The pattern behind selfdeception Michael Shermer

[Music]

[Applause]

so since I was here last no.6 we

discovered that global climate change is

turning out to be a pretty serious issue

so we covered that fairly extensively in

skeptic magazine we investigate all

kinds of scientific and quasi scientific

controversies but it turns out we don’t

really have to worry about any of this

because the world’s gonna end in 2012

another update you will call so I

introduced you guys to the Quadro

tracker it’s a like a water dowsing

device it’s just a hollow piece of

plastic with an antenna that swivels

around and you walk around and it points

to things like if you’re looking for

marijuana and students lockers it’ll you

know like point right to some somebody

I’m sorry this particular one that was

given to me finds golf balls especially

if you’re at a golf course and you check

under enough bushes well under the

category of what’s the harm of silly

stuff like this this device the a de 651

was sold to the Iraqi government for

$40,000 apiece it’s just like this one

completely worthless in which it

allegedly worked by electrostatic

magnetic ion attraction which translates

to pseudo scientific baloney would be

the nice word which you string together

a bunch of words that sound good but it

does absolutely nothing in this case

allowing at trespass points allowing

people to go through because your little

tracker device said they were okay

actually cost lives so there is a danger

to pseudoscience and believing in this

sort of thing so what I want to talk

about today is belief I want to believe

and and you do too and in fact I think

my thesis here is that belief is the

natural state of things it is the

default option we just believe we

believe all sorts of things belief is

natural disbelief skepticism science is

not natural it’s it’s more difficult

it’s uncomfortable to not believe things

so like Fox Mulder on x-files who wants

to believe in UFOs what we all do and

the reason for that is because we are

we have a belief engine in our brains

essentially we are pattern-seeking

primates we connect the dots a is

connected to B B is connected to C and

sometimes they really is connected to B

and that’s called association learning

we find patterns we make those

connections whether it’s Pavlov’s dog

here associating the sound of the Bell

with the food and then he celebrates to

the sound of the Bell or whether it’s

thus Canarian rat in which he’s having

an association between his behavior and

a reward for it and therefore he repeats

the behavior in fact what Skinner

discovered is that if you put a pigeon

in a box like this and he has to press

one of these two keys and he tries to

figure out what the pattern is and you

give them a little reward in the hopper

box there if you just randomly assign

rewards such that there is no pattern

they will figure out any kind of pattern

and whatever they were doing just before

they got the reward they repeat that

particular pattern sometimes it was even

spinning around twice counterclockwise

once clockwise and peck the key twice

and that’s called superstition and that

I’m afraid we will always have with us I

called this process pattern issah T that

is the tendency to find meaningful

patterns in both meaningful and

meaningless noise when we do this

process we make two types of errors a

type 1 error or false positive is

believing a pattern is real when it’s

not our second type of error is a false

negative a type 2 error is not believed

in a pattern is real when it is so let’s

do a thought experiment you are a

hominid three million years ago walking

on the plains of Africa your name is

Lucy okay and and you hear a rustle in

the grass is it a dangerous predator is

it just the wind your next decision

could be the most important one of your

life well if you think that the rustle

in the grass is is a dangerous predator

and it turns out it’s just the wind

you’ve made an error in cognition you

made a type 1 error false positive but

no harm you just move away you’re more

cautious

you’re more vigilant on the other hand

if you believe that the rustle in the

grass is just the wind and it turns out

it’s a dangerous predator your lunch

you’ve just won a Darwin Award you’ve

been taken out of the gene pool now the

problem here is that pattern is cities

will occur whenever the

of making a type 1 error is less than

the cost of making a type 2 error is the

only equation in the talk by the way we

have a pattern detection problem that is

assessing the difference between a type

1 and a type 2 error is highly

problematic especially in split-second

life-and-death situations so the default

position is just believe all patterns

are real all rustles in the grass are

dangerous predators and not just the

wind and so I think that we evolved

there was a natural selection for the

propensity for our belief engines are

pattern-seeking brain processes to

always find meaningful patterns and

infuse them with these sort of predatory

or intentional agencies that I’ll come

back to so for example what do you see

here

it’s a horse head that’s right it looks

like a horse must be a horse that’s a

pattern and is it really a horse or is

it more like a frog see our pattern

detection device which is appears to be

located in the anterior cingulate cortex

it’s our little sort of detection device

there can be easily fooled and this is

the problem for example what do you see

here

yes of course it’s a cow once I primed

