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> There's a "built-in" concept of what is scary in terms of physical features that has an evolutionary benefit in keeping us safe from certain animals that we c

> There's a "built-in" concept of what is scary in terms of physical features that has an evolutionary benefit in keeping us safe from certain animals that we can easily transpose onto humans, and that system is being tapped into in some form for these people in the routine processing of faces. I can see this with spiders and snakes, but vampires? I don't see it. They don't even generally resemble the bats they're associated with. It's worth noting those who hear audio hallucinations, literal voices speaking to them, appear to hear different attitudes depending on the culture they come from. This wouldn't be the first time we've noted that qualia is culturally relative.

ip26 2y ago
Vampire bats were named ex post facto. They are a New World species, and vampires as an idea predated discovery of the bat.
Sharlin 2y ago
Vampires are predators. They have prominent canines. What’s more, they’re nocturnal predators, probably one of the scariest and most dangerous things that a protohuman on an African savanna could imagine. That said, vampire myths are actually extremely diverse, and it’s not clear at all that they share an origin in some primordial fear of predators. Peter Watts, in Blindsight, of course presents an interesting hypothesis: vampire myths exist because vampires used to exist. Or more precisely, there used to exist a hominid species or subspecies that predated on us.
- darby_nine 2y ago
  Right, but we don't seem to fear predators the same way we fear snakes and spiders. I don't see fangs when I look at noise, for instance, even though I do see snakes and spiders. If you take hallucinogens this strong fear of specifically spiders and snakes is even more apparent. That said, I think vampires can be traced back to burial practices in medieval Eastern Europe. They aren't exactly an ancient myth, nor are they cross-cultural.
  - lovethevoid 2y ago
    An interesting thing to note is that we don't really have an evolutionary fear of seeing snakes and spiders. Studies on infants have been unable to back up that claim ever since we got the ability to process brain activity and more than just "what we see". So in the past a study on infants might claim that with seeing spiders they show fear, but modern studies only demonstrate infants show increased alertness. Contrasted with adults/older kids where this fear shows up as we expect in brain scans and behaviors. Basically, it's a learned fear, and is also why we don't see other animals in the same way when logically we should. The fundamental fear of the unknown makes more sense as a source, in which the fear of demons or vampires becomes understandable when they were created to creatively prey on the unknown. Eg. vampires lurking in the shadows/night. This fear of the unknown can also explain why exposure therapy can be so effective, you're filling that void with knowledge. This fear of the unknown would also explain why new modern creature creations can be scary, despite quite literally knowing they cannot physically exist, we still have that little bit of our amygdala going "but what if we don't know..."
    - darby_nine 2y ago
      > Basically, it's a learned fear, and is also why we don't see other animals in the same way when logically we should. This is not demonstrated by the evidence you offered, and this doesn't address the strong evidence we have at perceiving snakes and spiders in low lighting. Nobody was claiming this is true for infants or small children, too, and I am a mature adult. > The fundamental fear of the unknown makes more sense as a source This makes no sense. What does this even mean to fear the unknown? I get experiencing fear in low-lighting circumstances but this in no way implies a fear of monsters. I absolutely cannot imagine fearing a vampire when looking down a dark alleyway—but snakes and spiders are very real and easy to be scared of.
      - defrost 2y ago
        None of the children I grew up with had any innate fear of either snakes or spiders. Most of us knew which ones could kill and which ones wouldn't, snakes and spiders were watched, and if they moved onto you we let them run across and off again - over reacting was a way to get bitten. I recall my sister bringing around a girl from a TI family new to the area, walking into our house she saw the first cat she had ever seen her life .. I've never heard anyone scream that loud nor get to the top of a couch that fast. Timeframe: 1960s | early 1970s TI -> Torres Strait Islands. Location: Nor'eastern Kimberley region. https://www.smh.com.au/national/snake-sense-wisdom-of-lesser-known-aboriginal-elders-20030715-gdh3lz.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/snake-sense-wisdom-of-lesser... Aborigines lived close to nature and hence to the various creatures who inhabit it; they knew, of course, that snakes can be dangerous, but they also ate them. It was not my experience, however, that snakes were of any special concern to Aboriginals. ~ Snakes in an Aboriginal world-view, Herpetology in Australia, 1993 Snakes and spiders here are not unknowns, they're everyday creatures, unlike (at that time and place) cats.
- naniwaduni 2y ago
  There is still a variety of hominid that, if not strictly nocturnal, is often enough up at odd hours of the night that you aren't and will suck the life out of you. They tend to grow as they do until at adulthood they are indistinguishable from an ordinary human. Over 30% of adult human beings are believed to have been born as babies. Real talk though, it's a huge stretch because to label the range of "vampire myths" with the same word elides a huge diversity of beliefs in which none of being hominid, nocturnal, or particularly toothy are a given.

ip26 2y ago

Vampire bats were named ex post facto. They are a New World species, and vampires as an idea predated discovery of the bat.

