We actually have a testable hypothesis that can be polished and
perfected to clearly prove out the reality of precognition. It is
even clearly linked to standard evolutionary explanations and would
have arisen if it could have arisen. It is not even difficult to set
up interview protocols to discover the effect.
In fact it is a great science project for no end of teenage boys once
we figure out how to measure early response.
If is also enters high schools as a standard, we have gone along way
to both confirming the effect, and to pushing precognition into
serious mainstream science.
Not bad, we have Bigfoot DNA and a creditable psychic experiment to
run in the same month.
Evolution and the
Biology of Psychic Phenomenon
Dec 27th in Natural
World & Spirituality by Micah Hanks
In the modern world,
the mystery of psychic phenomena seems to coexist alongside itself,
straddling rather fractured grounds between doubt and believability.
While science still remains unable to prove conclusively that certain
individuals can see into the future or read the minds of others,
there nonetheless seem to be instances where “proof” exists,
supporting that these things can, and often do, occur.
The “fractured”
nature of supposed psychic phenomena is further complicated by the
appearance of 1-800 hotlines, reality television programing, and a
host of other commercial endeavors that, for good or for ill, promote
the extra-sensory abilities of others for purpose of profit. While
every individual should be allowed the ability to earn their living,
the process of commercializing the unexplained often casts strange
phenomenon like ESP in a poor light, especially amidst the scientific
community.
But there are
certainly those out there who seek to better understand such things
as psychic phenomenon, and to do so utilizing the scientific method.
In doing so, could we possibly discover that proposed “psychic
abilites” may actually be the result of such things as natural
selection, and even underlying biological processes occurring within
the body?
I
am reminded of a musician friend of mine who once told me that he,
upon first meeting certain women throughout his life, had always
received a particular sensation if this would eventually be someone
he would later begin dating. The conversation came together as
the result of a question I had asked him: do you believe in psychic
phenomenon? Indeed, it was my friend’s feeling that the “sensation”
he had described, rather than merely being the kinds of sparks flying
between two interested individuals, had actually been something
precognitive that “alerted” him as to which women he met would be
an ideal partner.
If we were to suppose,
for instance, that there were some underlying evolutionary reason for
this kind of process to occur within the mind, we might assume
that developing a precognitive ability to discern which people would
become the best partners could be conducive to procreation.
Again, in an evolutionary sense, this sort of “evolved”
ability to precognitively pick lovers might have served our
ancient ancestors in the successful furtherance of our species; it
could also explain the increased incidence of psychic experiences
couples seem to share, as discussed thoroughly in books like author
Brad Steiger’s Otherworldly Affaires: Haunted Lovers, Phantom
Spouses, and Sexual Molesters from the Shadow World.
Similarly, while the
results of the study to follow have been disputed, the research of
psychologist Daryl Bem in his so-called “Feeling the Future”
studies, which asserted that individuals showed an increased
incident of telepathic prowess immediately prior to being shown
erotic imagery. Again, we might assert that if such a
trend actually exists, it could be the result of an acquired
evolutionary development, designed to assist in successful
procreation.
Another unique way of
viewing the benefits of developing psychic abilities could have to do
with the nature of thoughts and, more specifically, dreams. Often,
people who claim to have experienced precognitive events did so
through recollections of things experienced during the dream state.
Could it be that the dreaming mind, serving as an effective
“simulation” of the real world and the activities we will engage
within it, might at times help us to ready ourselves for upcoming
future events? Furthermore, would it be too much of a stretch to
assume that the dreaming mind might occasionally do this through the
use of psychic dreams?
At the blog for
The Rhine Center, a very insightful post titled “Psi Events and
Evolutionary Psychology” recently touched on a similar idea, while
expressing the ways that biology and natural selection could be
underlying the development of psychic abilities:
Your experiences are
mediated by your physical parts, and those physical parts with their
sensory structures got here via natural selection. It is known
that there are psychological processes that you are born with, that
are built into your DNA such as the ability to use language or
walking. One such evolved trait in humans is a mental world
where you create a virtual simulation of life. This allows you
to make plans, to remember events, to solve problems and practice
real-world activities in a virtual setting. The process of
natural selection also takes place in this virtual world. The
mind is constantly taking in new pieces of information and testing
them against problems that you can expect to encounter. This
seems to be the primary evolved function of dreaming.
Dreams are also
discussed seriously within the context of psychic phenomenon and
prophecy in Elliot R. Wolfson’s fantastic book A Dream
Interpreted within a Dream: Oneiropoiesis and the Prism of
Imagination, in which the author shares a wealth of unique
observations pertaining to prophetic nature of dreams. ”What
is significant about the dream,” Wolfson writes in the book’s
second chapter, “is that it is a mode of seeing in the present
about the future based on the past, and similarly, prophecy is a
preview of what will transpire, often envisioned in parabolic images
that call for interpretation.” He goes on to express, in a Faustian
comparison, the way that dreams tend to mirror something deeper than
the mere existant reality:
“The dream may be
likened to the mirror of Faust, a mirror that mirrors not a reality
external to it, but the mirror of the mind gazing upon nothing but
its own proclivity to dissemble indeterminately and deficiently.
The oneriic seeing is thus a vision of nocturnality gleaming
forth at the heart of nocturnaily–even when the dream occurs in
daylight–and beholding a darkness too incandescent to behold.”
While wordy, I try to
enjoy the colorful (beautiful, in truth) use of language that Wolfson
evokes here; but despite his almost artisitc expression of the dream
state, his assertions peer beyond the obvious, and instead look into
the darkness of the philosophical dream-state. It becomes a place
where, instead of merely thoughts rumbling around in one’s head as
they sleep, the very shadows of reality play against one another, in
an almost imperceptible sort of depth that challenges the mind of the
individual. What exists in the dream world very well may not be
merely “reality” as we tend to perceive it, but instead some
complex rendering of that which exists around us non-temporally; a
collection of potentials that occasionally enter our mind while
dreaming, and which may at time be capable of revealing things to us
that the known capacities of the mind aren’t believed to be capable
of.
Food for thought,
sweet dreams, and all the cliché expressions come to mind here,
but perhaps they are so standard for a reason; whether or not science
can explain the peculiar nature of psychic phenomenon, it appears
to be something innate to humanity, though more often misunderstood
than recognized, even partially, for the curious role it may play in
our progression as a species.
No comments:
Post a Comment