User:Prokope45/Agent detection

Copied from Agent detection

Evolutionary origins

It is believed that humans evolved agent detection as a survival strategy. In situations where one is unsure of the presence of an intelligent agent (such as an enemy or a predator), there is survival value in assuming its presence so that precautions can be taken. For example, if a human came across an indentation in the ground that might be a lion's footprint, it is advantageous to err on the side of caution and assume that the lion is present.

Psychologists Kurt Gray and Daniel Wegner wrote:

“ The high cost of failing to detect agents and the low cost of wrongly detecting them has led researchers to suggest that people possess a Hyperactive Agent Detection Device, a cognitive module that readily ascribes events in the environment to the behavior of agents. ”

Detecting false positives enabled animals to survive and have higher fitness as missing a false positive can result in injury or death. This decision process can be mapped as below using Signal Detection Theory:

Signal Detection

	Response Present	Response Absent
Stimuli Present	Miss	Hit
Stimuli Absent	Correct Rejection	False Positive

Many animals exhibit agency detention when avoiding or hunting other animals. To avoid or approach, an animal must be able to observe and interpret another animal’s action tendency and decide whether to flee or resist an attack. Often, this response is facilitated through instinctual reactions. However, humans and other primates are capable of projecting a theory of mind to other agents to better understand them. Humans in particular attribute intentions to agents to project beliefs or to infer emotions, and involves two steps:

1. An action tendency is recognized by the hypersensitive agency detection.
2. After recognition of the action, attribution of the agent is considered to understand the agent’s beliefs, desires, and intentions.
   • Second step represents mentalization (theory of mind) for humans in particular.

Role in religion

See also: Evolutionary psychology of religion

Some scientists believe that the belief in acting gods is an evolutionary by-product of agent detection. For instance, agent detection may have arisen as a spandrel, which is a non-adaptive trait formed as a side effect of an adaptive trait. The psychological trait in question is "if you hear a twig snap in the forest, some sentient force is probably behind it". This trait helps to prevent the primate from being murdered or eaten as food. However this hypothetical trait could remain in modern humans: thus some evolutionary psychologists theorize that "even if the snapping was caused by the wind, modern humans are still inclined to attribute the sound to a sentient agent; they call this person a god".

According to Ulrich Kühnen et al, religion also may have played a role in the formation of cohesive groups for humans. As humans evolved with larger brains, they had the ability to better organize and survive due to increase cognitive computation. This is referred to as social brain hypothesis. Over time, as groups became larger, it took more mental capacity to maintain social order and grow in complexity. Thus, as agency detection developed as a by-product of evolution, humans grouped together based on shared ideas of agency. This communal coordination of information allowed groups to establish rules, roles, and rites, leading to the phenomena of religious institutions. Sacred rules and roles ensured that everyone has a responsibility and followed a hierarchical structure. Free riders were punished for taking advantage of the group, and those who stayed in the group had higher fitness than those who did not.

Gray and Wegner also said that agent detection is likely to be a "foundation for human belief in God" but "simple overattribution of agency cannot entirely account for the belief in God..." because the human ability to form a theory of mind and what they refer to as "existential theory of mind" are also required to "give us the basic cognitive capacity to conceive of God."

According to Justin L. Barrett, having a scientific explanation for mental phenomena does not mean we should stop believing in them. "Suppose science produces a convincing account for why I think my wife loves me — should I then stop believing that she does?"