(January 18, 2018 at 9:29 am)Cyberman Wrote:(January 17, 2018 at 9:40 pm)emjay Wrote: The way I look at is that superstitious thinking, or the instinctive tendency towards it, is a natural and unavoidable consequence of the way neural networks, and thus the brain, works.
Precisely. B F Skinner pretty much established that in the 40s.
Wow, I didn't know that. I don't know much about B. F. Skinner besides associating him... rather negatively I must admit... with radical behaviourism. But from looking at the Wiki, his experiments with 'Superstition in the pigeon' appear to be describing pretty much exactly what I was talking about but from an experimental, behavioural point of view.
