There is now substantial evidence from cognitive neuroscience that humans readily find patterns and impart agency to them. In…

“There is now substantial evidence from cognitive neuroscience that humans readily find patterns and impart agency to them. In his 2009 book Supersense, University of Bristol psychologist Bruce Hood documented the growing body of data that demonstrates our tendency not only to infuse patterns with agency and intention, but to also believe that objects, animals, and people contain an essence—something that is at the core of their being that makes them what they are—and that this essence may be transmitted from objects to people, and from people to people. There are evolutionary reasons for this essentialism, rooted in fears about diseases and contagions that contain all-too-natural essences that can be deadly (and hence should be avoided), and thus there was a natural selection for those who avoided deadly diseases by following their instincts about essence avoidance. But we also generalize these essence emotions to both natural and supernatural beings, to any and all objects and people, and to things seen and unseen; we also assume that those seen and unseen objects and people have agency and intention. “Many highly educated and intelligent individuals experience a powerful sense that there are patterns, forces, energies, and entities operating in the world,” Hood wrote. “More importantly, such experiences are not substantiated by a body of reliable evidence, which is why they are supernatural and unscientific. The inclination or sense that they may be real is our supersense.””

– Shermer, Michael. The Believing Brain: From Ghosts and Gods to Politics and Conspiracies — How We Construct Beliefs and Reinforce Them as Truths. New York: Times Books, 2011. (viacarvalhais)