"Ghosts" implausible.???

Discussion in 'UFOs, Ghosts and Monsters' started by cluelusshusbund, Sep 1, 2014.

  1. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Your comprehension difficulties are showing again.
    Very, very very, rarely does what we come to learn radically alter prior knowledge to the point of contradiction.
    Appealing to the argument "we don't know everything, therefore..." is neither logical nor rational.
     
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  3. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Dywyddyr, while I would typically agree with this sentiment, the statement is inherently flawed...

    Before the first powered flight, we (as a whole) "knew" that heavier-than-air flight was impossible for mankind... and thus, we ridiculed those who tried to achieve it.
    Before the first man set foot on the moon, we "knew" that reaching out to the heavens was impossible for mankind... and thus, we ridiculed those striving to do so.

    Right now, we "know" that planet-wide peace, equal standards of living, and acceptance of different and foreign ideals is impossible... and those that try to accomplish it are put down as "lazy" or "unreasonable" or "foolish"...

    For all the things we "know"... how much do we REALLY know?

    Or, to quote a movie that I am so terribly fond of:

     
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  5. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Um, no we didn't.
    That's why so many people kept trying.

    Yeah, that's why, for instance, the British Interplanetary Society was formed in 1933. Why Tsiolkovsky (among others) published books about the feasibility of a Moon shot.

    You're confusing "popular (or common) opinion" with what we know through science.
     
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  7. river

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    Disagree

    the " we don't know everything " is both rational and therefore logical
     
  8. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Reports of paranormal phenomena do not "go against everything we know". For one they have been reported in every culture from time immemorial. For that reason alone they are in line with what we know. We "know" these kinds of anomalous events occur. You don't dismiss a phenomenon just because it might require you to update your present paradigm.

    There are phenomena we admit exist that don't have an explanation based on what we think we know. Quantum entanglement for example. And dark energy. And the cause of the Big Bang. So by your logic we should also deny THESE phenomena simply because they don't conform to what we think we know.

    I said "only an alternative", NOT "the only alternative."

    You quoted Rational Wiki and Patheos. What other "literature" do you have to support your "confabulation = false memory syndrome" hypothesis?

    Oh so then the fact that people like Kitt HAVE experienced the paranormal directly then makes it credible. I'm glad you finally admitted that.

    I don't read second or third hand accounts of the paranormal. I read first hand accounts. Something you should do instead of relying on second and third hand accounts of skeptics who weren't even there at the time.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 19, 2016
  9. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    When i was about 6... durin the middle of a bright summer day i walked into the kitchen an saw somethin that looked like a black smoky Michelan-Man an it was as tall as the celin... i immediately ran out of the house screamin... my sister ask me what was wrong an draged me back into the house an into the kitchen an i was screamin an fightin the whole way... an when forced to look into the kitchen... to my grate surprize "it" was gone.!!!
     
  10. river

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    Meaning , this post , is meaningless
     
  11. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    And yet many "reputable scientists" of the time said it was simply impossible... such as Lord William Thomson Kelvin


    And yet people like Robert Goddard actually withdrew from the public eye after incredible criticism and denouncing of his ideas... despite the fact that, in the end, he was exactly right.

    And yet "popular opinion" has incredible sway in what we, as a species, "know" and how we act... for example, in the US, the average person thinks NASA gets far more funding then they actually do... for example:

    http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/b...udget-as-far-as-americans-think/#.VAvrFPldUYx

    Yes... people actually think NASA gets as much as 1/4 of the US federal budget... in reality, it is, as of 2014, something like .4%. At it's height... 1966, it was 4.41%... still a far, far cry from 25%. Yet, NASA's budget has been continually cut and cut and cut... *shrugs*
     
  12. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Many. And you named one.
    I think you'll find that A) he wasn't speaking for science as whole and B) he was more likely talking about the engineering not the science (since heavier than air flight was known to be a fact - birds).

    Oh, he withdrew from public view.
    Did that alter the science?

    Popular opinion isn't science.
     
  13. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    I was, of course, speaking about what science knows.

    Yes, funny how you manage to come up with scientifically observed effects (for which we admit we don't have a full explanation) in support of YOUR general attitude of "Something, therefore supernatural".

    And you thought it was put forward as what prior to realising that it was proposed as an alternative?

