• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 629 0

calls the intentional stance, whereby we predict the actions of others based on what we believe about their intention, although I take it much further. Dennett explains the concept this way: “First you decide to treat the object whose behavior is to be predicted as a rational agent; then you figure out what beliefs that agent ought to have, given its place in the world and its purpose. Then you figure out what desires it ought to have, on the same considerations, and finally you predict that this rational agent will act to further its goals in the light of its beliefs. A little practical reasoning from the chosen set of beliefs and desires will in most instances yield a decision about what the agent ought to do; that is what you predict the agent will do.” Daniel Dennett, The Intentional Stance (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987).

2. I first introduced the concept of agenticity in my June 2009 column in Scientific American.

3. Bruce M. Hood, Supersense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable (New York: HarperCollins, 2009), x.

4. Ibid., 183.

5. Ibid., 213.

6. Ibid., 214.

7. Ibid., 247–48.

8. Michael A. Persinger, Neuropsychological Bases of God Beliefs (New York: Praeger, 1987).

9. The show originally aired in 2000–2001. Clips from the series can be accessed on YouTube, keyword Michael Shermer.

10. The television segment on Michael Persinger and my participation in his experiment can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCVzz96zKA0.

11. Jon Ronson, The Men Who Stare at Goats (London: Picador, 2004).

12. You can see this and other striking visual and auditory illusions in my TED talk posted at http://www.skeptic.com/ under “Skepticism 101.” There are entire Web pages dedicated to finding reverse lyrics and words in songs and speeches, for example, http://www.reversespeech.com/.

13. Such auditory priming and illusions have been studied scientifically by University of California–San Diego psychologist Diana Deutsch. For example, a repetitive tape loop of a two-syllable word educes different words and phrases in different people’s minds, often depending on what they are thinking about at the moment they hear the repeated syllables. Diana Deutsch, “Musical Illusions,” in Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, ed. Larry R. Squire (Boston: Elsevier, 2009), 5:1159–67.

14. Peter Suedfeld and Jane S. P. Mocellin, “The Sensed Presence in Unusual Environments,” Environment and Behavior 19, no. 1 (January 1987): 33–52.

15. The complete poem and explanatory notes are available at http://www.bartleby.com/201/1.html.

16. John Geiger, The Third Man Factor: The Secret of Survival in Extreme Environments (New York: Weinstein Books, 2009).

17. Quoted in ibid., 84–85. Originally recounted in Charles A. Lindbergh, “33 Hours to Paris,” Saturday Evening Post, June 6, 1953; and Lindbergh, The Spirit of St. Louis (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1953).

18. Reinhold Messner and Horst Höfler, Hermann Buhl: Climbing Without Compromise (Seattle: The Mountaineers, 2000), 150.

19. Quoted in Geiger, Third Man Factor, 175–76.

20. William Laird McKinlay, The Last Voyage of the Karluk: A Survivor’s Memoir of Arctic Disaster (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1976), 57.

21. James Allan Cheyne, “Sensed Presences in Extreme Contexts: A Review of The Third Man Factor,” Skeptic 15, no. 2 (2009): 68–71.

22. The final ranking was as follows: (8) Hawaii Ironman Triathlon, (7) Badwater Ultramarathon 146-Mile Cross-Country Run, (6) La Traversée Internationale (25-mile swim), (5) Raid Gauloises Wilderness Competition, (4) U.S. Army’s Best Ranger Competition, (3) Iditarod sled dog race, (2) Vendée Globe around-the-world sailing race, and (1) Race Across America.

23. I document these experiences, and many others, in Michael Shermer, Race Across America: The Agonies and Glories of the World’s Longest and Cruelest Bicycle Race (Waco, Tex.: WRS Publishing, 1993).

24. Quoted in Daniel Coyle, “That Which Does Not Kill Me Makes Me Stranger,” New York Times, February 5, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/sports/playmagazine/05robicpm.html.

25. Ryan Hudson,