When something strange or miraculous happens to us, not wishing to appear superstitious, we may attempt to search for a 'rational explanation' for whatever just occurred. Thus, if we saw an apparition from the corner of our eye, or a strange light in the sky, we may feel that the only rational thing to conclude, is that we had ‘hallucination’ or otherwise fell victim to a 'trick of the light'. Theoretically speaking, there would be nothing wrong with putting forward these suggestions, both in fact, would count as rational explanations, in as much as we could construct valid arguments from their premises. Where people have generally gone wrong however, is in assuming that rational explanations by definition must be prosaic in order be rational. Although certainly not incompatible with the concept, contrary to popular opinion, rationality has never been synonymous with the commonplace. We do not have to say that the creaking on the landing was the wind, or the apparition in the sky a shooting star. In harmony with rationalism, we could equally claim that the creaking on the landing was a ghost, or the ufo a flying saucer. All that counts is that the argument have some sort of logical form, which is valid, and hopefully sound.
Recognising that rational explanations may just as well be extraordinary in their premises, it would still be unlikely however, that many of us would take the personal risk in putting forward an outlandish argument. We may find in practice that it is far safer to side with the prosaic view of things, and if we do ever happen to put forward a strange argument, we will do so only because of an overwhelming body of evidence we have discovered in favour of it. Although perhaps a little cautious or timid, there is nothing essentially wrong-headed in this approach: Caution in fact, is almost always preferable to eagerness where our explanation has little evidence going for it; to explain things ‘ordinarily’ should be our first reflex. What is perhaps a little wrong headed though, is to cling our ordinary explanations, far past the point where the prosaic vantage has accommodated all the facts. As already pointed out, caution or the fear of ‘ridicule’ may have something to do with this, but given that people who are not otherwise undeterred by public opinion often shy away from outlandish arguments, this cannot be the sole motive involved. If there is another impulse at work in these instances, as in many other situations, it could be that we have been seduced by some form of prejudice which has lead us to assume that a certain point of view is ‘necessarily wrong’, or ‘necessarily right’. In this case, the prejudice that anything remotely paranormal is prima facie invalid, may originate in the practically universal bias that whatever things are stable, static and regular are real, while whatever things are irregular, fleeting or transient are unreal. If this is the particular prejudice associated with our perception of the ab, or para-normal, it should become clear why individuals, regardless of their personal insecurities, routinely dismiss things such as ghosts, ufos, and anomalous creatures out of hand; all are fleeting in nature or appearance, and therefore by extension, clearly have no solid existence.
On the assumption that this argument is on the right track, there is perhaps even more reason to suspect this latent bias when we also take into consideration the prevailing attitudes of many of our social institutions. Within the scientific community especially, what is transient has has long been synonymous with what is unreal, perhaps for little more reason than these sorts of things are not stable enough to be studied, collected and numbered; and so our bias may at least have some practical rationale, even if very little philosophically. Comparatively, religion has for the most part, started out with the same inadvertently premise as the science, albeit in this case for the purposes of justifying the way of asceticism and renunciation-- Surveying the cosmos all at once, both temporally an atemporally the mystic-sage realises that all phenomena are essentially transient and that the material world by consequence, contains no stable reality for man to build his spiritual home.
From the basic condition of science and religion together, as much as their paths are often crossed, it seems that they have both started out from virtually the same point. Assuming this is true however, what still remains to be shown is where the prejudice against transience originated in the very first place, and whether this tells us anything further about its justification. In seeking out its primary origins, as with many things, we may find that our prejudice began as we began ourselves; during our first initial steps into the world. As children then, it seems the two possibilities are that either the bias was one we were taught, or one we were born with. Currently, it is fashionable to argue that most things have a genetic basis, and it may one day be possible for this trend to specifically prove the inherent nature of this bias. But even if this somehow wee conclusively proved, it would not rule out the possibility of the bias being reinforced (rather than repressed) and thereby enlarging it with active encouragement. We may find our own memories quite consistent with this view. After all, if we think back, it will probably find it very difficult to remember a time where our parents unanimously confirmed a strange experience we might have had. Where we did report these sorts of experiences, our recollection instead, are probably of our parents telling us, either sternly or with warm condescension, that we have been too busy reading story books, day-dreaming, or else we have been staring into the sun for too long. And if we ever listened to our parents in these moments, we will probably as adults now, come to naturally associate anything slippery or spectral as a daydream or hallucination without so much as a second thought - the die is cast, but only after some considerable help and time.
