Motivation in Primate Frontal Cortex,” Science 304 (2004): 307–10; and Eagleman, “Where and When of Intention.”

  13. L. P. Sugrue et al., “Matching Behavior and the Representation of Value in the Parietal Cortex,” Science 304 (2004): 1782–86; see also H. Phillips, “The Pleasure Seekers,” New Scientist, October 11, 2003.

  14. M. Shermer, The Believing Brain (New York: Times Books, 2011).

  15. R. Custers and H. Aarts, “The Unconscious Will: How the Pursuit of Goals Operates outside of Conscious Awareness,” Science 329 (2010): 47–50; see also P. Berkes et al., “Spontaneous Cortical Activity Reveals Hallmarks of an Optimal Internal Model of the Environment,” Science 331 (2011): 83–87.

  16. M. A. Killingworth, “A Wandering Mind Is an Unhappy Mind,” Science 330 (2010): 932.

  17. K. Smith, “Taking Aim at Free Will,” Nature 477 (2011): 23–25; see also L. Baumeister et al., “Do You Believe in Free Will?” PsyBlog, January 23, 2009, http://www.spring.org.uk/2009/01/do-you-believe-in-free-will.php (accessed April 3, 2010); D. Mobbs, “Free Will Takes Flight: How Our Brains Respond to an Approaching Menace,” Phys.org, August 23, 2007, http://www.physorg.com/news107098087.html (accessed August 24, 2007); D. Overbye, “Free Will: Now You Have It, Now You Don’t,” New York Times, January 2, 2007; D. Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, 2011); M. Gazziniga, Who’s in Charge? Free Will and the Science of the Brain (New York: Ecco, 2011); and D. Eagleman, Incognito (New York: Pantheon, 2011).

  18. G. Dragoi and S. Tonegawa, “Preplay of Future Place Cell Sequences by Hippocampal Cellular Assemblies,” Nature 469 (2011): 397–401, see also E. I. Moser and M. B. Moser, “Seeing into the Future,” Nature 469 (2011): 303–304; and Cisek and Kalaska, “Neural Correlates of Mental Rehearsal in Dorsal Premotor Cortex.”

  19. S. Gallagher, “Where’s the Action? Epiphenomenalism and the Problem of Free Will,” in Pockett, Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?, pp. 109–24; see also M. Farah, “Area Responsible for ‘Self-Control’ Found in the Human Brain,” Phys.org, August 21, 2007, http://www.physorg.com/news106936688.html (accessed August 23, 2007).

  20. Burton, On Being Certain.

  21. A. Noe, Action in Perception (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004); see also M. A. Palmer, “Beyond Infrastructure,” Nature 467 (2010): 534–35; and L. Sanders, “Residents of the Brain,” Science News, July 30, 2011.

  22. S. Harris et al., “Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief, and Uncertainty,” Annals of Neurology 63 (2008): 141–47.

  23. These choices provide an interpretative quandary.

  24. J. L. Vincent et al., “Intrinsic Functional Architecture in the Anaesthetized Monkey Brain,” Nature 447 (2007): 83–86.

  25. Ibid.; see also M. A. Pinsk and S. Kastner, “Unconscious Networking,” Nature 447 (2007): 46–47.

  26. Moser and Moser, “Seeing into the Future.”

  27. J. Feierman, personal communication with the author; see also Moser and Moser, “Seeing into the Future.”

  28. W. J. Freeman, “Consciousness, Intentionality, and Causality,” in Pockett, Does Consciousness Cause Behavior?, pp. 73–108; see also K. Meyer, “Another Remembered Present,” Science 335 (2012): 415–16; and Eagleman, Incognito.

  29. L. Floridi, The Philosophy of Information (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

  30. C. E. Shannon and W. Weaver, The Mathematical Theory of Communication (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1949).

  CHAPTER 11. THE BIOLOGY OF BELIEF

  1. R. D. Alexander, “The Search for a General Theory of Behavior,” Behavioral Sciences 20 (1975): 77–100.

  2. T. E Cerling et al., “Woody Cover and Hominin Environments in the Past 6 Million Years,” Nature 476 (2011): 51–56.

  3. J. Krause et al., “The Complete Mitochondrial DNA Genome of an Unknown Hominin from Southern Siberia,” Nature 464 (2010): 894–97; see also E. Callaway, “Fossil Genome Reveals Ancestral Link,” Nature 468 (2010): 1012; D. Reich et al., “Genetic History of an Archaic Hominin Group from Denisova Cave in Siberia,” Nature 468 (2010): 1053–60; S. A. Parfitt et al., “Early Pleistocene Human Occupation at the Edge of the Boreal Zone in Northwest Europe,” Nature 466 (2010): 229–32; A. Gibbons, “A New View of the Birth of Homo sapiens,” Science 331 (2011): 392–94; and R. Dennell, “Early Homo sapiens in China,” Nature 468 (2010): 512–13.

