God Soul Mind Brain

cognitive finesse, I was able to get the model in my brain to update itself and attach the soul to a new body. If only the same thing could work on a person. (Maybe I can patent that spaghetti-clock thing.)

    We adults are not off the hook. We have similar foibles. A favorite car, a favorite ceramic dog sitting on the mantel shelf, a favorite jacket, how many mindless objects have we imbued with soul? When I threw out my old computer I actually apologized to it. I felt bad for it. These are all examples of the same thing. The circuits for social perception get a little exuberant and start creating models, assigning minds to this and that, and pretty soon the entire world around us is filled up with perceived consciousness and intentionality.

Pets

    Here I intend to tread carefully. I have no desire to insult pet owners, or to compare the souls of pets to the souls of stuffed animals. Pets actually do have inner works. A pet owner’s social circuits fire up and create a model of the pet’s mind, a nuanced interaction of emotions, desires, and intents. There is no reason to suspect that the model is completely wrong. A cat probably does want food and probably does seek scratching behind the ears.

    The cat probably also has a model of the owner. The cat has its own brain circuitry for social perception, computing the state of the owner, reconstructing whether the owner is in an angry state and likely to yell, or in a friendly state likely to cuddle. In the cat’s perception, presumably you have a soul, or a spark of intentionality that differentiates you from non-intentional objects, and your soul is emotional, simple, and probably somewhat catlike. In your perception, the cat has a soul that is a bit humanlike. Neither model (neither the cat’s model of you nor your model of the cat) is accurate; but neither is entirely false. They are both useful.

    People who own fish, or turtles, or geraniums also have a certain tendency to construct human-like models of their beloved dependants’ minds. I am not absolutely certain about the mental sophistication of fish or turtles, but I am fairly sure that geraniums lack brains. (I don’t remember a section on plants in Core Neuroanatomy.) Yet the behavior of these people is easily understood. They are treating their pets like dolls, imbuing them with personality and emotion, with soul, where the soul is entirely a model constructed inside the mind of the owner. Most people realize that these mental states are, in fact, constructions. But some people become convinced that the cactus in the living room has feelings. They are certain of it because their perceptual machinery has over-enthusiastically created that model, and it is hard to disbelieve your own perception. These people feel the presence of the cactus’ mind. It sounds silly, but it is actually a natural side-product of the way the human brain is built to model other brains. The person experiences a perceptual illusion.

    I wonder if people who have strong animistic beliefs also have particularly well-developed neuronal circuitry for social perception? Maybe they have social circuitry that is so potent and so continuously active that everything around them is tossed in as grist and is sent out the other side with a mind and a soul stamped onto it. That is an easily testable hypothesis. One could put people in an MRI brain scanner and measure the activity in the social brain areas. People with a pronounced belief in animism should have more activity there.

    The flip side of the hypothesis is that autistic people, with weakened circuitry for social perception, should be particularly resistant to animistic beliefs. If you are on the autistic spectrum, the idea of sensing intentionality in a cactus may seem rather remote to you.

Celebrity personalities

    I recently got into a “discussion” with a colleague about Sarah Palin. I should have known better. There is no celebrity more prone to start arguments. The point I want to make here has nothing to do with the pros or cons of Sarah Palin and I won’t even go into my own political opinion about her. My point instead has to do with people’s perceptions of her personality. What astonishes me is that people are absolutely certain they know her personality. They feel it. Some people sense an admirable personality, and other people who are just as certain of themselves sense a hideous personality. Right away this phenomenon suggests a social perceptual illusion.