Dear readers,
Today I have something unusual for you!
My contribution to @suesas challenge. I liked her idea so much that I decided to take part. To this I quote her:
We all know Santa is fake. But ... what if he wasn't? What scientific conditions would need to be met for Santa to exist or at least for some things to work? How does he know who has been bad or nice? How does he fly? How does Rudolph's nose glow? Pick a question and answer it - scientifically!
I don't know if I am going to disqualify myself in not having picked the offered questions - but I will refer to them. If so, may it be. It is just to much fun to follow the trail which had manifested itself in my mind:)
Is Santa real?
Reality is a field that still needs to be scientifically explored - although I believe that science is reaching its limits here and that an ultimately and comprehensively coherent statement can never take place, since "reality" is always changing and never remains motionless. Without naming a source first, here is my thesis:
Everything is real, of which we as human beings want it to be real (constructed by our mind).
Also Santa Claus.
It is the creation of a reality about which enough people have reached a consensus. The consensus that thoughts and ideas are transformed into matter has often existed in people's history.
Before machines existed, the idea was that it must be possible to move beyond human muscle power. The explorers and researchers of the past first formed an idea in their minds and then put their ideas into practice. Much time has passed between the one who created something and a self-evident application of his invention. Not because the machine or the application would not have worked, but because a critical mass of people was not reached, which represented either sufficient influence or even enough "mass".
A good example of how you can add something new to reality is the cryptocurrency.
350,000 people have a consensus that this Steem currency has, or should at least have, a real and meaningful value in the lives of others.
But now back to Santa Claus. And the scientific process.
Santa Claus exists or does not exist
There is a likelihood that Santa Claus exists, since his existence has not been proven or refuted so far.
If Santa Claus is real, how can reality be scientifically explained? The measurability and verifiability of a reality valid for all is a great challenge for research, because reality has something to do with human perception. It is difficult to represent this with empirical methods or to measure it as complete. Because consciousness must inevitably be used as a factor to examine the reality in which people move. Human consciousness is also an unresolved matter. Then let us take perception. We can work with perception because it has been scientifically studied in many disciplines. One of these is psychological in nature, for example in constructivism. On page 5 of Rainer Mausfeld's Introduction to Perception of Psychology" he explains (translation from German into English):
"Our perceived world is a construction, a construction based on the basic conceptual equipment of our perception system, which is biologically given to us."Data: Here I count all parents and children, whereby the latter - up to a certain age - certainly regard Santa Claus as real or grow up in this tradition. Where parents credibly assure their children that "Santa Claus" (or his equivalent) is a real person. According to the Berlin Institute for Population and Development, more than 1.8 billion of the world's population are under the age of 15, i. e. children. According to the United Nations, almost seven billion people live around the world today. That leads to the stated "consensus" and "mass"-meaning.
Methods & issues & evidence
Swarm intelligence
To give reason to my thesis, that consensus makes ideas real, I pull the term of "swarm intelligence". I quote wiki:
Collective intelligence (CI) is shared or group intelligence that emerges from the collaboration, collective efforts, and competition of many individuals and appears in consensus decision making. The term appears in sociobiology, political science and in context of mass peer review and crowdsourcing applications. It may involve consensus, social capital and formalisms such as voting systems, social media and other means of quantifying mass activity. Collective IQ is a measure of collective intelligence, although it is often used interchangeably with the term collective intelligence. Collective intelligence has also been attributed to bacteria and animals.
If the swarm decides that something is worth to give meaning to it, this is going to take place when conditions and circumstances provide that.
Based on my thesis, the following evidence does not need to be kept:
Santa Claus is not a person of flesh & blood, so he does not have to struggle with physical-biological and time-space problems. Santa Claus is a (real) idea because the idea effects the reality of humans in terms of matter and emotions.
All problems such as moving a physical body around the globe within a short period of time and giving presents to all the Earth's children have been completely resolved. Because there is no need for physics to be taken care of.
Presents are being taken care of.
Parents do know of course what was good or bad about their kids. Flying Santa, glowing noses: everything is just part of this wonderful imagination! There are no limits!
Since the human imagination alone has such a great potential
that only one idea is sufficient for which the time has come, the parents of the children are "bearers" of the "Santa Claus idea" - in their consciousness reigns a more or less strong idea, which due to the love for their children's credibility has to be faked at first, but with increasing exercise (and practice is eventually a habit) renewed and verified. In the book Equity and Justice in Developmental Science written by Stacey S Horn und Martin D Ruck, it is said, that "parents are more likely to engage in discussions of cultural socialization than any other form of ethnic-racial socialization" and "Examples of cultural socializations practice include talking about history or historical figures, reading cultural relevant books, celebrating cultural holidays, and encouraging children to use their native language."
