I’m old enough to know better. Here’s a thought. I recently saw a headline that suggested human brains filter out things like ESP because brains evolved to help us survive. No matter what you believe about ESP, the idea got me to thinking. We often act as if our brains are able to determine the Truth (that capital is intentional). At the same time we don’t understand what consciousness is. We know that other animals have brains and that the evolution of said organ is to help individuals survive to reproduce. Some animal species end their existence at that point, but others linger on to wonder. And I’m wondering if our brains are filters. Stick with me here: we know that there are stimuli that we can’t perceive that other brains can. For example, it seems that migrating birds can perceive magnetic fields. Even if they can’t there are magnetic fields that we perceive only through their effects on objects. Our brains have no direct access.
Image credit: Andreas Vesalius‘ Fabrica, showing the Base Of The Brain, by user Ancheta Wis
Here’s where it gets spooky. If our brains filter out things that may hamper us in survival, what if they overzealously teach us not to perceive things that actually exist? We’re somewhat limited by our “five” senses, no doubt. We get along okay. But what of those people who see things that others don’t? We tend to medicate them or lock them away, but what if their brains have learned how to shut off part of the filter? Having written a book about demons, naturally they come to mind as a test case. Or, if you prefer, ghosts. We tell our children these things aren’t real. Trust the filter. Get on with life in “the real world,” right, Cypher?
I didn’t have time to read the article, but I’d experienced a perspective shift. If our brains are all about gathering information (and in part they clearly are), that’s one thing. If they are actively filtering things out, well, that’s quite another. We laud the imagination of children until they become “old enough to know better.” Do we teach them to shut out what they can actually see, or sense, in order to accept the inevitable, material, adult world? This idea has startling implications. As we plunge ahead inventing AI to do our thinking for us, perhaps we’ve left something even more fundamental behind. Have we lost interest in the Truth? We may not be able to access it directly, but I wonder if we’re taught to give up without even trying.
