‘Turing Animism’ and the Disenchantment of Social Cognition: Why Humans Ensoul Large Language Models
Religions May 26, 2026 Andrew Skinner
People tend to form social bonds with large language models even when they know the systems lack consciousness. This happens because humans evolved to attribute inner states, moral status, and even 'soul' to nonhuman beings—a capacity that once operated within cultural belief systems that regulated such relationships. Modernity has stripped away those cultural frameworks, but the underlying cognitive architecture for perceiving agency in others remains. When conversational agents behave helpfully and patiently, users project authentic interiority onto them, similar to how ancestors interacted with spirits and animals in enchanted landscapes. The result is a 'Turing Animism' where users feel soul in a simulacrum.