The Existence of Fairies

[Jarhyn]

Let's have some fun discussing something stupid that isn't politics or religion for a while, but squarely on the subject of belief and skepticism...

So, I have my own thoughts on this, strangely enough, however this is a thread for the *non-trivial* discussion of what fairies are/not, and not on "Jarhyn's wacky theories about Fae"; as such I will actually post to this thread such things later, after others have a chance to get out whatever they feel they need to.

Fairies are, generally here, acknowledged as myth. And they are a myth. There is definitely a large family of stories about fairies.

They are a belief, but this is not a thread *intended* for discussing merely that; to do so would be rude, and rudeness seems rather out of place in a discussion devoted to The Fae, perhaps even dangerous for the superstitious. Then again you can always say the magic Peter Pan words, but again, I think that we can all just take that for granted unless anyone wants to disagree.

I believe we can all agree that common beliefs about fairies are not remotely true.

But what is this human experience?

Of course they can be described as a slow "mass delusion" but then what is the proposed mechanism or cycle that is "a mass delusion"?

And while these are all suggestions on what to do with this delightfully weird topic, of course, the above are only the prevailing views of this place.

There may indeed be other views on the subject present and represented here, though I expect that any theory that proposes some kind of multiversal alien will get roundly mocked.

Again I would invite the person who would volunteer such exist in some fashion to offer their theological basis for their declarations, offering their sources, or admitting themselves as their primary source. Even "this other religious guy said so, because God himself speaks through them" would do, so that we can say "Argument from Authority" and just move on.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Charles Bonnet syndrome. People with failing eyesight often have visual hallucinations. Often involving small people. Fairies or goblins. The origins possibly of wide spread folk lore of fairies, goblins and demons.

 

[bilby]

Faeries are, like everything else in the supernatural category, just characters in stories.

They don't really differ from other fictional characters in any important way; They even (like all fictional characters whose stories continue to be told and re-told for any reasonable length of time) evolve, and evolve in different directions in different environments.

Arthur Conan Doyle and Terry Pratchett both wrote about faeries, but their ideas could not have been much more disparate; Conan Doyle thought them real, beautiful, and magical. Pratchett thought them fictional, cruel, and dangerous - but an excellent metaphor for a number of worrying elements of the human condition, and perhaps an even more excellent mirror to show us some of the problems we ourselves (as played by his other characters) have when faced with glamorous, powerful, and evil people and ideas.

Fiction is not just useful; It's possibly the single most significant difference between humans and other species. Faeries are a part of that fiction. They don't need to have any more substantial reality than that, and they probably don't.


ETA - it occurs to me that the Pratchett characters I have in mind are in fact Elves. I'm not sure that's an important distinction though.

 

[Learner]

This makes a change Jarhyn.

Its quite a traditional thing in Iceland and fairies are a serious tradition - there have been demands 'and protests' for people to be mindful of the fairies, or at least keep and maintain this old cultural heritage, as you read in the excerpt below from the Smithsonian magazine online:

"In Iceland, fairies are a big deal. Such a big deal that in the past few months there have been protests to stop a road that might disturb them. The new route would slice through the Alftanes peninsula, near Reykjavik, and the protesters say that the elves live amongst the rocks that would be disturbed.


More on the article

 

[Thomas II]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6869277/Cottingley-Fairies-hoax-images-hammer.html

The fairy photos that fooled a nation go up for auction: Shot by two young girls, the Cottingley Fairies photographs became one of the greatest hoaxes of the twentieth century and are now expected to fetch £70,000​

 

[Jarhyn]

So, I understand a few of you have offered explanations.

But like, what else? We have heard origin stories based on visual phenomena to explain some of their visages, but that doesn't discuss why people see those things in particular. It could well be stories about fairies, and at time perhaps about bog apes.

That they are characters in stories does not change the phenomena of them being characters in the stories humans tell about reality. True, there being a syndrome named about it is a discussion of the existence of the phenomena, *but that doesn't really touch where this chicken/egg phenomena started*.

Indeed also there are phenomena of hoaxes about everything. So we have some liars and some folks whose brains may be doing something really weird after hearing stories.

Personally, I think there is a real phenomena. I don't think it is entirely "hoax", or "characters in stories", or "people seeing things". It is, I expect, some combination of these things and more acting together as a larger phenomena.

I don't know how many people around here subject themselves to the occasional piece of wholesome children's programming? Even so, I believe just about anyone can benefit from watching a particular Bluey episode aptly entitled "Puppets".

While I would caution anyone from taking a theological message from the show, I believe it is relatively apt to say that there are a couple other principles at play when it comes to the things fairies are. Between the "puppet effect" of "playing Oujia", and "the Tinkerbell effect" of belief giving power to prophecy, the effect of strongly held beliefs expressing their zeitgeist via this as an excuse, the effects of the stories reinforcing a strong meme in the minds of listeners.

