Spirits and other incorporial things

Are you suggesting that the belief in other people's experience of the same phenomena is also a false memory or that there was collusion to reinforce the false memories once they were recounted?I think Lam's suggestion that they are false memories based on integration of a variety of real and imagined occurrences slanted towards a specific interpretation, which is something a group can do as much as an individual, is a lot more credible.People looking for repressed memories of child abuse seem to be at least as good at generating false memories as at uncovering them.TTFN,WK

If these things happened over a period of 25 years (see post 11) then cannot all simply be ascribed to PY being a child, although experiences or artificial memories constructed in childhood could colour his late interpretation of events, possibly leading him to ascribe them to his immaterial companions rather than seeking alternative explanations.As to the the question of evolutionary advantage, I would suggest that either you look into explanations such as were previously put forward as to the highly adapted systems for pattern recognition that can give rise to a perception of patterns where none exist. Whatever predisoposes humans to belief in spirits (if it is anything other than a cultural 'memetic' relict) may well be a side effect or 'spandrel' if you will of other areas of the human brain that have evolved for other evolutionarily advantageuous traits.TTFN,WK