  4. Gibbons, “New View of the Birth of Homo sapiens.”

  5. Dennell, “Early Homo sapiens in China.”

  6. M. A. Bell et al., Evolution since Darwin (Sunderland, MA: Sinauer, 2010).

  7. Lin Edwards, “Humans Were Once an Endangered Species,” January 21, 2010, Phys.org, http://www.physorg.com/news183278038.html (accessed January 19, 2010).

  8. H. Harpending, “Are Humans Evolving Faster?” December 6, 2007, Phys.org, http://www.physorg.com/news116169889.html (accessed December 10, 2007).

  9. J. Shreeve, “Evolutionary Road,” National Geographic 218 (2010): 34–61.

  10. S. P. McPherron et al., “Evidence for Stone-Tool-Assisted Consumption of Animal Tissues before 3.39 Million Years Ago at Dikika, Ethiopia,” Nature 466 (2010): 857–60; see also D. R. Braun, “Australopithecine Butchers,” Nature 466 (2010): 828.

  11. J. Kass, “Surprisingly Complex Behaviors Appear to Be ‘Hard-Wired’ in the Primate Brain,” March 15, 2005, EurekAlert!, http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-03/vu-scb031505.php (accessed March 16, 2005); see also W. R. Clark and M. Grunstein, Are We Hardwired? The Role of Genes in Human Behavior (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

  12. T. H. Saey, “Genetic Dark Matter,” Science News (December 18, 2010); see also T. H. Saey, “Scientists Still Making Entries in Human Genetic Encyclopedia,” Science News, November 6, 2010.

  13. J. Z. Tsien, “Brain’s Reward Center Also Responds to Bad Experiences,” Medicine & Health/Neurosciences, February 11, 2011; see also S. B. Flagel et al., “A Selective Role for Dopamine in Stimulus-Reward Learning,” Nature 469 (2011): 53–57.

  14. E. Koechlin et al., “The Architecture of Cognitive Control in the Human Frontal Cortex,” Science 302 (2003): 1181–85.

  15. P. J. Zak, “The Neurobiology of Trust,” Scientific American (June 2008); see also C. K. W. De Dreu et al., “The Neuropeptide Oxytocin Regulates Parochial Altruism in Intergroup Conflict among Humans,” Science 328 (2010): 1408–11.

  16. T. Gruter and C. C. Carbon, “Escaping Attention,” Science 328 (2010): 4
35–36; see also A. W. Woolley et al., “Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups,” Science 330 (2010): 686–88.

  17. L. Brothers, Friday’s Footprint (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); see also A. Dranovsky, “Brain Structure Adapts to Environmental Change,” Neuroscience, Medical Xpress, June 13, 2011, http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-06-brain-environmental.html (accessed June 13, 2011).

  18. A. Gopnik, The Philosophical Baby (London: Bodley Head, 2010).

  19. B. Bower, “Tool Finishing Technique Arose before Humans Left Africa,” Science News, November 20, 2010.

  20. S. Dehaene, Reading in the Brain (New York: Viking, 2009).

  21. D. M. Buss, The Evolution of Desire (New York: Basic Books, 1994); see also A. Troisi, “Gender Differences in Vulnerability to Social Stress: A Darwinian Perspective,” Physiology & Behavior 73 (2001): 443–49; S. Baron-Cohen, The Essential Difference: Men, Women and the Extreme Male Brain (London: Allen Lane, 2003); S. Baron-Cohen et al., “Sex Differences in the Brain: Implications for Explaining Autism,” Science 310 (2005): 819–23; D. C. Funder, “Personality,” Annual Review of Psychology 52 (February 2001), http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.197 (accessed June 5, 2013); O. Collignon, “Women Outperform Men When Identifying Emotions,” Medicine & Health/Psychology & Psychiatry, October 21, 2009; M. Eisenstein, “The First Supper,” Nature 468 (2010): S8–S9; M. Eisenstein, “Of Beans and Genes,” Nature 468 (2010): S13–S15; and K. MacDonald, “Personality, Evolution, and Development,” in Evolution and Human Development, ed. R. Burgess and K. F. MacDonald (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2004), pp. 2–28.

  22. R. Boyd and P. J. Richerson, The Origin and Evolution of Cultures (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); see also P. J. Richerson et al., “Cultural Innovations and Demographic Change,” Human Biology 81 (2009): 211–35.

