To Believe is Not to Think: A Cross-Cultural Finding

Are religious beliefs psychologically different from matter-of-fact beliefs? Many scholars say no: that religious people, in a matter-of-fact way, simply think their deities exist. Others say yes: that religious beliefs are more compartmentalized, less certain, and less responsive to evidence. Little research to date has explored whether lay people themselves recognize such a difference. We addressed this question in a series of sentence completion tasks, conducted in five settings that differed both in religious traditions and in language: the US, Ghana, Thailand, China, and Vanuatu. Participants everywhere routinely used different verbs to describe religious versus matter-of-fact beliefs, and they did so even when the ascribed belief contents were held constant and only the surrounding context varied. These findings support the view that people from diverse cultures and language communities recognize a difference in attitude type between religious belief and everyday matter-of-fact belief

Sensing the presence of gods and spirits across cultures and faiths.

Hearing the voice of God, feeling the presence of the dead, being possessed by a demonic spirit-such events are among the most remarkable human sensory experiences. They change lives and in turn shape history. Why do some people report experiencing such events while others do not? We argue that experiences of spiritual presence are facilitated by cultural models that represent the mind as "porous," or permeable to the world, and by an immersive orientation toward inner life that allows a person to become "absorbed" in experiences. In four studies with over 2,000 participants from many religious traditions in the United States, Ghana, Thailand, China, and Vanuatu, porosity and absorption played distinct roles in determining which people, in which cultural settings, were most likely to report vivid sensory experiences of what they took to be gods and spirits.Templeton Foundatio

A Next-Generation Liquid Xenon Observatory for Dark Matter and Neutrino Physics

The nature of dark matter and properties of neutrinos are among the mostpressing issues in contemporary particle physics. The dual-phase xenontime-projection chamber is the leading technology to cover the availableparameter space for Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), whilefeaturing extensive sensitivity to many alternative dark matter candidates.These detectors can also study neutrinos through neutrinoless double-beta decayand through a variety of astrophysical sources. A next-generation xenon-baseddetector will therefore be a true multi-purpose observatory to significantlyadvance particle physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, solar physics, andcosmology. This review article presents the science cases for such a detector.<br

A next-generation liquid xenon observatory for dark matter and neutrino physics

The nature of dark matter and properties of neutrinos are among the most pressing issues in contemporary particle physics. The dual-phase xenon time-projection chamber is the leading technology to cover the available parameter space for weakly interacting massive particles, while featuring extensive sensitivity to many alternative dark matter candidates. These detectors can also study neutrinos through neutrinoless double-beta decay and through a variety of astrophysical sources. A next-generation xenon-based detector will therefore be a true multi-purpose observatory to significantly advance particle physics, nuclear physics, astrophysics, solar physics, and cosmology. This review article presents the science cases for such a detector

Extraordinary entities: Insights into folk ontology from studies of lay people’s beliefs about robots

Robots are extraordinary, category-defying entities. Machines that move autonomously, store and communicate information, display emotions, and cultivate social relationships pose a challenge to our most basic assumptions about what kinds of things exists in the world and how we should reason about them. As such, studies of lay people’s beliefs about robots offer new insights into the ordinary functioning of folk ontologies. In this paper, I propose that there are two ontological questions that human reasoners must grapple with in making sense of robots, or any other entity: Which kind of thing is it? and Which causal forces act on it? Each question highlights a distinct way in which robots are extraordinary—albeit, not exceptional—entities for the human cognitive system. A meditation on the dynamic interplay between these two ontological questions provides a new theoretical framework for understanding conceptual change at both the individual and the cultural-historical level

Emotions as the product of body and mind: The hierarchical structure of folk concepts of mental life among US adults and children

How are emotions understood to relate to other aspects of mental life? Among US adults, concepts of mental life are anchored by a distinction between physiological sensations (BODY), social-emotional abilities (HEART), and perceptual-cognitive capacities (MIND); these conceptual units are in place by 7-9y (Weisman et al., 2017a, 2017b, 2018). Here we reanalyze these datasets to explore the structural relationships among BODY, HEART, and MIND. Across six studies (N=1758), adults’ assessments of the mental lives of robots, beetles, birds, goats, and other entities revealed a clear hierarchical structure: social-emotional abilities were virtually never granted to any entity perceived to lack physiological sensations or perceptual-cognitive abilities. This is consistent with a folk theory—similar to prominent theories in affective science—in which emotions emerge from the combination of more basic capacities for sensation and cognition. Studies of US children (4-9y, N=445) suggest that it takes years for children to acquire this understanding

Similarities and differences in concepts of mental life among adults and children in five cultures.

How do concepts of mental life vary across cultures? By asking simple questions about humans, animals and other entities - for example, 'Do beetles get hungry? Remember things? Feel love?' - we reconstructed concepts of mental life from the bottom up among adults (N = 711) and children (ages 6-12 years, N = 693) in the USA, Ghana, Thailand, China and Vanuatu. This revealed a cross-cultural and developmental continuity: in all sites, among both adults and children, cognitive abilities travelled separately from bodily sensations, suggesting that a mind-body distinction is common across diverse cultures and present by middle childhood. Yet there were substantial cultural and developmental differences in the status of social-emotional abilities - as part of the body, part of the mind or a third category unto themselves. Such differences may have far-reaching social consequences, whereas the similarities identify aspects of human understanding that may be universal.Templeto