Ep 66: Why do brains love conspiracy theories? | INNER COSMOS WITH DAVID EAGLEMAN

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Ep 66: Why do brains love conspiracy theories? | INNER COSMOS WITH DAVID EAGLEMAN
Why are conspiracy theories a natural output of the brain? What do they have to do with puzzle-solving, cognitive dissonance, ingroups/outgroups, and storytelling? If you hear an unlikely explanation for something, what are effective and ineffective ways to assess it? Join Eagleman to understand from the point of view of the brain why conspiracy theories have always been so pervasive in human societies.
Original Air Date: July 8, 2024
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Neuroscientist and author David Eagleman discusses how our brain interprets the world and what that means for us. Through storytelling, research, interviews, and experiments, David Eagleman tackles wild questions that illuminate new facets of our lives and our realities.
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TAGS: #DavidEagleman #InnerCosmoswithDavidEagleman #InnerCosmos #Science #Neuroscience #Neuroscientist #Eagleman

[@Sahilsharma-ce4ow]

Brilliant sir.

[@a.bodhichenevey1601]

I find your explanation of the brain's difficulty in predicting events in what is usually a modern, routine and mundane existence, as fuel for generating conspiracy theories, extremely plausible. I know, on a personal level, when I am emotionally upended by the stress of not knowing what is going to happen next, especially when the consequences are high risk, I must really work hard to embrace critical thinking. If I don't consciously engage critical thinking and fallback on hard-earned skills for managing high risk outcomes, I jump to conclusion. I will intuitively take the easier, heuristic route which is too often incorrect! Thank you for this outstanding lecture and encouragement to take time to accurately assess explanations for events.

[@albecky123]

This is one of my favorite episodes.

[@YouLoveMrFriendly]

I wonder if this phenomenon could at least partially explain LLM confabulations. There's no doubt that they can do strong analogical reasoning and that they connect many concepts together given that they have only about a trillion connections and have been trained on enormous numbers of concepts. Maybe this explains why they reconstruct their memories sometimes on a bad train of tokens, indulging in connections that seem plausible, but ultimately drive the model towards a bad prediction of a memory's ground truth.

[@michelles9897]

⚡️⚡️⚡️

[@parvesh-rana]

Podcast with Daniel Z. Lieberman

[@adcaptandumvulgus4252]

Or like many times, loose threads are stitched up.

[@robertarvanitis8852]

Well said. Good survey of the human condition. First a clarification. The one-turn prisoner’s dilemma is unsolvable. But Life is the iterated version. For that, game theory has the answer. See “Axelrod’s Tournament,” TIT FOR TAT, Stanford. Evolution is first physical, then psychological, finally cultural. Man is both highly cooperative and fiercely competitive. The challenge is how to navigate. So brains build models to predict the world. The greatest selective pressure on humans is not the tiger in bushes, but competition within the tribe. Dominance means breeding success. One chimp, no matter how powerful, is no match for two lesser males. Most troops are led by a pair, one clever, the other stout. Evolution needs replication and variation. See “Chance & Necessity” Jacques Monod. This drives sex strategies. Females bear the cost of reproduction, require subsidy. They are choosy. Males are promiscuous, offer variation to suit the environment. In hard times, the strong succeeds; in prosperity, the clever fare better.

[@taonow369]

Conspiracy theory # 1 = we are the Brain We are not We are the awareness of the brain The brain is a instrument to survive in this environment ( Don Hoffman) We are also aware of the body but we are not We are the expression of the vibratory energy we believe ourselves to be

[@KW-jq5je]

"brains love conspiracy theories"?? Oh stop it! Thats a conspiracy theory!