http://beyondtheblog.wordpress.com/unexplained

If you’re interested in the subject, you may find the essay of interest – plus over a hundred essays of mine linked from there.

Late to the scene, I realize, but I was only early once – when I was born.

On a more serious note, I am not convinced everything ends up hard-coded in our biological genetics, but there does seem to be a social/cultural geneology. You are raised under the influence of your parents, children have been observed to follow the trends of their parents as they mature, and then raise their own kids, who continue the process.

As such, family values, traditions, etc can be seen to be a sort of geneology. Like their biological counterparts, these genes merge in the offspring of the parents.

However, there are more “social genes” beyond family values. Who you hang around drastically influences your personality and behavior – especially as a teenager and young adult. These “genes” are far more fluid – converging and separating as you mingle with people. Ever notice how your personality will tend to differ based on who you are around? If not – it’s easier to notice this in your peers.

As to the whole “cultural conditioning against the paranormal” – it does happen. It is diminishing over time, but still quite prevailent. If you look back over a century ago, there was quite a bit of scientific research into the paranormal. Electricity and the atom proved to be a much easier nut to crack and implement into devices – and science hone most of its efforts towards the atom. Now, research into physics requires a multibillion dollar particle accelerator or some other high-dollar and inaccessible devices to replicate extremes.

This naturally puts a lot of good minds out of a job, and still itching to push the borders of understanding. With many instruments available now that could not even be imagined a century-and-a-half ago, researchers have taken back to the paranormal. It’s quite chaotic at the moment, and I feel too few researchers in the paranormal field have an appropriate understanding of electromagnetic theory and quantum-field theory to really get some answers and provide meaningful research.

Further complicating the issue is that most of the research going on is not really scienfic. At best – it’s akin to a wildlife documentary – an attempt to document the paranormal and classify it. Until we can figure out how to interact with it reliably, there is very little science that can really be done – and even then, it’s limited to field experimentation.

Then, there comes the ethical impact. Let’s say we do confirm ghosts are departed human entities with a continued perception and emotion…. running tests on them is akin to running tests on a human being – which runs into huge ethical problems.

People like James, up there, will consider that a non-issue, as the paranormal are obviously caused by mentally ill individuals. While I suffer from a bit of narcissism, I’d contend I’m reasonably mentally stable.

I’ve seen a few things I can’t quite rationalize with known physical laws. I’ve heard too many stories from too many people, who have no reason to be telling such stories aside from it’s weird and it happened. I figure second-hand experiences different from first-hand experiences. I’ve seen how some people can just make awkward conclusions before – especially in identifying things visually. I’ve also seen how people can develop flawed recollections of events, though many scientific studies into the phenomena are geared to demonstrate extreme examples of memory modification to support skeptic opinion, often with a failure to follow-up to see if memory is further modified many months or years later (this is important, as it is possible the memory was incorrectly transcribed into long-term memory; and the mechanisms behind memory far more complex and unique to individuals than first throught).

But this has turned into its own blog piece, so I’ll leave it at that.

I work for a mental health agency, we try to get people the help they need. Help that comes from therapy and, perhaps, medication, not feeding on their delusions and telling them yes, poisonous toads in your stomach and demons are causing your problems!

Looking over the comments, I see lots of agreement with you. I don’t see sceptics. A true scientist welcomes criticism.

But you aren’t, are you? A disgrace.

Merry Christmas.

Let me make it easy for you. I don’t believe in ghosts. I don’t believe in telepathy. I don’t believe in anything paranormal. But I do believe people experience things suggestive of such phenomena. It’s called ‘delusions’.

Oh, the irony!

I’ve heard of people who believe the Earth is flat. Do you? Why not? Do you think they’re fools, delusional, or crazy?