Sharlin 2y ago

Vampires are predators. They have prominent canines. What’s more, they’re nocturnal predators, probably one of the scariest and most dangerous things that a protohuman on an African savanna could imagine. That said, vampire myths are actually extremely diverse, and it’s not clear at all that they share an origin in some primordial fear of predators. Peter Watts, in Blindsight, of course presents an interesting hypothesis: vampire myths exist because vampires used to exist. Or more precisely, there used to exist a hominid species or subspecies that predated on us.

darby_nine 2y ago
Right, but we don't seem to fear predators the same way we fear snakes and spiders. I don't see fangs when I look at noise, for instance, even though I do see snakes and spiders. If you take hallucinogens this strong fear of specifically spiders and snakes is even more apparent. That said, I think vampires can be traced back to burial practices in medieval Eastern Europe. They aren't exactly an ancient myth, nor are they cross-cultural.
- lovethevoid 2y ago
  An interesting thing to note is that we don't really have an evolutionary fear of seeing snakes and spiders. Studies on infants have been unable to back up that claim ever since we got the ability to process brain activity and more than just "what we see". So in the past a study on infants might claim that with seeing spiders they show fear, but modern studies only demonstrate infants show increased alertness. Contrasted with adults/older kids where this fear shows up as we expect in brain scans and behaviors. Basically, it's a learned fear, and is also why we don't see other animals in the same way when logically we should. The fundamental fear of the unknown makes more sense as a source, in which the fear of demons or vampires becomes understandable when they were created to creatively prey on the unknown. Eg. vampires lurking in the shadows/night. This fear of the unknown can also explain why exposure therapy can be so effective, you're filling that void with knowledge. This fear of the unknown would also explain why new modern creature creations can be scary, despite quite literally knowing they cannot physically exist, we still have that little bit of our amygdala going "but what if we don't know..."
  - darby_nine 2y ago
    > Basically, it's a learned fear, and is also why we don't see other animals in the same way when logically we should. This is not demonstrated by the evidence you offered, and this doesn't address the strong evidence we have at perceiving snakes and spiders in low lighting. Nobody was claiming this is true for infants or small children, too, and I am a mature adult. > The fundamental fear of the unknown makes more sense as a source This makes no sense. What does this even mean to fear the unknown? I get experiencing fear in low-lighting circumstances but this in no way implies a fear of monsters. I absolutely cannot imagine fearing a vampire when looking down a dark alleyway—but snakes and spiders are very real and easy to be scared of.
    - defrost 2y ago
      None of the children I grew up with had any innate fear of either snakes or spiders. Most of us knew which ones could kill and which ones wouldn't, snakes and spiders were watched, and if they moved onto you we let them run across and off again - over reacting was a way to get bitten. I recall my sister bringing around a girl from a TI family new to the area, walking into our house she saw the first cat she had ever seen her life .. I've never heard anyone scream that loud nor get to the top of a couch that fast. Timeframe: 1960s | early 1970s TI -> Torres Strait Islands. Location: Nor'eastern Kimberley region. https://www.smh.com.au/national/snake-sense-wisdom-of-lesser-known-aboriginal-elders-20030715-gdh3lz.html https://www.smh.com.au/national/snake-sense-wisdom-of-lesser... Aborigines lived close to nature and hence to the various creatures who inhabit it; they knew, of course, that snakes can be dangerous, but they also ate them. It was not my experience, however, that snakes were of any special concern to Aboriginals. ~ Snakes in an Aboriginal world-view, Herpetology in Australia, 1993 Snakes and spiders here are not unknowns, they're everyday creatures, unlike (at that time and place) cats.
naniwaduni 2y ago
There is still a variety of hominid that, if not strictly nocturnal, is often enough up at odd hours of the night that you aren't and will suck the life out of you. They tend to grow as they do until at adulthood they are indistinguishable from an ordinary human. Over 30% of adult human beings are believed to have been born as babies. Real talk though, it's a huge stretch because to label the range of "vampire myths" with the same word elides a huge diversity of beliefs in which none of being hominid, nocturnal, or particularly toothy are a given.