In the Afterlife...
I was chatting with a friend about ghosts and ancestor worship recently, and put forth the notion that if a genetic mutation allowed you to exist (in some form) beyond the death of your body, and *if* you could influence the physical world in some way (however limited), then you might behave in a manner that had a positive benefit for your surviving family members.
Imagine that you are a ghost and you can stand watch over your family at night to wake them up (perhaps by disturbing their dreams?) when danger looms. The family has the uncanny sense that they were lucky that they woke up just in the nick of time, but in reality they are awake because of the direct beneficial efforts of you, their dead relative/ancestor. These minor acts of supernatural disturbance constitute a benefit for the surviving members of the family and they have a small advantage, genetically speaking, over the other members of their tribe who cannot come back as ghosts.
Then I happened upon this interesting description of an experiment that showed good evidence that the brain might be able to send information backwards in time to itself in order to shorten nerve response times:
All of which got me thinking that there could be a whole slew of cognitive-effect mutations that would be hard to detect or test for, but that might still be beneficial to the survival of a genetic line. Things like “luck” might be explained by extending the reach of the backwards transmission of information described in the video, and once you have a durable consciousness that outlasts the body, you can imagine that it might sometimes take up residence in another body (something we might call “possession” in the aggressive case, or reincarnation if it happens early enough).
Just as there are viral explanations for vampirism, it’s fun to come up with plausible explanations for psychic abilities. Although, being born a Kennedy aside, it does seem like we would have noticed by now, if some families or individuals really had a paranormal advantage.
some things right 
I recently read Bruce Hood’s Supersense. All about why we are hardwired to believe in supernatural phenomena, and how the tendency to believe has benefit to the species.
I also happened to visit your blog today, my first time here, in a search for information and hope of contacting you directly.
So please excuse the following OT thread:
I belong to a large community of unschoolers in San Francisco. We are just exploring getting a space for our use. Loving your book and your camp; and knowing you are doing your thing in California too, I have the audacious hope that you might have some information to share about the logistics of getting and setting up and running such a thing. Whether you also have the time is another question. If you do, I would love to hear from you!
Hi Gever,
Thank you very much, I really enjoyed your videos on TED, which I’ve sent to lots of friends, especially with kids. I’ve been a constant opponent to what has been coined “bubble wrap Britain” – but now see that it’s really a wider Western epidemic!
Anyway, it’s my first post here and as a sceptic who likes to keep an open mind, full of curiosity, with a voracious appetite for experimentation and things new I have to say that as slick as the above video clip is it’s from a psuedo-documentary by the Ramtha School of Enlightenment, a mystical new age hippie movement which mixes Quantum physics with mysticism i.e “quantum mysticism” – the ideas it attempts to spread simply aren’t true… I wish they were… but then aren’t the things of the world around us awesome enough already?… For me that’s the important heart of what you teach,
best wishes, Sacha
Sacha,
Well, that puts a different spin on things. I’m more interested in the hard science than the mysticism. I recall that there is some recent controversy around a study done recently with college students and their ability to predict the future (guess which side of the screen a NSFW picture will appear). According to the study, the students have been able to achieve a predictive accuracy that is measurably better than chance. Once I find good references, I’ll update the posting.
I agree that the we don’t need to invent mysteries when the world around us is so fabulously interesting on it’s own.
-gever