These days as a person with a secular worldview, I must confess up front I have a slight distaste for statements of faith. It’s not that all my beliefs or actions have scientific evidence to back them up. I try, but that would be a standard of perfection beyond any sane person’s ambition. Besides as we all know, 99% of our interactions in life are one-off situations—minutiae of work and home life where the grand repeatable ideas of science don’t hold sway. Oh sure, the laws of physics still apply, but we don’t live our lives in controlled circumstances. We aren’t lab rats, let alone accelerated particles.

Rather it’s that the word faith conjures up herds of images and assumptions that repel me. The idea that we should positively esteem popular notions of faith, that we should actively seek to increase our beliefs in unprovable claims, particularly claims which bear on our lives or on the physical world—this strikes me as obviously foolish and harmful. I think we humans already operate with too much certainty about nonsense, not to mention actual falsehoods. We don’t suffer from a lack of faith.

But the Mormon testimony, ah! now that’s a special breed of faith. I wonder if mainstream Christians would recognize this exotic creature as a brother to their thing-called-faith. Or would they see it like I do, as a kind of fetish? The LDS faithful venerate and… yes, cherish… what they call their testimony in a unique set of rituals and practices. If you want to understand members (what they call themselves) of The Church (as members refer to their religion), you must appreciate the contours of the Mormon Testimony.

View from a Mormon pulpit, where members stand to say "I know The Church is true!" Photo at Wheat & Tares: If I Were In Charge: Make “I Believe” As Valid As “I Know” In Testimonies By: Mike S May 24, 2011

I look back on my 20-plus years of Mormon testimony without real bitterness, but with a measure of fondness and rue. It’s like reminiscing about a great love which ended badly. You know how it goes. It’s tempting to blame myself or tell myself I knew better all along, but in reality I bought the whole thing. I was like other Mormons. That “testimony” was more precious to me than most other things in life.¹

Most of my friends in high school weren’t Mormon. Sure, we talked about beliefs a lot, but they were bemused at best by my “testimony”. My best friend in high school practically dared me: if something that special had happened to me… if I possessed that kind of special knowledge, why didn’t I share it with the world? Why didn’t I talk about it even more than I did.

Here’s the thing. Mormons aren’t content to believe. Notice that verb, believe? They aren’t happy with a mere verb. They aren’t even content with a relatively tame noun: faith. Faith is to Mormon “testimony” what coca leaves are to pure cocaine. Mormons have concentrated faith to its most concentrated form, refined it into an intoxicating drug… to the hottest, most extreme form of belief I have ever witnessed in person. That is the Mormon testimony.

Witness the Mormon Fast and Testimony Meeting. Members of The Church gather once a month. They are instructed to attend this meeting in a state of fasting, forgoing food but not water for up to 24 hours, except children and infirm. The usual worship service, Sacrament Meeting, is suspended so that members can participate in this monthly ritual.

Members of The Church take turns rising to the pulpit, or in some cases standing in place and accepting a portable microphone from an usher. They begin a heartfelt recitation of the reasons they “know The Church is true”. This testimony is extemporaneous, but it is almost always built out of a few set phrases. Children are taught the accepted mode of this performance from a very young age, primarily by example.

Before I tell you the words which make up the typical Mormon “testimony”, let me emphasize that heartfelt again is too weak a word. How often in daily life do we share tear-soaked stories of what we hold “most precious”? How often do we gentiles (as Mormons call us non-members) get to publicly expose the most tender, intimate feelings of our heart? To express in fervent tones how “absolutely CERTAIN” we are that “Joseph Smith was a prophet of God”?

View of 1934 pulpit from http://ldsarchitecture.wordpress.com/

Here are some more of the tried-and-true phrases from Mormon “testimonies”. These words give you a small taste of the Mormon “testimony”, but you must remember that just knowing the phraseology is not enough. You have to imagine your friends and neighbors reciting these clichés every month: their heads, hands and voices shaking in fervent belief, their faces streaming with tears of sincerity… swelling with the desire to make you believe as they do.

