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