Cognitive Problem

Fundamental Cognitive Problem

"The world’s a scary, unpredictable place, and that makes your brain mad. As a predictive organ, the brain is on the constant lookout for patterns that both explain the world and help you thrive in it. That ability helps humans make sense of the world. For example, you probably understand by now that if you see red, that means that you should be on the lookout for danger.
But as scientists report in a 2017 paper published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, sometimes people sense danger even when there is no pattern to recognize — and so their brains create their own. This phenomenon, called illusory pattern perception, they write, is what drives people who believe in conspiracy theories, like climate change deniers, 9/11 truthers, and “Pizzagate” believers."

Where do all patterns exist? In the mind - for all we know - so I think pattern recognition is to some extent subjective. Nothing can be said about the 'world', only about our perception of it. You think you're seeing a chaotic painting? Maybe I can find some pattern in it. I feel like calling that a cognitive problem is like saying there are people, who see the world correctly and those who don't. How you decide to view the world in general is a matter of choice, it doesn't have to be scary no matter which (other) beliefs you are drawn to.

Whether you see patterns or not, it's up to the conspiracy researcher to prove those connections and show evidence. To me, this article seems rather manipulative, because it is implying that consipracy theories and anything supernatural is automatically false and anyone believing otherwise is probably crazy. We've seen plenty of conspiracy theories turning out true. A key is to see that this article mentions 'people who believe in conspiracy theories', but not the researchers of said theories.

In short: I think pattern recognition is subjective and conspiracy theories are not just about that.

This is where the critical thinking bit comes into play.

Did you read the study?

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ejsp.2331

Pattern recognition may well be subjective, but the majority of people seem to recognize and interpret patterns in such a way that would suggest that they are not prone to illusory pattern perception, and thus do not as easily buy into fringe beliefs that become known as conspiracy theories.

I read parts of the study, but you can point out if I missed anything.

This is where the critical thinking bit comes into play [...] the majority of people seem to recognize and interpret patterns in such a way that would suggest that they are not prone to illusory pattern perception

I don't understand what you are trying to say when you suggest the above. As far as I understand, illusory pattern perception is just based on what the majority doesn't see. How does it invalidate the beliefs themselves or the theories? As I see it, some people might have a better ability to find hidden or non-obvious patterns. And some, who don't see them, still believe in conspiracies. Is the correlation strong enough?

I don't think the study mentioned how much people knew about the given conspiracy theories, because that could make a difference. Perhaps it's even the other way around: Once people have seen through some conspiracies, they tend to notice patterns more easily. Just a thought.

Also, I find it funny that most questions, which were used to rate a person were ones like

• Is there reason for concern about the NSA security programs?
• Is there reason to think that the NSA listens to private phone conversations that are unrelated to terrorist plots?
• Is there reason to be suspicious about other governmental operations besides the NSA’s surveillance programs?
• The US government deliberately conceals a lot of information from the public
• The US government had advance knowledge of the 9/11attacks

Same with the texts, although it might not be saying much... I'm not from the US, but from my experience, pretty much everyone would agree with the first four and everyone who has ever looked into 9/11 would agree with the last one.

The important word is "illusory".

I feel like I'm still missing your point. What is considered illusory?
If you can detect illusory patterns, you should be more sensitive to more obvious ones as well - a skill that can backfire, but might be useful as well.

I wonder, whether there has been a test, where those, who do see patterns, explain and show them to those who didn't. That might help understand how much of the patterns are illusory or how different people interpret them.

You have misinterpreted this as an opportunity to argue for subjective idealism. That misinterpretation has led you down a blind alley. These are not philosophy students conducting gedankenexperiment, these are data scientists looking for statistically significant correlations, which they appear to have found.

What this study purports to demonstrate (inter alia) is that people who see illusory patterns in deliberately randomized data are likely to believe in conspiracies and supernatural entities. On the other hand, people who see patterns in non-random data are much less likely to form an attachment to conspiracies and ghosts.

"...perceiving patterns in the unstructured Pollock paintings significantly predicted belief in existing conspiracy theories...belief in fictitious conspiracy theories..., and supernatural beliefs.... Recognizing patterns in the highly structured Vasarely paintings, however, was unrelated to belief in existing conspiracy theories and belief in fictitious conspiracy theories, and negatively predicted supernatural beliefs...."

That is the important correlation. It doesn't matter where reality lies, and subjectivism is simply not the issue. There is a quantified association between a certain type of mind and a certain type of belief, and that association is predicated upon a certain type of cognitive malfunction, a malfunction that tends to become statistically less likely in people with higher analytical abilities.

I see. Why would it be called a cognitive malfunction though?

I feel that the article, which links to this paper is rather one-sided and contributes to the psyop that's been going on since the 60s when suggesting things about conspiracy theories themselves.

Anyway, now that I think of it, it would be interesting to create similar polls in this forum.

The paper talks about "illusory beliefs" - I'm guilty of applying the malfunction label. If one's mind is consistently leading one to error is it a malfunction? Maybe, but it could just be the tail of a statistical distribution...perhaps, given the persistence of this class of error, there's even value in it. Or maybe it points to value in simple heterogeneity. Deep waters that I'm too tired to swim this AM. ;)