Hood, Bruce - Supersense

The supersense is also behind the strange behaviours or superstitions in which we try to control outcomes through supernatural influence. When a group acts upon these superstitions, we call them ceremonial rituals. When they are personal, we call them individual quirks. Religions are full of rituals to appease the gods, but, outside of the church or temple, there are all sorts of secular rituals that people use to exert control over their lives. These range from the simple superstitions handed down through cultures such as knocking on wood to bizarre idiosyncratic personal rituals we engage in to bring us luck. Even the corridors of power are not free from the supersense. Tony Blair always wore the same pair of shoes in the House of Commons at Prime Minister’s Question Time. 10During his Presidential campaign, President Barack Obama carried a lucky poker chip. He also developed a bizarre superstitious ritual of playing basketball on the morning of every election in his path to the White House. His opponent, John McCain, was open about his catalogue of superstitions, aways carrying a lucky feather and a lucky compass from his Vietnam piloting days. One wonders why, as he was shot down and spent many years as a prisoner of war. During the presidential race, McCain also always carried a lucky penny, a lucky nickel, and a lucky quarter. 11Apparently, this sum of 31 ‘super cents’ was not enough to secure presidential victory for this luckless senator. When you scratch the surface, you find many of us have a supersense operating beneath the veneer of rationality.

Sometimes our supersense is not even obvious. It can lurk away in the back of our minds whispering doubt and warning us to be careful. It can be that uncomfortable feeling we experience when we enter a room, or the conviction that we are being watched by unseen eyes when no one is there. It can be our unease at touching certain objects or entering certain places that we feel have a connection with somebody bad. It can be the foods and potions we ingest that we think will alter our bodies and minds through magical powers. It can be the simple sentimental value we place on a worthless object that makes it unique and irreplaceable.

SuperSense is about all of the above and more. In this book I expose a wide range of human beliefs and behaviour that go beyond traditional notions of the supernatural. This book is not just about ghosts and ghouls. Rather it is about supernatural thinking and behaviour in everyday human activity. In this way, I hope to show you that we often infer the presence of hidden aspects of reality and base our behaviour on assumptions that would have to be supernatural to be true. Whenever our beliefs appeal to mechanisms and phenomena that go beyond natural understanding, we are entering the territory of supernatural belief. Of course, there are many things we cannot explain, but not understanding them does not make them supernatural. For example, consider a problem we experience every waking moment. How does our mind control our bodies? How can something that has no physical dimensions influence something physical like the body? This is the mind–body problem that we will discuss in chapter 5. Science may not yet understand the mind–body issue and it may never, but that does not make it supernatural because we can investigate the mind with scientific studies to test if the results fit with the predictions.

In contrast, evidence for the supernatural is elusive. When you try to gather evidence for the supernatural, it vanishes into thin air. It is almost always anecdotal, piecemeal, or so weak it barely registers as being really there. Experiments on the supernatural invariably amount to nothing. Otherwise, we would be rewriting the science textbooks with new laws and observations. That’s why most conventional scientists do not bother to conduct research on the supernatural. But lack of scientific credibility does little to dent the belief – most of us have a supersense telling us that the evidence is really there and that we should simply ignore the science and keep an open mind. The problem with open minds is that everything falls out – including our reason.

This book is about the science behind our beliefs – not whether these beliefs are true or not. It should change the way you judge other people. When you understand the supersense, you will better understand both your own beliefs and, more importantly, why others hold supernatural beliefs. It should give you insight. It may even make you look at religion and atheism in a new way and realize that everyone is susceptible to supernatural beliefs. I will show that common supernatural beliefs operate in everyday reasoning, no matter how rational and reasoned you think you are. Maybe I should claim that this book will change your life and attitudes towards beliefs but I am not so sure. Because whatever I am about to tell you will go in one ear and out the other. That’s the nature of belief. It’s really difficult to change with reason. Where does such stubborn thinking come from in the first place?

As part of human culture, we are so immersed in storytelling that it is easy to assume that all beliefs come from other people telling us what to think. This is especially true when it comes to things that we cannot directly see for ourselves. We believe what we are told on the basis of trust. However, this book offers another possible explanation for why we believe in the unbelievable and I think we need to look to children for the answer.

The alternative view for the origin of supernatural beliefs I want to propose is a natural, scientific one based on mind design. By design, I mean a structured organized way of interpreting the world because of the way our brains work. Yes, culture feeds each child with stories but there is more to belief than simply spreading ideas. As the forefather of modern science Francis Bacon said, we prefer to believe what we prefer to be true. I would add that what we believe to be true might come from our way of seeing the world as a child. In other words, the frame of mind within every child leads him or her to believe in the supernatural.

If a supersense is part of our natural way of understanding the world, it will continue to reappear in every child born with this frame of mind. If so, then it seems unlikely that any effort to get rid of supernaturalism will be successful. At the very least, it is going to be a very hard battle to win. It will always be there lingering away in our minds. Even those with a scientific education may still continue to harbour deep-seated childish notions that lie dormant in their adult minds. Should we even try to get rid of them?

SACRED VALUES

The human species may actually need a supersense – not simply because it promises something more than is available in this life, like a security blanket of reassurance for what happens to us when we die, but rather because the supersense enables us to appreciate sacred values while we are still alive. 12We all need sacred values in our lives. Our sacred values can reside in an object, a place, or even a person. We may find the sacred in a word or an act. If you are religious, your world is full of the sacred – places you must go, objects you must revere, individuals you must worship, words you must say, and acts that must follow sacred rituals. But what if you are not religious? Are you immune from sacred values? I am not so sure.

Humans are social animals, and to participate in society we have to share conventions: things that we all agree have some common value. These are the things that can hold a group together. Some conventions are everyday and mundane, such as the money convention of exchanging pieces of paper or lumps of metal for goods. Others are more profound. Certain documents, such as Magna Carta, or the US Declaration of Independence, are more than just pieces of paper. They are sacred objects. They represent important points in civilization, but we revere them as objects in themselves. There’s something more to them than simply the words written on them. Or a sacred item could be a book or a painting, a Mozart manuscript or an original Vermeer. Both can be copied and duplicated but it’s the originals we value the most. In the same way, a building or location can be sacred. Shrines and churches are obviously holy to the religiously devout, but we can all share in a deeper sense of the value of a place. If you support Manchester United, it’s Old Trafford. If you are a Chicago Cubs baseball fan, it’s Wrigley Field. These stadiums are more than just sports arenas. To the fan they are hallowed grounds, imbued with as much sacred value as a temple. 13