Actually, Micah, the way the brain works is that every time you recall a memory, you are recalling the last time you recalled it. In essence, you are making a copy of a copy. So that is why memory can be very unreliable, and why stories regarding supernatural events or even regular events can change over time- you don't have to be crazy or deceptive, just a normal human being.
You're couching your description as if it explains away ALL accounts of potentially paranormal phenomena, without qualification.
If I'm in a 'haunted' house and I
clearly see a man or woman in Victorian clothing turn and walk through a wall, that's an uncomplicated memory, the basic details of which remain unaltered over time, no matter how my brain processes the way we remember things. I might not be able to accurately recall details of the person's face or costume, or even the house in which the event occurred, but the basic components - a person who shouldn't have been there, who walked through a stone wall without a door in it - are not in doubt, no matter how much the skeptic might wish it otherwise.
There is nothing unreliable about the basic details of a memory such as this, regardless of how the brain operates.
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Harry_Roat_Jr
10 years ago
I have problems being long winded. I had hoped that using one example of how the brain tricks us would suffice.
People are able to convince themselves of things that never happened- that's the whole point of Elizabeth Loftus'(the female professor who speaks of how we invent memories) book. And we have an example of a most likely fabricated memory- George levitating the hammer, with explanation in the movie as to how it such a mentally sound šfellow as Danny could have come up with it.
And lets remember- he didn't share a memory as vivid as seeing an actual figure. Even though the book the Amityville Horror has such an incident when they are fleeing the house. But even that could be fabricated, especially in such a young child. Grown adults are capable of believing that they were abducted by aliens, so 40+ years can easily muck up childhood memories.
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Libretio
10 years ago
I had hoped that using one example of how the brain tricks us would suffice. People are able to convince themselves of things that never happened
No argument there.
What I
am arguing is that your explanation might lead some readers to the conclusion that virtually ALL 'paranormal' incidents can be explained away in this manner, since you offered it without qualification (and without malice, either, I hasten to add!). It's my contention that the kind of memory distortion you're describing cannot apply to all such encounters. The idea that
every one of the countless billions of individual experiences recorded since the dawn of human history is the result of faulty memory (or fraud and/or delusion) is simply untenable.
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