Ep119 "Why do brains believe in the unbelievable?" with Bruce Hood

In this episode of Inner Cosmos, David Eagleman interviews developmental psychologist Bruce Hood about supernatural thinking and why humans across cultures and time believe in things they can't see. Hood introduces the term "super sense" to describe the intuitive nature of these beliefs, which often feel real to those who hold them. They discuss how supernatural thinking is rooted in our mental architecture, including intuitive dualism (the separation of mind and body), essentialism (attaching metaphysical properties to physical entities), and causal reasoning (the tendency to see patterns and infer causality, even in random events). They explore examples such as attachments to objects, the contagion effect, sports rituals, and the challenges of anthropomorphizing AI, highlighting how these cognitive habits are natural outcomes of how human minds work and are essential for survival and meaning-making.