In a great book Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast the author, Lewis Wolpert, writes about the nature of belief. Investor should find this book interesting as it deals directly with the formation of mental models which could be wrong.
“The word belief, while freely and widely used to account, for example, for causes is nevertheless not easy to define. Neither philosophers nor scientists have been successful. David Hume, my hero philospher, said of belief that he regarded it as a great mystery. And some 200 years later, Bertrand Russell recognised that belief was a central problem in the analysis of mind. For many, belief is intimately associated with religion, and religious beliefs will be dealt with in detail. It is the everyday use of the word that I deal with in this book, and I will focus on those beliefs that relate to the causes of events that affect our lives in significant ways. Beliefs relating to moral issues will receive much less attention.
The anthropologist Rodney Needham has analysed the origins of the word belief. In Middle English, from around the twelth to the fifteenth century, the verb bileven already had the sense of believing in a religion, of being valid or true, of having a conviction. Going further back, one finds galifan in Old English and galaubjan in Gothic - laub is related to the Indo-European to love, want, desire. The English concept of belief is clearly linked to Christianity and the acceptance of the Christian faith.
Needham finds it so difficult to define reliably what we mean by belief that he seems almost tempted to abandon the word altogether. He does not do so, however, but points out that statements about belief need to be analysed within the framework of the different cultures, and a mastery of the local language, including its subtleties, is essential. For example, he says that the term kwoth for the spirit of the Nuer religion in Africa is very hard to understand. Needham goes on to say that 'Belief is not a discriminable experience, it does not constitute a natural resemblance among men, and it does not belong to the "common behaviour of mankind.'" Thus, he argues, when one talks of the beliefs of other people, particularly in relation to non-Western religions, one has little idea of what is going on in their minds. I am not at all sure Needham is right, for all cultures have beliefs about causes, but whether there are similarities in different cultures as to their beliefs, and how they arise, is a central problem.
Another problem, as Needham points out, is how belief affects the behaviour of the individual. For example, a Saultaire Indian may endanger his life by believing a bear can understand what he is saying, and an Australian Aborigine believes that he will feel pain if a lock of his hair, taken away, is cut. How can such beliefs be reconciled with their experience? Belief is itself a word not always easily translated from one language to another.
The Shorter Oxford Dictionary gives two definitions of belief: 'The mental action, condition, or habit, of trusting to or confiding in a person or thing; trust, confidence, faith.' A second definition is 'Mental assent to or acceptance of a proposition, statement, or fact, as true, on the grounds of authority or evidence; the mental condition involved in this assent.' And for 'believe', 'To have confidence or faith in, and consequently rely upon.'
A key feature characterising something as a belief as distinct from factual knowledge is how reliable the evidence is for the belief. But while evidence is a key word in relation to the validity of causal beliefs, it too presents severe problems of definition. How does one obtain reliable evidence? By authority? By direct observation? By science?
A distinctive feature of belief is that it may be graded true or false to varying degrees, depending on the evidence available, but it usually carries conviction. Unlike common knowledge, beliefs always have a true and false value - how right or wrong they are - regardless of whether or not the individual is aware of this. Reliable knowledge, by contrast, refers to what is clearly known - how to drive a car, for example, or that this is a page in a book, are facts. Probably the same could be said of all, well nearly all, of mathematics. There cannot be anyone who could dispute the validity of Euclid's planar geometry unless they were to totally abandon rationality. And as we shall see, much of science can be considered to be reliable knowledge.
But belief sometimes comes close to knowledge for the individual - for those, for example, who have seen ghosts, a belief in their existence becomes knowledge, though to others it is unbelievable. Knowledge provides us with a disposition to behave in a way that is constantly subject to modification - we know where we are when we are walking home — while belief is a disposition to behave in a manner that may be quite resistant to correction by experience - it is quite safe to drive after a few drinks./Beliefs can be very strong, with little reference to knowledge or evidence/ and it is often other people's beliefs that seem the most fallible.,
Beliefs are held about factors that have an important effect on our lives: why we get ill, what will happen when we die, how someone we love will respond, how to change things in our environment to our advantage. Memory can be viewed as a type of belief, not least because it can be unreliable. Indeed memory itself can be shaped by current beliefs. For example, in relationships, individuals' recall of important events, especially those involving some sort of conflict, can be greatly at variance.
A common characteristic of beliefs is that they explain the cause of an event, or how something will occur in the future. It is causal beliefs that are the main focus of this book since they have a particularly strong influence on human behaviour. Many beliefs guide the way a person chooses to behave. Belief in God can make a difference to a person's behaviour - that is almost a definition of a true belief, for if it did not influence how the person behaved, it would have no consequences and would be irrelevant. As the French philosopher Descartes put it: 'I needed in order to determine what people really believed to notice what they did rather than what they said.' David Hume also emphasised how beliefs affected our actions: 'Neither man nor any other being ought ever be thought possest of any ability, unless it be exprest and put in action.' This fits very nicely with the view of the evolution of the brain in relation to action that I will propose.
