Thursday 17 March 2016

Do Goldfish believe in magic? (Strange goldfish behaviour #1)

Do Goldfish believe in magic? 

This is an article about sympathetic magic and goldfish. It is well known that sympathetic magic characterises primitive society. For examples, The Golden Bough, by Frazer, is an excellent study into sympathetic magic.

One example of sympathetic magic (or invoked synchronisation) which I recall from Frazer's book is the following. Can't catch a fish? Throw a friend into the water and then pull him out with a fishing rod! Simply, re-enacting what you want to happen, should trigger the event to occur. That's sympathetic magic. Voodoo would be quite an extreme form of sympathetic magic, practiced by all societies.

A recent study has affirmed earlier studies in suggesting a link between IQ and religious belief. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence)





 

A supposed link between IQ and belief in magic, or religion, from the above article. Negatively correlated. 


Firstly there is nothing wrong with religious belief and I am myself highly religious, without any suggestion of not having much of a brain. (perhaps on the contrary!) However, what the result suggests, is that the smaller the brain, the stronger the religious belief! But what does this really suggest, and how far does this result go back in terms of the evolutionary process? Does it just cover animals? How many animals and how far? How do insects think and do they live in a world of magic? It has recently been 'noticed' that even Chimpanzees build cairn-like monuments and worship trees. Their brains are not half of ours.

What the little scientific titbit seems to suggest is that the lower the IQ, the stronger the belief that things happen, not due to religion, as the study suggests, (some of the smartest people are religious) but really, that low IQ is characterised by belief in magic. This is a more primitive subset which the studies in question do not define so well. 

Anyway, I was wondering whether one of my pet goldfish exhibits the behaviour of thinking according to the rules of `sympathetic magic.'Let me explain!

I had one goldfish, a comet, named Goldilocks. Noticing them at the pet shop, these all seem to be rather greedy, fat specimens, sweeping back and forth at the front of the fish tank, stalking their owners, mouths gaping, and intimidating all other fish into submission.

Here is the sympathetic-magic behaviour exhibited! They see the owner, and the mouthes open and close, a sort of begging behaviour to show the owner they are hungry, OR, a sympathetic magic behaviour, because they know that owner plus mouth opening and closing is associated with past eating behaviour! They are perhaps trying to trigger eating behaviour by making the motions!

What do you think? Any fish owners out there?




Check out my book, In Search of the Origin of Pyramids and the Lost Gods of Giza, available cheaply in Kindle edition! It is also available in paperback edition for those who wish to make notes. I guarantee you will see info found no-where else.

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