Abstract In many human societies, truth-making institutions are considered necessary to establish an officially valid or “received” description of some specific situation. These range from divination, oaths, and ordeals to judicial torture or trial by jury. In many cases, these institutions may seem odd or paradoxical, e.g., why would an ordeal reveal a defendant's guilt or innocence? Here we propose to address the questions, why those institutions are considered the source of accepted truth, and why they have recurrent features in many different cultures. Our model is based on two well-documented set of evolved cognitive mechanisms. One is epistemic vigilance, the set of cognitive processes that help us evaluate the quality of communicated information we receive. We show how our epistemic intuitions account for otherwise puzzling aspects of divination, oaths, and ordeals. The other set of mechanisms consists in human capacities for coalition building and the recruitment of social support, which explains how truth-making institutions can be strategically used by individuals to influence mutual knowledge for their own interests. Taken together, these mechanisms explain the kinds of institutions found in small-scale societies (oaths, ordeals, divination), as well as the emergence of different institutions (laws of evidence, judicial torture, trial by jury) in large-scale and modern societies.

中文翻译：

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真相制定机构：从占卜、考验和誓言到司法酷刑和证据规则

摘要 在许多人类社会中，为了建立对某些特定情况的官方有效或“接受”的描述，真相制定机构被认为是必要的。这些范围从占卜、誓言和考验到司法酷刑或陪审团审判。在许多情况下，这些制度可能看起来很奇怪或自相矛盾，例如，为什么一项考验会揭示被告有罪或无罪？在这里，我们建议解决这些问题，为什么这些机构被认为是公认真理的来源，以及为什么它们在许多不同的文化中具有反复出现的特征。我们的模型基于两组有据可查的进化认知机制。一个是认知警戒，这是一组认知过程，可帮助我们评估我们收到的交流信息的质量。我们展示了我们的认知直觉如何解释占卜、誓言和磨难的其他令人费解的方面。另一组机制包括建立联盟和招募社会支持的人力能力，这解释了个人如何战略性地利用制定真相的机构来影响相互了解，以实现自己的利益。总之，这些机制解释了在小规模社会中发现的各种制度（誓言、磨难、占卜），以及在大规模和现代社会中出现的不同制度（证据法、司法酷刑、陪审团审判）。社会。这解释了个人如何战略性地利用制定真相的机构来影响他们自己的利益的相互知识。总之，这些机制解释了在小规模社会中发现的各种制度（誓言、磨难、占卜），以及在大规模和现代社会中出现的不同制度（证据法、司法酷刑、陪审团审判）。社会。这解释了个人如何战略性地利用制定真相的机构来影响他们自己的利益的相互知识。总之，这些机制解释了在小规模社会中发现的各种制度（誓言、磨难、占卜），以及在大规模和现代社会中出现的不同制度（证据法、司法酷刑、陪审团审判）。社会。