As much as we are suspicious of any sort of parental conditioning that uses emotion rather than reason to emotionally push and pull a child around, we may quite natural rail against the idea of children being instructed in this way. But regardless of the method itself, it would be far too hasty to reject this particular bias as a further piece of convenient yet superficial parental advice. As far as prejudices go in fact, the bias that whatever things are fleeting are imaginary and therefore safe to be dis-counted, is not a bad one to hold: Hallucinations often are fleeting and slippery in character, and so the apparition that suddenly appears then vanishes on the stair may well be a hallucination for exactly the reason we have been taught. But all the same, given that actual things are also sometimes fleeting in character (sprites, comets, etc) it may just as well be that they are not. Prejudices, perhaps our parents could have informed us, often get the generalities right at the expensive of details.
It would be shallow however, to suggest that every spooky event or phenomena is discounted purely because of its transience and our taught prejudice against it. Sometimes anomalous events are in fact acknowledged as being concrete and ‘real’ by the scientist and theist alike, it is just that when witnessed in their fleeting passage, people mistakenly believe they have seen something fantastic. Bigfoot glanced through the trees is merely an ape if it would stay still. A ufo is simply a meteorite which we have caught on its journey to the soil. In both these cases, we may well have seen something ordinary in indeterminate circumstances as either suggests. It is only really, much as before, where the prosaic explanation is stretched by the facts that these speculations begin to lose their credibility.Thus, if we claimed (as in the second example) that a ufo which makes darting movements left and right, is no more than a ‘meteorite’ heading towards earth, we should not be surprised if other the equally unobservant take us seriously.The widely-accepted description of a comet after all, does not include any ability to change its flight path at ad-hoc intervals, so to offer it up as one, is to ignore the facts presumably for the greater good of ‘solving the riddle’ by any available means. Never the less, otherwise honest and intelligent may put forward just these types of arguments, but if they do, it is perhaps that just as some intelligent people cannot bare for anything to be mundane since it robs the world of its mystery, the person who will have a commonplace explanation at any cost, operates according to the inverse dogma: Everything in the world must have its place, even if it is not an exact fit.
In the present age, where scientific thought is widely regarded as near infallible, many people may similarly feel there is nothing which cannot explained. And if they do, it may be because they are very sure there is nothing which science cannot presently bend into discernible shape. Where the average person embraces this sort of view, there is not much reason to find offense - It is perhaps only natural in fact to assume that the dominant system of thought of any age has “all the answers” especially when the current one has proved so much in its name. It is really where scientist falls into this error that criticism is justified, since to assume that science, can explain anything at all, is to misunderstand the scope and basis of ones own method. Science, for all its history, has always been defined primarily by its continuous progress; seeking out new riddles to solve, new facts to uncover and explain. For science to otherwise assume finality with no more new things to reveal, would mean it was no longer a science, but a religion. But given that this is not the case, there appears to be nothing overtly mysterious in the fact that the world still contains many mysteries: This in all truth, is just a natural consequence of the fact that there are still uncharted areas into which science has not yet traveled. To deny this and assume the opposite would just be to resurrect the old expanding universe-style conundrum; if science is expanding; what is it expanding into?
Leaving questions of scientific scope to one side, it should never the less be pointed out that even if the scientific programme were able to complete its journey one day, there would still be some phenomena forever beyond its reach A good example being ‘psi-phenomena’. What is frequently overlooked in studies that investigate this type of phenomena, is that no amount of observational evidence alone, would ever be sufficient to validate or disprove clairvoyance or telepathy's existence alone. In order to prove or disprove the existence of psi-phenomena, unlike other paranormal events, we would primary, need a clear categorical distinction between a chance event and a fully determined one. To illustrate by example, how many times would a person have to predict the roll of a die and get it right, in order for a ‘lucky guess’ to transform into ‘prior knowledge’? “once, twice, five times, four?” A clear answer seems almost impossible to give. The reason is because since we have no precise demarcation between random chance and prior knowledge, we have no meaningful, non-arbitrary way to distinguish between the two. Admirably, psychical researchers and professional sceptics alike have never the less tried to find ways around this - in experiments, both parties usually agree upon a statistical limit, and beyond this limit, agree to measure random chance as something more determine. But whatever these agreements add up to, they do not amount to a proper conceptual distinction. In reality they are as arbitrary and artificial as the decided boundary sovereign state and a rouge nation, and much in the same way; equally unable to tell us anything about the difference between either.