In 1739, David Hume put forward his doctrine about causality. Our idea of causality, he claimed, is that there is a necessary connection among things, particularly actions. However, this connection cannot be directly observed, and can only be inferred from observing one event always following another. He thus argued that a causal relationship inferred from such observations could not in fact be rationally inferred. While this may be philosophically true, it is a problem for philosophers which need not concern us, as it is obvious what the cause is if, for example, I cut my hand with a knife.
David Premack, a psychologist, has pointed out that there are two classes of causal beliefs. One, as Hume suggested, is based on one event being linked to another, and can be called weak or 'arbitrary', for there need not be any obvious connection between them, like switching on a light. Animals can learn connections by the pairing of events through this process of associative learning. The other, which is uniquely human, is strong or 'natural' causality, and is programmed into our brains so that we have evolved the ability to have a concept of forces acting on objects. Such strong causal beliefs are already present in human infants. A key question is how this type of belief evolved. Causal beliefs are a fundamental characteristic of humans; animals, by contrast, as we shall see, have very few causal beliefs.
Beliefs come from a variety of sources that include the individual's experiences, the influence of authority, and the interpretation of events. At their core, beliefs establish a cause and effect relationship between events, and thus can be used as a guide to how one should behave in particular situations and how to judge the behaviour of others. From an evolutionary point of view, beliefs should help the individual survive, and I will argue that they had their origin in tool making and use. But beliefs are much wider in their nature, and often serve to make the person feel better by, for example, promoting self-esteem, and providing satisfactory explanations for events that are not well understood.
In the following chapters I will distinguish between several kinds of belief in relation to the topics they deal with. The distinctions are not hard and fast, and the boundaries are often fuzzy. I will start with the acquisition of causal beliefs by children and then compare them to animals, and will argue that the latter rarely have causal beliefs. Then, considering tools, I will claim that the origin of human causal beliefs is related to tool use and manufacture. Once there were causal beliefs for tool use then our ancestors developed causal beliefs about all the key events in their lives, and I will examine the proposed mechanisms by which we now acquire our beliefs. False beliefs that result from abnormalities in the brain like confabulation and schizophrenia can provide insights into the way normal beliefs are formed. Religious beliefs that had their origin in attempts to account for crucial events in our ancestors' lives will be given special attention, together with the possibility of their being genetically programmed.
Then there are also paranormal beliefs like astrology and witchcraft, which vary across cultures, and for which evidence is rarely required. Beliefs about health, which are particularly important, also vary enormously, and are all too seldom based on proper evidence. Political and moral beliefs can determine how societies behave and include democracy, communism and racism. Scientific beliefs, which had their unique origins in Greece, have a special validity and are not personal but shared by the scientific community. A key question is: how similar or different are the belief processes involved. Finally, we may ask what sort of beliefs does the future hold?
I will be putting a big emphasis on the biological basis of belief, and also on evolutionary aspects of human behaviour. A very useful set of principles in relation to biological explanations was put forward by Niko Tinbergen, one of the founders of the scientific basis of behaviour in animals. He argued that behaviour can be explained in four separate but related ways: the physical cause, how it develops, its function, and its evolution. Consider, for example, hunger and sadness. The basic mechanisms, the physiological bases, are those that cause us to feel sad or hungry; how these develop - both in the embryo and after birth - is the second question; then there is their function and advantage to the individual: hunger to ensure eating, sadness to make up a loss; and finally, how did these behaviours evolve? It is such questions that we need to consider in relation to belief.
It may be helpful to briefly explain the role of genes in evolution, in order to clarify what I mean when I refer to a particular character, even a belief, being genetically determined. Genes are unique in that they are the only elements in the cell that replicate, and thus can be passed to successive generations. The genes provide a programme for the development of the embryo by controlling how the cells in the embryo behave to give rise to the adult. Genes are basically boring and passive, as they do nothing but provide the code for making proteins, which are the true wizards of the cells. But they provide a programme for where and when particular proteins are made and so control, for example, how the cells of the brain connect with each other, and how one region of the brain connects with other regions. Thus, in evolution, changes in genes can result in changes in the form and behaviour of an organism; and depending on whether or not it is adaptive, that is, leads to better survival, that change in the genes will persist. That genes can determine behaviour is evident when one looks at the enormous variety of behaviours that animals are programmed to carry out, from sex to nest building.
Evolutionary psychology is based on the idea that in evolution the human brain acquired a number of specialised computational mechanisms - sometimes called modules - that determine emotion, reasoning, pattern seeking, and so on, and thus affect what we believe. The modules may not be physically separated in the brain, and there is considerable fluidity. Michael Shermer, who has thought deeply about these issues, considers modules like these to underlie what he calls the belief engine. There may be a causal operator in the brain that compels us to try and find out why things that matter to us happen. Without this imperative, we would not be successful in developing technology, on which we are so dependent.
