Believing: The Neuroscience of Fantasies, Fears, and Convictions
Language: English
Pages: 267
ISBN: 1616148292
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
A new book about brain chemistry, neural systems, and the formation of beliefs from the scientist who brought to light serotonin's many crucial roles in human behavior.
Beliefs: What are they? How have evolution and culture led to a brain that is seemingly committed to near endless belief creation? And once established, why are most beliefs so difficult to change? Believing offers answers to these questions from the perspective of a leading neuroscientist and expert in brain-behavior research.
Combining personal anecdotes and the latest research, Dr. McGuire takes the novel approach of focusing on the central and critical role of brain systems and the ways in which they interact with the environment to create and maintain beliefs. This approach yields some surprising and counterintuitive conclusions:
• The brain is designed for belief creation and acceptance.
• It is biased in favor of its own beliefs and is highly insensitive to disconfirming evidence.
• It prefers beliefs that are pleasurable and rewarding to those that are unfavorable.
• Beliefs are "afterthoughts" of unperceived brain activities; they don't cause behavior.
• Our consciousness has minimal influence on the neural systems that create beliefs.
Based on these observations, McGuire concludes that for the foreseeable future people will continue to hold a multitude of beliefs, many of them intransigent.
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Still, the principle holds: people long for pleasure and reward, and the presence of pleasure and reward predicts behavior. Is there a fundamental difference between the neuromarketing of products for the marketplace and the creation and revision of cultural myths? The answer would seem to be no. Both aim to identify and initiate responses of pleasure and reward for those who create them and those who embrace them—who covets a cultural myth or a store-bought product in which pleasure and reward
distance varies with external-information type. For example, a difficult-to-interpret noise or smell often leads to the belief that something is amiss with a sense of uncertainty about its cause. There is an absence of evidence that can be quickly and easily interpreted. Divides are likely to be indeterminate at such moments. On the other hand, if you hear a familiar voice, such as that of your child, you will believe that your child is its source and there is no divide. Because environmental
explanations of its origins and effects. For example, the James-Lange theory posits that emotions are largely a consequence of bodily change.20 The evolutionary approach stresses that emotion has evolved to serve particular adaptive challenges.21 The neurobiological approach attempts to integrate emotion and features of cognition.22 Clearly there is much more to learn. Yet already a great deal can be said about the influence of emotion on belief and divides. For example, consider the following
did anyone predict that approximately 1.2 million years ago, the ancestors of today’s humans were possibly an endangered species with fewer than twenty-six thousand individuals capable of breeding.7 REVERSE ENGINEERING Much of reconstruction involves reverse engineering. This amounts to extrapolating back in time using present-day findings and methods. Studies documenting the rate of genetic change from specific periods in the past to the present are examples.8 Or the same brain chemicals may
Responsivity to Masked Fearful Eye Whites,” Science 306 (2004): 2061; J. J. Patton et al., “The Primate Amygdala Represents the Positive and Negative Value of Visual Stimuli during Learning,” Nature 439 (2006): 865–70; L. Tiger and M. McGuire, God’s Brain (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2010); and R. J. Dolan, “Emotion, Cognition, and Behavior,” Science 298 (2002): 1191–94. 48. L. Young, “Emotions Key to Judging Others,” Medicine & Health/Neuroscience, March 24, 2010. 49. Layard, “Measuring
