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To me, the paranormal has value. I don’t accept ‘classical’ interpretations, but think a wider psycho-sociology is involved, and most of my writing in this area is based on this premise. However, I also think something else.
Understanding of the paranormal could have wide implications for society in general, and knowledge in particular. I attempt to put rational hypotheses before the public, and simply ask for a fair hearing, which I usually get.
Except, that is, for the average science type.
When it comes to this modern breed, I immediately fall into the same category as anyone else who is prepared to give the paranormal a chance.
I never expected any different. The general scientific acceptance of curiosity may work for most areas of life and the universe, but regarding the paranormal, there is a form of mental block. Simply considering the subject is enough to be discounted.
I’m interested in why this is.
Could it be down to a simple inability in them to comprehend the subject? Certainly it appears so. But this is not an explanation. But maybe an explanation CAN be forthcoming.
It is all to do with genetic culturalism. Now, what IS this? Behaviour is said to be down to nature or nurture. The former is due to our genes, whilst the latter is said to be to do with our upbringing, etc. Yet I’ve recently begun writing about a third factor in this equation.
Culture could play an important part.
We exist in culture. We are labeled through our culture. Our knowledge is very much a part of our culture. Hence, culture plays an important part in our behaviour.
Behaviour seems to change over time – we have slowly become more skeptical of superstition, for instance. More and more are becoming vegetarian – our views on race, gender, etc, seem to be more inclusive.
How do such changes happen?
Well, they seem to happen within culture. But could it be that changes in culture lead, over several generations, to changes in the behavioural elements of our genetic structure?
We talk of change through the ‘meme’, but I’m suggesting here that it could be a real genetic influence, and not just a concept. In effect, what we are is not enshrined in genetic stone, but fluid. We change as our culture directs.
As with evolution generally, the culturally fittest ideas could well survive to be conditioned into the person. Hence behaviour – the cultural prevalence of the religious or scientific impulse, for instance – can be programmed into the person.
Does this give a hint of a reason for science’s intransigence when it comes to the paranormal? I don’t know. But it should be discussed, for it suggests that the ‘natural’ bias against the paranormal is not ‘natural’ at all, but the result of a form of cultural brainwashing
Indeed, it suggests that, in terms of behaviour, nothing is ‘natural’ at all. Rather, we are fluid receptors of change and ideals produced by an over-culture of our collective behaviour and ideas.
WE think, therefore I am could be a reality – in more ways than one.
© Anthony North, November 2008
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