More reasons why I'm liking the modular mind theory

As I continue reading Robert Kurzban's book Why Everyone (Else) is a Hypocrite: Evolution and the Modular Mind, I keep coming across ideas that make me pleased I forked out $16.97 to Amazon. The book is well worth the money.

Here's some additional points from Kurzban that appealed to me.

Press Secretary versus President. Most of us like to think that basically we're in charge of our thoughts and actions. Maybe our emotions also, though they seem more out of our control. In other words, we're the President of the entity we call "myself."

Kurzban has a different view. He says that the conscious aspect of us, which, like an iceberg, is just a small part of the brain's overall functionality, is more like a Press Secretary than a President.

If the modularity view is right, then we should be thinking in terms of dividing up the mind with respect to the functions of the modules that are doing the work, rather than location or age. There is, however, one binary division I favor. 

If the press secretary view is right, then it's reasonable to think that some parts of the mind are going to have design features that are useful in the context of communicating with others. These modules transmit information about lots of more or less mundane things we say or hear on a day-to-day basis like "your keys are on the table," "grades are due on the fifth," or "get that thing out of your nose."

But communication is obviously useful for manipulating what others think in a way that works to one's advantage, and many modular systems in the mind seem to be designed for this purpose. Indeed, I think there is some sense in which the part of you that feels like "you" is, more or less, designed to serve this public relations function. 

It's useful to think of these modules, the ones that we experience, at least in part, as having functions rather like the Press Secretary. These modules, the public relations system of the mind, seem to get certain kinds of information from other bits of your brain and communicate with other people.

If this is correct, then the modules that you experience as "you" can be thought of, at least in part, as more or less a mouthpiece for the organization. "You" are the Machiavellian spin doctor and, as such, only a small part of the sum total of what's going on in your head. "You" aren't the President, the central executive, the Prime Minister, or Buzzy.

Supernatural beliefs are the most spectacular way people are wrong. After being open to the possibility of there being a supernatural realm beyond this universe, I've come to believe that while this is still possible, it is extremely unlikely, given the lack of evidence for it. Kurzban agrees.

I can't quite move on without discussing perhaps the most spectacular way in which people are wrong: supernatural beliefs. Much ink has been spilled on this, pretty much since there has been ink to be spilled, so let me make some disclaimers right up front.

First, I take religion and supernatural beliefs to be objects of scientific study. I'll treat them that way, and so, if you get easily offended by reading about beliefs that are very important to you by someone who thinks you're wrong about them, you might want to skip this section.

Next, I want to be clear that I'm just going to talk about supernatural beliefs, not organized religion or, at least, not any organized religions in particular. By "supernatural" I just mean anything that cannot be explained by natural laws.

And I'm going to assume that all supernatural beliefs are wrong. Before you get too upset, consider that, as Richard Dawkins pointed out, to a first approximation, independent of your particular religious beliefs, so do you.

Most people have only a very small, indeed minuscule, subset of all possible supernatural beliefs. Indeed, they have only a small subset of the supernatural beliefs anyone has ever had. Consider all the supernatural beliefs ever held by anyone, including beliefs about the Greek gods, spirits inhabiting various animals and plants, the effectiveness of rain dances, and so on.

Whatever your particular supernatural beliefs, you must believe that nearly all of them are wrong, not least because many supernatural beliefs are mutually inconsistent. One can't be both a monotheist and polytheist, for example. More broadly, it's a pretty good bet that if you were introduced to virtually all of the world's supernatural beliefs, you would reject most as false.

So, in many respects, the approach I'm taking here makes me pretty much just like you and just like everybody else. We all reject almost every single supernatural belief, holding only to our own, thinking everybody else is wrong. The only way I depart is that I take the view that supernatural beliefs are guaranteed to be wrong because I think everything has a natural explanation.

If one combines the view that supernatural beliefs are wrong with the idea that our minds have evolved to acquire beliefs that are useful, one arrives at the question of why humans' brains seem to have systems that cause them to acquire beliefs that are guaranteed to be false. In this sense, supernatural beliefs are weird. Not only are they all wrong, but historically they've caused people to do all sorts of seemingly odd things, from spending precious time in rituals to destroying property to wearing silly hats.

Many people have tried to answer this puzzling question, and I refer interested readers to some excellent books, including my favorite, Religion Explained by Pascal Boyer. I'm not going to try to answer this question myself. 

Instead, I just want to point out that having true beliefs rather than false beliefs can be especially costly when it comes to the supernatural. In particular, having supernatural beliefs that are not the same as others around you, especially those in power, can be very dangerous. Having unpopular supernatural beliefs can have many unpleasant consequences.

As Steve Pinker put it, "People are embraced or condemned according to their beliefs, so one function of the mind may be to hold beliefs that bring the belief-holder the greatest number of allies, protectors, or disciples, rather than beliefs that are most likely to be true."

Comments

[Ron E.]

If I understand it correctly, modularity of mind means functionally dedicated mental systems. Kursban states: - “If the modularity view is right, then we should be thinking in terms of dividing up the mind with respect to the functions of the modules that are doing the work, rather than location or age.”

I’m happy that Kursban keeps the mind firmly in the brain, but not too taken with the idea that neurological structures operate as modules. A brain is continually running an internal model of the world in that past experiences are recombined in novel ways as they are remembered. It seems more likely to me that, with regard to information relayed via the senses, the totality of the brain’s networking is involved rather than a series of neural components.

I don’t see the mind as being either a press-secretary or a president. As the mind is merely a concept, an idea that tries to categorise the brain’s various cognitive functions, I see no reason to try to divide it into modules. As the brain interprets incoming sense data into thought, emotion, response etc., more likely that the entire brain’s networking is involved.

It seems a retrograde step in eradicating the idea of a separate ‘self’ (‘I’ or ‘me’) to introduce a series of different "selves," (albeit mental selves) designed to accomplish some task. I appreciate that the modular theory is just that, a theory, but I feel that the whole idea of categorising the cognitive processes into a nebulous thing called mind is in some way making the mind out to be some sort of ‘thing’.

Personally, I’d rather drop the common parlance of mind and self and just talk of thinking, feeling etc., with the background knowledge that all this is dependent on and manifests from the brain. But I guess, the short-cut when talking of mental phenomenon (thoughts, feelings etc.) is to just lump them under the term mind.

[sant64]

Something both sides of the political aisle are agreeing on: White House "Faith Advisor" Paula White should be fired from her government position:

https://x.com/TiffMoodNukes/status/1904890306761548184

[umami]

Why am I not surprised?

[October]

Modular Mind.
There are 8 layers in awakened state.each layer with its uniqueness
It's like loop inside loop.you break through 1 loop to enter into higher loop.
At the 8th, you stand naked to self. It's self between mind now.
How to break it?