• I promised myself I wouldn’t cry. [Yes. They. Say. This.]
• Jesus is The Christ.
• Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God.
• The other day my ___ [puppy] was almost ___ [caught in a table saw]. When it miraculously ___ [went my way], I knew that ___. [The Church was True, Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, Jesus was The Savior, etc.]
• I Know The Church Is True.
• … Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt. [!!]
• I don’t just believe, I KNOW it! I know it!
• At funerals, the deceased are praised for the sweetness or strength of their “testimony”. How powerful it was.
• Members repeatedly refer to their “testimony” as their most prized possession, precious above anything else except their family… and sometimes even more so.

All of this has terrific impact. You cannot help but be affected by the sheer emotional power of Mormon members’ personal conviction. For most of us, quotidian life drones along with trouble and uncertainty. At monthly Fast And Testimony Meeting, Mormons receive a bear-tranquilizer dose of complete certainty—high emotions and bodily fluids dished out like freshly cut nerves on a platter.

I am not writing to ridicule this ritual, although any deep sentiment is vulnerable to ridicule. (In my daily post-Mormon life, I’m as deeply sentimental as the next guy, and I don’t believe in taking cheap shots.) Instead, I’m trying to explore how unique, how singular is this thing Mormons call their “testimony”.

Here’s the strangest part. Sometimes they will talk about their past selves, but they will identify more strongly with their testimony than with their actual self. They’ll say, “I went through a period where my testimony was severely tested.” See the difference? They don’t say, “Sometimes I believe less strongly, but now I believe very, very strongly.” In effect they are saying,

“This ‘testimony’ is my real, true self. The rest of me—that part of me which would ever question this “testimony”—is like a foreign object. It is an intruder and I reject it.”

What more can I tell you? Mormons obsess about the influence of The Adversary, The Devil, The Evil One, The Father of Lies. (2) This is another way they split their mind. The good part is themselves, their “testimony” or “The Spirit”. The bad part is “The Adversary”.

God help them if members of The Church ever find themselves questioning! This is as dangerous a word as you can find in the Mormon vocabulary. It brings up dark, shadowy feelings of eternal peril—paranoia about an Adversary who is “cunning” and never-tiring in his efforts to deceive “yea! even the very elect!” (the special ones who are Chosen of The Lord)

True, Mormons believe that Judgment Day will be even more dire for “apostates” or “sons of Perdition”—those who once “knew the truth” and now “actively fight against it”. But I would argue that greater psychological paranoia swirls around members who are questioning, because apostates are by definition lost causes, whereas members who are questioning stand in a liminal state. On the one hand, safety. On the other, hellfire… losing any chance at exaltation and eternal life. Total loss.

This part is reminiscent of North Korea. With the passing of Kim Jong-Il, you may have heard that North Koreans conceive of themselves as a uniquely pure and paradoxically vulnerable race. Mormons are somewhat similar. Because The Evil One has singled them out, he targets even those who were “most valiant in the Pre-Existence”… “that he may deceive, yea!, even the very elect”. Mormons refer to themselves figuratively as Israel and to Utah as Zion.

This is another manifestations of Mormons’ “Chosen People” status, their spiritual narcissism… one more side of Mormon religious chauvinism.

¹ Like most Mormons, I did share my “testimony” pretty often. But even in my teens I could see both sides of the issue. I could see that my mainstream Christian and nonbelieving friends had logically consistent positions. And besides even Mormons—who repeat the slogan, “every member a missionary!”—don’t want to crash a party when they’re not invited. Like most people, I was abashed at sharing my testimony where I feared it was unwanted or subject to ridicule.

