Proof of the supernatural

Discussion in 'Free Thoughts' started by garbonzo, Mar 9, 2015.

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  1. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    So now it's NOT the voice of a bystander? Ok then. But I wish you people would make up your minds about this. You've switched to about 5 different things since this thread began. Is this what we call "the scientific method"? lol!
     
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  3. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    How do you know?
     
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  5. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    It's perfectly ok to advance different theories. What's your problem with that?
     
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  7. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    I heard it on audio. And the 6 rescuers present say so. That's how I know. How do you know it's gurgling water?
     
  8. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Science is sticking to the same theory based on the evidence. Just as I've done since this thread started.
     
  9. Bells Staff Member

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    The audio you provided does not match what you are saying happened. Nor does it match what the police claim was said, or their response.

    You are yet to explain this discrepancy.

    You are claiming it is up to 6 people who heard this, when the media and the police have advised it is 4. How do we know it was gurgling water? Umm, the car was upside down in a river, with water gurgling everywhere around it and around where those officers had waded into. There were a lot of sounds happening, the sound of water was pervasive, as was the sound of people talking, yelling, mumbling.. As one would expect.

    The video you provided does not support your claims at all.
     
  10. Sarkus Hippomonstrosesquippedalo phobe Valued Senior Member

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    No, science is a tool to establish knowledge based on experimentation and evidence that comes from it in relation to the theory being tested.

    In this instance we are discussing matters of rationality, not science per se.
    Science, or more specifically the knowledge that the scientific method has provided us, certainly informs what many of us consider to be rational. And many of us consider unscientific explanations to be irrational.
    Your theory is untestable, unfalsifiable, and thus unscientific, and unsurprisingly has zero scientific support behind it.
    Since there has been no testing of the scientific theories presented with which to arrive at most plausible candidates, we are merely left with opinion of which theory is most rational to us.
    But I repeat that a theory that only involves natural phenomena trumps one that requires the supernatural with regard to what most of us deem rational.
    You, and a few others, seem to be exceptions.
     
  11. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Indeed, this is exactly the scientific method - you propose a theory, or set of theories, and then test them.

    In this instance, our ability to test the theory is significantly limited by the evidence at hand. However, the evidence at hand DOES NOT support the claim of a "mysterious disembodied voice from within the car" - as Bells said, that same voice is heard repeatedly throughout the video... so unless this "spirit woman" is standing there having a conversation with someone else, I think we can safely rule that theory out, especially in light of how utterly untenable it is.

    As I said - what we KNOW is that it is an auditory anomaly that sounds like a voice in the upper register, presumably female. We dont' KNOW it's a female voice (it could be a pre-pubescent boy), and to be frank, we don't KNOW it's a voice at all. All we KNOW is that it is a sound of some sort. To make the correlation that it is/was a voice is fair enough. To assume it to be female is within reason, given how it sounds despite the background noise. To assume it to be coming from a "spirit from the other side from within the car" is a leap of illogic that doesn't hold water.


    Simple:

    Billvon said:
    You snipped the quote, cutting out the last line and focusing entirely on the section where Billvon notes how his doctor ADMITS to not having all the answers (hence, "I don't know"), refers him to a specialist, looks information up, or mentions running tests...

    And your response was:
    Now, from that, I draw the conclusion that you want your doctor to have all the answers. If that is not what you meant, then kindly enlighten us on what you ACTUALLY meant.

    It would behoove you to mean what you say and to say what you mean...

    No, because you heard it doesn't mean you know it was a voice - all it means is you know you heard something. Because it was recorded on a monophonic recording device, you have NO indication of direction, NO indication of distance, and NO indication of any possible obstructions between the recording instrument and the source.

    Again, learn how science works, and perhaps you'll stop making an utter gaffe of yourself.
     
  12. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    You heard the direction?
     
  13. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    I don't know for sure. But I do know for sure it wasn't a dead person talking. How do I know that? Because dead people are inanimate pieces of meat.
     
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  14. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I think that the reports were that several people present perceived what they thought was a voice, calling for help. There needn't have been physical sounds audible on recordings.

    If it was a confluence of natural background sounds that subjectively sounded to those present like a voice directing their attention to the trapped child, that would constitute a much better miracle than if it was an actual human voice.

    What we actually have before us is a Fortean-style anomaly, and if we are honest, we will admit that probably none of us can fully explain it. (There might not be enough information to do that, especially when we are dependent on reports of subjective experiences.)

    All of the Sciforums pronouncements of what this has to be, and all of the attitude with which those pronouncements are being made, are just expressions of people's preexisting faith commitments to metaphysical naturalism or to supernaturalism, respectively.
     
