Why small children believe more in the afterlife than older ones
Today, I came across an article about the work of Jesse Bering and David Bjorklund, about that the belief in the supernatural is something we are born with. I have only read the article linked, so there may be more to the picture, but here goes: In experiments with children, Jesse Bering and David Bjorklund, have shown that smaller children believe more in the afterlife than older ones. From this, they argue, you can see that a belief in the supernatural seems to be something we are born with, and hence something that have been selected for in the process of natural selection. Belief in the supernatural has had an evolutionary advantage.
Let me try a different explanation. Let's say that as children develop they have two ways of explaining the world,
Empathy means that the child is able to understand other people's wants and intentions, and also animals (the latter either by design or by extension). Now the experiment is about an alligator eating a mouse. Let's say that a small child both has the faculties for empathy and for facts, but chooses to rely less on the facts. That is, the empathy module overrides the facts module, whenver the former has authority. When asked questions about if the mouse needs to eat again the children correctly respond "no", but when it comes to more empathy based questions the smaller children still believe that the mouse is alive. So the child has realised some things about the mouse, but not others. This could be explained so that the child chooses not to rely on the facts module at that early age, because they have learned that it does not yet make accurate predictions. There are not enough facts to make it useful. The child has noticed that sometimes people come and go, and that people react to you even if what you did was directed at somebody else (the parents are for instance communicating with each other when the child is not there). The child may feel powerless if relying on module number 2, and decides that module number 1, blind faith in and empathy with your surroundings, yield better results than trying to be a four year old smartass. It would be outwitted. However module 1 does not give any predictions about if the mouse is going to eat again (empathy is transient in the child, and not targeted towards future emotional states, of hunger in this case)
So the child generalises its empathy and decouples it or at least makes is possible to decouple, from a specific individual. With this line of reasoning, a belief in the supernatural is an emergent effect, rather than a direct consequence, of evolution.
As people grow older, and feel powerless, they will again rather rely on module number 1 than module number 2, after they have exhausted the latter. This may well be what Jesse Bering and David Bjorklund means, but anyway, now this blog entry is made.
Let me try a different explanation. Let's say that as children develop they have two ways of explaining the world,
- one that is based on empathy and relationships
- one that is based on facts and logic
Empathy means that the child is able to understand other people's wants and intentions, and also animals (the latter either by design or by extension). Now the experiment is about an alligator eating a mouse. Let's say that a small child both has the faculties for empathy and for facts, but chooses to rely less on the facts. That is, the empathy module overrides the facts module, whenver the former has authority. When asked questions about if the mouse needs to eat again the children correctly respond "no", but when it comes to more empathy based questions the smaller children still believe that the mouse is alive. So the child has realised some things about the mouse, but not others. This could be explained so that the child chooses not to rely on the facts module at that early age, because they have learned that it does not yet make accurate predictions. There are not enough facts to make it useful. The child has noticed that sometimes people come and go, and that people react to you even if what you did was directed at somebody else (the parents are for instance communicating with each other when the child is not there). The child may feel powerless if relying on module number 2, and decides that module number 1, blind faith in and empathy with your surroundings, yield better results than trying to be a four year old smartass. It would be outwitted. However module 1 does not give any predictions about if the mouse is going to eat again (empathy is transient in the child, and not targeted towards future emotional states, of hunger in this case)
So the child generalises its empathy and decouples it or at least makes is possible to decouple, from a specific individual. With this line of reasoning, a belief in the supernatural is an emergent effect, rather than a direct consequence, of evolution.
As people grow older, and feel powerless, they will again rather rely on module number 1 than module number 2, after they have exhausted the latter. This may well be what Jesse Bering and David Bjorklund means, but anyway, now this blog entry is made.