TED2010 Talk by Michael Shermer (Skeptic magazine publisher): The pattern behind self-deception

[David Morris]

Linked from Boing Boing...

http://www.ted.com/talks/michael_shermer_the_pattern_behind_self_deception.html

The main part of his presentation was about human beings' evolved
tendency to identify patterns even when there is no pattern.

"An increase of dopamine caused subjects to see more patterns than
those that did not receive the dopamine. So dopamine appears to be the
drug associated with patternicity. In fact, neuroleptic drugs that are
used to eliminate psychotic behavior, things like paranoia, delusions
and hallucinations, these are patternicities. They're incorrect
patterns. They're false positives. They're type one errors. And if you
give them drugs that are dopamine antagonists, they go away. That is,
you decrease the amount of dopamine, and their tendency to see
patterns like that decreases. On the other hand, amphetamines like
cocaine, are dopamine agonists. They increase the amount of dopamine.
So you're more likely to feel in a euphoric state, creativity, find
more patterns."
...

Dopamine, I think, changes our signal-to-noise ratio. That is, how
accurate we are in finding patterns. If it's too low, you're more
likely to make too many type two errors. You miss the real patterns.
You don't want to be too skeptical. If you're too skeptical, you'll
miss the really interesting good ideas. Just right, you're creative,
and yet, you don't fall for too much baloney. Too high and maybe you
see patterns everywhere. Every time somebody looks at you, you think
people are staring at you. You think people are talking about you. And
if you go too far on that, that's just simply labeled as madness. It's
a distinction perhaps we might make between two Nobel laureates,
Richard Feynman and John Nash. One sees maybe just the right number of
patterns to win a Nobel Prize. The other one also, but maybe too many
patterns. And we then call that schizophrenia.