The overall effect would be one much like what we observe: people hear stories, the stories influence what people see. People tell stories, and tightly bound rules are associated by people to discuss these things in ignorance but these rules are just as "Tinkerbell effected", and they serve as a mnemonic device just as well for controlling this psychological phenomena.

It ends up being something of a game people play, often stoked by liars and charlatans, people seeking undue attention, and perhaps people with some really fucking bizarre chance experiences that are just more fun to explain as a Nisse than just failing to find something until it fell out of a bag despite the first two times you looked in said bag.

Other times people have dreams where strange events happen, and there are, for whatever reason, rules people have. There are superstitions about those dreams, but the origins and even the reason for retaining these as a persistent element of culture are obscure.

Are there any other cultural rules, for instance, involving not taking strange food when in some "spiritual" context?

And of course to the extent that we puppet and pantomime something that we see in our dreams or our waking daydreams, this implies some part of a human brain is actively contributing to the phenomena and if it's a phenomena of the brain this means it is a phenomena that can potentially unconsciously influence your behavior. This implies there is real behavioral force behind these shared "hallucinations".

So I ask again, do any of you all think more deeply about what else could be being influenced by these stories in the way humans interact with one another?

To me it seems an interesting foot in the door for discussing a variety of "spiritual" topics and perhaps this kind of phenomena, or closely related phenomena, resides at the heart of the majority of "spiritual" entities: something memetic, a growing, evolving story nestled in a home inside a human mind encoded by its neurons as an idea that comes to actively influence who they are.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

FOAFtales. Ridiculous stories that get told and spreadlike wildfire with mutations. People like bullshit. Fairies, goblins and others things that go bump in the night are more of the same from former days. Some day when you have nothing to do, google yokai, Japanese supernatural beasties. The Japanese loved their yokai.

 

[Jarhyn]

FOAFtales. Ridiculous stories that get told and spreadlike wildfire with mutations. People like bullshit. Fairies, goblins and others things that go bump in the night are more of the same from former days. Some day when you have nothing to do, google yokai, Japanese supernatural beasties. The Japanese loved their yokai.

Yes, but clearly there are spects to this phenomena of "stories that get told" beyond just the "story" part, actual psychological impacts to behavior that themselves reinforce the stories.

As I have posed, this leads to a mechanism for such "spiritual" entities to have real influence, mediated and instantiated as they are, as suggestions made to living human neurology. Is that real effect still "bullshit"?

The belief people put in it gives it momentum to actually impact the world substantively, and this relationship between belief and the real world impacts of the stories existing has even been recognized in those selfsame stories.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

So I ask again, do any of you all think more deeply about what else could be being influenced by these stories in the way humans interact with one another?

We're all different cognitively. Faery stories work on us when we're young, when our brains are running on instinct, when we're relatively very ignorant, when our prefontal cortices are not mature, literally meaning we're apt to confuse emotional impulses with intellectual impulses.

There isn't anything mysterious going on, just the human condition. It's the internal condition that is allowing faery belief, not something external. Even people with failing vision should intellectually be able, given sufficient knowledge and experience, to know that they're not seeing faeries. I get migraine auras but I know I'm not seeing angels or being contacted by mysterious forces. Those auras have a simple explanation, a localized brain condition, nothing more.

 

[Elixir]

Fiction is not just useful; It's possibly the single most significant difference between humans and other species. Faeries are a part of that fiction. They don't need to have any more substantial reality than that, and they probably don't.

Uh huh, their “reality” in fiction is more than enough IMO
I thought Tinkerbell was fraud the first time I heard about her, so maybe I’m biased.

 

[Thomas II]

Fiction is not just useful; It's possibly the single most significant difference between humans and other species. Faeries are a part of that fiction. They don't need to have any more substantial reality than that, and they probably don't.

Uh huh, their “reality” in fiction is more than enough IMO
I thought Tinkerbell was fraud the first time I heard about her, so maybe I’m biased.

WHAT!!! TINK?!?!...not Tink...

 

[Jarhyn]

Fiction is not just useful; It's possibly the single most significant difference between humans and other species. Faeries are a part of that fiction. They don't need to have any more substantial reality than that, and they probably don't.

Uh huh, their “reality” in fiction is more than enough IMO
I thought Tinkerbell was fraud the first time I heard about her, so maybe I’m biased.

WHAT!!! TINK?!?!...not Tink...

I mean, she is a bit of a fraud. A lot of a fraud, really. She's more a complication to the plot than anything else, representing in some ways Peter's childish imagination of relationships with girls rather than an actual girl, a metaphorical piece of his mind that is jealous of him not being quite so narcissistic.

