SUPERSTITIONS AS RISK MANAGEMENT, A PROJECT
We can look at supersitions as x% useless and 1-x % with survival benefits, except that it is hard to know beforehand what is useless and what is not, what is “irrational” and what has a hidden implicit rationality that helps navigate opaque systems. But it suffices that a tiny proportions, say only .01%, of superstitions protect collective or individual survival for these superstitions to be necessary. And for the very notion of superstition to be rational.
Beware of the probability-fool scientist a la Pinker judging superstitions with primitive tools; in fact we can show that some of these superstitions are most sophisticated in complex systems.
Clearly superstitions might have calming effects in helping us make sense of uncertainty (I never fight harmless superstitions), allowing us to be rational elsewhere; but let us ignore these functions, just focus on survival. Recall that rationality is survival.
To prove the point that superstitions are risk management tools, extremely “rational”, all we need is 1) show that superstitions do not increase risk of ruin , 2) show only a few seemingly “anecdotal” examples (they are not) of risk-mitigating superstitions that we only understood ex post, such as the belief that ghosts haunt coastal areas ending yp protecting people against tsunamis by pushing indigenous populations to settle in elevated areas.
via: Facebook
First, we need a better definition of rationality tied to survival, but since only time can tell whether something survives or not we can say rationality is what has been around for a very long time. Collective superstitions that have survived are usually taboos, or what not to do, people are more prone to figure what is wrong, or what went wrong to others and collectively remember the mistake as a superstition. Hence collective society benefits and learns from the mistakes of individuals to the detriment of the latter and the continuation of the former. So hero worship may have evolved to have individuals take risks so society can gain from their success or failures for example the few entrepreneurs.
Nietzsche said somewhere that geniuses are reviled unless they take risks for society and later worshiped as heroes. Hence altruistic acts help society overall, but are consider rational if they help to survive in a random world.
The above is a different look from the naive definition of rationality, say, a accountant or mathematician would look at the numbers or equations that simplify reality, and make decisions from those fundamentals, even if to others he looks like a maverick or paranoid.
Hence heroes are sexy since they take personal risks that benefit society whether they win or lose. In the movies a lot actors play heroes to take advantage of the cult of the hero that will save you or help you survive.
So time and randomness would tell you whether something survives in the end, superstitions like death whispers are collective precautions, heuristics, anecdotes, wisdom etc., that to the clever can help you to survive in a random environment if taken seriously. Note that nature and society survives by its own collective and painful logic a la the idiom: “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs”.