【英国】为什么如此多的人相信通灵的力量？ [英国媒体]

本文作者来自曼彻斯特城市大学，攻认知心理学、通灵学方向~

Mind reading and the ability to predict thefuture are not skills people generally associate with the human race. Yet,research shows many people genuinely believe in the existence of psychicpowers.

大体上，人们不会把读心术和预言未来的能力和人类这个种族联系在一起，而研究显示有很多人真的相信通灵力量的存在。



The believers

信徒们

A recent report may help to shed some lighton why people continue to believe in psychic powers. The study tested believersand sceptics with the same level of education and academic performance andfound that people who believe in psychic powers think less analytically. Thismeans that they tend to interpret the world from a subjective personalperspective and fail to consider information critically.

最近的一份报告可以帮忙搞清楚为什么人们会继续相信通灵之力。该研究测试了具有同等教育程度和学业成绩的信徒和怀疑论者，然后发现相信通灵力量的人在思考时更不注重分析。这就意味着他们倾向于从主观的个人视角出发去解读世界，并且无法批判性地看待信息。



This is known as The Barnum effect, acommon psychological phenomenon whereby people tend to accept vague, generalpersonality descriptions as uniquely applicable to themselves.

而这被称为巴纳姆效应，是一种很普遍的心理现象，即人们倾向于接受含糊不清、笼统的性格刻画，并将其视为符合他们自身特征的独特刻画。

Research for example, has shown thatindividuals give high accuracy ratings to descriptions of their personalitythat supposedly are tailored specifically to them, that are in fact vague andgeneral enough to apply to a wide range of people. The name references thecircus man Phineas Taylor Barnum, who had a reputation as a masterpsychological manipulator.

举例来说，研究已经发现：对他们性格特质的刻画，个体会给出很高的准确度评分，这些刻画本该是特别为他们量身定制的，而实际上则是含糊不清且笼统的，完全可以适用于各种不同的人群。该名称取自马戏团人士泰勒·巴纳姆，他因为精通心理操纵而名声在外。

Impossible to validate

无法验证



Mixed evidence

互相矛盾的证据



Whether this is down to lack of analyticalskills, genuine experiences, or just in a bid to make the world a little bitmore interesting, it seems believers will continue to believe – despite scienceindicating otherwise.

无论这种情况是否要归咎于缺少分析技能，是真的有过体验，还是仅仅为了力图让这个世界更有趣一点，看起来信徒们还是会继续相信的，哪怕科学指明的是相反的情况。


1、The articlehighlight failures to reproduce experiments making extraordinary claims. However, it appears that [many mainstream resultsare irreproducible, too. What light doesthat cast on the extraordinary results?

本文强调了无法再现那些作出超常论断的实验。然而，貌似很多主流的实验结果也是无法再现的。那么对于超常的结果又能说明什么呢？



Unfortunately those who rely heavily ontheir emotions consider the above to be patronising and it can be difficult todiscuss issues with.

不幸的是，那些严重依赖感觉的人会把上述行为视作一种恩赐，很难与之讨论问题。

The saying ‘you can’t reason someone out ofa position they didn’t reason themselves into’ is pretty accurate.

有句格言是相当准确的：你无法说服别人去改变一个他们自己都无法说服自己抱定的立场。

3、I think this is afascinating topic. Many people do indeed believe in supernatural phenomena. Imyself personally know many people, scientifically trained, who believe inthese things. I have heard many anecdotes that seem persuasive. If pushed, Imyself would say I probably believed in these phenomena, due to someexperiences I’ve had which I cannot explain in any other way.

我觉得这是一个引人入胜的话题。很多人确实相信超自然现象。我个人认识很多相信此类事物的人，他们都受过科学训练。我听说过很多颇有说服力的奇闻轶事。如果一定要表态，我会说我可能也是相信此类现象的，这是由于我有过的一些无法以任何方式解释的经历。



Prayer doesn’t work because there are notreal communicators and real mechanisms for communication. Psychokinesis doesn’twork because imagining an event does not produce a real object acting onanother one. Astral travel is imaginary because it cannot accord with theperson as an object that perceives with real mechanisms of perception. Wecannot speak to the dead because people are objects that perceive and deadpeople no longer perceive.

祷告不起作用，是因为并不是真的存在交流者和交流机制。念力不起作用，是因为想象出一个事件并不会产生一个真实的对象去作用于另一个对象。遨游太虚是虚构的，因为它无法依靠真实的知觉机制和这个作为客体的人协调一致。我们没法和死人说话，因为人是能感知的客体而死人不再能感知了。

5、This morning Ithought a courier was about to arrive. About 8 seconds later he buzzed theintercom to my unit on the third floor.

今天早上，我感觉会有快递员上门。大约8秒后，他用三楼的对讲机呼叫了我这个单元。



（译注：新纪元运动（New Age Movement）起源于1970-1980年西方的社会与宗教运动，所涉层面极广，涵盖了灵性、神秘学、替代疗法，并吸收世界各个宗教的元素以及环境保护主义）

The bottom line is that surveys show thatthe majority of the population – including the majority of scientists – believein psychic phenomena because they’ve personally experienced one or moreepisodes. In addition, those experiences have been tested in the laboratory andfound to be genuine phenomena. Of course, this does not mean every anecdotalpsychic claim is true.

其概要是：调查显示大部分人口包括扩大部分科学家都相信通灵现象，因为他们个人体验过一次或更多次的（相关）事件。此外，那些体验一直都在实验室里接受测试，并被认为是真实现象。当然了，这并不意味着每一个奇闻般的通灵论断都是真的。

7、Willfull Blindnessalso comes into play where people reject clear evidence of something because itdoes not conform to their ‘world view’ or accept dubious evidence that does. Inthis way people may often believe only what they want to believe and ignoreevidence for an alternative reality if it challenges their basic beliefs.

当人们拒绝接受非常清楚的证据时，装瞎也会开始起作用，因为那不符合他们的“世界观”，或是去接受符合其世界观但存在问题的证据。以这种方式，人们就总是可以只去相信他们想要相信的东西，如果挑战了他们的基本信仰，就无视能佐证替代性事实的证据。