The Paranormal (Where is it now?)

by dhw, Saturday, February 07, 2009, 09:40 (5557 days ago) @ David Turell

David has drawn our attention to Michael Brooks' article in New Scientist: "Born believers: how your brain creates God". David links it to John Clinch's comment that "man has evolved to be (for good adaptive reasons) a pattern-seeking creature." - The two arguments seem to revolve around Gestalt psychology, which originated as an analysis of how we form patterns in perception, but was then applied to most other human activities, including science and philosophy. (I first came across it in relation to literary theory and the reading process.) The mechanism of linking perceptions together is not confined to human beings ... animals can't survive without it either ... but because of our capacity for abstract thinking, we have evolved a vast range of such patterns. - However, John's point was made in the context of believing or not believing in the paranormal, and this seems to me to illustrate the two edges of his weapon. He thinks that those who believe in the paranormal have constructed a pattern that incorporates what they want it to incorporate ... namely, an unknown level of existence or communication. The converse, though, is equally true: his pattern is that of materialism, and so he excludes whatever appears to run counter to it. Every experience is dismissed as either never having happened, or as having a simple, material explanation. All religions, beliefs, disbeliefs and modes of behaviour entail a Gestalt, because that is the only way we can deal with reality. I think Michael Brooks' argument about some kind of inborn belief is right, but only in so far as every human, just like every animal, has an inborn need to understand (i.e. create a consistent pattern relating to) his environment. In the case of humans this expands from ourselves, our family, our home and our general surroundings, to our past, our future, our country, the Earth, and ultimately the cosmos. There has to be a pattern to explain it all, and since establishing links is integral to our survival, it is integral to a child's nature. The form of the pattern, though, will be largely determined by the environment. - Brooks is careful to emphasize that his observation tells us nothing about whether there is such a thing as a God. I think many of the people who have commented on his article have missed a crucial point: "All the researchers involved stress that none of this says anything about the existence or otherwise of gods; as Barratt points out, whether or not a belief is true is independent of why people believe it." - If I may link this thread to the one on The Attenborough Mystery, the statements made by Attenborough (as quoted by George) and by David in his response to George, for me sum up the essence of agnosticism. I will repeat David's aphorism, as I would like to expand on it very slightly: "No new science must be viewed by a preconceived prism of past views, finding excuses to ignore a discovery that is disturbing to them." I would prefer not to be tied to science, because I'm not convinced that science holds all the answers. May I suggest some small amendments? "New discoveries must not be viewed through a preconceived prism of past views that find excuses to ignore whatever is disturbing to them." It's a principle with which I'm sure many people will agree, but which very few will follow.