It does not happen often, if not never, that one is almost personally addressed in a book. But it happened to me…. sort of. Mister Bruce Hood, author of the book “SuperSense“, which I am currently polishing off, thanks the possible remaining “sceptical” reader in his audience at some point, for getting so far into his book.
Well, mister Hood, you are most welcome. And thank you, for your lucid discourse on the inner workings of our rational understanding of the world, based on a crucially irrational SuperSense.
After reaching this far into this text – the one you are reading now - most sceptics will be fidgeting on their seats, wondering where I am going. I can almost see the question marks on their faces: “This irrational SuperSense has something to do with Rational Understanding?”
As a matter of fact, it does. I am inclined to take mister Hoods word for it. I am reading his book, I am a notorious sceptic – world famous in my entire residential area – and yet I am fully convinced by mister Hoods argument of the existence of a SuperSense. I probably should be more elaborate in an explanation as to why I am. However, I do not intend to defeat the necessity, for the members of my audience, to read the book themselves. But the general line of reasoning goes something like this:
Homo Sapiens is equipped with a brain that will try to make sense of anything it encounters. It will see patterns everywhere and it will put an explanation – however rudimentary – on everything it perceives. We have learned to do this by evolution and natural selection. Note that the term “we” must be taken broadly here. This urge to see patterns and to make up explanations for the phenomena we meet, is much older than we – Homo Sapiens – are. We have inherited it from a far remote ancestor.
Making sense of ones environment is an important tool for survival, to any species with eyes and the ability to run away from approaching nastiness. It is the basic requirement for recognising dangers, food, safety, protective parents and a whole bunch of other things. Evolution hard-wired this ability into our brain, so it does not need to be taught or learned. This is what Hood calls SuperSense: natural, automatic, inherited “reasoning” without… reasoning.
I must insert a tiny remark: bacteria, with neither legs nor eyes, also have a SuperSense. They operate it by intricate chemical processes which they use for perception as well as reactions to these perceptions. This comparison should demonstrate how old this SuperSense actually is. I must admit though, that mister Hood might disagree on this. His sense of “sense” might be justifiably narrower than the scope I am suggesting here. If so, believe him, not me. He is a specialist, whilst I am a well-willing amateur.
The teaser above is way too short and limited to do even the slightest justice to the actual case for SuperSense as is promoted by Hood. So take it from me: the book is a running, eye opening “Aha-Erlebnis” and I would advise any self proclaimed sceptic (like myself), who wouldn’t touch anything paranormal without thick gloves AND a ten foot pole (including, for instance, the mere notion of “metaphysical body parts” – a.k.a. the spirit or the soul), to read this thing. To my opinion, it is a mandatory part of ones education as a sceptic…
…because why? Because, amongst other things, it gives a proper place to these weird sensations of gut-feeling, experienced even by the most hard-nosed sceptics. And it offers an excuse for the inescapable little superstitions which even they can harbour. In short, this book seems especially written for the likes of me. So if you are up to it: Enjoy!