Further, the discussion here was intended to actually shine a light into the hand-waves of "just the human condition". @bilby, there is a LOT going on in "the human condition" and understanding mechanisms by which things that are "just" stories still actively influence human behavior.

The fact that we can have active, arguably conscious elements of our own minds that are not us, and which we are not conscious directly of in every moment, creates issues for us. I would say not the least of which in the form of people acting outside their direct knowledge, under some influence that humans can understand as "just the human condition" but where understanding them that way does not give credit for the actual powers they have, which are all the same powers WE have, because they are stories come to life in parts of our own brains. The fairy doesn't NEED a "physical" body or brain insofar as it already has one: the brains and bodies of all the people around with their "hand on the planchette" who have enough belief in them to accomplish moving it without feeling their contributions.

I would say this describes many such "spiritual" entities, the things represented in the not-our-consciousness parts of our own brains which are capable of generating behavior: that they are inside rather than outside of human brains (others than the segment of them which lives like a bug in an egg, but between the pages of a book) and that this affords such entities far more "real" power and influence than most would be willing to grant, all enabled by the belief of humans.

This is "just" part of the human condition as much as a computer is "just" metal and modified sand, or the human brain is "just" carbon, water, and some other stuff. I think it bears more discovery and discussion in physical terms, because I think there is something "material" behind people's experience of "spirituality". Much like in discussions of free will in determinism, that people who say "does not exist because no supernature" and "does exist in supernature" are both wrong because all that is necessary for the phenomena we see acting even something working close to the way superstitious describe, is nature -- not the supernatural.

There is room for both skeptics and believers to be wrong about this, in the same way there is room for both hard determinists and libertarians to be wrong about free will.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I think there is something "material" behind people's experience of "spirituality".

Is anyone saying there isn't? (Cue Learner) You are simply quasi-claiming that there is something mysterious going on beyond mundane materiel experiences. Doesn't it make more sense to understand the whole idea of "spirituality" as just an evolved phenomenon? Do you really think our distant ancestors did "spiritual" things? It seems more reasonable to simply see the spirit world as an art form, an evolved behavior, not something underpinned by mysterious provenance.

On the other hand there are lots of mysterious things going on but they are only mysterious owing to human ignorance. Human history is replete with examples.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I'm just spitballing here...

Suggestions of supernatural beings will tend to endure longer if the beings have certain properties that allow ordinary people not to see them often. Off the top of my head:

• a special person is needed to communicate with them or observe them;
• a special procedure is needed to communicate with them or observe them;
• they exist in another dimension;
• they are invisible or can be when they want;
• they are small and so can hide easily;
• they are mostly nocturnal and so also can hide easily from normal human vision;
• they mostly reside in a difficult-to-get-to location for humans.

Some of these features are natural and some supernatural. There are some that could seem like magic or if a civilization is advanced enough, hi-tech. That distinguishes fantasy from science fiction. New species are discovered once in a while, especially in remote areas and there is a possibility of alien life and so, so far as natural explanations, we may be a little bit susceptible to being too open-minded.

Which features have succeeded in narratives passed down within a culture is a thing to observe for the particular entities in question.

I suppose these entities were also useful explanations of things not understood by early people such as

• disappearance of people
• sudden death(s) or illnesses
• disappearance of property
• people seemingly doing something out-of-character
• traces of lost tribes, unknown civilizations
• natural structures that appear to have been manufactured by intelligence but are not
• generally unexplained observations

Early societies, cultures, tribes would have been sharing words for these entities and adapting their mythologies to fit them in, perhaps enhancing stories of a higher purpose or supplementing their gods' powers or stories.

When societies traded and clashed, some stories stayed on or passed from one to the next. The entities could end up hybridized from multiple sources or enhanced or die off.

It is said that the concept of fairies has roots in Germanic, Irish, French, and Persian cultures. So that could be an example of different cultures adopting and adapting similar stories originating in pre-history, hard to pin down.

 

[Jarhyn]

I think there is something "material" behind people's experience of "spirituality".

Is anyone saying there isn't? (Cue Learner) You are simply quasi-claiming that there is something mysterious going on beyond mundane materiel experiences. Doesn't it make more sense to understand the whole idea of "spirituality" as just an evolved phenomenon? Do you really think our distant ancestors did "spiritual" things? It seems more reasonable to simply see the spirit world as an art form, an evolved behavior, not something underpinned by mysterious provenance.

On the other hand there are lots of mysterious things going on but they are only mysterious owing to human ignorance. Human history is replete with examples.

Well, hand-waves saying "just stories" do exactly that.

That word "just" does a lot of lifting and hand waving.

I'm not claiming anything mysterious, either, but rather that there is something non-mysterious in fact that we should be taking a closer look at disassembling.

