The human mind seeks mystery and magic

So much of our entertainment feed is to do with the unknown. From unsolved murder cases to UFOs, from ghost stories to the great puzzles of the past, there's something about the way our brains are wired that make it easy for us to get roped in by a good mystery. We want to hear about something puzzling – and then we want the solution, and preferably one that's not mundane but one that intrigues.

In our day-to-day lives, we observe patterns. Since childhood we have been putting two and two together to make sense of our reality and the world around us. And it's the anomalies that don't fit those established patterns that grab our attention. Philosopher of the history of science (or historian of the philosophy of science!) Thomas Kuhn said that discovery starts with the awareness of anomaly.

A pattern that we can all observe is the correlation between cause and effect – every physical phenomena that we observe has a physical cause. Magic is defined as a phenomenon that has no physical cause. 

We live, we learn, we accept explanations (our smartphones and laptops are beyond the comprehension of most of us, and yet we don't consider them to be magic) because we outsource the understanding of how they work to someone else. It has ever been thus – but historically, we'd outsource that understanding to shamans and holy men rather than scientists and engineers.

Curiosity is a natural characteristic of an organism as it adapts to its environment. There are wide variations in degree of curiosity from individual to individual. From the Darwinian point of view, too much curiosity is bad for survival, as is too little. Biologically, it's dangerous to be too curious, but then again it's dangerous not to be curious enough. But having somewhat more than average is a good thing, I'd argue. And I'd define a good teacher as one who raises their pupils' curiosity levels, placing more value in encouraging curious minds than in rote learning, important though that be.

The curious mind is intrinsically attracted to mystery, to trying to work out what has yet to be worked out. Curiosity keeps the human spirit questing, it gives purpose to life. Indeed, the advance of science and technology is about uncovering and making sense of the unknown. But there's more that's unknown than just physical matter. The arcane, the hermetic, the occult – the hidden. That which some do not wish others to see. Why not? Can I see it? Please?

Of course the greatest mystery, considered by nearly all of the 117 billion human beings who reached adulthood in health – what happens to our consciousness, our subjective experience of existing, when we die?

This time last year:
"Praise the Lord!" – thoughts about gratitude

This time two years ago:
Too busy running around and making cider!
[Biennial bearing; none in 2023, lots this year.]

This time three years ago:
All together, saving our planet

This time four years ago:
Consciousness, evolution and diet

This time nine years ago:
Chill beneath blue skies

This time 13 years ago:
Poles vote for continuity

This time 14 years ago:
Our daily Polish bread

This time 15 years ago:
Friday, Warsaw, October