Religion and Cognitive Science: Cognitive Constraints and Top-down Causation

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Religion and Cognitive Science Cognitive
Constraints and Top-down Causation

• James A. Van Slyke
• Fuller Theological Seminary

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Cognitive Science of Religion

• 1990s Decade of the Brain
• Success of Cognitive Sciences
• New Discoveries in Neuroscience
• Evolutionary Theory
• Strong research program
• Insights from evolution applied to human behavior

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Cognitive Science of Religion
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Evolutionary Psychology

• Brain consists of cognitive modules
• Solve adaptive problems of our ancient ancestors
• Swiss army knife
• Each module is a tool
• Agency Detection Device
• Theory of Mind
• Stone Age Mind

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Evolutionary Psychology

• Evolutionary ancestors
• Pleistocene Era 1.8 to 11,000 years before
  recorded history
• Adaptive problems faced
• Sexual selection
• Facial symmetry
• Waist to hip Ratio
• Kin Selection Altruism
• Predator Detection

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Minimally Counterintuive Hypothesis (MCI)

• Boyer (2001) Religion Explained
• Process information according to intuitive
  ontology contained in templates
• PERSON
• NATURAL OBJECT
• TOOL
• ANIMAL
• PLANT

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Minimally Counterintuitive Hypothesis (MCI)

• Religious concepts retain intuitive ontological
  categories while violating certain expectations
• Omniscient God PERSON special cognitive
  powers
• Visiting ghosts PERSON no material body
• Reincarnation PERSON no death extra body
  available
• Listening statue TOOL cognitive functions
• Guardian River NATURAL OBJECT incest
  abhorrence

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Minimally Counterintuitive Hypothesis (MCI)

• Religious concepts share a similar conceptual
  structure across cultures
• They are minimally counterintuitive (MCI)
• Natural kinds with a limited number of unusual
  properties (i.e. expectation-violations)
• Being MCI makes them attention-grabbing, easy to
  remember, and thus fit for cultural
  transmission.

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Theological Incorrectness

• But concepts with many unusual properties
  (expectation violations) are hard to recall.
• This is the case with theological concepts, which
  are maximally counterintuitive (MXCI)
• God is an omnipresent, omnipotent, omnisicent
  essence with multiple forms derived from the same
  substance that has no creation or cessation
  point.

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Theological Incorrectness Hypothesis

• Definition
• Barrett (1999)
• Religious cognition which requires quick recall
  relies on intuitive knowledge

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Theological Incorrectness Hypothesis

• Example narrative
• A boy was swimming alone in a swift and rocky
  river. The boy got his left leg caught between
  two large, gray rocks and couldnt get out.
  Branches of trees kept bumping into him as they
  hurried past. He thought he was going to drown
  and so he began to struggle and pray. Though God
  was answering another prayer in another part of
  the world when the boy started praying, before
  long God responded by pushing one of the rocks so
  the boy could get his leg out. The boy struggled
  to the river bank and fell over exhausted.

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Cognitive Science of Religion

• Explicit religious beliefs do not reflect actual
  beliefs
• Implicit cognitive systems
• by-product of unconscious, implicit cognitive
  systems

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Problems of Reduction

• Bottom-up account of religious cognition

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Emergent Cognitive Systems

• Rather than a Swiss Army knife, cognitive systems
  are flexible means of representation
• Representational systems dependent on
  environmental feedback
• Formation of patterns of neuronal activation

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Stone Age Mind or Symbolic Mind?

• Terrence Deacon (Symbolic Species 1997)
• Human cognitive processing has become front
  heavy
• Brain structure evolved connections from the
  prefrontal cortex throughout the brain
• Enabled the symbolic nature of human processing,
  abstract concepts, and intelligence

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Co-evolutionary Processes

• Language Development involved changes in cultural
  transmission and the brain
• Languages became user-friendly easy to learn
  by children
• The brain has adapted in order to make it easy to
  learn language front heavy

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Parallel Distributed Processing

• Word meaning and language structure are
  internalized patterns in PDP networks

• Religious cognition is not based on intuitive
  ontology, but association networks
• Networks built up over time

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Top-down Causation

• Top-down Processing
• information processing guided by higher-level
  mental processes
• as when we construct perceptions drawing on our
  experience and expectations
• Top-down Causation
• Using higher level mental processes (i.e.
  memories, concepts, etc.) to direct behavior

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Top-down Processes

• Ambiguous Figure
• Old or Young Woman?

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Top-down Processes

• Dr. Emily Grossman
• Form from motion

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Mind Externalized

• Being There Andy Clark (1997)
• Cognition is not just in the head but relies on
  external scaffolding
• Social institutions, religious traditions, texts
  act as a form of external memory that we rely on
  for religious cognition
• Partial Programs
• Cognitive Programs are the product of initial
  parameters set by genetics and normal brain
  development
• But, also develop according to environmental
  feedback, which helps to write the program

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A Different Model
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Implications

• Implicit cognitive systems are only part of the
  story of human cognition
• Higher level semantic systems (concepts, beliefs,
  etc.) also have a role to play in behavior and
  cognition
• Cognitive Science of Religion only provides a
  partial picture