Spirituality is our collective attempt to understand our own experiences of the things nobody else can see. It is an attempt to develop common language for things that can only be directly experienced by others through extreme and altogether impractical feats involving disassembling brains and doing a "naming" on the structures and processes and patterns they produce between segments.

In fact I would pose that because of this much of the language about such things is in error but I expect the error is a recoverable one... much like "free will" is recoverable via compatibilism.

Most people are mostly right about most things. I would pose that this is something that "both sides" are only partially right about, and more for each side than the other is willing to admit.

Then fairies do exist but not as humanoid entities flitting through and around spacetime but rather as clumps of neurons that, much like a fungal spore inoculate themselves into the fertile substrate of the human mind and influence US to change the world for them, write (or live) a fairy story or dance, or song, or art, and thus produce more spore to infect more minds.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I think there is something "material" behind people's experience of "spirituality".

Is anyone saying there isn't? (Cue Learner) You are simply quasi-claiming that there is something mysterious going on beyond mundane materiel experiences. Doesn't it make more sense to understand the whole idea of "spirituality" as just an evolved phenomenon? Do you really think our distant ancestors did "spiritual" things? It seems more reasonable to simply see the spirit world as an art form, an evolved behavior, not something underpinned by mysterious provenance.

On the other hand there are lots of mysterious things going on but they are only mysterious owing to human ignorance. Human history is replete with examples.

Well, hand-waves saying "just stories" do exactly that.

That word "just" does a lot of lifting and hand waving.

I'm not claiming anything mysterious, either, but rather that there is something non-mysterious in fact that we should be taking a closer look at disassembling.

Spirituality is our collective attempt to understand our own experiences of the things nobody else can see. It is an attempt to develop common language for things that can only be directly experienced by others through extreme and altogether impractical feats involving disassembling brains and doing a "naming" on the structures and processes and patterns they produce between segments.

In fact I would pose that because of this much of the language about such things is in error but I expect the error is a recoverable one... much like "free will" is recoverable via compatibilism.

Most people are mostly right about most things. I would pose that this is something that "both sides" are only partially right about, and more for each side than the other is willing to admit.

Then fairies do exist but not as humanoid entities flitting through and around spacetime but rather as clumps of neurons that, much like a fungal spore inoculate themselves into the fertile substrate of the human mind and influence US to change the world for them, write (or live) a fairy story or dance, or song, or art, and thus produce more spore to infect more minds.

I think the fact that humans are programmed (inherited a selected-for behavior) with a desire to please other humans has more to do with it.

 

[Jarhyn]

I think there is something "material" behind people's experience of "spirituality".

Is anyone saying there isn't? (Cue Learner) You are simply quasi-claiming that there is something mysterious going on beyond mundane materiel experiences. Doesn't it make more sense to understand the whole idea of "spirituality" as just an evolved phenomenon? Do you really think our distant ancestors did "spiritual" things? It seems more reasonable to simply see the spirit world as an art form, an evolved behavior, not something underpinned by mysterious provenance.

On the other hand there are lots of mysterious things going on but they are only mysterious owing to human ignorance. Human history is replete with examples.

Well, hand-waves saying "just stories" do exactly that.

That word "just" does a lot of lifting and hand waving.

I'm not claiming anything mysterious, either, but rather that there is something non-mysterious in fact that we should be taking a closer look at disassembling.

Spirituality is our collective attempt to understand our own experiences of the things nobody else can see. It is an attempt to develop common language for things that can only be directly experienced by others through extreme and altogether impractical feats involving disassembling brains and doing a "naming" on the structures and processes and patterns they produce between segments.

In fact I would pose that because of this much of the language about such things is in error but I expect the error is a recoverable one... much like "free will" is recoverable via compatibilism.

Most people are mostly right about most things. I would pose that this is something that "both sides" are only partially right about, and more for each side than the other is willing to admit.

Then fairies do exist but not as humanoid entities flitting through and around spacetime but rather as clumps of neurons that, much like a fungal spore inoculate themselves into the fertile substrate of the human mind and influence US to change the world for them, write (or live) a fairy story or dance, or song, or art, and thus produce more spore to infect more minds.

I think the fact that humans are programmed (inherited a selected-for behavior) with a desire to please other humans has more to do with it.

I mean, it's problematic when humans look at a large-scale behavior organized around attempting to understand the interrelations between the human "mindscape" and human behavior would yield zero useful answers, even if those answers were incorrect "epicycles" -- spirituality -- rather than more correct "orbits" -- memetics + psychology.

Really, even today, there is no large scale study of memetic entities and group-implemented memetic response...

We have studied what happens when a couple schlubs put their hand on a planchette, but have little clarity about when it is a bunch of people putting hands on a social experience.