The more one's own child is gripped by the idea of Santa Claus,
the stronger the child's parents and close relatives are again filled with the idea of Santa Claus. System theory states that "Changing one part of the system affects other parts and the whole system, with predictable patterns of behavior". "Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems. A system is an entity with interrelated and interdependent parts; it is defined by its boundaries and it is more than the sum of its parts (subsystem)." (source: wikipedia)
Since only a certain holiday season in the year produces this resonance space, the rest of the year is completely unencumbered by this question. So Santa Claus certainly causes real seasonal consequences in people's lives through his existence in human consciousness.
We don't even need the same cultural background.
All parents of all children have strong ideas of role models and figures that stand for "kindness and love". The fact that the Christian calendar is based on Jesus Christ and is proven by the fact that enough people perceived the idea of a "Son of God" as significant enough to form the consensus "Christianity" may serve as proof.
Through time and space - casually spoken - the ideas have changed, depending on the spirit of the times and the current. But in essence, one can say that inheritance and socialization are just as much like the influences of technology and nature events.
Summary
Santa is real!
Yes, Santa Claus exists of course! It is part - a very solid one even - of human interaction. Santa Claus has long since replaced Christ in Western civilizations, where people no longer call themselves Christians but still want to maintain a tradition of ritualistic character in order to give meaning to their children and to Christmas itself. It can be assumed that names, manifestation, shape, appearance, image and rituals will change, but an idea of the meaning of a personality and the influence desired will always exist as long as there are people who are able to have ideas.
Thank you, @suesa for this lovely challenge!
Sources:
http://www.uni-kiel.de/psychologie/psychophysik/mausfeld/Wahrnehmung.pdf
Berlin Institute for Population and Development: https://www.berlin-institut.org/index.php?id=48
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_intelligence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Kruse
Peter Kruse on networks/youtube-video
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory
Equity and Justice in Developmental Science: https://books.google.de/books?id=yAFKCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA87&lpg=PA87&dq=Socialisation+and+heritance+of+cultural+traditions+scientific+paper&source=bl&ots=MyoZljltPz&sig=_GgtL_IMSazqVkliWy0Hk9wde4s&hl=de&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjjofKGyPPXAhUSzqQKHd90DJgQ6AEIVjAE#v=onepage&q=Socialisation%20and%20heritance%20of%20cultural%20traditions%20scientific%20paper&f=false) written by Stacey S Horn und Martin D Ruck
Pictures:
Photo by Srikanta H. U on Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/TrGVhbsUf40
pixabay
an overview of my SteemSTEM articles published so far:
Your inner boss
System theory and the integrative look on life
Please disturb - a tribute to annoyances
What's a tetralemma and what is it good for
Your raising - my upbringing - What's important after parents split up - part one
Your raising - my upbringing - Dad's an idiot and mum is a bitch - part two
Your raising - my upbringing - from horror to humor scenario - part three
Hi! thanks for mentioning your entry.
Interesting point of view and arguments.
As you mentioned, there is no scientifically and observable proof of its existence, but it doesn’t mean right away that he doesn’t exist. Some take it as a fact that without existence proof then he isn’t real, others are more neutral and open to the possibility. But still...
But, I actually agree with you. Most of what we know of Santa is nothing more than a resulting reality created by us. An idea. I think there is no other way around it. At least based on what we know today and accept as a fact.
Thanks! :D
you're welcome.
And thanks to you to swing by - I hope we will all have peaceful & joyful Christmas-days and will be delighted by what we create:)
Thank you! Likewise.
I really hope we can all grow together as a community. A lot of potential and good people here :)
Merry Christmas :)
Santa is an idea, and thus it exists. I really love the way you phrased it.
Now, I will have to convince my son that Santa exists... I am not sure he will buy it ;)
Great thanks to you, @lemouth!
I am holding my thumbs for you and your son.
When my son was around four years, I told him that when we drove back from home town to Hamburg, that our car is able to fly and that he always missed it because he slept during the drive. He bought it every time and begged me to start flying when we hit the highway. It was so cute!!!
My son is the kind of little boy to stare at me and emit a very long 'Reeeeeaaaaally?', generally followed by an ironic 'Yeah sure', when I say crazy things. Santa belongs to that :)
smart kid, you have. :) I totally can hear him.
Did you make this fascinating experience that the faith of a child is so huge that it effects you as an adult, too? Sure you did, as you're a father... :)
When my boy was in that certain age, where miracles were true and he was so excited to look for Santa, I got goose bombs and was as much aroused as he was.
Children will take everything we give, which is why we also have to be careful with myths and miracles. I am more on the scientific side and the "prove it by yourself" side. Probably some professional deformation. My wife is there for the magical side ;)
HeHe. I like your self humor. At least you give some space for the magic ;-)
After some glasses of wine :D
I loved this and remember telling my son that Santa was like God - some people believed in him and some didn't! Happy days. The stuff of magic xox
Thank you! :-)
Santa could be anything you connect with love & kindness.
Happy pre-Christmas!
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