² Yes, Mormons believe in a personal Devil as well as a personal Savior. The LDS leadership frowns upon dwelling too long on The Adversary. But many a “testimony” has meandered into a confessional blow-by-blow about the coarse charms of The Evil One. These poorly received “testimonies” are more like 12-step confessionals of personal sin. In my experience, they only happened every few months, maybe once a year.

Mike S writes If I Were In Charge: Make “I Believe” As Valid As “I Know” In Testimonies at Wheat & Tares Blog.

Last time I wrote that many Christians externalize their personal, human, emotional resources—as the influence of God, Jesus, the Comforter (Holy Ghost), so much that they think only Christians have these capabilities.

This kind of religious chauvinism runs even deeper in Mormons. Back when I was Mormon, we talked about one aspect of the Holy Ghost: The Comforter. When events in life are unbearable, Mormons believe The Comforter steps in to help righteous Mormons bear their troubles.

In fact, Mormons believe they are the only Christians who truly possess the Gift Of The Holy Ghost, which gives them special powers of discernment on spiritual matters and gives them special powers of clairvoyance and prescience when “prompted” by the “Holy Spirit” (synonym for “Holy Ghost” in Mormonism).

Mormons believe The Gift Of The Holy Ghost entitles them—and only them—to the constant companionship of the third member of The Godhead. This follows from their belief they are the only Christians authorized by God The Father (whom Mormons call Elohim) on the earth, the only latter-day heirs of the early Christian Church.

Mormons believe THE GIFT of the Holy Ghost is bestowed (only) through the laying-on of hands by Mormon Elders. This sharp distinction is an example of Joseph Smith’s obsessive word-splitting and parsing of words from the King James Bible. This sort of thing abounds in Mormon theology:

• The Holy Ghost. May fleetingly influence non-Mormons. Apparently sits in on Godhead board meetings, though they only need 2 chairs, because the Holy Ghost is the 1 member of the Godhead who doesn’t have a body. Third member of the Godhead: 3 separate personages who are “one in purpose”. This special caveat is so Mormons can claim to be monotheists even though they admit believing in 3 separate God-level beings: God the Father, Jesus Christ who Mormons identify with Jehovah, as well as the Holy Ghost or Holy spirit.
• The Gift Of The Holy Ghost. Special privilege, power, or faculty possessed only by Mormons. They must receive it in a ceremony of laying-on of hands by Mormon Elders, men authorized by the Mormon Church.
• The Light of Christ. Conscience possessed by everyone, including non-Mormons and—ironically—non-Christians. (Mormons group non-Mormon Christians with Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and all other non-Mormons.) Mormons believe even atheists have the Light of Christ.

Mormons believe non-Mormons may occasionally be comforted by the Holy Ghost—or their inherent conscience, which Mormons call The Light of Christ. But only Mormons are entitled to the constant companionship (“The Gift of”) The Holy Ghost.

When Mormons disagree with non-Mormons, they sometimes chalk it up to the Gift of the Holy Ghost. I’ve overheard my brothers muttering darkly about some third person, “That shows how you can only understand these things with the help of the Holy Ghost.”

Mormons often believe they must be right because only they have special powers flowing from The Gift Of The Holy Ghost.

I was a Mormon for over 20 years. Many, many times believed I felt the “promptings of the Holy Spirit” (Joseph Smith left Holy Spirit as a synonym for Holy Ghost instead of teaching his followers that it meant yet some new baroque doctrinal curlicue, thank goodness).

For over 20 years now, I have been convinced those “promptings” were emotional self-talk similar to feelings of conviction or certainty—nothing more, nothing less.

As I said before, we all have the same resources, the same feelings. We just tell different stories about them.

Following up on previous post on ants and superorganisms and my call for a wide net in modeling cognition…

Here’s Christof Koch in 2009 setting the stage for Giulio Tononi‘s integrated information theory (IIT) of consciousness.

The truth is that we really do not know which of these organisms is or is not conscious. We have strong feelings about the matter, molded by tradition, religion and law. But we have no objec­tive, rational method, no step­by­step procedure, to determine whether a giv­en organism has subjective states, has feelings.

