Thursday
16 February 2006
19:00 - 20:30
Most of the general public believes in some aspect of supernatural phenomena such as spirits, ghosts, telepathy and so on. Why, despite all the scientific evidence to the contrary? It cannot be through ignorance, nor because of religion. Many people who hold these beliefs do not necessarily consider themselves to be religious but rather prefer the possibility that there is "something else" to reality as William James put it.
Typically, scientists have ridiculed the irrational basis behind magical beliefs and pointed out the weaknesses in human reasoning as well as the lack of objective evidence. Some even advocate that human development will become more rationalist in time but this is unlikely. One way to understand adult magical beliefs is to consider how our children are born with intuitive reasoning processes that infer patterns, forces and essences to account for the unobservable.
These inferences and intuitions explain much of the world, but also lead us to assume that it is inhabited by magical forces. Furthermore, many of aspects of human intimacy are based on the inference of magical properties that connect us together.
In this presentation, Bruce Hood will be demonstrating some intuitive mechanisms in children that form the basis for adult magical beliefs, from the benign to the truly bizarre. Though scientific education may correct many of these notions, by their nature, magical beliefs based on such intuitive theories are difficult to eradicate, even in the rational adult.