KentForLiberty pages

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Superstitions and the Believers

Superstitions bewilder me. Well, maybe not the superstitions themselves as much as those who fall for them.

Superstitions such as "don't let a black cat cross your path", "don't walk under a ladder", "support Israel", and "unlucky thirteen". How can people believe such nonsense?


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2 comments:

  1. Assume that folks (brains) are largely social Bayesian inference engines. For most folks, the best way to tell if something is true is to listen to their neighbors...and what all the neighbors believe is MORE likely to be true than what they believe from their own thinking.

    Hence...black cats.

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  2. "Bayesian inference machine"? Ah..maybe you could explain that a little more Aretae.

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