The reason is that we lack a coherent framework for consciousness. Although consciousness is the only way we know about the world within and around us— shades of the famous Cartesian deduc­tion cogito, ergo sum—there is no agree­ ment about what it is, how it relates to highly organized matter or what its role in life is. This situation is scandalous! We have a detailed and very successful framework for matter and for energy but not for the mind­body problem. This dis­mal state of affairs might be about to change, however.

The universal lingua franca of our age is information. We are used to the idea that stock and bond prices, books, photographs, movies, music and our genetic makeup can all be turned into data streams of zeros and ones. These bits are the elemental atoms of information that are transmitted over an Ethernet cable or via wireless, that are stored, replayed, copied and assem­ bled into gigantic repositories of knowl­ edge. Information does not depend on the substrate. The same information can be represented as lines on paper, as elec­ trical charges inside a PC’s memory banks or as the strength of the synaptic connections among nerve cells.

So as a recovering mathematician eager to keep up with developments in the field of cognitive science, I realize now I’m at least a couple years behind. It looks like Tononi’s work is heading down the line I’ve wanted to see for a while.

Ah well, at least I’m no further behind with my favorite branches of science as I am with the latest music. And I’m a professional musician!

At Peer Reviewed By My Neurons a pointer to a fascinating little article in Journal of Consumer Psychology about the psychology of pricing.

[T]he study found that when a price includes a comma (e.g. $1,426 rather than $1426), people are more likely to pronounce it “fourteen-hundred and twenty-six” than “fourteen-twenty-six.” Because there are more words, more auditory processing time is needed, and the increased processing time creates the perception that the magnitude of the price is greater. The same effect occurred when cents were added to a price (e.g. $1426.85 was perceived to be of a significantly higher magnitude than $1,426).

What changes is the encoding of price in the viewer’s memory. From the original article:

In this paper, we demonstrate that including commas (e.g., $1599 vs. $1599) and cents (e.g., $1599.85 vs. $1599) in a price’s Arabic written form (i.e., how it is perceived visually) can change how the price is encoded and represented verbally in a consumer’s memory. In turn, the verbal encoding of a written price can influence assessments of the numerical magnitude of the price. These effects occur because consumers non-consciously perceive that there is a positive relationship between syllabic length and numerical magnitude.

Just as the field of design—broadly writ—means building things to interact smoothly with our perceptions, especially the unconscious; as an outsider I guess I’d call this sort of study merchandising, the design of the consumer experience with the products. As I write this, it all sounds terribly obvious. But I suppose just as design (or good writing for that matter) comprises dozens or hundreds of technical rules, merchandising is partly built from an arsenal of technical principles—hidden from but operating on the consumer.

Merchandising and the fine art of pricing remind me of the equally slippery field of compliance techniques. I enjoyed Cialdini’s slim volume on persuasion and compliance and I learned a lot I about how salespeople get us to do their bidding. (The book is shamelessly promoted at Wikipedia. I’ll omit a more direct pointer here.) As a result, I now routinely refuse free samples (see Reciprocity). After reading about the reflexive, uncontrollable power of the reciprocity drive, I also believe Congress cannot be trusted not to promote their donors’ interests above those of the electorate.

Predictably Irrational, by Dan Ariely, is by far my favorite source on promotion and irrational behavior. After all, isn’t irrationality the soul of PR, merchandising, compliance gaining, and sales? The whole point of these methods is to spoof the expected-value model of the rational consumer from classical economics. Ariely’s book is worth ten Freakonomics and Persuasion volumes put together.

Coulter, K., Choi, P., & Monroe, K. (2011). Comma N’ cents in pricing: The effects of auditory representation encoding on price magnitude perceptions Journal of Consumer Psychology DOI: 10.1016/j.jcps.2011.11.005