Religion as Cultural: Culture Shapes Cognitive Mechanisms

Szocik, Konrad; Eyghen, Hans Van

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-63516-9_8

Cited by 1 publication

(2 citation statements)

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“…Contemporary cognitive empirical and theoretical research has generated multiple lines of evidence contradicting the Modularity of the Mind framework (Driver and Spence, 2000;Baltieri and Buckley, 2018;Khambhati et al 2018;Zerilli, 2019;Pietraszewski and Wertz, 2022). Some researchers specifically note a shift in the neurocognitive science of religion (Asprem, 2019;Schjødt and van Elk, 2019;Szocik and Van Eyghen, 2021). Accordingly, researchers argue that cognitive neuroscience has undergone a Kuhnian shift away from the Modularity of the Mind (mostly bottom-up) toward predictive accounts of cognition that emphasise and formalise recursive relationships in which the relative dominance of bottom-up and top-down influences varies dynamically (Asprem, 2019).…”

Section: On Reductive Cognitivism In the Study Of Religionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Reducing religious practices to religious beliefs, understood as inference of a mental representation or as an inferred mental representation, under predictive accounts of cognition, motivates thinking of religious practices as inference alternatives to the empirical reality (Anderson 2019; Asprem, 2019; see other work pointing in the same direction Van Elk and Wagenmakers, 2017;Schjødt, 2018;Schjød and van Elk, 2019;Szocik, K., & Van Eyghen, 2021).…”

Section: On Reductive Cognitivism In the Study Of Religionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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On religious practices as multiscale active inference: Certainties emerging from recurrent interactions within and across individuals and groups

Hipólito¹,

Hesp²

2022

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This chapter takes inspiration from Wittgenstein’s thinking to formulate a non-reductive toolbox associated with generative modelling, specifically as applied in complex adaptive systems theory. It converges on a communal perspective on religion as multiscale active inference that contrasts starkly with common “straw person” perspectives on religion that aim to reduce it to “erroneous” metaphysical theorising motivated by spiritual experiences “generated by the brain”. In contrast, religious practices both enable and require the emergence of implicit (or “ineffable”) meanings that are experienced both individually (i.e., one’s personal faith) and collectively (“the faith”), with only partial commensurability cast under Wittgenstein’s notions of ‘rule-following’ and ‘language games’. We show how the collective and perspectival aspects of religion in enculturation with morals, doctrines, rituals, and expressions can be formalised in terms of deep active inference in multi-agent systems. This approach describes how religions are incommensurable with the scientific method due to the epistemic separation between the different kinds of language games of religious and scientific practices. Touchpoints between these different kinds of language games tend to give rise to perpetual confusion and unproductive discussions. As a particularly impactful example, we discuss ethical considerations in policy-making, which demonstrates how our account can help shed light on complex societal challenges that have emerged at the touchpoints between religion and science.

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