Sensing spirits and other dangerous beings : “Hardwired” intuitions, or cultural learning - or both?
| Authors | |
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| Year of publication | 2021 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | In darkness and alone, humans fear various “unseen others” – ghosts, monsters, burglars, animals. Previously, I captured such intruder fear accompanied by the intuition of unseen humans’ presence: the “Unpleasant Feeling of Sensed Presence” (UFoP). Initially, Cognitive Science of Religion explained (supernatural) agents’ encounters through the (hyperactive) agency detection module. Following the current critique of cognitive modularity, I argue that it is more promising to think about agency detection in the context of the domain-general mechanism of cognition, the predictive processing. Predictive processing allows context-sensitive learning of respective predators relevant to different ecological and social settings without the need for agent-related fear’ innateness. However, I also argue that the basic fear of predators creeping in the shadows can be understood as a psychological adaptation, considered from Charles Darwin’s times. Therefore, I see ghosts and other scary agents as a product of two intertwined traits – genetically inherited prior schemata and socio-cultural learning, both equally manifesting in a psychological level of personal experience under the condition of uncertainty. In my paper, I will closely describe the presented theoretical argument and illustrate it empirically by the specific UFoP experience captured during my previous studies. |
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