    Ho hum, go back and read what I actually wrote, which that I would have expected you to have investigated this yourself (as opposed to opting for the "supernatural exxplanation" every time).

    Ah right.
    So you've read exceedingly few books on the subject, since the VAST majority are 2nd or 3rd hand reports.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 19, 2016
  14. river

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    Ironically , popular opinion , in the science's , is science
     
  15. Dywyddyr Penguinaciously duckalicious. Valued Senior Member

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    Not true.
     
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  16. river

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    Really

    Then where is the evidence given by the alternative thinking included in the thinking of mainstream thinking ?
     
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  17. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    Of that I have no doubt, but if something as significant as that happened to me, I would remember the age for sure. Hence I would raise the question of how you couldn't recall accurately, and to me it suggests that over time some of the other details that you can remember are perhaps embellishments, albeit innocently arrived at.
     
  18. river

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    I understand your position , Sarkus

    But all the same , you have , NO , experience
     
  19. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    It is why it is called "paranormal" - i.e. it defies scientific explanation.
    Sure - you just have the simple matter of explaining how one can view the past and future from the present. Block time is the idea that time is as fixed a dimension as is space, that the future is already there and the past remains. But throwing out the names of philosophies doesn't provide a scientific explanation of how something from the past can exist in the present... it would be much like something non-quantum in the present existing in two places at the same time.
    I thought there was another thread for such "woo"?

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    Again, throwing around the unscientific ideas does not remove something from being deemed paranormal.
    I'm not saying they are incompatible, but we define what is paranormal by reference to current scientific understanding. As the latter changes, what we deem as paranormal changes.
    But your attempt to raise the straw man is noted.
    I don't dismiss it out of hand - I just require the same level of evidence in support of it before dismissing the current scientific explanations that offer more rational (to me) alternatives.
    And you need to be aware that throwing around ideas that sound as though they offer glimmers of opportunity to explain something in a scientific way is not sufficient to deem something not paranormal.
    Yes, physics posits other dimensions and universes etc, but you need to show how that gap (to our universe) can be bridged in such a meaningful way (as to have a "ghost" help a 10-12 year old boy) so as to be "plausible".
    At the moment you're doing nothing but saying "Ooh, alternate dimensions are posited to exist: therefore ghosts could exist. Ooh, other universes are posited to exist: therefore ghosts could exist. Ooh, block time suggests the future and past exist eternally akin to another spatial dimension... therefore ghosts could exist". It's nothing but "woo". (and no, that's not meant to be the sound of a "ghost").

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  20. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    No experience with what?
    With interpreting things initially as ghosts (when I still was young enough to believe in such things)?
    Or with having an inaccurate memory of certain events of my life - either through general memory degradation or through innocent embellishment?
    Or with knowing my age at every significant event of my life?

    What, exactly, do you think I have no experience with, and on what grounds are you making this claim?
     
  21. Stryder Keeper of "good" ideas. Valued Senior Member

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    An analogy of Paranormal to me would be bug's in a piece of software.

    Software for instance is designed to fulfil a particular role and sometimes during development things can be overlooked, misinterpreted or just not included because it's beyond the scope of the initial project (For instance if the software is built to run on an OS, it doesn't necessarily consider the need of support for hardware etc)

    Occasionally such software will have a bug pop up (something paranormal for analogy sake) and testers and developers will attempt to recreate what causes that particular bug. Once they have worked out what the bug was, the understanding of that allows them to write a patch, thereby removing the bug.

    The same goes between Paranormal and Science, Paranormal is just a bug in the understanding of Science in general. A majority of that time the bug exists with the individual that interprets what paranormal is. On the rare occasion it will be assumed that people in science are stumped, this is usually the reflection that not everybody involved in science has the time, effort or notion to educate people to the contrary. This means they abstain from commenting on the subject reducing the validity of what paranormal evangelists see as being the consensus of the subject.

    (In otherwords "One stumped Scientist does not Science make")

    Part of Science is challenging these "Bugs" for a better understanding of the universe as a whole.
     
  22. cluelusshusbund + Public Dilemma + Valued Senior Member

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    Its a first hand acount of a "ghost" in which a technological singularity coud make plausible.!!!
     
  23. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Shadow people are common paranormal experience. They are often seen darting around or looming in corners. Based on the commonality of such an experience, I'd say you might have had a real encounter with something.

    http://www.shadowpeople.org/

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