Sixth and Seventh Sense- Our Evolving Psyche?

I'm resuming normal service here with a foray into the murky realms of what is classed as the paranormal.
I really don't like the term, any more than I like the term supernatural.
I think the universe works by cast iron laws- everything that happens is the result of normal, natural phenomena, or it doesn't happen at all.

That's my position, because I think ultimately everything is logical, and every thing is reducible.

So I'm going to attempt to explain how I think the possible workings of so called Psychic powers are driven.

Because, whilst there is a whole pseudoscience built on the premise of a sixth sense, there is also a genuine logic behind the concept.

Or, looking at it deeper, two separate senses- a sixth AND a seventh sense.

The first of these, the sixth sense if you like, is actually just a product of our own minds.
We forget how good a processor of information our brain is. We forget it works essentially by following patterns.

For example, your brain knows that when your alarm goes off, pevious experience of alarms going off, tells it that it is time to get out of bed.
Your brain knows that when it hears your name, then communication is being aimed at you.
Nothing hard about these, not difficult things to learn, even an animal can.
But our brains process a lot more information than any animal.

For example, if we saw a figure wondering towards in a sheet, our knowledge of the human form would easily tell us a person, not a camel, was underneath the sheet. The outline would tell us so.
So it is with more than we realise. Our brains pick up and process far more information than we realise.
After decades of experience in life, we tell so much more about people, the second the interaction starts, than we know we realise. This is intuition. On the basis of what we know about previous occasions we have processed similar information, X has been so of a person.

It's not hard for a Catholic, for example, to pick up that someone they have just met is probably a fellow Catholic, because their thought processes follow the same lines as everyone else you know who grew up being told the Virgin Mary was the embodiment of womanhood, that people should be forgiven, that sins needed to be confessed and that sex is a bit dirty.

It's just.... there.

They may not hold those views, but their thought processes were heavily shaped by those concepts.
It's why we know when the information we receive may be the truth, but not the whole truth. We can see where there appear to be gaps. The conversation just doesn't quite run in a stream, because bits are being jumped over.

Our brain is showing us the LIKELY reasons for the things we haven't been told or haven't been shown.

It fills in the blanks for us.
Which is why so often, we know all along.
Often of course, we didn't- our brain has taken two plus two and reached five. The missing bits turned out to be completely different to what our thought processes deduced.

Of course, we tend to forget these bits, and just remember all the occasions when we ascribe our correct judgement to something mystical, rather than being amazed and impressed by just how amazing that grey matter between yours ears really is.

For example, I wouldn't mind betting that fifty percent of the assumptions I make of bloggers on my blogroll are right. The other fifty couldn't be more wrong.

So sixth sense- the projection by your brain of the likely nature of the information it needs to form a judgement, or make a decision, but doesn't happen to possess.



Now we move to the more interesting one- the hypothetical seventh sense.
And yes, I think this might well be real as well.

I have stated before that in my opinion, the universe is conscious and intelligent by any meaningful use of those terms.
I think that the universe consistently transmits information.

Furthermore, I think we should expect that humanity is continuously evolving. I think it's logical to assume that whilst we are morphologically identical in most respect to Cro-Magnon man, there ARE actual organic differences in our brains, in our sensual capacities.

Firstly, because logically, human society MUST have speeded up certain evolutionary dynamics.
The fact is, ability to communicate, to receive and transmit information, is the most valuable of all human skills, and human society will consistently have rewarded the fittest in these respects.

I contend that in terms of what is classed as IQ, there probably was a qualitative difference between Cro-Magnon man and the Man on the Street today.
Over the last ten thousand years, those who were able to master literacy and vocabulary earliest, those who were able to process the more complex forms of sound communication (language) and symbolic representation (literacy), did best out of human society, and contributed far more to the wider gene pool than those who didn't.

We are able to conceptualise in a way Cro-Magnon couldn't because we all carry the genes of those who then were prodigies.
It will always be thus- better communicators, those who master the art of human interaction best, will breed most.
That's sexual selection, which is what drives evolution.

The charming rake passes his genes on, because he is good at understanding human interaction and good at showing the ladies he knows how to communicate with them.
And the ladies aren't being foolish in falling for his charms- they really are selecting a good choose of mate- one who passes on good interaction genes, genes that twig how we work.

So it stands to reason, if there was any tiny way that any one's brain had an extra-sensory capacity for picking up vibrations transmitted by the universe itself, that allowed a person to receive thoughts direct from others- thoughts transmitted by Electro-Magnetic impluse across the airwaves direct to theirs, evolution would favour the survival of such a trait.



It's not impossible to see how such a transmitter/receiver could exist in the complex nervous systems of our brain.
It's not hard to see why this would be so benefical, that had it emerged just once in human history, it would have spread through the gene pool like a forest fire.
The dynamics in favour of such a possibility are strong.

So strong in fact, that we might almost expect it to evolve. If it hasn't evolved yet, then seeing that it almost certainly COULD, and that it would be so favoured, that at some point it MUST evolve.

The only question is, has it already?

My opinion?
I think so.
I think sometimes, I do receive thoughts direct from people.
I think sometimes I transmit them as well.

And I think all of you do too.
Isn't that amazing?