For the sake of charity however, let us assume that there was some meaningful way to separate what is genuinely chance-like from what is determined, or has been foreseen in advance. Would this make any difference? The answer is that it probably would not. The reason for this is that psi-research would still operate under the mistaken belief that any capacity to predict future events amounts to a ‘skill’ which the test subject should be able to call upon at will. Not only is this belief presumptuous towards the extent of the subject’s capabilities, it is presumptuous towards the notion of skill on two separate counts. On the first, the psi-researcher should not assume, as is so often the case, that consistent accuracy is a necessary condition of skill. History clearly testifies to the fact that some of the most skilful artists who have walked the earth, have generally produced mediocrity to a small handful of masterpieces. We should not necessarily assume that skill is synonymous with the style of steady yet banal production that the artist by the Thames knocks out for $10 a go. The capacity to be skillful in all walks of life, may in practice be closely related to inconsistency or sudden flashes of genius; producing detail an accurately in one single moment, and then nothing at all for several straight years.
Secondly, it is probably the biggest and worst assumption of all, to assume that a lack of skill infers anything over and above the capabilities of the individual. In reality, a person who is unable to accurately predict any symbols from a hand of zena cards, demonstrates nothing beyond the extent of his or her powers of prediction, and even then, only at a particular date and time. There is no more reason to declare telepathy a sham on observing a group of people who seem to have no aptitude for it, than there would be to declare archery hokum the basis of a handful of people unable to fire a single shot on target. It would only be once we had sufficiently tested the vast majority of the world’s population that we could otherwise declare either skill probable bunk. Although even then, this would not completely rule out its possibility - men 10,000 years ago may well have thought it impossible for a person to cut wood with his bare hand. Now there are any number of individuals who can and so few doubt it.
In either case, from all these examples it should now be clear that psi-phenomena, in contrast with supernatural phenomena, presents us with its own unique set of difficulties. The assumption that psi-phenomena amount to skills rather than latent features, has clearly been one of the biggest hurdles to psychic testing in practice. Of particular note is assumptions that skillful feats should be consistent in nature, and that a lack of skill in one person, necessarily infers a lack of similar skill in all the rest. It may always be possible that these assumptions might be corrected in the long run, although even if they were, psi-phenomena may still impossible to affirm or deny - without any proper way to distinguish a prediction that was correct 'intentionally' and one purely by ‘chance’ we would still have no way to meaningfully analyse any data we collected. It is really our conceptual limitations that prevent any progress here.
Thankfully, within the opposing investigation of supernatural phenomena, conceptual issues like these are rarely to be found. In attempting to rationally explain anything from ghosts, ufos, to strange creatures, all that is required is that we stick to the basic principles of observation. Although in practice researchers have often found these difficult to follow, In essence these rules are very simple. Firstly, as with studying anything ‘in the field’, we must always time the frequency of our visits to coincide with the frequency of the phenomena. Thus, if we heard that the ghost of the Duke of a stately home appears in his old drawing room twice yearly, we would be planning our visit very poorly if we turned up for a weekend on the expectation that we might see something. We would be much better advised to set up for an entire so as to improve our chances of success. Secondly, In the same way that the animal behaviourist keeps her own behaviour consistent with the known habits of the animal she wishes to track, we may also apply the same technique to tracking anomalous phenomena outdoors. In practice then, if the paranormal phenomena we are investigating is shy and nocturnal, we should try to at least pretend that our habits are likewise, with the inverse rule obviously applying if the phenomena was known to be attracted by noise and attention. Although these rules may not necessarily guarantee the abolishment of these types mysteries, we may in following them, at least increase our odds of eliminating them, and even in so doing have at least succeeded in making our method clear and straightforward, rather than confusing and obscure.