An inability to find causes for important events and situations leads to mental discomfort, even anxiety, so there is a strong tendency to make up a causal story to provide an explanation. Ignorance about important causes is intolerable. This also makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, as our ancestors needed to account for events rapidly even when they had little knowledge - delay could be a great disadvantage.
Belief has not, unfortunately, been the subject of much neuro-scientific research, and so the nature of the brain mechanisms that give rise to beliefs are poorly understood, though the study of mental illnesses that give rise to false beliefs may help. All this makes it difficult to know how the brain generates beliefs, as well as how to change people's beliefs - and as we all know, that can be very difficult.
One evolutionary approach to beliefs might make use of the meme, a concept introduced by Richard Dawkins in 1976. It refers to a unit of complex ideas, a unit of information that plays a role analogous to genes. Memes are memorable and can be likened to mind viruses. It is claimed that memes replicate and the selection of one meme over another may have no advantage to the individual in whose mind it rests. Since memes are claimed to have variation, heredity, and differential fitness, they could have the necessary properties for evolution by natural selection. Dawkins even claimed that we do not choose our memes, but that they choose us and manipulate us to their own ends. Just what a meme is, and how it is distinguishable from beliefs, I find difficult. Is the word 'bird' a meme, and is the second law of thermodynamics also one? Apparently the song 'Happy Birthday to You' is a meme. There is no distinction made between memes relating to belief and knowledge. Moreover, no mechanism is proposed for the so-called replication of memes, or what they are selected for. Nevertheless, memes raise important questions on how social learning occurs, and why certain memes are so stable. Understanding memes could help in understanding beliefs.
To understand the evolutionary origins of belief, it helps to understand what the brain is for. Belief is a property of the brain, which is made up of billions of nerve cells whose function is totally dependent on the signals between them. But what is the primary function of the brain itself? I believe it has just one: to control bodily movements; and so this must be at the core of any attempt to understand belief. The evidence comes from the evolution of the brain.
Movement was present in our ancestral cells which gave rise to multicellular organisms some 3,000,000,000 years ago. They could move either by using flagella and cilia, whip-like structures that are a bit like oars, or by amoeboid movement, the cells extending processes at their advancing end, and then pulling themselves forward to where these attach. This movement was a great advantage in finding food, dispersal to new sites, and escape from predators. A key point is that the protein molecules that produced these movements are the precursors of all muscle cells. Muscle-like cells are found in all animals, including primitive ones like hydra, a small freshwater creature with just two layers of cells arranged in the form of a tube, which uses the movement of its tentacles to capture prey.
In higher forms, like flatworms and molluscs, muscles are well developed and the ability to move is a characteristic of almost all animals. One only has to think of such forms as diverse as earthworms and squirrels. Again, this ability to move is fundamental to animal life - not just finding food and shelter, but the ability to escape from enemies. And this is where brains come from. The first evidence for brain-like precursors is the collection of nerves that are involved in controlling movement, like the crawling of earthworms or flatworms. Getting the muscles to contract in the right order was a very major evolutionary advance, and required the evolution of nerves themselves. Here we find the circuits of nerves that excite muscles in the right order: the precursors of brains.
The first advantage of the ability to move was most likely dispersal and finding new habitats, but once the ability to move had evolved, it opened up new advantages such as finding food and avoiding danger. It became necessary to perceive the nature of the environment in order to decide when and where to move. There was a need for reliable senses. Light-sensitive cells are present among single-cell organisms so it is not too difficult to imagine light coming to control movement. Then, later, came the eye. Of course there were other sensory systems that could detect touch, temperature and odours. All these had and have but one function, to provide information for the control of movement. Emotions evolved to help animals make the appropriate motor movements like flight, attack, or sex. And that is why plants do not have brains. They are very successful but they do not need brains for they neither move significantly, or more importantly, exert forces on their environment in order to modify it for their own survival. No muscles, no brain.
There is no human or animal emotion that is not ultimately expressed as movement; in fact the argument is somewhat circular, for what else is human behaviour? Sense organs have only one function, to help the organism decide how to move. Once the brain developed, it took on other functions such as those related to homeostasis, like hormonal release and temperature regulation. Our brain, with all its imagery and memory, somehow enables us to decide how to behave, and it has only one ultimate function and that is to control bodily movements. The evolution of the brain that gave us beliefs is no more than an expansion of the original circuits that controlled movement in our ancient animal ancestors.
An internal representation of self arose in evolution from coordinating inner-body signals to produce appropriate behaviour. Increased accuracy and planning of movements was achieved by having mental models of the body in relation to the environment, and realising how these were causally related. Thus, when a stone falls on one's toe, one knows it, and one has to decide how to respond. More generally, as David Hume made clear, there is no experience of ‘self’ as something distinct from our body. Given that the main function of the brain is to control movement and to choose the appropriate movements for survival, it is not that unreasonable to suggest that belief arose in relation to tool use and manufacture, as both require a belief in causal interactions. This is a different view from that widely held, namely that the evolution of the human brain is related to social interactions. It will be helpful to look first at how human children acquire their causal beliefs, and then to compare them with those of animals.”