the brains called cognitive priming once

I prime the brain to see it it pops back

out again

even without the pattern that I’ve

imposed on it and what do you see here

some people see a Dalmatian dog yes

there it is and there’s the prime so

when I go back without the prime your

brain already has the model so you can

see it again what do you see here planet

Saturn yes that’s good how about here

just shout out anything you see

that’s a good audience Chris because

there’s nothing in this well allegedly

there’s nothing this is an experiment

done by Jennifer whitson at at UT Austin

on corporate environments and whether

uncertain feelings of uncertainty and

out of control makes people see illusory

patterns that is almost everybody sees

the planet Saturn people that are put in

a condition of feeling out of control

are more likely to see something in this

which is allegedly patternless in other

words the propensity to feel these are

fine these patterns goes up when there’s

a lack of control for example baseball

players are notoriously superstitious

when they’re batting but not so much

when they’re fielding because fielder’s

are successful 90 to 95 percent of the

time the best batters fail seven out of

ten times so their superstitions their

pattern issah tees are all associated

with feelings of lack of control and so

forth what do you see on this particular

one here in this field anybody see a

object there there actually is something

here but it’s degraded while you’re

thinking about that this was an

experiment done by Susan Blackmore a

psychologist in England who showed

subjects this degraded image and then

ran a correlation between their scores

on an ESP test how much do they believe

in the paranormal supernatural angels

and and so forth and those who scored

high on the ESP scale tended to see I

only see more patterns in the degraded

images but incorrect patterns here is

what you show subjects the fish is

degraded 20% 50% and then the one I

showed you 70 percent a similar

experiment was done by another British

psychologist named Peter Berger who

found significantly more patterns

meaningful patterns are received

perceived on the right hemisphere via

the left visual field in the left

hemisphere so if you present subjects

the image is such that it’s going to end

up on the right hemisphere instead of

the left then they’re more likely to see

patterns than if you’ve put it on the

left hemisphere our right hemisphere

appears to be where a lot of this

pattern issah T occurs so what we’re

trying to do is bore into the brain to

see where all this happens Berger and

his colleague Christine Moore gave

subjects Aldo

l-dopa is a drug as you know given for

treating parkinson’s disease which is

related to a decrease in dopamine l-dopa

increases dopamine an increase of

dopamine caused subjects to see more

patterns than those that did not receive

the dopamine so dopamine appears to be

the drug associated with pattern isset

II in fact neuroleptic drugs that are

used to eliminate psychotic behavior

things like paranoia delusions and

hallucinations

these are pattern isset ‘is there

incorrect patterns or false positives or

type 1 errors and if you give them drugs

that are a’dope Amin antagonists they go

away that is you decrease the amount of

dopamine and their tendency to see

patterns like that decreases on the

other hand and feta means like in

cocaine our dopamine agonist they

increase the amount of dopamine so

you’re more likely to be feeling a

euphoric state creativity find more

patterns in fact I saw Robin Williams

recently talked about how he he was

thought he was much funnier when he was

doing cocaine when he had that issue

than that now so perhaps more dopamine

is related to more creativity dopamine I

think changes our signal-to-noise ratio

that is how accurate we are in finding

patterns if it’s too low you’re more

likely to make too many type 2 errors

you missed the real patterns you don’t

want to be too skeptical if you’re too

skeptical you miss the really

interesting good ideas just right you’re

creative and yet you don’t fall for too

much baloney too high and maybe you see

patterns everywhere every time somebody

looks at you you think people are

staring at you you think people are

talking about you and if you go too far

on that that’s just simply labelled as

madness it’s a distinction perhaps we

might make between two Nobel laureates

Richard Fineman and John Nash one sees

maybe just the right number of patterns

to win a Nobel Prize the other one also

but maybe too many patterns and we then

call that schizophrenia so the

signal-to-noise ratio then presents us

with a pattern detection problem and of

course you all know exactly what this is

right and what pattern do you see here

again I’m putting your anterior

cingulate cortex to the test here

causing you conflicting pattern

detection you know of course this is via

uno shoes these are sandals

pretty sexy feet I must say maybe a

little photoshopped and of course the

ambiguous figures that seem to flip-flop

back and forth turns out what you’re

thinking about a lot influences what you

tend to see and I’m and you see the lamp

here I know because it lights on here of

course thanks to the environmentalist

movement we’re all sensitive to the

plight of marine mammals so what you see

in this in this particular ambiguous

figures of course the Dolphins right you

see a dolphin here and and there’s a

dolphin and there’s a dolphin this is

adult that’s a dolphin tail there guys

[Applause]

