Not totally, because the source of the fear can’t be entirely evolutionary—I could be not the least bit afraid of the dark in normal life but become very afraid when in a supposedly haunted area. But I think your general point that the thoughts about ghosts are a constructed explanation for the fear rather than the source of the fear is the basis for a solution to the mystery.
Maybe there’s a vicious cycle, where thinking about ghosts increases the salience of darkness and mysterious noises that normally wouldn’t trouble you, you become afraid, the fear increases the salience of ghosts, and so on.
the source of the fear can’t be entirely evolutionary—I could be not the least bit afraid of the dark in normal life but become very afraid when in a supposedly haunted area.
The human brain has evolved several mechanisms that are useful for detecting other agents, but which sometimes produce false-positives. For example, we have some sort of hardware specifically dedicated to recognizing faces (presumably detect the pattern of two eyes, a nose and a mouth). There exist people who have damage to their brain such that they seem mentally perfectly normal, except that they have trouble detecting people in photographs, for example.
When this hardware produces a false positive, then at some (subconcious?) level, you are detecting that there is someone here. But when you use your conscious mind to scan your environment, you don’t see anyone. This is what causes unease, and the feeling of “hauntedness”.
I believe there’s also a part of the brain which has evolved to detect agency (perhaps to help with dealing with “Theory of Mind” and emulating other people’s minds for social purposes?) and “false positives” in detecting agency may be one explanation of religion.
I agree with roland and Nebu. I enjoyed this article, but I’m skeptical of this claim from Yvain:
---So although it’s correct to say that the skeptics’ emotions overwhelmed their rationality, they wouldn’t have those emotions unless they thought on some level that ghosts were worth getting scared about.---
It could be true that the skeptics do believe on some level that ghosts exist. Yet I find it more plausible that the skeptics don’t believe it, but are merely overwhelmed by their evolved/conditioned fear response.
Humans are hardwired to be afraid of agents or nasty creatures getting them in the dark, and cultural notions of ghosts tap into this fear (prepared learning from ethology). However, humans are not hardwired to be so afraid of fans killing them, nor are we subjected to horror stories about killer fans.
Understood and agreed (Michael Persinger says he can induce this sensation at will through magnetic stimulation, although I’m a little skeptical: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet)
I am not talking about actual experiences of ghosts in this post. I am talking about fear of ghosts among people who never claim to have seen any themselves and have no evidence for their existence.
I think....I agree with you.
Not totally, because the source of the fear can’t be entirely evolutionary—I could be not the least bit afraid of the dark in normal life but become very afraid when in a supposedly haunted area. But I think your general point that the thoughts about ghosts are a constructed explanation for the fear rather than the source of the fear is the basis for a solution to the mystery.
Maybe there’s a vicious cycle, where thinking about ghosts increases the salience of darkness and mysterious noises that normally wouldn’t trouble you, you become afraid, the fear increases the salience of ghosts, and so on.
The human brain has evolved several mechanisms that are useful for detecting other agents, but which sometimes produce false-positives. For example, we have some sort of hardware specifically dedicated to recognizing faces (presumably detect the pattern of two eyes, a nose and a mouth). There exist people who have damage to their brain such that they seem mentally perfectly normal, except that they have trouble detecting people in photographs, for example.
When this hardware produces a false positive, then at some (subconcious?) level, you are detecting that there is someone here. But when you use your conscious mind to scan your environment, you don’t see anyone. This is what causes unease, and the feeling of “hauntedness”.
I believe there’s also a part of the brain which has evolved to detect agency (perhaps to help with dealing with “Theory of Mind” and emulating other people’s minds for social purposes?) and “false positives” in detecting agency may be one explanation of religion.
I agree with roland and Nebu. I enjoyed this article, but I’m skeptical of this claim from Yvain:
---So although it’s correct to say that the skeptics’ emotions overwhelmed their rationality, they wouldn’t have those emotions unless they thought on some level that ghosts were worth getting scared about.---
It could be true that the skeptics do believe on some level that ghosts exist. Yet I find it more plausible that the skeptics don’t believe it, but are merely overwhelmed by their evolved/conditioned fear response.
Humans are hardwired to be afraid of agents or nasty creatures getting them in the dark, and cultural notions of ghosts tap into this fear (prepared learning from ethology). However, humans are not hardwired to be so afraid of fans killing them, nor are we subjected to horror stories about killer fans.
Understood and agreed (Michael Persinger says he can induce this sensation at will through magnetic stimulation, although I’m a little skeptical: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helmet)
I am not talking about actual experiences of ghosts in this post. I am talking about fear of ghosts among people who never claim to have seen any themselves and have no evidence for their existence.