  23. M. D. Hauser, “The Impossibility of Impossible Cultures,” Nature 460 (2009): 190–96.

  24. Parfitt et al., “Early Pleistocene Human Occupation at the Edge of the Boreal Zone in Northwest Europe,” Nature 466 (2010): 229–32.

  25. F. Salter, On Genetic Interests (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2003); see also E. Pennisi, “Close Encounters of the Prehistoric Kind,” Science 328 (2010): 680–83; R. E. Green et al., “A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome,” Science 328 (2010): 710–22; L. Sanders, “Genes Reveal Mysterious Group of Hominoids as Neandertal Relatives,” Science News, January 15, 2011; A. Gibbons, “Lucy’s Big Brother Reveals New Facets of Her Species,” Science 328 (2010): 1619; T. Bayne, The Unity of Consciousness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010); and E. Pennisi, “Human Evolution: Did Cooked Tubers Spur the Evolution of Big Brains?” Science 283 (1999): 2004–2005.

  26. R. I. M. Dunbar and S. Shultz, “Evolution in the Social Brain,” Science 317 (2007): 1344–47; see also C. Efferson et al., “The Coevolution of Cultural Groups and Ingroup Favoritism,” Science 321 (2008): 1844–49; and M. Brune et al., eds., The Social Brain (Chichester, UK: Wiley and Sons, 2003).

  27. T. Singer et al., “Empathic Neural Responses Are Modulated by the Perceived Fairness of Others,” Nature 439 (2006): 466–69; see also R. L. Trivers, “The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism,” Quarterly Review of Biology 46 (1971): 35–57; E. Fehr and U. Fischbacher, “The Nature of Human Altruism,” Nature 425 (2003): 785–91; S. M. H. Hamann, “Positive and Negative Emotional Verbal Stimuli Elicit Activity in the Left Amygdala,” Neuroreport 13 (2002): 15–19; and M. Balter, “Did Working Memory Spark Creative Culture?” Science 328 (2010): 160–63.

  28. P. B. deMenocal, “Climate and Human Evolution,” Science 331 (2011): 540–42; see also Dranovsky, “Brain Structure Adapts to Environmental Change.”

  29. E. Mayr, Populations, Species, and Evolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1940).

  30. R. I. M. Dunbar, “Neocortex Size as a Constraint on Group Size in Primates,” Journal of Human Evolution 22 (1992): 469–93; see also R. I. M. Dunbar, “Coevolution of Neocortical Size, Group Size, and Language in Humans,” Behavioral and Brain Sciences 16 (1993): 681–735; R. Dunbar, “Evolution of the Social Brain,” Science 302 (2003): 1160–61; R. Dunbar, “You’ve Got to Have (150) Friends,” New York Times, December 25, 2010; W. Zhou et al., “Discrete Hierarchical Organization of Social Group Sizes,” Proceedings: Biological Sciences 272 (2005): 439–44; and L. Tiger, The Pursuit of Pleasure (Boston: Little, Brown, 1992).

  31. G. Miller, “Social Savvy Boosts the Collective Intelligence of Groups,” Science 330 (2010): 22; see also A. Williams et al., “Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups,” Science 330 (2010): 686–88; M. O. Ernst, “Decisions Made Better,” Science 329 (2010): 1022–23; and B. Chapais, “The Deep Social Structure of Humankind,” Science 331 (2011): 1276–77.

  32. R. Sorabji, Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008).

  33. R. C. Malenka and R. Malinow, “Recollection of Lost Memories,” Nature 469 (2011): 44–45.

  34. B. Bower, “Talking Alike Cements Relationships,” Science News, December 18, 2010.

  35. D. Bickerton, Adam’s Tongue (London: Hill and Wang, 2010).

  36. M. Tomasello, Origins of Human Communication (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2008); see also W. H. Calvin, The Brief History of the Mind: From Apes to Intellect and Beyond (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004); and Bickerton, Adam’s Tongue.

  37. P. Lieberman, The Biology and Evolution of Language (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984); M. Balter, “Animal Communication Helps Reveal Roots of Language,” Science 328 (2010): 969–71.

  38. Tomasello, Origins of Human Communication.

  39. Dehaene, Reading in the Brain.

  40. Balter, “Animal Communication Helps Reveal Roots of Language.”

  41. M. Dindo et al., “Observational Learning in Orangutan Cultural Transmission Chains,” Royal Society, September 15, 2010, http://rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2010/09/10/rsbl.2010.0637 (accessed September 16, 2010).