if if we can give you conflicting data

again your ACC is going to be going into

hyperdrive if you look down here it’s

fine if you look up here then you get

conflicting data and then we have to

flip the image for you to see that it’s

a setup

impossible cradle lusion it’s easy to

fool the brain and 2d so you say well

come on trimmer anybody can do that in a

psych 101 text with a illusion like that

well here’s the late great Jerry Andrus

is impossible create illusion in 3d in

which Jerry is standing inside the

impossible crate and he was kind enough

to post this and give us the reveal of

course camera angle is everything the

photographer is over there and this

board appears to overlap with this one

and this one at that one and so on but

even when I take it away the illusion is

so powerful because of how our brains

are wired to find those certain kinds of

patterns this is a fairly new one that

throws us off because of the conflicting

patterns of comparing this angle with

that angle in fact it’s the exact same

picture side-by-side so what you’re

doing is comparing that angle instead of

with this one but with that one and so

your brain is fooled yet again your

pattern detection devices are fooled

faces are easy to see because we have an

additional evolved facial recognition

software in our temporal lobes here are

some faces on the side of Iraq I’m

actually not even sure if this is this

might be Photoshop but anyway the point

is still made but which one of these

looks odd to you in a quick reaction

which one looks odd

the one on the left ok I’ll rotate it so

it’ll be the one on the right and you

are correct

fairly famous illusion was first done

with Margaret Thatcher now they trade up

to politicians every time well why is

this happening well we know exactly

where it happens in the temporal lobe

right across a sort of above your ear

there in a little structure called the

fusiform gyrus and there’s two types of

cells that do this that record facial

features either globally or specifically

these large rapid-firing cells first

look at the general face so you

recognize Obama immediately and then you

notice something quite a little bit odd

about the eyes in the mouth

especially when they’re upside down

you’re engaging that general facial

recognition software there now I said

back in our little thought experiment

you’re a hominid walking on the plains

of Africa is it just the wind or a

dangerous predator what’s the difference

between those well a wind is inanimate a

dangerous predator is an intentional

agent and I call this process agent

issah T that is the tendency to infuse

patterns with meaning and tension and

agency often invisible beings from the

top down this is an idea that we got

from a fellow tedster here Dan Dennett

who talked about and taking the

intentional stance so it’s a type of

that expanded to explain I think a lot

of different things soul spirits ghosts

gods demons angels aliens intelligent

designers government conspiracists in

all manner of invisible agents with

power and intention or believe to haunt

our world and control our lives I think

it’s the basis of animism and polytheism

and monotheism it’s the belief that

aliens are somehow more advanced than us

more moral than us and the narratives

always are that they’re coming here to

save us and rescue us from on high the

intelligent designer is always portrayed

as this super intelligent moral being

that comes down to design life even the

idea that government can rescue us

that’s no longer the wave of the future

but that is I think a type of agent

isset II they’re projecting somebody up

there big and powerful will come rescue

us and this is also I think the basis of

conspiracy theories there’s somebody

hiding behind they’re pulling the

strings whether it’s the Illuminati or

the Bilderbergers but this is a pattern

detection problem isn’t it some patterns

are real and some are not was JFK

assassinated by a conspiracy or by a

lone assassin well if you

go there there’s people there on any

given day like when I went there here

showing me where the different shooters

were my favorite one was he was in the

manhole and he popped out at the last

second took that shot but of course

Lincoln was assassinated by a conspiracy

so we can’t just uniformly dismiss all

patterns like that because let’s face it

some patterns are real some conspiracies

really are true explains a lot maybe at

9/11 as a conspiracy theory it is a

conspiracy we did a whole issue on it 19

members of al-qaeda plotting to fly

planes into buildings constitutes a

conspiracy but that’s not what the 9/11

truthers think they think it was an

inside job by the Bush administration

well that’s a whole nother lecture but

you know we know that 9/11 was not

orchestrated by the Bush administration

because it worked

so we are natural-born duelists our

agent is city process somes from the

fact that we can enjoy movies like these

because we can imagine an essence

continuing on we know that if you

stimulate the temporal lobe you can

produce a feeling of out-of-body

experiences near-death experiences which

you can do by just touching an electrode

to the temporal lobe there or you can do

it through loss of consciousness by

accelerating in a centrifuge you get a

hypoxia or a lower oxygen and the brain

then senses that there’s a out of body

experience you can use which I did went

out and did Michael Persinger is God

helmet that bombard your temporal lobes

with electromagnetic waves and you get a

sense of out-of-body experience so I’m

going to I’m gonna end here with a short

video clip that sort of brings all this

together it’s just a minute and a half

it ties together all this into the power

of expectation and the power of belief

go ahead and roll it this is the venue

they chose for their fake auditions for

an advert for lip balm we’re hoping that

we can use part of this in a national

commercial

alright and this is a test on some lip

balms that we have over here and these

are our models who are going to help us

turn mad

and we have a leading brand would you

have any problem kissing our models

today

[Music]

you think that was fine

is a blind test I’m gonna ask you two to

go ahead and put a blindfold on okay now

can you see anything

hold up so you can’t even see down it’s

completely blind now right okay now what

I’m going to be looking for in this test

is

[Music]

and maybe if you can discern any flavor

have you ever done a kissing tested

okay now I’m going to ask you to pucker

up pucker up big and lean in just a

little bit okay

[Music]

for how does that feel

[Music]

[Applause]

thank you very much thank you

Thanks Thanks