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  15. billvon Valued Senior Member

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    Agreed. This phenomenon is called pareidolia, and is extremely common. It happens most often when people hear loud random noises (like running water, or rushing wind, or the rumbling from a highway) and interpret it as intelligible speech. It happens even more often when people are straining to hear a pattern in noise, like a radio operator listening for a message.
     
  16. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    No..you said I would rather have a doctor who PRETENDED to know everything rather than seeing a specialist. I never said that. And then you said this makes sense from what we see here, that I would choose an impractical course of action. I never said that either. So twice you accuse me of saying something I never said. Why are you saying ANYTHING about me? You don't know me, and it's certainly not relevant to the topic at hand.
     
  17. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    A great deal of scientific rhetoric consists of inferences being drawn from evidence or established principles. Laypeople are in no position to judge the plausibility of those inferences for themselves, since they often depend on advanced mathematics and concepts incomprehensible to anyone but specialists.

    Even if we assume for the sake of argument that all these inferences are subsequently tested by experiment, we can still ask how many laypeople are in a position to know what predictive successes are. They don't have access to the data-sets and wouldn't be able to interpret them if they did.

    In real life, what laypeople are exposed to are the conclusions that scientists (or politicians or the media) tell them that they need to accept on Science's authority.

    What I'm saying is that from the point of view of the street, there's little difference in being told to believe something based on the authority of Science and being told to believe something based on the authority of the Church. Medieval villagers were rarely in any position to understand the arcane disputations of the theologians either.

    If people aren't in any position to understand something, then the decision whether or not to believe it will necessarily have to be based on something other than a rational analysis of its merits.

    You're agreeing with me without realizing it.

    If you don't understand the science behind the mode of action of a particular drug, you can ask your physician for more information, but you still won't really understand the biochemistry. You will have little choice but to decide to take your prescription based on your faith in your physician and in the medical profession.

    You may feel that your faith is justified by medicine's past successes, but it's faith in authority nevertheless.
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2015
  18. spidergoat pubic diorama Valued Senior Member

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    The things we are told to believe from science are the things that are the most accessible, such as evolution or that vaccines aren't harmful. No one expects the layman to believe in the Higgs Boson for example.
     
  19. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    Except we do know a fair bit about you, just from your postings here... unless, of course, your persona here is all a fabrication? Though... if that's the case, one has to wonder why...
     
  20. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    It doesn't matter whether the doctor literally says that or not. What matters is that it is effectively what's being said, not whether or not the doctor is being rude about it.

    Suppose that Billvon consults his physician for some ailment and that physician prescribes a new genetically-engineered bio-tech drug. Billvon can ask all the questions he likes, but it's unlikely whether the physician can ever explain the drug's mode of action to him at the research Ph.D. level. The physician probably doesn't understand it that well himself. Even if the physician could explain it, Billvon probably doesn't have the background in molecular biology necessary to understand it, let alone to evaluate its safety and efficacy on the fly.

    So no matter how deep into it one gets, a non-specialist will eventually come face-to-face with 'you've just gotta have faith'.
     
  21. Kittamaru Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Adieu, Sciforums. Valued Senior Member

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    "faith" and "trust" are two very different things in the end...

    Trust is generally earned... faith is given without cause
     
  22. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    Well said, except I disagree we can't know what happened here. The 6 rescuers (as cited by an already quoted news article) all claim to have heard the voice coming from the car, and we have audio of the voice now. We have audio of what it is saying, and we have audio of the policeman responding to it. This strongly supports the event happening just as described. Every alternative "explanation" pulled out of people's asses so far has no evidence to back it up. They are just speculations based on their belief that the paranormal can't happen. That IS an article of faith. Even if there WEREN'T evidence of the paranormal, of which Charles Fort and others have abundantly documented, there's no point at which anyone can say with certainty that a paranormal event can't happen. This would assume a thorough knowledge of how spacetime and consciousness can operate, and knowing all anomalous possibilities opened to it, and nobody has that sort of knowledge. At any given time the paranormal can happen, even if we don't know how or why it occurs. As it did in this case.
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2015
  23. Magical Realist Valued Senior Member

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    You're making a moral judgment about me as a person based on something you claim I said but never did. You then say this statement I never said, that I would prefer a doctor who PRETENDS to know everything, makes sense from what you have seen from here. That's another moral judgment on me. What do you know about me that says I will make the impractical decision of not consulting a specialist, which you falsely accuse me of saying? More to the point, why are you attacking my character?
     
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