  42. L. Rendell et al., “Why Copy Others? Insights from the Social Learning Strategies Tournament,” Science 328 (2010): 208–13; see also E. Pennisi, “Conquering by Copying,” Science 328 (2010b): 165–67; and J. Cooper, “MRI Scans Show Brain’s Response to Actions of Others,” Medicine & Health/Psychology & Psychiatry, August 11, 2010.

  43. J. Feierman, personal communication with the author.

  44. J. Panksepp, “Affective Consciousness: Core Emotional Feelings in Animals and Humans,” Consciousness and Cognition (2005).

  45. H. Phillips, “The Pleasure Seekers,” New Scientist, October 11, 2003; see also R. Layard, “Measuring Subjective Well-Being,” Science 327 (2010): 534–35.

  46. L. P. Sugrue et al., “Matching Behavior and the Representation of Value in the Parietal Cortex,” Science 304 (2004): 1782–86.

  47. M. T. McGuire and A. Troisi, “Physiological Regulation-Deregulation and Psychiatric Disorders,” in Ethology and Sociobiology, ed. J. Feierman, 8 (1987): 9S–12S; see also T. Canli et al., “Amygdala Responses to Happy Faces as a Function of Extraversion,” Science 296 (2002): 2191; P. J. Whalen et al., “Human Amygdala Responsivity to Masked Fearful Eye Whites,” Science 306 (2004): 2061; J. J. Patton et al., “The Primate Amygdala Represents the Positive and Negative Value of Visual Stimuli during Learning,” Nature 439 (2006): 865–70; L. Tiger and M. McGuire, God’s Brain (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010); and R. J. Dolan, “Emotion, Cognition, and Behavior,” Science 298 (2002): 1191–94.

  48. L. Young, “Emotions Key to Judging Others,” Medicine & Health/Neuroscience, March 24, 2010.

  49. Layard, “Measuring Subjective Well-Being.”

  50. C. Heyes, “Four Routes of Cognitive Evolution,” Psychological Reports 110 (2003): 713–27.

  51. J. N. Wood et al., “The Perception of Rational, Goal-Directed Action in Non­human Primates,” Science 317 (2007): 1402–1405; see also L. Palmer and G. Lynch, “A Kantian View of Space,�
� Science 328 (2010): 1487–88.

  52. P. Bloom, Descartes’ Baby (New York: Free Press, 2004).

  53. S. Gaidos, “More Than a Feeling,” Science News, August 14, 2010; see also M. V. Flinn et al., “Ecological Dominance, Social Competition, and Coalitionary Arms Race,” Evolution and Human Behavior 26 (2005): 10–46, http://jayhanson.us/_Biology/Social_Arms_Race.pdf (accessed June 6, 2013).

  54. A. Rustichini, “Emotion and Reason in Making Decisions,” Science 310 (2005): 1624–25.

  55. C. Stringer and R. McKie, African Exodus (London: Jonathan Cape, 1996).

  56. M. Lawler, “A Forgotten Corridor Rediscovered,” Science 328 (2010): 1092–97.

  57. L. L. Cavalli-Sforza et al., The History and Geography of Human Genes (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).

  58. B. Bower, “The Ultimate Colonists,” Science News, July 5, 2003.

  59. A. Powell et al., “Late Pleistocene Demography and the Appearance of Modern Human Behavior,” Science 324 (2009): 1298–1301.

  60. R. D. Hernandez et al., “Classic Selective Sweeps Were Rare in Recent Human Evolution,” Science 331 (2011): 920–24.

  61. H. Harpending, “Are Humans Evolving Faster?” December 6, 2007, Phys.org, http://www.physorg.com/news116169889.html (accessed December 10, 2007).

  CHAPTER 12. ENTER IMAGININGS, BELIEFS, UNCERTAINTY, AND AMBIGUITY

  1. J. Feierman, “The Image of God to Whom We Pray: An Evolutionary Psycho­biological Perspective,” Pensamiento 67254 (2012): 817–29.

  2. T. B. Ward et al., Creative Thought (Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 1997); see also P. Harris, The Work of Imagination (London: Blackwell, 2000).

  3. D. M. Eagleman, “The Where and When of Intention,” Science 303 (2004): 1144–46; see also P. Cisek and J. F. Kalaska, “Neural Correlates of Mental Rehearsal in Dorsal Premotor Cortex,” Nature 431 (2004): 993–96; and G. D. Stuber et al., “Reward-Predictive Cues Enhance Excitatory Synaptic Strength onto Midbrain Dopamine Neurons,” Science 321 (2008): 1690–92.