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Eliezer_Yudkowsky comments on Do I really not believe in God? Do you? - Less Wrong Discussion
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Apparently our gratitude reflex, like our help reflex, has the sensation of gratitude preceding the search for a target of that sensation, and thus fails to avoid activating when the search is destined to come out negative.
In other words, we feel: "YAY! THANK YOU! ...to who? ...to X who helped me!"
not
"YAY! Did anyone help me with this? X did... THANK YOU, X!"
similarly, it's:
"OH NO! HELP! ...to who? X can help me... help, X!"
instead of
"OH NO! ...can anyone help me? X can... HELP, X!"
"gratitude reflex" seems like a good name for it. Makes me feel like it's out of my control, like jerking away from a source of pain, or laughing when tickled. And that's certainly how it feels. One can now construct a plausible just so story that wanting to find a target for gratitude or anger is one impetus for supernatural beliefs.
I wonder if there is any evopsych and/or neurophysiological basis for this feeling being a reflex.
"Gratitude reflex" is a perfect name for a feeling I had during an extremely stressful, extremely intense experience related to my daughter (now, thankfully, alive and healthy). I’ll spare the details, but let me just say that there was a risk of an incurable genetic disorder involved and I was powerless to change the outcome. It was, without any doubt, the emotional peak of my life to date. It lasted about six months, and it almost crushed me.
I never was a theist before, but during that period I noticed that I was sliding into some form of theism. There clearly was a feeling that I badly needed someone or something to be grateful to, should things turn out well. To make the matters worse, I was going through a huge, 2-year long update towards strict naturalism, so I knew that there’s nothing in the universe that could respond to my pleas for help and promises of my future gratitude and loyalty in the event of a positive outcome. Despite knowing that, I had experiences that a theist would describe as religious or spiritual.
During my recovery, there was another emotion in addition to the “gratitude reflex”. After the situation has resolved positively, my naturalistic worldiview was gaining its strength back and I felt guilty for it, guilty for not being thankful, guilty for denying the existence of someone or something who arranged the chromosomes correctly.
A generalization from one example, if I may: people who are powerless to change the outcome of extremely stressful situations they experience may feel a need to be thankful to someone or something beyond the natural world; and after a positive outcome they may feel guilty for not being thankful for the resolution, which may keep them locked into non-naturalistic worldviews.